Windwalker - Elaine Cunningham [124]
"And more," Thorn said softly. "My people believe that the ravens carry the souls of the dead to their afterlife."
The drow began to understand where this was going. She tucked the tapestry more firmly under her arm and strode off in the direction the birds had flown.
They came to a clearing and saw the ravens were not alone. A circle of large gray beasts gathered around the carcass of a boar. Wolves. Liriel recognized them from the pictures in one of her lore-books.
Thorn held out a hand to warn the drow back. "The ravens called the pack," she said softly. "They do that, sometimes."
This made no sense to Liriel. It was strange enough to share with their own kind, but to call large predators?
However, as she watched the wolves, she began to sense the pattern they followed. The largest male and the sole pregnant female ate first. All the others did homage to the royal pair and were in turn allowed their chance at the wild pig. The ravens ate, too, hopping forward to snatch at a morsel of meat then leaping away. No other bird was allowed. An inquisitive hawk settled on too low a branch. One of the smaller wolves jumped at the bird, which lifted off, squawking in protest.
Liriel noticed that Thorn was her regarding with speculation. "I'll try," she said testily, "but there's nothing I can do until nightfall."
"Understood."
They settled down to wait, watching as the wolves ate and slept then ate again. Little was left but the bone, and the pups carried many of those off as toys or trophies. The ravens, no nightbirds, winged off to their hidden place of rest.
Liriel spread the tapestry out on the ground. She tipped her head to the rising moon and listened for the song of distant places.
She heard first the faint music of Ysolde's drow, singing a welcome to the coming stars. Farther away was Qiluй, and still farther other drow whose names she did not know. Even in the depths of her magical trance, Liriel was stunned by the number of drow who walked beneath the stars. They were not many, certainly not enough to fill an Underdark city of any size, but it was amazing that even a handful survived.
Liriel touched her palm to the tapestry and listened. There, too, was music, a terrible cacophony of sound punctuated by the shrieks of the tormented elves. Beyond that, like the edge of light around a storm cloud, was another sound, another place. The beauty of it filled the young drow with awe and desperate longing.
Tears ran unchecked down her face. Liriel was not sure whether she wept for the horror the elves experienced, or the beauty that she herself would never know.
Still in trance, she began to sing. Without thinking what she did, she tugged a dark thread from the edge of the tapestry. She twisted the Windwalker open and threaded the wool through a loop in the hilt of the tiny chisel. Using this as a shuttle, she began to weave. Her fingers, though unschooled in this art, moved unerringly through the unfamiliar dance.
She was faintly aware of the circle of ravens gathering around her. A similar circle was taking shape on the tapestry, forming a ring of power around the tormented souls. One by one, the ravens took wing. The tapestry counterparts did likewise, and she imagined that the elves slowly began to disappear from the tapestry.
Liriel slowly eased back from her dream, her mind and heart still filled with the silvery light of it. She turned to the elf, blinking in surprise at the look of awe on Thorn's stern face.
Thorn pointed to the tapestry. There was nothing left upon it but a fine-woven cloth, the pale dull color of unbleached flax.
"They're gone," Liriel marveled.
"They are free," the elf woman said softly.
A quick, furtive skittered filled the clearing. Liriel glanced up sharply. Beyond the circle of light was another, darker circle, one that seethed with movement. Countless spiders, minions of Lolth, had felt the touch of Eilistraee's magic and had come to assert another deity's prior claim.
Liriel felt no fear. So great was her joy that there was no room in her heart to provide a foothold for Lolth's