Daughter of the Drow - Elaine Cunningham [149]
"There," she said in a satisfied tone. "That's just how it looked on the other man. I've no idea what you're supposed to be, but I suppose the humans will."
"You wish to join the festival, and slip into the city among the others," he realized. "But what about your disguise?"
Liriel smiled slyly. "I'm a drow, of course. It's quite an exotic costume. And authentic, too!" she added with a touch of irony.
Understanding lit his eyes, then wry admiration. They exchanged a conspiratorial grin and crept down the hill to join the merrymakers.
For the next hour, Liriel danced, sipped wine, accepted inane compliments on her "costume," and watched Fyodor with amazement. He fit into the gay company as easily as a sword in its sheath: laughing and drinking and telling tales. Before long, he'd gathered about him a group of young noblemen, each striving to outdo the others with boastful accounts of his own adventures. Fyodor passed around his flask of firewine and listened with rapt attention to their lies. The drow heard the word "Skullport" whispered, and her eyes glinted with amused understanding. Her plan would get them into Waterdeep, but Fyodor was looking to the task beyond.
Someone brushed aside her hair and dropped a kiss on the nape of her neck. Instinctively, she spun around with a snarl.
A tall man with gray eyes and wheat-colored hair fell back a step, as if startled by her vehement reaction. Liriel recognized him as one of the nobles who had shared tales with Fyodor. Though his wavering stance and the nearly empty goblet in his hand suggested he'd had more than his share to drink, there was a shrewd expression in his eyes that Uriel noted and mistrusted. Then the sharp look vanished, and the young man smiled engagingly at her.
"Oh, I see. You're in character." He raised his hands in mock defense and pretended to cringe. "I must say, Galinda, you've outdone yourself this time. That's a marvelous costume! But shouldn't you carry some sort of fearful weapon to add realism-a whip or some such?"
For the first time in her life, Liriel actually envied high priestesses their snake-headed whips. She bared her teeth in an approximation of a smile. "The trouble with whips is that you never seem to have one handy when you really need it," she cooed.
The man threw back his head and laughed. "How true! I've often thought that very thing, myself."
His leer was comic and good-natured, his laughter infectious. Liriel suddenly misplaced her anger. A genuine smile curved her lips, and she regarded the handsome male with a touch of speculation.
Fyodor chose that moment to appear at her side. Once again, the drow glimpsed a flicker of penetrating intelligence in the stranger's gray eyes as he took the Rashemi's measure. Before anyone could speak, an exceedingly tipsy woman with bright red hair and an abundant display of cleavage lurched over to claim the young man's arm.
There you are, Dan," she cooed. "I've been looking everywhere for you!"
"Was this our dance?" he murmured absently.
The redheaded woman smiled like a hungry troll. "Unless you had something a bit more… interesting in mind?"
The invitation was crude and unmistakable, and it got his full attention. He claimed the woman's hand and bowed low over it. "Myrna, my dear, phlar Lloth ssinssrickla," he said fervently, and then raised her fingers to his lips for a gallant kiss.
A bubble of startled, delighted laughter burst from Liriel. When Lloth giggles, he'd said in response to the woman's amorous advances-hardly the tribute the simpering, overheated wench apparently believed it to be. Oh, he was clever, this one!
Liriel's laughter died abruptly. This one was too clever.
With three words, spoken in oddly accented drow, the fair-haired man had said much and revealed even more. He knew what she was, and was putting her on notice of this. He had also tested her, beyond the obvious trial that recognition of the drow phrase offered. The blasphemous little jest would have surprised a scowl