Daughter of the Drow - Elaine Cunningham [135]
"Yes, but-"
"Enough!" He threw up his hands in mock exasperation. "Did we not agree to work together?"
Liriel merely nodded. It sounded so easy, when Fyodor spoke of it. Her mind whirled with the possibilities such an arrangement suggested. If two persons could truly combine their skills and strengths, how much more could they accomplish than one alone! Perhaps there was a way – -.
Yet as they hurried toward the village, memories of her life in Menzoberranzan kept coming back to her. Despite her flippant disregard for clerical life, the Way of Lloth had been imprinted deeply in her mind and heart. She had seen the sacrifices Lloth required, the brutally imposed isolation demanded of those who served the Lady of Chaos. The power of the drow matriarchy came at a price, and only Lloth's priestesses understood the full extent of the goddess's cruelty.
Liriel could not help but wonder what price might be demanded of her for thinking to join her path with that of a human male. Worse, for thinking her dream could grow to make room for another. And, most heretical, for daring to dream at all.
No, what Fyodor suggested was not so easy, after all.
Chapter 22
THE SPIDER'S KISS
The drow and the Rashemi walked throughout the night, and by first light they could see the outlying fields that heralded the existence of a farming village. They paused on a hillside overlooking a green, sweet-smelling place Fyodor called a meadow. Beyond the meadow, over the swell and fall of several smaller hillocks, Liriel saw a sparkle of white and blue that could only be the Dessarin River. The drow's sharp eyes scanned the landscape and marked a place that would suit her purpose: a small, sheltered clearing on a tree-covered hill overlooking the river.
"You must stay here," Fyodor cautioned her. "The people of Trollbridge have suffered much at the hands of drow raiders and would not take kindly to your presence."
Liriel accepted his words without quarrel. "Just as well. I'm too tired to walk another step." She punctuated her claim with a wide yawn, and at Fyodor"s urging she wriggled through the vines that all but choked a low-hanging yew tree. The sheltering shade would protect her from the sun, and her piwafwi would lend her invisibility. There she could rest in relative safety.
When Fyodor was satisfied that all was well, he hurried down the hillside toward Trollbridge. The time of moondark had passed, and he hoped the villagers' fear of dark-elven raiders had passed with it. Yet he could not help but feel uneasy going there with drow hunters so close upon his heels. The beleaguered townsfolk had troubles enough; Fyodor did not wish to bring his own upon them.
He heard the sounds of the village before the walls of the palisade came into sight: the squeak of wagon wheels, the blended hum of a crowd of voices, an occasional note from the pipes and strings of itinerant musicians. Fyodor quickened his step. The merchants had come at long last, and with them the spring fair.
At first, Liriel had only the best of intentions. True, she had chosen a place of escape on a distant hillside, and she prepared a gate that could carry one or two persons there, but that was a reasonable precaution, no more. She fully intended to remain in her hiding place, to catch up on her sleep. When her natural curiosity asserted itself, she repeated Fyodor's warning about the humans' fear of drow, and she thrust aside her desire to see a human marketplace with her own eyes. And she stuck to her resolve for a good half hour.
Liriel took off her piwafwi and flipped it over. The mar-velous, glittering cloak had a nondescript dark lining and was perfect garb for blending into a crowd. She put on the inside-out garment and pulled up the deep-cowled hood to shield her face from the sun. Next she rummaged in her travel bag for a pair of gloves to cover her dark skin and to soften the distinctive elven shape of her hands. Finally, the young wizard cast a minor cantrip that lent her