Tangled Webs

by Elaine Cunningham

  And with her last bit of strength, Dagmar spit in her sister’s despairing face.

  In the water below, Rethnor swam for his ship with strong, steady strokes. The battle was lost, and with it his ambitions of conquest, his lust for vengeance. The failed attack on Ruathym would carry a heavy price. There would be Nine Hells to pay at home, as well as increased pressure from Waterdeep and the Lords’ Alliance. But Rethnor had weathered worse. He was fairly confident of his ability to hold on to his power as High Captain of Luskan, perhaps even his position as an agent of the Kraken Society.

  In the future, however, he would know enough to steer clear of dark elves and illithids. His failures and humiliation at the hands of these strange females grated upon Rethnor’s pride. But at least his forces had dealt a devastating blow to the island. He was confident the conquest of Ruathym would come in time, even though this night’s battle had been lost.

  The giant raven circled low over the ruins of Inthar, coming down to a sheltered nook and gently dropping the exhausted drow. Liriel struggled to her feet, wishing to throw her arms around the creature’s glossy neck. To her horror, the avian apparition began to fade away. There was a deep contentment in the raven’s human eyes, and an expression of selfless love that would haunt the drow until all her centuries of life had been spent. There was no time given her to speak, to so much as lift a hand in farewell, before the raven disappeared.

  Liriel’s anguished cry echoed through the haunted ruins. She, too, had heard the Ruathen stories of the hamfarir, and she knew only too well what this meant. Fyodor was gone—perhaps slain by some coward as his abandoned body lay defenseless in battle, or perhaps his wandering spirit had not been able to find its way back in time.

  Always Liriel had known that her journey would not come without great cost, but this was the one price she had not been prepared to pay.

  His task completed, his heart at peace, Fyodor’s spirit left the drow in safety and soared back to the ship where lay his body. For a moment he floated above the Holgerstead ship, aware of the battle raging below and the triumph of shapeshifting might that had come over his berserker brethren. But he could do nothing to join them. The immense effort of the hamfarir had taken its toll.

  The young Rashemi felt a call that was somehow familiar, a pull too powerful to be denied. He knew a moment’s regret for the grieving drow, but then he was beyond all such considerations. Fyodor yielded himself to the summons, and at long last the wandering warrior felt his spirit unite with the magic that was both his heritage and his curse.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  SONG OF THE SKALDS

  In the aftermath of battle, the surviving Ruathen began to understand the extent—and the cost—of their victory. The forces that had been arrayed against them had been turned aside, the invaders either destroyed or forced to flee. And the shapeshifting magic had returned in force to the fighters of Holgerstead. The ancient glories of their ancestors seemed once again within reach. This gave hope to the survivors even as they went about the grim business of tallying their losses and mourning their dead. The songs of the skalds would be long indeed, but at least they would tell tales of heroism and glory.

  As the drow had expected, Fyodor was among those brought lifeless from the ships. For reasons she could not understand, Liriel could not bear to consign him to the funeral pyre. Taking his cold hands in hers, she summoned a gate that would take them both to the foot of Yggsdrasil’s Child.

  As she knelt beside the body of her dearest friend, memories of her drow upbringing crept into Liriel’s mind, bringing with them a temptation beyond any she had ever known. It was her habit to yield promptly to impulse, but the enormity of this thought stole her breath: a powerful cleric of any faith could resurrect the dead. She could petition Lloth for one last clerical spell—one powerful enough to restore Fyodor to her!

  And why not? she asked herself passionately. What was the evil of Lloth, compared to the good that was left undone by this man’s having been snatched from life too soon? All that Fyodor had done for Ruathym, all he might do for his beloved homeland—did this not outweigh the cost of one more prayer to the goddess of the drow?

  Yet even as she formed the thought, Liriel knew what Fyodor would have wanted her to do. He had died to snatch her from Lloth’s hand; she would not dishonor that, or him. And to her surprise, Liriel realized the pledge she herself had made possessed a value of its own.

  “Honor,” she said softly, understanding the legacy Fyodor had left her. This she had, and her memories, and the Windwalker. She would keep the amulet as a tangible reminder of her promise to never again seek power through evil, no matter how worthy the end.

  The Windwalker still hung about Fyodor’s neck. Liriel gently undid the chain and clasped the amulet in one hand. To her astonishment, the amulet thrummed with power. The berserker magic she had stored within was still strong!

  Strong enough, perhaps, to lure a wandering spirit into its enchanted depths?

  Hardly daring to hope, the drow twisted open the amulet and released the captured magic—and perhaps something even more precious. Her eyes darted toward the darkening sky and to the sliver of new moon that rose above the clearing. Instinctively she rose and began to dance, knowing as she did that such was a prayer to a goddess of a very different kind.

  Fyodor awakened slowly, unaccountably stiff until he recalled the battle he had endured and the dangerous shapeshifting journey he had taken. He remembered nothing of what had happened after that. He blinked painfully, trying to find some focus.

  A faint light drew his eyes, and a slow smile crossed his face. In the clearing before him, Liriel danced in the moonlight. The silvery radiance of Eilistraee clung to her like a shining cloak, and the aura of evil that had surrounded her during the battle was utterly gone.

  “Little raven,” he called softly.

  The drow stopped dancing at once, and the fey silver light fled from her like a startled fawn. Only her eyes glowed—strangely, intensely—as she advanced upon the Rashemaar warrior. From one outstretched hand dangled the Windwalker.

  “Return to the village,” she said softly, but her voice held the force of command. “There you will find a circle of skalds, singing the stories of Ruathym’s heroic dead. Summon your berserker frenzy and silence them!”

  For a long moment Fyodor stared at the drow, fearing mightily that she had lost her wits—and perhaps her soul—under the strain of her Lloth-granted power. Then he saw the joy shining in her eyes, and it dawned on him that he need not obey her command.

  At long last, they were both truly free.

  EPILOGUE

  Stay with us and make your home on Ruathym,” urged Aumark Lithyl as he stood at water’s edge with the Rashemi and the drow. “There is a place of honor here for you both.”

  Days had passed since the battle’s end, and life on the island had fallen back into its familiar routine. Fyodor’s gaze swept the now-familiar landscape, taking in the village beyond the cove and the hills that cast long green shadows over both. In this wild and warlike land he had truly found a home, and he discovered to his surprise that the leavetaking did not come easily.

  “Wedigar is nearly well, and he can choose his successor from any number of shapestrong heirs. He has released me from my pledge; I am honor-bound to return to Rashemen,” he replied simply.

  Aumark nodded, accepting the young warrior’s duty. “And what of you?” the First Axe asked, turning to Liriel. “You have heard that Glammad has offered to yield the ruling of Hastor to the Raven. In ancient times, this village was led by rune-casters; it seems that all of Ruathym is eager to return to her former glories.”

  “Thank you, no,” the drow said without hesitation or regret. “I have pledges of my own to keep. A cleric must be found who can unravel the tapestry and release the spirits of the elves and men entangled within. I must also seek tutors for a certain sea elf. Xzorsh shows genuine talent for the art of magic, but I lack the patience or the skill
to teach him myself. It is one thing to do, another thing altogether to teach,” she muttered with a touch of exasperation. “I know now why so many of my tutors quit in despair!”

  Fyodor passed a hand over his lips to hide his sudden smirk, for he was certain there was more to the story than Liriel’s words suggested. He could not imagine the fiery drow had been the most biddable of students.

  “We must go now,” he said, placing a hand on Liriel’s shoulder.

  She nodded and stepped lightly along the plank that rose to the deck of the waiting ship. The Ruathen crew took her presence among them in stride; the three Waterdhavian men aboard, however—the lordly young man known as Caladorn and the two seal hunters—eyed the dark elf with a mixture of dread and foreboding.

  Fyodor noted this with a touch of resignation as he followed Liriel onto the ship. The measure of acceptance she had won here on Ruathym had not come easily; surely she knew life elsewhere would be an endless struggle. He wondered why the drow was so determined to leave, but he dared not hope her answer would be the one he most longed to hear.

  That night, in the cabin they shared, he asked why she had refused the opportunity to rule in Ruathym.

  “I have seen what power can do, and I want no part of it,” Liriel said at once, snuggling into his arms like a contented cat. “I am content to be a wizard and to seek adventure. I have no ambition—and no desire—to rule anywhere. And I will not!” she vowed fervently.

  But Fyodor believed otherwise. He had long suspected the girl was destined for a role of great power—he considered his brief, magical servitude as evidence of this. But, being wise beyond his years, he kept his opinions on the matter to himself. And holding Liriel’s needs above his own dreams, he hid his deep disappointment at her answer.

  “And after Waterdeep, what then? Will you return to Skullport and take a place among the chosen of Eilistraee?” he asked.

  The drow recoiled as if he had struck her. “I had thought to go with you to Rashemen,” she said with quiet dignity. “Or is there another who awaits you there?”

  Joy flooded the young man’s heart. He quickly claimed Liriel’s hand and raised her fingers to his lips. “Of course I want you with me! But I know what faces you in the world and would not ask you to walk this path unless you came to it yourself. But no matter where you might have chosen to go, for so long as I live, there would be no other for me,” he swore.

  “Nor for me,” the drow repeated. As the implication of this sunk in, her face took on an almost comic look of dismay. “One male,” she muttered distractedly. “By all the gods—it isn’t natural. It just isn’t done!”

  Fyodor burst out laughing; he simply couldn’t help it. “I will do my best to stave off boredom,” he promised her in a droll tone. “And it may comfort you to know that humans do not live so very long.”

  “How long is that?”

  He shrugged. “Sixty, perhaps seventy years.”

  “That’s all? Well, at least that’s some consolation,” Liriel said tartly, sending him an arch, sidelong glance. “It’s well to know there’s a reasonable end in sight!”

  Fyodor chuckled, reading the truth of the matter in her golden eyes and deft hands. Apparently Liriel had come to terms with her sentence of monogamy. At the very least, she seemed determined to make the best of matters.

  Much later he held the sleeping drow in his arms and thought of the journey that lay ahead. A struggle awaited them both, for dark elves were known—and hated—in his rugged homeland. His hard-pressed kinsmen would be appalled by the elf woman whom Fyodor’s destiny and his heart had chosen for him. The hazards that lay before him and Liriel were many and real, the joys only those that they could find together, or in each other.

  And yet Fyodor did not doubt that these would be enough to content them both. As to Liriel’s prospects, he chided himself for dismissing them so soon. The elven girl was resilient, resourceful, and possessed of a quirky charm that spoke to hearts other than his.

  “How long will it be,” he murmured in jest, “before you rule among Rashemen’s Witches?”

  As if in response, Liriel’s lips curved in a knowing smile.

  For a moment, Fyodor thought his words had awakened the ever-alert elf. Yet as he studied her repose, the truth of the matter came to him slowly, and filled him with a contentment beyond words.

  What thoughts sweetened her sleep, Fyodor could not say, but this much he knew: the drow had learned at last what it was to dream.

  About the Author

  Elaine Cunningham loves elves, music, and fantasy literature. Since publication of her first novel, Elfshadow, in 1991, she’s combined these passions in her stories set in Faerûn. She recently completed the Counselors & Kings trilogy and has completed the much-anticipated Windwalker, which will complete the saga of the dark elf princess Liriel Baenre.

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