Daughter of the Drow - Elaine Cunningham [91]
A sound came from behind her, a high piping cry that sounded like the squeaks of a wounded scurry rat. Shakti froze, and swore. The tiny door had been trapped, after all.
She spun around and glared furiously at the small figure staggering toward her. She snatched up the drow male and held him close to her eyes. Protruding from his body was a dart, such as those the drow used in their tiny crossbows. Considering his current size, the male might as well have been impaled upon a three-foot spear. And he'd been gut-shot, one of the more painful and lingering deaths.
Shakti swore again, and her eyes darted to the street. A patrol of lizard-mounted drow approached, making their silent rounds of the city.
"You were worried about lizards," she hissed at the tiny male. "Yet if you were to live long enough, you would be grateful you met this one."
With those words, she tossed the drow soldier in the path of a passing lizard mount. The creature's long, slender tongue whipped out and curled around the unexpected morsel. Back it snapped, so quickly that the lizard's rider did not notice what his mount had eaten.
Once again Shakti retraced her steps to the Hunzrin complex. Now that she knew the nature of the traps guarding the door, she would send in another servant, one far more valuable than a male soldier.
Less than an hour later, Shakti stepped triumphantly through Liriel's back door. She regarded the creature who had let her in with a mixture of pride and revulsion. Its face was a hideous parody of a drow visage. Dark blue in color, with long pointed ears that looked almost like horns, the head could well have belonged to some creature of the Abyss. But its body was that of a thick snake, nearly ten feet in length and covered with dark blue scales. The creature's swaying tail ended in a barbed, poisonous tip. This was a dark naga, one of the rarest creatures of the Underdark and a valued ally of House Hunzrin.
"Pay Ssasser now," hissed the naga in an airy, whistling voice. He bared his fangs in a grin of anticipation, and his long pronged tongue flicked out. "Ssasser's servitude to Hunzrin family over."
That was not the terms of our agreement. When I have Liriel Baenre under my power, you will be free," Shakti reminded him.
The creature scowled, and then it brought forth a tremendous belch. Its thin lips pursed and it spat a small dart at Shakti's feet. This did Ssasser swallow, when through the door Ssasser came. A good trap, it was. If Ssasser knew not about the magic trip-wire, dead might Ssasser be."
Shakti kicked the dart aside. Among the dark naga's many talents was the ability to swallow virtually anything without harm. Weapons, poisons, spellbooks-all were safely stowed in the internal organ that allowed the naga to carry whatever it needed. Granted, catching a crossbow-fired dart was a bit out of the ordinary, but the naga had clearly been up to the challenge.
"Cost Ssasser, it did, the spell of invisibility," the dark naga hinted.
"And you will have another, at no additional charge," the priestess promised. Above all its other weapons, the naga was prized for its magical ability. The high cost of developing its natural magic often forced the nagas into servitude. This creature was in debt too deeply to buy its way free of the Hunzrin family anytime soon, so Shakti felt she could be generous.
She bade the snake-thing return to House Hunzrin, and then began the search of the castle. Liriel's home was, as Shakti expected, a virtual den of dissolution. Since the Hunzrin priestess had little interest in luxuries, she gave most of the house scant attention. The one room she want-ed was the study.
And in it, she found what she sought. Books were rare and expensive, but Liriel had more than her fair share of them. Most, beautifully bound in rare leathers and embossed with elegant drow runes, were neatly organized on shelves. Shakti gave these no more than a glance. She was more interested in the crude,