Daughter of the Drow - Elaine Cunningham [105]
But now his time had come. When the drow emerged from the cave with the coming of night, Fyodor would claim his amulet, or he would die.
The dark naga cowered in a corner, wary despite the spell of invisibility hiding him from view. Ssasser had slipped into Liriel's castle as he'd done before, easily overcoming the trapped door by swallowing the crossbow-fired dart. He did not fear the servants that tended the drow female's abode, for hie servitude to the Hunzrin family had purchased him a considerable amount of magic. But the powerful being in the Liriel's study was far beyond the naga's strength.
Gromph Baenre, the most famed wizard hi the city, was seated at his daughter's table. Books were scattered about his feet, and his face was fixed in a fearsome scowl.
His long black fingers moved through the gestures of a spell, and he muttered arcane words with the precision earned by great power and much practice. Ssasser paid little heed to the gestures-since the naga lacked hands, such knowledge would do him little good-but he listened carefully to the spell and repeated it to himself silently, several times, until he was certain he had it right.
So intent was the creature on his stolen lesson that he did not at first notice the result of the spell. Smoke flowed into the study, seemingly from the carved stone walls. The cloud tugged free of the wall and formed into a drow statue of living stone.
can find nothing of value here," the wizard said, waving his hand impatiently over the piles of discarded books. "Find the girl's servants and see what you can learn from them about her whereabouts."
The golem bowed and strode from the room, its feet clicking with every step. Ssasser shrunk back beyond the reach of those stone boots, then slithered forward eagerly to see what the archmage might do next. Seldom did the naga have the chance to observe such a powerful wizard, and the creature hoped Gromph might demonstrate another spell.
But the drow wizard did not oblige. He ran his hands through his long white hair in a gesture of supreme frustration; then he sat in silence, deep in his own thoughts. At length he took a small book from a pocket of his glittering cloak and, after flipping through a few pages, he tossed it onto the table.
"I cannot do this alone," he murmured to himself; "not even with a copy of the spellbook I gave her. Using these gates, Liriel could be nearly anywhere. I cannot leave the city myself. And yet, can I trust such spells to another wizard?"
Gromph rose and began to pace the room. "No," he concluded at length. "If I cannot find the girl before she learns of her danger and flees the Underdark, she is lost to me, and her magic with her."
A clatter arose from the floor below. The scream of a halfling slave came to them clearly, a wail of pain that quickly faded into an earnest babble of words. The wizard smiled and strode from the room to see what information his stone servant had extracted from Uriel's maidservant.
The invisible naga slithered with frantic haste toward the table. His fanged maw opened wide and he lunged for the precious book. He swallowed it, gulping several times to speed its way down his gullet toward the safety of an internal organ that housed, at the moment, two spell scrolls, several vials of poisons and potions, a small mithril axe, a rather nice dagger, and the crossbow dart he'd recently swallowed. Ssasser could regurgitate any one of these items at will. For good measure, the naga swallowed a large map of the surface world. With this, he would convince his Hunzrin slavemistress he had the knowledge needed to track down the renegade female.
The spellbook he would keep as his reward, and his secret.
Far from the tumultuous drow city, Liriel skipped lightly through the dark passages of the Underdark. She was tired but supremely happy. Now that the Windwalker amulet was in her hands, enspelled to hold the unique magic of the
Underdark, she would return to Arach-Tinilith to hone her powers in preparation for her journey into