Tangled webs - Elaine Cunningham [8]
Wishing to ease her distress, Fyodor strode to Liriel's side and pointed down into the dark water. Below them, swimming for the ship with strong, steady strokes, was the captain. "He dove in right after he set you aflight," he explained.
Liriel nodded, and her lips curved in a smile of relief Then, in one of the abrupt changes of mood that Fyodor had come to know so well, she lifted her chin to an imperious angle and turned a lance-sharp glare upon the first mate. "What do you mean by this delay? Get the captain aboard at once!"
ibn recoiled as if he'd been stabbed, but he was accustamed to following orders, and the drow female gave them with the force and conviction of a war chieftain. Before the mate realized what he was about, he'd already set the rudder and tossed a coiled rope over the rail.
The coil unfurled as it flew, and ibn's aim was true. Hrolf seized the knotted end and began to pull himself hand over hand toward the ship. In moments he scrambled over the rail to stand, dripping and triumphant, on his own deck.
"Good lad, ibn," he said heartily, slapping the mate on the back with a force that nearly sent the man sprawling. "The water gates lie ahead; be ready to raise her."
But the mate had other things on his mind. "What do we want with her?" he said bluntly, tossing a dark glare and a curt nod at the drow.
Hrolf flung back one dripping braid and faced down the red-bearded sailor. "This is Liriel, a princess in her own land and a wizard worth any ten i've seen this mooncycle!" he announced in a voice loud enough to reach every man on the ship. "She's also a paying passenger. See to it you treat her with proper respect, or answer to me. And know this: the man who lays a hand on her loses it."
A moment of stunned silence met the captain's words. "But she's an elf," protested one of the men, voicing a typical Northman's distrust of the fey folk.
"She's a drow!" added another fearfully, for the dark elves' vile reputation was known in a hundred lands.
"She's a she."
This last observation, voiced in dire tones, apparently summed up the crew's protests. The men nodded and muttered among themselves, many of them forming signs of warding.
"Oh, stow your nonsense with the rest of the cargo!" Hrolf roared, suddenly out of patience. "All my days i've heard that a female aboard meant ill luck, but never have i seen a sign of it! Has yon lass caused us a moment's trouble?" he demanded, pointing to the enormous figurehead.
"Not a bit of it; the elf maid brings good fortune," one of the crew ventured thoughtfully.
"That she does," the captain stated, and his voice rang out, as powerful and persuasive as that of a master thespian. "Never has a storm taken us unaware; never have creatures of the sea decided to make of us a midday meal! And what of the men who claimed the elf maid would bring us to grief? How many of those men sleep in Umberlee's arms, and our time not yet come?"
The uniformly angry expressions on the Northmen's faces wavered, fading to puzzlement or indecision. Hrolf, who apparently knew his men well, waited for the planted idea to take root. "i say it's high time the Elfmaid was honored by one of her own," he stated. "Besides, who but the black lass has the magic needed to take us up through the gates? With half of Skullport on my heels, d'you suppose the Keepers will send us through without question and blow us kisses to speed our way?"
There was no arguing with Hrolf's logic, and the crew knew it. The Keepers were hired mages who raised ships though magical locks leading from the underground port to the Sea Caves-an impassable and rock-strewn inlet south ofWaterdeep-and from there to the open seas. These magical portals had been established centuries earlier by Halaster, a mighty wizard who'd left his insane stamp on nearly every corridor of the Undermountain, and to this day the gates were the only way to move ships to and from Skullport. Without the permission of the Keepers-or the aid of a powerful wizard-the Elfmaid