Windwalker

by Elaine Cunningham

  Or nearly everything.

  Gorlist veered off into a side passage, one that led to his own private stash. It would provide a new start. One way or another, Liriel Baenre would die. He would leave no means untested, scorn no alliance—no alliance, no matter how deadly or distasteful.

  Suddenly Gorlist knew what he must do. As soon as he could, he would return to the hoard chamber. He would find Nisstyre’s ruby, and he would seek out someone who hated Liriel nearly as much as he did.

  In the Abyss, time did not exist. There was no day or night such as the surface dwellers knew, no magical timepiece enchanted anew at the midnight hour. The drow female stumbling through that gray place could not know that the slim crescent moon that shone on the night of her defeat had since grown smug and big-bellied.

  The same moon had waned and waxed several times since the battle of the Dragon’s Hoard and the death of Nisstyre, her valuable and reluctant ally. The drow knew nothing of that, either, nor would that knowledge have mattered. Her purpose, her entire being, was focused on the hunt for Liriel Baenre. What was the passing of spring and summer to a drow of the Underdark, and what did it matter if the hunt took place in Menzoberranzan or across the seas of the surface world? Hatred, like the Abyss, knew no limits of time and place.

  Only that hatred fueled Shakti Hunzrin, traitor-priestess to both Lolth and Vhaerun, and kept her pressing on in her search for escape.

  To the exhausted drow, it seemed that both of her deities had abandoned her. She had viewed the Abyss through the scrying bowls employed by Lolth’s priestesses, but none of her studies had prepared her for the reality.

  Fetid mists rose from the ground, which was sometimes strewn with sharp rocks and sometimes so soft, so indistinct, that it hardly seemed solid at all. Bizarre fungi grew to huge size. More than once the famished drow had attempted to break off a piece of giant, malformed mushroom only to have some strange, slumbering creature come awake roaring for blood.

  So far, Shakti had been equal to all these battles. Hatred always made her stronger. In the Abyss, hatred was the natural element, and Shakti breathed it in as a fish breathes water, but though her spirit burned ever stronger, her physical form was weakening. She could not continue in this manner for much longer.

  “I can save you.”

  The words were spoken softly, seductively. Shakti whirled toward the sound, her hand instinctively flying to the handle of her snake-headed whip.

  Too late, she remembered that the snakes were dead, slain in battle with Liriel Baenre. It was a marvel that she could forget this for even an instant, since the stench of rotting snake flesh had followed her for what seemed an eternity. It clung to her robes still, even though all that remained of the once-proud weapon was five slim chains of bone and cartilage held together by dried sinew. The rotting weapon had been a constant torment and a danger as well. The Abyss, like all places of the dead, had its scavengers, and the smell of carrion drew them. Yet never once did Shakti consider discarding the weapon. It reminded her that she had been a high priestess, heir to House Hunzrin. She would die with her whip in her hand as befitted a noble of Menzoberranzan.

  “I can save you,” the voice repeated, more insistently this time.

  Chagrined by her wandering thoughts, Shakti forced herself to focus on the swirling mists. A dark, lithesome figure stepped from the gray shadows like a dream taking on substance.

  The newcomer was quite simply the most beautiful drow male she had ever beheld. Except for the glittering piwafwi draping his shoulders, he was as naked as a newborn rothe calf. His eyes held none of the disdain that high-born males usually turned upon Shakti, nor any of the veiled resignation she was accustomed to seeing on the faces of those males under her power.

  “You are weary,” he crooned. “Too weary to find your way out of this place. There is a way, you know. You can find it, if only you rest a while, clear your mind, and ease your body.”

  A courtesan, Shakti reasoned, wasting his afterlife the only way he knew how. She reached into her empty coin bag and turned it inside out. “You’re wasting your time,” she said shortly. “I can’t pay.”

  He looked genuinely shocked. “Anything between us would be a gift given two ways! You are most beautiful, and I have been too long alone.”

  Beautiful? Shaki’s lip curled in disdain. All her life she had been plump and graceless, as close to homely as it was possible for a drow to be. Moreover, she had lived her life in the dangerous shadow of a physical defect: weak, nearsighted eyes. Terrified that squinting might betray this imperfection, she had compensated by holding her eyes wide open, which caused her to blink rather too frequently and lent her a pop-eyed, frantic appearance. This habit had persisted long after the two deities she served granted her perfect vision.

  “You don’t believe me,” the stranger said in wondering tones. “Here—look for yourself.”

  He gestured to the mists, which parted to reveal a shallow, stagnant pool. The surface silvered, and in it Shakti saw reflected a perfect image of the handsome male. Before she could think better of it, she took a step forward and gazed at her own reflection.

  “Lolth’s eight legs,” she swore softly.

  The face and form reflected back to her were familiar, yet different enough to cause her to wonder, briefly, if the male had magically altered her reflection.

  As Shakti gazed at her image, she saw the truth. The Abyss had hardened her, burning away the dross and leaving behind only the drow essence. Her black face was not just thinner but reshaped. The rounded, sullen countenance now boasted a sharply angular form, a dramatic slash from wide cheekbones to narrow, pointed chin. Determination had focused her crimson eyes, changed her wild expression into one of imperious dignity. Her mist-sodden robes clung to her, revealing a newly lithe form.

  “You see?” the male said. “So very beautiful.” He took two gliding steps forward, one hand reaching out to her.

  Shakti’s first response was irritation. Before she could crudely suggest that the male attempt to procreate without benefit of partner, her robes shifted and parted as if in anticipation—a telltale bit of magic she had experienced once before.

  Terror and loathing swept through Shakti in chilling waves. She seized her treacherous garment and tugged it back into place, crossing her arms over her chest so that one hand was hidden beneath the folds. A quick glance at the reflecting pool assured her that her expression of lofty disdain had not faltered.

  “Be gone,” she said coldly. Her hidden hand began to shape the warding that repelled unwanted advances of seductive demons.

  The crimson eyes of the drow-shaped incubus tracked the subtle gesture and filled with rage. An inhuman roar exploded from the creature’s throat as it leaped, changing form in midair. A hideous winged demon hit Shakti full force and bore her to the ground. They hit the silver puddle together, shattering the mirrorlike surface into a thousand watery shards.

  “I can save you,” the creature gloated in a voice that was like a chorus of the damned. “You were a high priestess once. Shall we enact the ritual anew?”

  Shakti writhed and kicked, raking the now-scaly skin with her nails. “I am a priestess of Lolth, and you, whatever else you may be, are nothing but a male!”

  As she shrieked out the last words, a jolt of power seared through her. Something stirred between them, and suddenly the incubus was rearing back, shrieking in agony.

  Shakti scrambled away and staggered to her feet. To her astonishment, a skeletal snake head rose to regard her, black eyes glowing like living obsidian in the once-empty sockets. The snake’s fanged jaws parted, and it spat.

  The priestess regarded the bloody trophy, then threw back her head and laughed with triumph and delight. She raised her whip high and lashed forward. All five skeletal heads dived in for the kill, their fangs bright, sharp, and eager in their bony jaws.

  She worked her whip until her shoulders sang with pain, until the incubus huddled and cowered before her, flayed of eve
ry inch of its hide.

  “Death,” it pleaded.

  “This is the Abyss,” Shakti said coldly. “We’re already dead.”

  She turned on her heel and marched off, feeling better than she had since her defeat at Liriel’s hands. In that battle, Lolth had chosen to honor the Baenre brat, but the pleasant rasp of bone as the undead snakes wound themselves around her was like a hymn of dark redemption. Her priestess whip had been restored to life—or something close to it. Surely that was a sign of Lolth’s favor!

  Drunk on this triumph, the drow passed a giant mushroom without giving it much heed. She did not notice until too late that the thing crouched and clenched itself like a hideous fist. The cap suddenly unfurled, and greenish spore exploded toward the drow in a noxious, stinging cloud.

  Mushroom spore burned down her throat and into her chest, searing her like droplets of black dragon venom. Shakti fell to her knees in a paroxysm of coughing. She fumbled for her whip and silently commanded the reptilian skulls to tear the mushroom to shreds.

  They rose but did not strike. As soon as she could, Shakti wiped her streaming eyes and struggled to her feet.

  She immediately fell back to her knees.

  The “mushroom” had taken new form. A tall creature resembling nothing so much as a column of melted wax regarded her with blood-red eyes the size and shape of dinner plates. It possessed no other recognizable features, but the fluid, rippling undulation of its body suggested that it could take any form it fancied.

  “Yochlol,” Shakti breathed, naming the creature that served as handmaiden to the Spider Queen. Their appearances were few and usually limited to the great priestesses. Never in her life had Shakti aspired to this honor. So far, her death showed far more promise!

  You are not dead.

  The yochlol’s voice sounded in Shakti’s mind, feminine and somehow familiar. She recalled vaguely a theology class at Arach Tinileth, the priestess academy, concerning the nature and origin of yochlol. That had been an academic debate, something of little interest to the practical Shakti. Now she wished she had paid closer attention.

  “I am in the Abyss,” Shakti said carefully, not wishing to openly contradict the handmaiden. “I challenged another priestess and lost. If I am not dead, what am I?”

  Here, the yochlol responded. You are here, no more or less. Even in the Abyss, there are many ways of being or not being. Before you stands the glorious form to which a priestess of power and prestige might aspire!

  Beneath the proud words lay a level of irony, and beneath that, despair. Shakti’s suspicions hardened into certainly.

  “You are not long dead,” she ventured. “You still remember your life and your name.”

  In time, all this will fade, the yochlol recited. The priestess will be forgotten. Only Lolth will remain.

  “Her name be praised and feared,” Shakti said, adding slyly, “as is the name of the House she honors above all.”

  The yochlol’s form shifted and flowed, taking on an oddly wistful expression—and the faint outline of the face it had worn during its mortal existence. The next moment, its countenance snapped back into a formless glob, and its red eyes reclaimed their intense focus.

  You did not destroy the incubus. We wonder why, when there is pleasure in destruction—pleasure, and the blessing of the goddess.

  “There is little pleasure of any kind to be had in this place,” Shakti said curtly. “I would just as soon put my efforts toward a better result.”

  The incubus might seek vengeance.

  “It is more likely to seek refuge,” Shakti retorted. “Such demons know the way to and from the Abyss, and given its weakened state and vulnerable flesh, it is likely to flee the scavengers that haunt this place. When it goes, I will follow, like a hunting lizard who has a taste of its quarry’s blood.”

  She lifted her hand, showing the magical symbol traced there with the demon’s blood—a spell that would enable her to follow the wounded creature wherever it went. It was one of many spells she had made a point of learning during her hunt for Liriel Baenre.

  A cruel and far-sighted plan, the yochlol observed. Lolth is pleased.

  Shakti’s gaze dropped to her skeletal snakes, which were wrapped companionably around her arms and waist. For a long moment she struggled to contain the central question of her existence. It burst out of her, regardless.

  “If Lolth is pleased, why did she favor Liriel Baenre over me?”

  A lesser goddess has shown favor to this girl. That, Lloth cannot abide.

  A shiver of dread raced down Shakti’s spine. After all, she herself had a foot in two divine camps! As she considered this answer, however, it seemed that the whole story had not been told.

  “Other drow follow other gods. I have never heard that Lolth pursues and rewards these heretics. Why grant such gifts to Liriel, when better, more loyal priestesses would gladly receive them?”

  The yochlol’s face twisted in unmistakable scorn. Do you think the goddess answers your prayers out of love? Like most priestesses, you crave Lolth’s power. Liriel Baenre does not. Indeed, it is a torment to her.

  Understanding began to edge into Shakti’s mind. Underlying the cruelty and chaos of the drow was a certain grim practicality. Whatever else a drow’s actions might be, they were certain to be self-serving.

  Suddenly Shakti knew the true reason for Lolth’s interest in the runaway Baenre princess.

  “So Liriel has been chosen to bear Lolth’s power because she is willing to relinquish it!”

  And what of you? the yochlol countered. Destroying the incubus would have been a pleasant diversion, yet you resisted in favor of a larger goal. What more would you be willing to relinquish?

  A merchant bred and born, Shakti knew better than to hand a blank note to any drow, living or dead, mortal or divine. “What does Lolth ask of me?” she parried.

  Your burning desire to destroy the Baenre princess—could you bear to subject that to the will of Lolth?

  For a long moment Shakti stood silent as pragmatism battled mightily against hatred. Her snakehead whip unwound itself from her and writhed about in a frenzied dance, giving silent testament to its mistress’s agitation and indecision.

  Finally the skeletal dance subsided, and the priestess lowered her head in submission to Lolth’s handmaiden.

  “Speak,” she said grudgingly, “and I will do.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  PROMISES

  Liriel stood at the rail of Leaping Narwhal, the sea breeze on her face and her white hair streaming behind her. The sunset colors had all but faded, and a rising moon silvered the waves. Her friend Fyodor was at her side, his back to the rail and his keen-eyed gaze following the on-duty crew as they prepared the ship for the coming of night.

  “Lord Caladorn seems a capable sailor,” he observed, nodding toward the tall, auburn-haired man lowering the foresail.

  The drow reluctantly dragged her attention from the splendors of the sea to the human nobleman. “Hrolf didn’t trust him.”

  “True, but Hrolf believed Lord Caladorn to be an enemy of the sea elves,” Fyodor reminded her. “Had the captain lived, he would have learned his error.”

  She shrugged this aside. The pirate known as Hrolf the Unruly had, in a very short time, become more of a father to her than the drow wizard who’d sired her. Hrolf’s death was a wound too new and raw to bear the weight of words.

  “Ibn likes this Caladorn well enough. At least, he likes the color of the man’s coins and the ‘lord’ before his name! It’s lucky for us his lordship wanted passage to the mainland. Ibn never would have bestirred himself on our account.”

  Fyodor nodded and turned a troubled gaze toward Narwhal’s new captain, a man of middle years and narrow mind, hunched over the wheel with a grim concentration that reminded Liriel of a duergar “enjoying” his morning gruel.

  Though Liriel would never admit it, she shared Fyodor’s unspoken concern. Ibn had been Hrolf’s first mate, and he’d been a
pebble in her boot from the moment they’d met. Most Northmen were wary of elves, but Ibn, despite his years aboard Hrolf’s ship Elfmaid and the assistance of the sea elves who’d watched over the jovial pirate, distrusted all elves with a fervor bordering on hatred.

  Well, there was no help for it. Fyodor had pledged to return the Windwalker to the witches of Rashemen. Liriel had promised to accompany him. It was an impulsive decision that she had questioned many times during their westward voyage, but Fyodor had steadfastly assured her that she—a drow and a wizard—would be accepted in a land that hated both. Before they faced that particular battle, they would have to survive a journey that spanned hundreds of miles inhabited by surface dwellers who had reason to fear and hate dark elves. Considering the larger picture, what was one elf-hating sailor?

  A subtle movement caught the drow’s attention—a slender blue hand edging over the rail. Liriel watched in fascination as a peculiar creature slid soundlessly onto the ship. Elflike in feature and lavishly female in form, she was nonetheless as alien as any creature Liriel had ever beheld.

  The newcomer’s skin shimmered with tiny aqua scales, and her long, silvery blue hair undulated as if in a gentle current. She wore ropes of pearls and a short, wet, clinging gown. Liriel’s sharp eyes noted the weapon sheathes cleverly hidden among the wet folds. Her native curiosity, however, was stronger than her impulse to shout an alarm.

  Liriel watched as the creature’s blue-green eyes scanned the ship, settled upon the man at the wheel, and took on a predatory gleam. She started toward Ibn purposefully.

  The drow elbowed Fyodor and nodded toward the creature. “A water genasi,” she said, speaking just above a whisper. “I’ve never actually seen one before. Drow keep trying to breed them. You don’t want to know what we get instead.”