Tangled webs - Elaine Cunningham [150]
Given all that had happened, Liriel could not help but doubt her own memory and the conclusions she had drawn. She hadn't looked all that closely at the sprout she'd nibbled, nor did she truly know whether or not Dagmar had had anything to do with the attack on Holgerstead. Perhaps Fyodor was right-perhaps the power Liriel courted was changing her. Perhaps it was already warping her perspective and inflaming her desire for petty revenge.
Liriel resented Dagmar for her early condescension and for her attempt to seduce Fyodor. That alone would be enough to send many a drow into an out-of-control fury. So many of her people were blinded by their singleminded lust for vengeance. She wondered if this was the taint left by the worship of Lloth, the ash that remained upon the soul when the flame of power burned low.
The young drow had always taken great pride in her independence of mind. She had chosen and controlled her own destiny to an extent unimagined by most of Menzoberranzan's drow. But it occurred to her now that in her quest to retain her drow powers, she might well have lost much of herself. Where one began and the other left off, she could no longer say.
Finally, too heartsick and exhausted to ponder the matter more, Liriel entered Ulf's cottage and climbed the ladder into the loft. She plunged gratefully into slumber and the oblivion it offered.
Much later that night, a soft, weighty pressure stole the drow's breath and tore her from slumber. Instinctively her fingers closed on the dagger that lay within reach. She lunged upright, slashing out as she rose.
in a haze of lazily drifting duck feathers stood Dagmar, dressed in her nightclothes and holding half of a severed pillows lip in each hand. The woman and the drow stared at each other in stunned astonishment.
"You might have killed me," whispered the Northwoman.
"That was the general idea," Liriel snarled. She rolled off the far side of the bed, putting some space between herself and the much larger human. "What in the Nine Hells do you think you're doing, intruding upon me like this? it might be your fathers house, but it's my room! And haven't you the sense not to creep up on a sleeping drow?"
Dagmar shrugged. "i was downstairs, unable to sleep. I heard you call out as if you were in danger."
"And so you rushed to my aid armed with a pillow?" Liriel sneered. "This, from a daughter of warriors!"
The girl's chin lifted. "When i entered the room the first time," she said evenly, "i was relieved to find that you were threatened only by a bad dream. I saw that you did not have a pillow. I brought you one, thinking it might help you sleep better."
"You put it on my face," Liriel pointed out.
"it fell from my hand," Dagmar returned.
Liriel stared at the girl for a long moment. All of her earlier suspicions returned to her, for she had caught Dagmar in not one lie, but two. Yet the young Northwoman's face was set in strong, certain lines, and there was no hint of duplicity in her pale blue eyes.
The wench was good, Liriel acknowledged with a touch of perverse admiration. She hoped her own performance, as she accepted Dagmar's explanations and sent her on her way, was equally convincing.
Liriel waited until she heard the faint creaking of the roping that supported Dagmar's mattress. She eased on her elven boots and cloaked herself in her piwafwi. Silent and invisible, she crept down the ladder into the main room of the cottage, then wriggled out an open window into the night.
The drow made her way swiftly to the barracks where Fyodor slept. She found his room and shook him awake. Acting on sudden impulse, Liriel crawled under the blankets and nestled into Fyodor's arms. She poured out her story-beginning with her own self-doubts and fearful misgivings.