Tangled webs - Elaine Cunningham [119]
The day was nearly spent before Liriel saw the highpitched roofs of Ruathym village. As she walked, one of the skald's songs echoed in her memory-a newly composed ballad that honored the little warrior known as the Raven. For the first time, the adrift and restless drow felt a tendril of herself reach out and take root in this strange land. And one more curving line was added to the rune that was slowly taking shape in her mind.
Chapter 16
The Captain's Conspiracy
The Regent of Ascarle bent low over the scrying crystal attuned to her aboleth ally, staring into the smooth surface long after the vision had faded away-along with the creature's life-force. The illithid was not pleased by the loss of the aboleth, or by the fish-thing's failure to kill and consume the drow wizard. Vestress wanted the powers wielded by Liriel Baenre, and learning of them secondhand from the aboleth had seemed a reasonable approach to take.
The illithid had witnessed Liriel's escape from the aboleth's charm spell, and she was intrigued that a single drow could command so much strength of mind and magic. She was not in error in suspecting that this drow, with her wizardly spells and her Underdark magic, might yet provide the answer to a vexing problem.
For all her power, despite the myriad secret tentacles tbat probed into the affairs of much of tbe Nortblands, Vestress had lost her ties to her own ancient heritage. She was a rogue illithid, cast off from the city where she'd been spawned, denied the community of collective minds that sustained her kindred. The self-proclaimed Regent of Ascarle was desperate to establish contact with others of her kind. She had tried, many times before. Some of her efforts had failed entirely; most succeeded at least in expanding the reach and tbe power of the Kraken Society. But as the illithid's power grew, so also did her frustration and her obsessive desire to overcome anything that stood against her. One failure that weighed heavily upon Vestress was tbat which had been exiled to Ruathym.
Many years ago, Vestress had wrested the city of Ascarle from other hands. Fell creatures and evil spirits had haunted the near-ruins buried in tbe watery depths north oftbe purple Rocks. Most fearsome was tbe banshee who watched over the sunken treasure. The creature had been a wizard, a member of a drow army tbat had marched against the elven city in centuries beyond memory, only to be destroyed in turn when the rush of melting glaciers swept Ascarle away. The drow wizard had remained beyond death, transformed into a banshee, protecting the lost magical treasures of the city from any who might try to claim them. Vestress had overcome the banshee in a titanic magical battle and banished the undead drow to some unknown place. Thus had things remained for many years.
Then came iskor, the water wraith, and the influx of extraplanar creatures such as nereids to add to the strength of Ascarle. Vestress was pleased-more so when these creatures inadvertently discovered a watery portal between the subterranean city and the distant island of Ruathym.
Midpoint between the Purple Rocks and the Moonshaes, due west from Waterdeep and lying on the warm river of water that ran eastward through the sea from the elves' island stronghold of Evermeet, Ruathym would be an important strategic addition to her empire. Vestress determined to add the island to the lands held in the grip of the Kraken Society. But when she tried to send her armies, she came up against an ancient and implacable enemy: the banshee, which had taken up residence in the watery portal.
Mindless in its purpose after the passage of centuries, the undead creature refused to let any living creature through the portal