The memory passed, but the horror did not. Liriel stared in disbelief at the dark threads streaking down along the conjured moonbeams. Spiders the size of house-cats dropped into the chamber and skittered off through the invisible doors and out into Qilué’s carefully warded sanctum.
Low, mocking laughter filled the chamber, echoes that welled up from unfathomable depths. Dark threads snapped together to form a web, which lowered slowly toward Liriel.
Mine, exulted the voice of the goddess—a terrible sound that mingled the shrieking of chill winds and the multitudinous voices of the dark-elven damned. This one I claim now. The rest we will take soon enough!
Qilué shook off her moment of stunned inaction and seized the silver medallion bearing her holy symbol. A quick tug snapped the chain, and she held the disk aloft. Again she sang, and again she danced.
A soft haze of moonlight flowed from the medallion, slowly pushing aside the darkness of Lolth. Again Liriel joined in the dance, desperate to help push away the unwanted Presence.
Qilué whirled toward her, her face grim. A graceful leaping kick dealt a blow that sent the younger drow reeling to the chamber wall. Liriel hit hard enough to knock the breath from her body. For long moments she sat on the cold stone floor, struggling for air, helpless to do anything but watch as the high priestess called upon one goddess to banish another.
Finally the terrible Presence faded away, and so, more slowly, did the silvery light surrounding Eilistraee’s priestess. Qilué strode to the scrying bowl. She gripped the rim with both hands and leaned in. After a moment she straightened and raised a haggard face to Fyodor. “Come, Rashemi, and tell me what you see. The battle took more of my strength than I had thought possible.”
He came to the priestess’s side and gazed over her shoulder.
“Goblins are coming from the tunnels below,” he said crisply, a warrior giving report. “There’s a kobold horde nearing the postern gate. Small bands of drow fighters converge from these three tunnels. Those humans there—I’ve seen similar tunics worn by Skullport bounty hunters.”
The priestess spun away and shrieked for her battlemaster. Iljreen appeared suddenly. Her gaze snapped to Liriel and then returned to the high priestess, taking in the situation. “The wards?”
“Down.”
Iljreen nodded crisply. “I’ll see to the battle. You’ll have your hands full elsewhere.”
“Tell me what I can do to help,” Fyodor offered.
The battlemaster’s delicate face hardened, and her narrowed eyes again flicked to Liriel. “You can take that Lolth-loving bitch out of my stronghold before she kills us all,” she hissed.
With that Iljreen was gone, as suddenly as she had appeared.
Sick understanding filled the pit of Fyodor’s stomach. Somehow, he knew not how, Liriel had once again invited Lolth’s touch. He glanced at his friend. Her eyes, enormous in her stricken face, mirrored his fears.
“How is this possible?” she whispered.
“Isn’t it obvious?” spat Qilué. “Liriel is bound to the Spider Queen. You shouldn’t have come!”
Liriel’s spirit returned in a sudden rush. In one swift movement she was on her feet and in the priestess’s face. “You told us to come. Or was your talking raven lying through his beak?”
“You should have sent word of this!”
“We didn’t know.”
“Didn’t you?”
The searing accusation in Qilué’s voice snapped Fyodor out of his horror-struck daze. Liriel was wychlaran, and while he lived, no one would accuse her of such treachery.
“Liriel has turned away from ways of her people and given up the evil goddess,” he said with quiet certainty.
“That doesn’t mean that Lolth has given up on Liriel,” Qilué retorted. She whirled on Liriel in magnificent wrath. “Do you know how many years of work, what a fortune in magical resources, went into warding the Promenade from Lolth’s view? All that, undone! You have turned this place over to Lolth and her evil followers. Have you any idea what that means?”
The young drow’s bravado faded. “Of course I know,” she whispered. “How could I not? I was born in Menzoberranzan.”
“A place not easily left behind,” Fyodor said softly. “You yourself said that Liriel was pursued. I swear to you, she gives no more invitation to the huntress than the hare gives the hawk.”
The bright heat of Qilué’s fury faded away, and her shoulders rose and fell in a deep sigh.
“I can do nothing more for you but show you a quick way to the surface. I will send word to my sister Laerel. She will see you safely out of Waterdeep. Word of a traveling drow will reach the Dark Maiden’s followers. If you are stopped and questioned, show them this. It will grant you safe passage.”
The priestess handed Liriel a small silver talisman, an engraving of a slender elf female armed with a bow and accompanied by a wolf. Both hunters lifted their eyes to a rising moon.
“Thank you,” Liriel said fervently.
Qilué’s stern gaze softened. “A servant will guide you through the tunnels. Go, and may the Dark Maiden watch your path.”
Fyodor bowed and took Liriel’s hand. They disappeared together through one of the hidden doors.
The moment she was alone, the high priestess sank to the floor in exhaustion. Her battle against Lolth’s intrusion had drained her strength to the point of exhaustion. She thought it unwise to show the extent of her weakness before one the Spider Queen had so obviously claimed as Her own.
No matter how reluctant Liriel might be—and Qilué did not doubt the young drow’s reticence—where Liriel went, the eyes of the goddess would follow.
Perhaps it would be different on the surface, Qilué mused. The power of Lolth could not reach the lands of light. The central tenant of her faith was that darkness was destroyed by light, not rendered invisible. So it had always been, and she had no reason to believe that it would not always be so.
Why, then, could she not dispel the sense that the world had shifted beneath her feet?
CHAPTER FIVE
WIZARD’S APPRENTICE
The illithid known as Vestriss paced the mosaic floor of her throne room, which until recently had been a treasure trove in the submerged ruins that long-dead elves had called Ascarle. Only a few of these ancient treasures remained: large statues for the most part, or golden objects too heavy for the illithid’s fleeing slaves to carry away.
Vestriss herself was decidedly worse for wear. Her amethyst rings had been stripped from her four-fingered hands. The silver circlet that had adorned her lavender head was gone, as was the medallion bearing the royal crest she had assumed as the self-proclaimed Regent of Ascarle. Her fine robes had been torn by frenzied, thieving hands, her sensitive facial tentacles bruised. The only reason she still lived was that the slaves had thought her already dead. Liriel Baenre’s immobilizing magic had seen to that.
The illithid was not, however, feeling the least bit grateful.
Vestriss’s seeking thoughts perceived her genasi slave’s foot-dragging approach. Facial tentacles twitched and writhed as if the illithid tasted the air, but Vestriss read the story of the genasi’s mission in the emotional storm creeping toward the throne room. Rage the genasi knew in plenty, and frustration, failure, and fear.
Fear. Oh, yes. There was reason for fear.
Vestriss settled into her throne and turned her empty white eyes toward the door. In moments a lithe, blue-skinned female entered the room and dipped into a deep reverence. Purple bruises mottled her face, and one eye was nearly swollen shut. Hatred for the drow who had done this swirled through the genasi’s mind, and her overwhelming desire for revenge sang in concert with the illithid’s own, similar fury.
Vengeance is the reward of the competent, the illithid “said,” projecting a regal, feminine voice directly into the genasi’s mind. You, Azar, have failed me.
The genasi’s lips thinned, and insulted pride rolled from her in pungent waves. “If I have,
mistress, it was because I lacked the necessary magic,” she said in petulant tones. “You said the drow was a wizard. You did not know how powerful.”
Did I not? Liriel Baenre stood in my presence. Were I so inclined, I could list every spell in her quiver. I gave you all the magic you needed to stave off her attacks. One tentacle stabbed toward Azar like an accusing finger. What cause have you for complaint? It wasn’t magic that marred your face.
The genasi hand lifted to the swelling around one eye. “Even so, lack of magic was the mission’s undoing. I intended to follow the ship and slip up on the drow unobserved, but a bullywug shaman sent me into battle, and I had no defense against his call. This I must have.”
The illithid dismissed her slave’s concern with a flip of her purple hand. Bullywugs are vile monsters, to be sure, but their magic is of little account. They surprised you once. You will not be caught a second time.
“I wish that were true!” the genasi wailed. “The shaman’s call—I can hear it still! It is not fitting that the Regent of Ascarle’s servants must heed a lesser’s voice. Is there nothing you can do to loosen these degrading bonds?”
After a moment’s consideration, Vestriss inclined her bulbous head in assent. Quiet your thoughts as best you can. It will make the process less painful for you, and what is far more important, more convenient for me.
The illithid rose and glided toward the slave, who dutifully knelt and tipped up her battered face. Facial tentacles enfolded the genasi’s head as Vestriss’s innate mental magic probed her slave’s mind. She slipped past Azur’s roiling thoughts with the ease of a halfling pickpocket, past word-shaped thought, past all emotions the genasi acknowledged and understood, moving swiftly and directly to the mind’s hidden depths. There Vestriss found a hard, hateful knot of compulsion. With a mental touch as sure and delicate as a harpist’s fingers as she loosened the threads—
Her concentration shattered suddenly, completely. Vestriss staggered back, staring in disbelief at the dagger’s hilt protruding from between her lower ribs.
For the second time in her life, the illthid’s mental voice was silenced—not by a drow’s magic but by the white-hot pain pulsing from the blade.
“No more compulsion,” Azar hissed. She rose to her feet, and her blue hand seized the dagger, twisting it. “No more slavery. Only vengeance. Do you still find me incompetent?”
The truth came to Vestriss slowly, beating at her dazed mind like the sound of distant surf. Azar hated the drow, loathed the bullywug shaman. That was real enough, but the mental clamor of these new indignities had cloaked her first and most bitter resentment.
Vestriss threw her will against the terrible pain, forcing it aside long enough to shape a final, important thought:
And the drow?
A sneer twisted Azar’s bruised face. “Even now, you assume I’ll do your bidding! The drow bested me, yes, but she bested you as well. In my mind, this settles all scores. Know this: You will die and she will not. If that pains you, I am content.”
The genasi jerked the dagger’s hilt downward and shoved the blade in high and hard, a brutal thrust that quested deep into the illithid’s chest. Muscle resisted briefly, painfully, then the blade sank into something soft and pulpy.
The genasi tore the weapon free, and suddenly Vestriss was drowning. Ichor bubbled from her tentacles and welled up in her eyes, spilling down her face in scalding green tears.
The marble floor sped toward her. Vestriss did not register the impact, but she gradually became aware of a new and distant pain. Horror flooded her as she realized its source. Azar’s dagger was slicing through a facial tentacle.
The genasi tossed one twitching appendage aside and reached for another. “Despite all, the bullywugs were an instrument of my freedom. This will be their reward,” she explained. “As the drow will soon learn, I settle all scores.”
The tapping on the hull of the ship grew more insistent. Sharlarra frowned. “Perhaps I should have asked for the answering code,” she muttered.
With a shrug, she stepped over to the wall and rapped out an echoing quatrain of the unmistakable rhythm of “The Mermaid,” one of the bawdiest tunes sung in Skullport taverns. That seemed to satisfy the unseen scout. Now it was time to pass the warning along.
That presented a problem. According to Khelben, Caladorn Cassalanter was aboard this ship. Sharlarra didn’t know him well, but they had been partnered at the last Winterfest ball. There was a distinct possibility that he had figured out what happened to his jeweled cloak pin. No one would suspect one of Khelben Arunsun’s apprentices of thievery, but she was far from Blackstaff Tower. In her close-fitting dark clothes, with a nobleman’s jeweled sword on her hip, she looked suspiciously like a halfling second-story artist after a good night. Only taller. And sober.
Inspiration struck. Calling to mind Fyodor’s face and form, she cast the illusion spell over herself and her gear. She examined the result in the bronze mirror over the washbasin and winced at the unfashionable image he presented: leather jerkin, linen shirt, dark wool trousers tucked into low, worn boots. Her gaze dropped to her “borrowed” sword, which now appeared to be a thick black weapon decorated only by the crudely carved bear’s head on the pommel.
She started for the door, drawing the sword as she went. A hum of magical energy jolted through it, and a baritone voice broke into fervent song:
“Who draws the sword commands my voice;
My song pours forth at your command!
Let evil bleed and good rejoice
While hymns of victory speed thy hand!”
Sharlarra let out an exasperated curse. She kicked shut the door and prayed that no one had heard. “A singing sword! Damn and blast that man!”
“I don’t command perdition’s gates,
Nor can I hurl a blasting fire;
Yet mortal agony awaits
The man who dared arouse your ire,” the sword sang apologetically.
“Thanks ever so much, but we’re in disguise today,” she told the sword. “That means no singing.”
She felt a dimming of power, uncannily like a human sigh of disappointment, then the magic again blazed bright. The sword switched from song to oratory.
“No melody shall sing thy praise,
Yet ringing meter I’ll declaim!
In spoken verse my voice I’ll raise
That quaking foes may know thy name!”
Sharlarra gritted her teeth in frustration and glanced toward the ceiling. The scuff of boots on the deck had the leisurely pace of men at ease. The sailors had not yet perceived the coming threat. Time wasted now meant blood spilt later.
“One more word, and I’ll have you melted down and recast as a chamber pot. Got it?”
“Hmm hmmm-hm hmm—”
“Sweet sodding Mystra!” she exploded. “Why couldn’t Danilo have purchased a Sembian sword? Those weapons know how to take a hint! Listen: No singing, no declaiming, no humming, no idle chit chat. Just kill things. Quietly.”
At last the sword subsided. Sharlarra hurried down the narrow corridor and scrambled up the ladder. She drew the disguised weapon and pointed it toward the sea.
“Sea ogres approaching, lads! Let’s give them a proper welcome!” she roared, doing her best to imitate Fyodor’s Rashemaar accents.
Several of the sailors stopped and looked at her quizzically. Belatedly, the elf realized that her illusion did not extend to her voice—she still spoke in her own sultry elven tones. She’d forgotten to steal one of the berserker’s weapons. Without it, the illusion was incomplete.
The sword in her hand chuckled softly.
Sharlarra was saved by a shout from the crow’s nest, and the clatter of men gathering weapons to meet yet another foe.
A pair of huge, webbed hands slapped onto the rail. One of the pirates ran forward and slashed down with his cutlass, but another hand thrust forward and caught the man’s wrist, halting the blow with ease. A quick twist disarmed the pirate and sent him to
his knees. He rolled away a second before enormous feet thumped onto the deck.
The creature crouched in guard position was like no merrow in any lorebook Sharlarra had ever seen. Its head was fishlike, with a spiny standing fin starting at the crown and running down the length of its back. Two large side fins resembled exaggerated elven ears, and its large round eyes were as black and hungry as a shark’s. The hideous head was split by an enormous mouth lined with stiletto-like fangs. A sea serpent’s tail—long and sinuous and ending in a double row of spikes—flowed from a heavily muscled humanoid torso. Four thick arms, each armored with a ruff of elbow spikes, flexed in preparation for battle.
“Sea devils!” shouted a stout, red-bearded man. “Sahuagin aboard!”
A ringing battle shout burst from Sharlarra’s sword, and it fairly leaped toward the crouching monster. The elf followed as best she could, muttering a bloodboil spell as she went.
The sahuagin batted aside the attacking sword with an open-handed swat. One of its upper hands seized Sharlarra’s tunic and jerked her up to eye level. Another hand closed around her sword arm with bone-crushing force, and the gaping jaws spread in anticipation.
The black eyes turned glassy, and a fetid steam hissed and swirled through the monster’s bared fangs. All of its hands began to tremble violently as its body cooked from within. Sharlarra wrenched her sword hand free and killed the monster quickly, a belly slash that spilled steaming entrails onto the deck.
She carefully sidestepped the mess and spun to survey the chaos around her. A dozen or so of the creatures fought with weapons salvaged from the sea: ancient pikes and rust-brown swords with pitted edges. The pirates held them off easily.
Perhaps too easily.
The elf edged her way out of the melee, parrying sea devil thrusts and jabs as she went. When she was free of the tangle of flailing weapons and cursing pirates, she sprinted toward the aft castle and climbed the ladder to the platform.
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