Realms of the Underdark - J. Robert King [83]
Chapter Eight
Her Father's Daughter
The summons from the Narbondellyn district came early the next day. This time, Gromph Baenre sent word that Liriel's belongings were to be packed up and sent after her.
The young drow received this information stoically. In truth, Liriel did not regret her removal from House Shobalar. Perhaps she did not understand the full meaning of her own Blooding ceremony, but she knew with certainly that she could no longer remain in the same complex as Xandra Shobalar.
Liriel's reception at the archmage's mansion was about what she had expected. Servants met her and showed her to her apartment-a small but lavish suite that boasted a well-equipped library of spellbooks and scrolls. Apparently her father intended for her to continue her wizardly education. But there was no sign of Gromph, and the best the servants could do for Liriel was to assure her that the archmage would send for her when she was wanted.
And so it was that the newly initiated drow spent her first darkcycle alone, the first of what she suspected would be many such days and nights. Liriel found that the solitude was painfully difficult, and that the silent hours crept by.
After several futile attempts at study, the weary girl at last took to her bed. For hours she stared at the ceiling and longed for the oblivion of slumber. But her mind was too full, and her thoughts too confused, for sleep to find her.
Oddly enough, Liriel felt less triumphant than she should have. She was alive, she had passed the test of the Blooding, she had repaid Xandra's treachery with public humiliation, she had even devised a way to keep from slaying the human wizard.
Why was it, then, that she felt his blood on her hands as surely as if she'd torn out his heart with her own fingernails? And what was this soul-deep sadness, this dark resignation? Though she had no name to give this emotion, Liriel suspected that it would ever after cast a shadow upon her blithe spirit.
The hours passed, and the distant tolling of Narbondel signaled that the darkest hour was once again upon Menzoberranzan. It was then that the summons finally came; a servant bid Liriel to dress and await the archmage in his study.
Suddenly Liriel was less than anxious to face her drow sire. What would Gromph have to say about her unorthodox approach to the Blooding hunt and ceremony? During her three days of preparation, the archmage had repeatedly expressed concern about her judgment and ambition, pronouncing her too trusting and carefree, and he had wondered at the strange bias of her character. It seemed likely to her that he would not approve.
Liriel did as she was bid and hastened to her father's sanctum. She had not long to wait before Gromph appeared, still wearing the wondrous, glittering piwafwi that held an arsenal of magical weapons, and that proclaimed his power and his high office. The archmage acknowledged her presence with a curt nod and then sat down behind his table.
"I have heard what transpired at your ceremony," he began.
"The ritual was fulfilled," Liriel said earnestly-and a trifle defensively. "I might not have shed blood, but Matron Hinkutes'nat accepted my efforts!"
"More than accepted," the archmage said dryly. "The Shobalar matron is quite impressed with you. And more importantly, so am I."
Liriel absorbed this in silence. Then, suddenly, she blurted out, "Oh, but I wish I understood why!"
Gromph lifted one brow. "You really must learn to speak with less than complete candor," he advised her. "But in this case, no harm is done. Indeed, your words only confirm what I had suspected; you acted partly by design, but partly by instinct. This is indeed gratifying."
"Then you're not angry?" Liriel ventured. When the archmage sent her an inquiring look, she added, "I thought that you would be furious upon hearing that I did not actually kill the human."
Gromph was silent a long moment. "You did something far more important: you fulfilled both the spirit and the letter of the Blooding ritual, in layers of subtle complexity that did credit to you