Daughter of the Drow (14 page)

The concept of rune magic fascinated her. Some runes were simple and could be taught; others were unique and deeply personal. A caster, she learned, had to fashion such a rune before it could be used in magic. The process was known as shaping. This was done in three steps—planning, carving, and activating. Over the course of a journey, or as the result of a quest or adventure, a rune would slowly take shape in the mind of its caster. Only when the rune was fully realized could it be carved. Many spells specified what surface was required. A simple rune to speed healing, for example, must be carved on the limb of an oak tree.

“What’s a tree?” Liriel muttered, and then continued her study.

The final step charged the rune with power through anointing it or reciting the words of a spell. This step also seemed to be highly personal; no purchased spell scroll would yield the secret. Liriel nodded thoughtfully as she absorbed the philosophy. Kharza was right: at first consideration rune magic did seem ridiculously simple. Yet it demanded something of the caster. The magic came from a journey, whether a journey of the mind or the quest of an adventurous wanderer.

A journey. A grand quest.

A wave of longing struck her with the force of a blow. This, she realized suddenly, was what she had craved all her life. This is what all those forays into the Underdark had been about, and the endless social flitting through the city. She was a born traveler, trapped among beings who were content to live and die in a cavern that measured a mere two miles across. Wondrous though Menzoberranzan might be, it was a small place for such as she.

Liriel buried her head in her hands and struggled to keep from screaming aloud. The young female had never known despair, but it closed in on her now. The walls of her room tightened, too, until they threatened to swallow the candlelight.

Then, as suddenly as it came, the moment passed, chased from her mind by a bold plan. Liriel slowly raised her eyes to her scrying bowl.

Why not? she thought rebelliously. If she was allowed to glimpse into the Abyss and study its creatures and its fell secrets, why shouldn’t she learn more about her own world? I^rhaps somewhere in the Lands of Light, descendants of the Rus lived out their lives with the lusty, brawling abandon she had glimpsed in this old book. Why should she not find them and study their ways?

It occurred to her that even that might not be enough. Instantly Liriel pushed aside that thought and snatched up the precious spell scroll. She had learned to take what life offered, without reflecting overmuch on what she might not have.

So the dark elf lit yet another candle, and began to study how she might gain a window into the Lands of Light.

Fyodor had no idea how long he had wandered in the Underdark, for here even time seemed distorted and unreal. It was not just that he was deep below the surface, far from the comforting rhythms of the sun and the moon. The constant, raw-nerved alertness required to stay alive gave each moment an incredible clarity, so each lingered in his mind long after it should have given way to the next. In a way, the slowing of time was like that which he experienced during the berserker rage, and it was almost as exhausting.

He’d carried into the Underdark food and water enough for two days, and although he had eaten and drunk sparingly, both were almost gone. Worse, his supply of torches was nearing an end. He had seen nothing down in this land that looked as if it would burn, and that was a problem. As long as he had light, Fyodor could follow the trail of the drow thieves. He faced a hard choice: pressing on, or trying to find a way back to the surface so he could get the supplies he needed to try again.

Fyodor pressed on. The tracking was difficult, and if he faltered now he might never find the trail. Although there were five drow, they walked lightly, and any trail was difficult to follow in terrain so different from his own land.

As he pondered the difficulties of his quest, it did not occur to him to ask what he would do when he found the drow. He knew what he could do, and that knowledge spurred him on.

In hie land, famed for her berserker warriors, Fyodor was a champion. He had earned respect in his land, and already there was talk of making him a Fang—a chieftain in charge of a band of warriors. He was respected, but he was also feared for what he was. He, in turn, feared what he might become.

One of Rashemen’s most misunderstood magics involved the distillation ofjhuild, a libation so powerful it was commonly—and accurately—called “firewine.” A less potent version was distilled as a trade good, but it was definitely an acquired taste, one few foreigners cared to develop. Each berserker warrior carried a flask that held an endless supply ofjhuild and drank it from time to time with no more effect than would be expected from any other strong distilled drink. But before battle, jhuild was used in a ritual that inflamed the passions and raised warriors to an impossible level of skill and ferocity. This was something Rashemi were trained to do since birth, and no one who lacked this training could successfully bring on a berserk.

Unlike his fellow warriors, Fyodor was a natural berserker. The rage came upon him without benefit of jhuild or ritual. He fought with greater ferocity than his brethren, but without the control. As long as the rage lasted, he could not use strategy, or change his tactics in order to aid or protect his fellow Rashemi. All Fyodor could do was attack, to slaughter his foe until no more stood against him. Someday this would mean his death, of that Fyodor had no doubt. Yet it was not death he feared. Fyodor’s deepest fear was that the day would come when he could no longer tell friend from foe.

The battle in the forest clearing troubled him deeply. Before that night he had fought only to protect his people and his land. He had entered the battle frenzy for the sake of a band of drow thieves! What next: would he join Thay’s wizards in storming the tower circles of Rashemen’s Witches? No, it was far better he should die here, in this deep, distant land.

The path before him rose up sharply and suddenly. Fyodor scrambled to the top of the incline and lifted his torch high. Ahead the tunnel dipped and made a hard turn to the right. To his surprise, a faint light emanated from the passage.

Carefully, as silently as he could, he crept toward the light. The sound of dripping water grew louder as he went, and the air became as moist as a marshland in springtime. When at last he rounded the corner, the sight beyond stole his breath.

He was in yet another cavern. This one was smaller than the last, but stranger than any sight he had yet seen. The walls were wet here, and growing on them in strange-shaped formations were patches of moss and fungi that glowed in luminescent shades of purple and blue. The light reflected off the wet black rock and filled the whole cavern with the strange color. Fyodor held out his hand; even his skin seemed to glow weirdly in the faint bluish light.

The young warrior took a deep breath and looked around. He had come to think of the Underdark as little more than a hive of solid rock, but in this cavern grew a staggering variety of plants. Curly, dark blue ferns surrounded a small pool, and pale silvery moss hung, like a lacy veil, in draping folds from the ceiling of the cavern. Nearby, under an overhanging ledge, grew clusters of mushrooms. Fyodor crouched down for a closer look.

Never had he seen mushrooms with such colors or such odd shapes. Some looked like the mushrooms of his home forests, except they were much larger and of a deep shade of violet. Others were more ethereal, with delicate stems and thin, fluted edges that looked as if they might crumple if touched. There were puffballs, swirled with crimson and lavender, and pale mushrooms that stood like short, stout sentinels.

He might try to eat some of the odd plants, Fyodor decided, but only as an alternative to starvation. Even in his homeland mushrooms held poison; who knew what effect these strange plants might have? At least the pale, thick mushrooms were somewhat familiar. If it should come to this, he would try those first. He reached out to touch one. The mushroom twitched away and let out a shrill, whistling shriek.

Fyodor jerked back his hand. “The mushrooms scream,” he muttered in disbelief. Who knew what the ferns might have to say? He didn’t care to find out, but there was water beyond the fern bed and he could not afford to pass it by.

He waded through the curling blue ferns without incident, then stopped short. The bones of some long-dead wanderer lay half in, half out of the water. But such bones! They seemed to be the remains of a lizard, but the skeleton was fully the size of a paladin’s war charger. Stranger still, remnants of rotted leather and bite of metal lay around the enormous bones. Fyodor leaned in for a closer look. The skeleton was intact, but for a broken bone on one leg.

The warrior shook his head as he realized what must have happened. Someone had ridden this lizard creature as a mount, and when the leg broke, the useless lizard was simply abandoned. Even the gift of death had been denied the wretched thing. Fyodor thought of Sasha, and wondered what manner of being could treat a trusted mount in such fashion.

The man bent to drink of the water, and instantly knew how death had finally come to the desperate creature. The water had a faint mineral smell. Fyodor dipped his hand in and sniffed. Once before he had smelled lime, during a season when plague took many in his village. He would never forget that terrible summer, or the scent of the lime sprinkled into the single, yawning grave. He rose and backed away from the deadly pool.

Fyodor looked around the cavern. Water ran in rivulets down the walls, and louder trickling sounds echoed through the cavern from the tunnels beyond. Surely not all of the pool’s tributaries were poisonous, He had to have water soon, and this was probably his best chance of finding it. Yet the tunnels here were so twisted that the water he heard moat clearly could be around the corner, or a day’s walk away. His beat chance, he decided, would be to continue following the drow thieves. They would also need drinking water, and perhaps they would lead him to it. So he quickly examined the tunnels leading out of the cavern and found the marks of passing elven boots.

The luminous blue glow1 faded as he left the cavern behind, and the pale light of his torch seemed pure and healthy in comparison. The path Fyodor followed was narrow and steep, and he soon struggled for breath in the thin, unfamiliar air. He had not gone far when he found the water. A small waterfall spilled down a rocky alcove, scattering droplets into a shallow, fast-running stream. The water followed the path for a few paces, then disappeared into a hole in the tunnel floor. Over the opening, draped from one side of the tunnel to the other, hung an enormous spiderweb. The entrapped droplets caught Pyodor’s torchlight and turned the web into a thousand rainbow prisms. Fyodor noted a few tiny insects skimming the surface of the stream—a good sign that the water was potable. He tasted the water and found it sweet.

Fyodor threw himself to the ground and drank deeply. Heaving a sigh of satisfaction and relief, he reached for his water flask. His hand froze, and he cursed himself for a fool. Where there were webs, there were usually spiders, yet he had approached this gigantic web with no more sense than a fly. Eye-to-eye with the biggest spider he had ever seen, Fyodor thought he knew how a trapped fly must feel.

The spider’s head was nearly as big as a man’s fist, and in the faint torchlight its furred, rounded black abdomen glistened like that of a well-groomed housecat. The entire creature must have been nearly three feet across, and its eight enormous legs bent in a tense crouch.

Fyodor*s startled face stared back at him, reflected a thousand times in the creature’s multiple eyes. The horror he expected to feel did not come. Unlike the scorpion-thing, this creature was no mindless, ravening beast. It had an air of watchful intelligence. It was clearly as interested in him as he was in it, and just as cautious. Slowly, silently, the giant spider backed away, one leg moving at a time. When it was beyond reach it uttered a low, chittering sound and began to rise into the air.

Fyodor watched in awe as the spider slid upward on a silken thread. He had seen spiders do that many times in his world, but had never noticed the grace and beauty of the silent flight. It was uncanny that so large a creature could walk such a gossamer path. Stranger still, the giant arachnid simply disappeared in midflight, long before it reached the tunnel’s ceiling.

A magic-user? he mused. If the mushrooms in this place could scream, perhaps a spider could wield magic.

Or perhaps it answered to someone who could.

That thought spurred Fyodor to action. He quickly filled his flask and hurried along the tunnel. If that spider was indeed some sort of messenger, his presence in this place would soon be noted. If he did not retrieve the amulet soon, he would surely die in this bizarre, nightmarish world. Above all, he must keep his wits about him every moment.

This much he knew: the Underdark was no place for those who dreamed.

The night was nearly spent before Liriel felt ready to try the spell. First she lit several candles and placed them around the edges of the scrying bowl. A conjured image had no heat, and therefore could not be seen without light. She filled the scrying bowl with water and, in lieu of the powdered substance called for by the spell, she broke an edge off one of the ancient pages of her book and crumpled it into the water.

Chanting softly, she spoke the words of the spell. The water roiled wildly, then smoothed to a glossy black. Eagerly she bent over the bowl.

In it she saw water, a vast expanse of it, rising and falling in white-crested waves. A sea, she thought excitedly. She had heard of such things. It was wonderful, this sea, so vast and open and full of possibilities. The water rose and fell even though there were no visible rocks and rapids to explain such movement, and cutting through the wild water was the largest, strangest boat she had ever seen.

The boat was long and narrow, fashioned of some thick, pale substance and crowned with enormous white wings that curved tightly to one side. The wings did not move, yet the boat flew through the water with exhilarating speed, sending white spray high as it cut through the waves. Most wondrous of all was the prow of the boat, which was crudely carved to resemble the head of a dragon.