Windwalker - Elaine Cunningham [39]
Gathering up her robe, she began to run. There were rocks ahead, large chucks of her homeland no doubt spat up by some long-ago tremor. Now she perceived the swift run of water, getting loud enough to hear over the rustling underfoot. It was said that mountains, like inverted caverns, often housed caves, and caves offered portals to the Underdark.
Her foot caught on something hard and fibrous, hidden beneath the drifting papery bits. She pitched forward, too fast and too hard to twist aside or prepare her fall. She saw the scattering of rocks awaiting her then saw nothing at all.
Some time later, Shakti stirred and groaned. Her head throbbed, and her eyes burned as if she'd been staring into candlelight. Moments passed before she could manage to open them.
A scene of utmost horror was stretched out before her.
The sun had risen, sending punishing golden light through the strange place. The little papery things seemed to glow with that light, showing every color from crimson to russet, from amber to a brilliant yellow-red shade Shakti had never seen. Even brighter were those bits still affixed to the tall structures, like scales on a molting dragon. The cries of unseen creatures filled the air with mocking laughter. Small, winged demons, some of them brightly feathered, hopped along the intertwined walkways overhead, no doubt casting some fell and foul spell. Small marvel the incubus was drawn to such a place!
Shakti dragged herself to a sitting position and took stock of her situation. There was a large lump on her forehead and a bit of dried blood. Her body felt battered and bruised, but that was to be expected. She'd had five long chains of reptilian bone wrapped around her when she hit the ground. Her whip!
Its familiar embrace was gone. She pawed frantically through the bright debris in case it had dropped away during her fall. In a moment she could no longer deny what she knew would occur. The whip was gone-destroyed by the wicked sun.
A wave of desolation swept through her. The badge of a high priestess, the mark of Lolth's favor. It might be years before she would be granted another, and never would she have so won-drously macabre a weapon!
Something rustled through the piles of fragile scales. Shakti pulled the knife from her belt and leaped to her feet, whirling toward the sound.
Her head spun, and for a moment she was certain that the sight before her was nothing but a manifestation of her recent head injury. Slithering toward her, its five skeletal heads moving this way and that like the fingers on a dancer's undulating hand, was her snake-headed whip. The central head was held high, and draped limply from its bony jaws was a plump, soft-furred creature. This it lay at her feet.
Shakti sank to the ground and plunged her knife into the small beast. She swiftly slit and peeled back the hide and sliced off a strip of still-warm flesh. For several moments she cut, chewed, and swallowed, savoring the first real nourishment she had had for many days.
As her hunger ebbed, astonishment took its place. The snake whip had hunted for her. Never had she heard of such a thing!
The deeper marvel was that it could.
Shakti snatched up a handful of her new cloak. It glittered in the bright light, a brilliant black in which danced colors she had never dreamed possible.
A priestess's whip, a piwafwi-such things should have disintegrated with the coming of the sun! What in the name of Lolth's eighth leg was happening?
Carefully she removed the bubble from the hidden pocket of her robe. It fairly hummed with life, the malevolent energy undimmed. Gone, however, was the murky gray. The tiny globe was translucent again, and a tiny storm seemed to be raging within. Shakti held it up and gazed inside. A tiny dark figure whirled and danced in wild exultation. As if it sensed Shakti's scrutiny, it came