Windwalker - Elaine Cunningham [137]
"Strong," the witch said somberly.
The drow buried her face in both hands. "I thought only of myself. I never once thought this could come of it!"
Zofia reclaimed Liriel's hands in hers, and her blue eyes gazed earnestly into the drow's. Her face showed deep concern but no condemnation.
"What you did was not done alone. When one thing is bound, another is broken. When one thing is healed, another is destroyed. This is the nature of magic and of all life. Your sisters know this."
She looked up at the black-robed women. They nodded silent agreement.
Liriel sat bolt upright, ignoring the wave of vertigo the sudden movement caused. "Lolth spoke to me of this. If she would speak to one, why not another?"
She pushed herself to her feet. "There was a priestess with the drow, a female who fought me before over the goddess's favor. If Lolth speaks to this priestess, the drow of the Underdark will know everything!"
"Have you any reason to think that they don't already know?"
Liriel nodded grimly. "These warriors were sent by my father and his sister. They are among the ruling elite of the city in which I was born. These warriors were their personal troops," she stressed.
"So they wish to keep this secret to themselves," Zofia reasoned.
"It will come out in time," the drow said with the surety of long experience. "Sooner, if Gorlist and his band learn of it."
She looked around for Fyodor. A black-furred bear paused in the act of savaging a drow warrior, looking up as if it sensed her seeking thoughts. She gestured and headed for the forest, her legs becoming steadier with each step.
An unseen presence went with her. The ghostly woman whose form Liriel had worn for many days walked beside her, and her gait was no steadier than the battered drow's. Sylune was deeply shaken by what she had witnessed. In many ways she deeply regretted her impulsive journey to Rashemen. She'd reconciled herself to her death, but it was difficult to walk unseen through a land she had known as a living woman, to see Zofia, who had been like a sister, as a powerful but aging woman.
Sylune had never been an ordinary woman, and she was no ordinary ghost, but she, too, had felt the call of the Windwalker and the cool brush of ghosts and spirits as they passed her on their way into the powerful circle.
She could have been part of that. Perhaps her magic would have changed the outcome, shattered the link between the Underdark and the surface rather than strengthening it.
Perhaps. Even one of Mystra's Chosen did not know all of magic, nor did a ghost understand all there was to know of the Afterlife. If Sylune had heeded the Windwalker's call, what might have become of her?
The ghosts and spirits released with the Windwalker's greatest and final task had dispersed, each going to the place it belonged, the place it most wanted to be. Where would she, Sylune, have gone?
Most likely she would have returned to Shadowdale and resumed the existence she'd known for years: a spectral harper, more solid and sentient than most ghosts. Perhaps she would have returned to life. Or would she have moved on at last?
For a moment Sylune allowed herself to hear the poignant call of her goddess, to feel the warmth and healing that would change this half-life into something immeasurably better. Joy and pain filled her in equal measure as she contemplated what might have been and what might yet be.
At the end, Sylune did what she had always done. She chose duty.
With a sigh, the witch of Shadowdale turned her silent steps homeward, and left Rashemen to the living, and to the spirits who were as much a part of this land as stone and sky.
Sharlarra saw the drow girl leave the battlefield, walking unsteadily at the side of an enormous black bear. Her first impulse was to follow, then she remembered her own guardian animal.
The elf sprinted toward the place where she'd left Moonstone half-hidden among the trees. Dread filled her. She'd heard the swift-spreading stories about the Windwalker and the powerful magic it had