Tangled webs - Elaine Cunningham [116]
Yet she could not reject the idea that Sittl might be such a creature. She had to know if this was possible, and the best way to do so would be to see a sahuagin with her own eyes, to see if the resemblance ran true to the Llothgranted vision.
As was usually the case with Liriel, action followed quickly upon decision. The young wizard hurried back to Hrolf's cottage. She cast a longing glance at her bed. Since leaving the ship she had been able to follow no set pattern of waking and sleeping hours, and the rumpled covers looked wonderfully inviting.
No time, she decided as she took from her pack a copy of the spellbook her father had given her. Any spell in that book could take most of the night to learn and cast.
Liriel paged to a particularly difficult spell-the one that had first introduced her to the priestesses of Eilistraee. The first time she had ventured to the surface, the wizard who served as her tutor had insisted that she seek out a company of dark elves. The spell had been attuned to search for such beings and to carry her to an open place a safe distance away. It was an unusual spell, every bit as difficult as she remembered. This time she did not have the assistance of her powerful drow mentor. It was nearly dawn when Liriel at last was ready to try.
The drow began to chant softly, swaying as she did, her hands weaving in a seemingly random, seeking pattern. She felt a sudden chill, the sharp tang of a cold northern wind, and knew the casting had worked. Exactly where the spell had taken her, she could not know.
All around her was the sound of the sea. She opened her eyes and scanned the shore. Here it was rocky and wild, with no natural harbor. Above her was a sharp cliff; beyond that wisps of smoke drifted lazily into the sky. Liriel wrapped herself in her piwarwi and floated up to the top of the bluff so that she might investigate the settlement beyond.
A glance told her she was still somewhere in Ruathym. The cluster of cottages were built of wood and decorated with intricate, interlocking arches and high-peaked roofs, a style identical to the buildings of a Ruathym village.
in the village, all seemed well. The cottages were silent; hounds slept undisturbed in the courtyards. Yet Liriel trusted in the spell that had brought her to this place, and she swept a seeking gaze over the village and the shore beyond.
Her keen eyes caught the shimmering ripple as something broke the surface of the sea. A hideous, fishlike head with huge round eyes and ears like small black fins emerged from the water. With quick, furtive movements the creature pulled itself out onto the rocks and scanned the bluff above. Roughly man-shaped, it was covered with dark green scales. Fanged jaws, like those of the deadly pyrimo fish found in Underdark waters, opened and closed as the creatures spoke sounds Liriel could not hear. It was a signal, apparently, for at least a score of other creatures crept from the waves and began to scale the cliff that separated the sea from the village.
"Sahuagin," Liriel whispered excitedly; There could be no doubt. These were the creatures described in the lore books, identical to the thing she had seen when she'd looked into Sittl. The long-haired sea ranger was almost certainly a malenti-a mutated sahuagin passing as a sea elf-and Xzorsh's life might well depend on her ability to convince him of this.
The drow's first impulse was to reverse the spell that had brought her here so she might warn the sea ranger at once. But as she watched the creatures scale the cliff her resolution wavered. One of them, smaller and slower than the others, failed to find a secure