Windwalker - Elaine Cunningham [25]
Faint, mocking laughter rang through his head. Once a wolf, always a wolf, taunted a too-beautiful female voice, speaking in a strange language that he somehow understood.
Liriel covered her ears. "She was listening to us," she said in a despairing whisper. "Fyodor, leave me now."
"No."
"You don't understand! No male comes between a priestess and her goddess and lives!"
"What of it? You are no priestess."
"I was," Liriel said, "and She's not going to let me go."
"She has no choice," Fyodor said firmly. "No god, no goddess can force worship upon a sovereign soul. You wish to be free of her?"
"Yes!"
"Tell her so."
"I have."
"Again," Fyodor urged, "then one time more. Repudiate a god three times, and all ties are broken. All the old stories promise this."
It seemed worth a try. Liriel nodded and took a deep breath. "Lady Lolth, I am your priestess no longer. Mother Lolth, I am your child no more," she said in whisper.
The chill intensified. Liriel noted the pallor of her friend's face, the blue-gray hue that touched his lips. Her fear for him returned, and she tried to wriggle away. Fyodor shook his head and tightened his grip, then drew his cloak around them both. The warmth they shared coursed through them both, pushing back the darkness and cold.
The drow and her sworn guardian clung together for several moments, breath abated as they awaited the dark goddess's response.
Moments passed, and there was nothing but the sounds of the crew at work and the slap of water against the ship.
Liriel slipped from Fyodor's arms and stepped away. The moon-cast shadow before her was her own-an image of a small, slender drow with shoulders squared and head thrown defiantly back.
She resisted the temptation to wilt with relief and sent Fyodor a wan grin. "Next time I tease you about those moldy tales of yours, remind me of this moment."
"Better that we both forget," he countered. "These things belong in the past, and there they will remain."
"Will they?" she said, her voice suddenly serious.
"You must make it so. Do not speak that name. Do nothing to invoke Her return."
"Hoy, First Axe!" shouted a rough male voice.
They both turned toward the call. For a short time, Fyodor had held this title and acted as a war leader on Ruathym. Some of the men who'd fought beside him sailed on Narwhal.
A few of the sailors stood idle, gazing toward the drow and her champion quizzically as they tried to make sense of Liriel's latest, inexplicable outburst. Most, however, were busily employed with tending the wounded, rolling dead bullywugs over the rail, or swabbing the gore of battle off the decks. One man stood apart, his bloody mop raised to point at the moon. Fyodor recognized him as Harlric, a grizzled veteran of sea and sword. Winging across the moon was a dark, avian form, one he also knew.
"A raven?" he murmured.
Liriel came to his side, one hand shielding her eyes from the bright moonlight. This was a mystery, one that lay close to them both. Fyodor's fond name for her was "little raven," and in her time on the surface she'd learned enough of these intelligent, uncanny birds to appreciate the comparison and to understand the oddity of this sighting.
"Don't they fly only by day? And aren't we still two or three days from land?"
He nodded. "This is no natural creature."
"Full moon," one of the men observed sagely." Tis the time for strange visitations. Killed me a werewolf once, and at the full of the moon."
"Full moon or no, it's an omen," muttered another man. His fingers shaped a gesture of warding, and he cast a suspicious glance at the drow. "An evil omen!"
"Not according to the First Axe's stories," insisted Harlric. "The way he tells it, the raven carries messages twixt one world and t'other. Must be important news to bring a land-loving bird so far out to sea."
"Must be," agreed the slayer of werewolves, his eyes following the messenger's spiraling descent. "It's a-comin' in. Who here's on speakin' terms with a raven?"
No one moved forward. The bird banked sharply and veered away in a rising circle. Fyodor