Windwalker - Elaine Cunningham [16]
A cruel and far-sighted plan, the yochlol observed. Lolth is pleased.
Shakti's gaze dropped to her skeletal snakes, which were wrapped companionably around her arms and waist. For a long moment she struggled to contain the central question of her existence. It burst out of her, regardless.
"If Lolth is pleased, why did she favor Liriel Baenre over me?"
A lesser goddess has shown favor to this girl. That, Lloth cannot abide.
A shiver of dread raced down Shakti's spine. After all, she herself had a foot in two divine camps! As she considered this answer, however, it seemed that the whole story had not been told.
"Other drow follow other gods. I have never heard that Lolth pursues and rewards these heretics. Why grant such gifts to Liriel, when better, more loyal priestesses would gladly receive them?"
The yochlol's face twisted in unmistakable scorn. Do you think the goddess answers your prayers out of love? Like most priestesses, you crave Lolth's power. Liriel Baenre does not. Indeed, it is a torment to her.
Understanding began to edge into Shakti's mind. Underlying the cruelty and chaos of the drow was a certain grim practicality. Whatever else a drow's actions might be, they were certain to be self-serving.
Suddenly Shakti knew the true reason for Lolth's interest in the runaway Baenre princess.
"So Liriel has been chosen to bear Lolth's power because she is willing to relinquish it!"
And what of you? the yochlol countered. Destroying the incubus would have been a pleasant diversion, yet you resisted in favor of a larger goal. What more would you be willing to relinquish?
A merchant bred and born, Shakti new better than to hand a blank note to any drow, living or dead, mortal or divine. "What does Lolth ask of me?" she parried.
Your burning desire to destroy the Baenre princess-could you bear to subject that to the will of Lolth?
For a long moment Shakti stood silent as pragmatism battled mightily against hatred. Her snakehead whip unwound itself from her and writhed about in a frenzied dance, giving silent testament to its mistress's agitation and indecision.
Finally the skeletal dance subsided, and the priestess lowered her head in submission to Lolth's handmaiden.
"Speak," she said grudgingly, "and I will do."
CHAPTER ONE
promises
Liriel stood at the rail of Leaping Narwhal, the sea breeze on her face and her white hair streaming behind her. The sunset colors had all but faded, and a rising moon silvered the waves. Her friend Fyodor was at her side, his back to the rail and his keen-eyed gaze following the on-duty crew as they prepared the ship for the coming of night.
"Lord Caladorn seems a capable sailor," he observed, nodding toward the tall, auburn-haired man lowering the foresail.
The drow reluctantly dragged her attention from the splendors of the sea to the human nobleman. "Hrolf didn't trust him."
"True, but Hrolf believed Lord Caladorn to be an enemy of the sea elves," Fyodor reminded her. "Had the captain lived, he would have learned his error."
She shrugged this aside. The pirate known as Hrolf the Unruly had, in a very short time, become more of a father to her than the drow wizard who'd sired her. Hrolf's death was a wound too new and raw to bear the weight of words.
"Ibn likes this Caladorn well enough. At least, he likes the color of the man's coins and the 'lord' before his name! It's lucky for us his lordship wanted passage to the mainland. Ibn never would have bestirred himself on our account."
Fyodor nodded and turned a troubled gaze toward Narwhal's new captain, a man of middle years and narrow mind, hunched over the wheel with a grim concentration that reminded Liriel of a duergar "enjoying" his morning gruel.
Though Liriel would never admit it, she shared Fyodor's unspoken concern. Ibn had been Hrolf's first mate, and he'd been a pebble in her boot from