Windwalker - Elaine Cunningham [7]
Oh yes, he saw too much, this son of her blood and her spirit.
"Find the Windwalker," she repeated. "With it you will find your destiny and perhaps that of all Rashemen."
REPRISE
unconquered foes
Skullport, DR 1361
In many a Waterdeep tavern, ballads are sung of an ancient city doomed by the evil of its inhabitants. According to the song, the city was swallowed by rock and sea, and the gods raised a vast headstone to mark its grave.
Most of the revelers who join in drunken refrain have no idea they are drinking in the shadow of this "headstone," which is in fact Mount Waterdeep. Few realize that the city of Skullport lies directly beneath them and that it is far from dead.
Skullport's streets and shanties sprawl untidily through a series of enormous stone caverns, and networks of tunnels delve throughout the northlands and under the sea itself.
In a remote corner of one of these warrens, a dark figure floated along the ceiling of a narrow stone passage. His drow magic kept him aloft, well above the magical wards and alarms that would betray his approach. He pulled himself from one jagged handhold to the next, moving carefully toward the moment that had filled his dreams since the day he'd first met Liriel Baenre.
Gorlist, the warrior son of the wizard Nisstyre and second in command of the mercenary band Dragon's Hoard, struggled to tune out the alluring clash of weapons echoing through nearby stone corridors as drow fought drow. The enemy whose death he desired above all others would not be among the sword-wielding priestesses of Eilistraee.
A warning heat began to kindle in the drow's left cheek. He slapped a hand over the dragon-shaped tattoo emblazoned there with magical ink-a talisman that warned of nearby dragons and indicated with faint, colored light the creature's kind and nature. No telltale glow spilled through his fingers. There was a dragon ahead, but it was a deepdragon, a creature of darkness.
The drow scowled. Of course that would be Pharx, for what deepdragon would allow an interloper so close to its lair? Pharx was a powerful ally. Any battle the dragon joined would be short and decisive. Victory was important, of course, but Gorlist had his own vengeance to consider.
With an impatient flick of his ebony fingers, Gorlist dispelled the levitation magic holding him aloft. He swooped toward the tunnel floor like a descending raven and hit the stone floor at a run. The time for secrecy and stealth was past.
Gorlist raced toward his father's hidden sanctum, leaving in his wake blinding explosions of magical lights and alarms that keened like vengeful banshees. The wall ahead shifted, and a ten-foot, two-headed ettin broke away from the stone. The monster rose up before him, blocking the passage with menacing bulk and a spiked club. Gorlist ran through the utterly convincing illusion as easily as a pixie might flit through a rainbow.
The tunnel traced a curve, then ended abruptly in solid stone. Gorlist sped around the tight turn and hurled himself at the wall, leaping high into the air and snapping both feet out in a powerful double kick. The "stone" gave way, and he crashed through the hidden door.
Wood shattered, and spellbooks tumbled to the floor as the concealing bookshelf gave way. Gorlist rolled quickly and came up in a crouch, a long dagger in each hand. With a swift, practiced glance he took in the small battlefield.
His father's study was empty.
It was also a disaster. Cracks slithered up the stone walls. Artwork hung askew or lay broken on the mosaic floor, which had buckled and heaved until it was little more than a pile of rubble. Part of the ceiling had given way, and chunks of it lay in heaps against one wall. Dust still rose from the recent stonefall, and water released from some tiny, hidden stream overhead dripped steadily onto the rubble.
Gorlist nodded, understanding what had happened. As he'd anticipated, Liriel Baenre had come to reclaim