Windwalker - Elaine Cunningham [24]
Fyodor fell silent for several moments. Liriel's gaze searched his face. "This story makes you sad. It's not finished, is it?"
He turned to face her. "Time passed, and a child was born to Vastish, a son who grew up with a wolf at his side. One day the boy was in the forest gathering mushrooms when he came across a den of wolf pups in the hollow of a bassilia tree. The mother returned. She defended her young." His bleak expression spoke of the child's fate, but the way he regarded Liriel suggested that this tale was not, first and foremost, the story of a lost boy.
"What happened to Ghost?"
"He was destroyed," Fyodor said. "The villagers feared that another child would learn to trust and would forget caution."
Liriel nodded. "Smart." Her eyes widened as she made the connection. "So you're telling me that if your people fall afoul of a drow, any drow, I'm the next Ghost?"
For a long time Fyodor didn't answer. "Not while I live," he vowed.
"Ah, then all will be well," Liriel said lightly, hoping this foolish human sentiment might tease the troubled look from his eyes. "You're very hard to kill-Lolth knows I've tried!"
Her blasphemous jest brought a faint smile to his lips, and again he reached for her hand, but before Fyodor could touch her, Someone else did.
A sudden and profound chill fell over Liriel, freezing her, body and soul, like the embrace of a malevolent spirit.
After the first shock, Liriel recognized a familiar presence, one she had welcomed during her short stay in Arach Tinileth. Back then, the young drow had looked upon Lolth with affection. The goddess listened to prayers and rewarded devotion with gifts of magic. This was a level of attention and generosity beyond anything Liriel had experienced. She knew the goddess better now. Lolth was no loving parent; Lolth was a power that corrupted and destroyed.
A jealous power.
Liriel's eyes darted to Fyodor's face, and in her mind's eye she saw again a devotion common in Menzoberranzan: a priestess walking swiftly to Lolth's altar, holding in bloody hands a tray bearing the still-beating heart of her lover. Such was the dedication Lolth demanded. Whenever lust's smoldering embers threatened to flame into something pure and bright, a drow's heart-fires were extinguished in blood.
She struck aside Fyodor's offered hand and backed away, her arms wrapped tightly around herself and her head shaking from side to side in frantic denial.
Fyodor instinctively took a step toward the drow. She shied away from him, flinging one hand toward him in vehement rejection.
"Get away. Get away!" she shrieked.
He watched as she continued to back away, her eyes wide with horror and fixed upon the deck. With the sudden surety of Sight, Fyodor realized that she was not fleeing something, so much as leading it away.
It was then that Fyodor saw the shadow-an enormous spider with the head of a beautiful elf woman. The rising moon was directly behind Liriel, and the shadow stalked her, moving with her as if it were her own.
Acting on impulse, Fyodor drew his sword and thrust it into the shadow-spider's heart. The blade bit deep between the deck's planking. Before he could release the hilt, a spurt of power-cold, dark, and angry-shot up through the sword and sent him hurtling backward through the air. He hit the ship's rail with a bone-shaking thud.
"Run," Liriel pleaded, "or swim. Anything, but stay away!"
He could not understand the anguish in her voice, but neither could he leave her to fight this battle alone. He pushed himself off the rail and came back in at a run. Instead of renewing his attack, he took Liriel in his arms, sweeping her aside and standing so that their combined shadow covered that of the Spider Queen.
"You have no hold upon Liriel," he said softly, speaking directly to the lurking evil. "You have broken with her and she with