Tangled webs - Elaine Cunningham [168]
When at last no more elves emerged from the tower, Liriel began to chant the words to a spell that would close the portal for all time. It was a difficult spell, made more taxing by the impatient, insistent power that coursed through her in a dark and pulsing tide. The Lady of Chaos had little love for the orderly discipline of wizardly magic. But Liriel pressed on, summoning all the power she could call her own, channeling it into one final, desperate spell. At last the ancient tower began to shake. Cracks rippled upward from the base, and the keep that had withstood the centuries collapsed into a pile of dust and rubble. Liriel coughed, choking on the clouds of roiling dust, and instinctively moved farther out to sea. She felt her innate levitation magic slip away, and she recognized, dimly, that there was nothing between her and the jagged rocks below but the power of a capricious goddess.
The girl's hand lifted, without act of will, and spat dark fire at a Luskan ship. The oiled canvas of the sail turned into a sheet of flame. Nearby a small Ruathen ship tossed wildly, rocked by the hands of a score of vengeful nereids. Pulses of energy coursed from Liriel's outstretched fingers into the sea near the beleaguered ship, heating the water around it to an instant boil. The screams of the scalded nymphs could be heard even over the sounds of battle and the crackle ofburning ships.
But to Liriel's ears, the only sound was the wild, exultant laughter that rang through her benumbed mind. Her defenses down, her strength spent, the young drow was utterly open to the power that held her in its demented hands. She felt with horrifying clarity each death, and Lloth's delight in it.
She had promised the Spider Queen a victory, but the chaotic goddess seemed to have lost sight of this goal amid the wondrous carnage of the moment. It did not seem to matter to the blood-drunk Lloth whether the slain were invaders or defenders, merrow or sea elves. There was no purpose to the killing, and no apparent end.
Liriel knew the depths of her own folly and bitterly regretted the course she had taken. Fyodor had warned her that there was a price for power; she should have realized that Lloth's would have to be paid in blood.
Despite the force of the battle rage that coursed through him, Fyodor could not take his eyes from the drow who floated above the haunted ruins. Never had she appeared so beautiful… or so deadly. She was no longer just Liriel, but a conduit for sheer, evil power. Many times he had seen her channel magic that seemed a burden too heavy for one so seemingly frail. This time, he knew with the surety of Sight, that unless he could stop her, Liriel would be consumed by the dark flame.
"Think, think," he admonished himself fiercely, He searched his storehouse of Rashemi tales and legends for inspiration, his frenzy-enhanced mind flashing from one possibility to the next. None told him how to challenge an elven goddess.
in desperation, Fyodor reached for the Windwalker, the ancient amulet that had linked him with the drow from the beginning. With it, Liriel had lent him the ability to control his berserker magic-and perhaps, to press its limits to untried heights.
With grim determination the young man sought a berserker's ultimate power, the hamfarir, which would send his spirit forth to do battle in the shape of some mighty animal.
The wind of the shape shifting rage had seemed a small thing compared to the change that now swept through him. Fyodor's spirit tore free of his physical form with a sensation that went far beyond pain. Leaving his body behind on the embattled ship, Fyodor willed himself into the form of a giant raven and sped forward to snatch Liriel from the hands of her goddess.
Chapter 25
As One
The sweep of wind from enormous wings