Windwalker - Elaine Cunningham [38]
The deathsinger shrugged and subsided. Gorlist would hear this song sung in time, whether he wished to or not.
A sharp, tingling heat flared along the palm of Shakti's hand. She couldn't see the incubus, but she could sense its movement. Her exhaustion forgotten, she strode quickly through the swirling, gray mists.
With difficulty she turned her attention back to the Handmaiden. "With your permission, of course."
/ will accompany you.
This was not what Shakti had expected, but she gave a quick nod and set off briskly. To her relief, the yochlol kept pace, its fluid form oozing along like a giant snail under a speed enchantment.
Before long they came to a stone arch pierced by eight rounded portals. In the center of each floated a peculiar skull. As they slowly rotated, they revealed the remains of not one but three sets of features. The six eye sockets of each skull glittered with crimson light. For a moment Shakti marveled that she could have missed so bright a landmark. Curious, she took a single step back. The arch disappeared in the gray mists. Quickly she stepped back, fearful of loosing the portal she had sought for so long.
The yochlol's form shifted and flowed into two armlike appendages. Over one was draped a fine spidersilk robe, over the other, a glittering piwafwi.
Clothe yourself as befits a matron heir, the yochlol commanded. Then you will take the priestess back to Menzoberranzan.
Shakti quickly stripped off her tattered clothing and replaced them with the new garb. "As Lolth commands, I do. But tell me this: Why is Liriel so important?"
The answer lies in the light. It is your task to find it.
One of the yochlol appendages flattened, like a hand spreading out palm-up. On it rested a translucent bubble.
The drow's eyes widened with astonishment. This was a soul bubble! She had heard of them but never expected to see one. The crafting of them involved complicated spells and many layers of cruel necromantic magic. Such devices could contain a soul for centuries, be the captive alive or dead, and return the soul to mortal life at will.
Shakti's lips curved in a wicked smile. So she was to bring Liriel back alive or dead. No need to ponder that choice overlong! Moreover, she could think of few things that would be of greater torment to her nemesis than imprisonment. Shakti would have to let Liriel out eventually, but she would savor each moment of her captivity.
The yochlol shifted once more, this time into a thick gray mist. This flowed toward Shakti as if it were being sucked into the bubble. Swiftly the yochlol disappeared, and the small globe turned dull and cloudy. There was no sense of weight within, but Shakti could feel the malevolent energy.
For a moment she regarded the bubble, not sure what was going on. Perhaps Lolth did not trust her to deal with Liriel. Perhaps, Shakti admitted reluctantly, with good reason. With a yochlol at her side, she would be more than a match for the princess.
Well?
The yochlol's voice sounded sharply in Shakti's mind. She stepped through the portal…
… And found herself in a place stranger than she had ever seen or imagined.
All around her were tall, dark, thin structures that moaned and creaked and rattled. The air here was cold and swift-moving, and small papery things drifted down from on high and collected in drifting piles underfoot. Shakti looked up, past the tall things and beyond to the sapphire sky. Bright pinpricks of light brightened it, the "stars" that were said to inspire faerie elves to insipid orgies of dance and song.
A familiar panic gripped her, that strange vertigo she had experience upon the humans' sea-going ship. It was not natural, these vast distances. At least her gods-granted eyesight swiftly adapted to the new conditions of light.
Light.
Shakti's head snapped toward the blood-bright smoke staining the edge of the sky. She hissed a curse, the vilest and most hated word in the drow language, that which named the horror that surface dwellers called the Sun.
She looked wildly about for shelter. The soul bubble