Daughter of the Drow (32 page)

Kharza-kzad was now a lichdrow, a dark-elven wizard who existed beyond death, beyond the limitations of mind and body. Invulnerable, nearly invincible, the undead creature could cast at will all the spells gathered throughout its centuries of life.

The lichdrow soared upward, pausing only upon becoming eye-level with its dumbfounded enemy. It raised a skeletal hand. Clasped in the bony fingers was a slender metal rod, still glowing with the lava’s borrowed heat.

“My finest creation,” announced the undead wizard in a whisper as dry as desiccated bone. “A wand of lichdom. Would you care to see it demonstrated again—on you, perhaps?”

Nisstyre was terribly outmatched, but even now he was determined to have the final word. He clasped a ring of teleportation that would take him from this place, and he painted a mocking smile on his face.

“Perhaps several centuries from now, when I have witnessed Vhaeraun’s triumph and have grown tired of life, I might be tempted to accept your offer. When that time comes, I will no doubt find you still here.”

And with those words, the merchant summoned the magic that would take him out of the volcano and beyond reach of the lichdrow Xorlarrin.

In time, the former Kharza-kzad might find his way back to Menzoberranzan, but Nisstyre knew the wizard had few gate spells at his command. He’d made sure—or at least, as reasonably certain as one drow could be about the secrets of another—that Kharza knew no way back into his own Spelltower. At the present, therefore, Nisstyre felt safe enough in returning to the city.

He might not have gotten the information he needed from Kharza, but there was another drow in Menzoberranzan who knew more about Uriel’s plans than she would admit. It was time to get seek out his new partner.

Shakti Hunzrin had just returned to Tier Breche when the summons came. Along with a dozen other high-level students, she was attending a tutorial session on accessing the lower planes and conversing with its denizens. The subject held little interest for Shakti; indeed, after the events of the last few days, all of her studies at Arach-Tinilith seemed no more than a dreary anticlimax. She would have welcomed almost any interruption.

Almost.

Eight armed female guards—part of the elite forces of House Baenre—came to the very door of the classroom and respectfully commanded Shakti to accompany them. With them was a driftdisc, the floating magical conveyance used by the most powerful of matrons and priestesses. Shakti had never expected to ride on one, and she took little pleasure in it now as she glided in state toward the Baenre fortress, surrounded by her prestigious escort. For in sending a driftdisc, Matron Triel was not honoring her guest but blatantly displaying her own might and position. To Shakti, it seemed the logical first step toward a very public execution. Lloth might have decreed no priestess kill another, but the Baenre clan always seemed to be beyond law.

Her prospects did not brighten when they reached the Baenre fortress. She was ushered into the very heart of the first house—the vast chapel. Gromph pushed past her at the door, looking grim and sullen. Shakti understood why at once: eight Baenre priestesses gathered about the altar. A dark rite would be performed in this chamber that no mere male could witness.

Matron Triel beckoned Shakti to come toward the altar. As the younger priestess drew near, the matron slowly raised her arm. In it was a whip armed with the heads of two angry, writhing snakes.

“Lloth knows what is in your heart,” Triel said in Ťher cold, even voice. She began to advance, slowly, a glint of mocking pleasure in her usually unreadable eyes.

At that moment Shakti understood the Spider Queen had witnessed her deal with Nisstyre and had informed the First Matron of her treachery. Because there was nothing else to do, Shakti stood awaiting the first lash of the whip. To her utter astonishment, the Baenre matron turned the whip and offered it, handle first, to the younger drow.

“By the command of Lloth, you are to be elevated to high priestess. This whip will be yours. Ascend the altar for the rite of atonement.”

Not without fear, Shakti did as she was commanded. She had witnessed the rite, which was usually administered after the graduation ceremonies. It was not a sight for the fainthearted. But she would have undergone the rite gladly, had she trusted Triel to actually go through with it.

For once, the Baenre matron kept her word, and the circle of priestess enacted the ritual that attuned the weapon to the emotions of its sole wielder.

Much later, the eight priestesses helped Shakti down from the altar. The living snakes that had bound her there slithered off into the shadows, but for the three which had been magically added to the whip. Shakti admired her new weapon with a mixture of pride and awe. Five heads! Few priestesses commanded as many, and such a whip was a sign of Lloth’s highest favor.

Triel dismissed the other priestesses with a wave of her hand and then motioned Shakti into a seat.

“We must now talk about your future,” she said bluntly. “You need not return to the Academy, except to attend the graduation ceremonies when the time comes. You are free to attend your family business, bearing the full rank and honor of a high priestess. If that business takes you from Menzoberranzan from time to time, so be it. House Baenre and House Hunzrin have worked together in the past. We will do so again, as never before, to the glory of the Queen of Spiders.”

The hidden meaning in Matron Triel’s words begin to dawn on Shakti. She was supposed to serve House Baenre as a traitor-priestess! From time to time the matriarchy uncovered a spy among the clergy—usually a male priest—who served Lloth on the surface, Vhaeraun underneath. The reversal was almost unknown, and the prospect of gaining such a double spy clearly had Triel salivating with dark glee.

Shakti absorbed this, and again glanced at the snake-headed whip tucked in her belt. Lloth was courting her. Her!

Triel continued to speak, outlining Shakti’s mission with precise detail and an occasional threat, but the Hunzrin priestess did not hear the matron’s words. Another voice, even more powerful, commanded her attention.

It was a whisper at first, a dark insinuating voice in her mind. Soft and seductive, the voice grew in power as it gave to Shakti spells of thought concealment. Gave them. Shakti knew beyond doubt she could cast the new spells at will, without rest or study.

These spells are but the first of my gifts. With them you can swear to Lloth, insisted the voice, yet maintain first loyalty to me.

The voice continued, giving promises of power, claiming immortality was his to give, even hinting he had not yet found a worthy drow consort.

Shakti had never prayed to Vhaeraun, but with awe she recognized the voice of the Masked Lord. The drow god was not only real, but he was also powerful enough to speak hidden words in Lloth’s inner sanctum! And she listened, tempted, without incurring the Spider Queen’s wrath. The mind shields of Vhaeraun were clearly more powerful than any that Shakti knew, for the snake heads, which would have turned at once upon a faithless priestess, continued to writhe companionably at her side. Spells such as these could mean the difference between life and death in Menzoberranzan, where every high priestess could read the thoughts of another.

Two deities, marveled Shakti, vying for her allegiance! This put her in an impossibly dangerous position, but it also offered her power beyond her darkest dreams. She might not survive, but she would not refuse.

Nisstyre’s interview with Shakti Hunzrin did not go at all as he’d expected. She’d come at his summons readily enough, but she swaggered into his place of power with the whip of a high priestess on her hip.

The wizard carefully masked his fear. For centuries, Lloth’s clergy had made a holy task of seeking out and destroying the followers of Vhaeraun. Shakti had no proof against him, but now that she was a high priestess a single word of accusation would be enough to have him flayed alive and hung in pieces from the various comers of Arach-Tinilith.

Well, accusations could be spoken both ways; she had offered to turn traitor-priestess.

“If you are sincere about your commitment to Vhaeraun, that thing will hardly endear you to the Masked Lord,” the male said dryly, pointed at the writhing snake-headed weapon.

Shakti gave him a smile of supreme confidence. “Vhaeraun is with me,” she said stoutly, and then she spoke a word of power that Nisstyre—himself a mighty wizard—had never heard. A dark shadow appeared, flitting around the room and then settling upon Shakti’s face, taking the form of a half-mask of blackest velvet. The wizard recognized the manifestation of Vhaeraun, the Masked Lord.

As Nisstyre watched in stunned silence, the double priestess held out her hand, palm up. Cradled within it was a gem, a sparkling ruby about the size and shape of a draw’s eye.

This is but one of the Masked Lord’s gifts to me,” Shakti said with dark pleasure. “In turn, I give it to you.”

Her velvet mask dissolved, reforming into the black shadow. The darkness flowed like smoke to engulf the wizard. Nisstyre’s astonishment turned to terror when he realized he could neither speak nor move.

Shakti advanced upon him, the ruby in her outstretched hand. She pressed it to Nisstyre’s forehead. With a searing hiss, the gem burned into his flesh and sank deep into his skull. The pain surpassed anything he had ever known or imagined. Only the steadying arms of his unseen, treacherous god kept him from falling to the floor.

At last the ordeal ended, and the white-hot pain in Nisstyre’s brain dulled to a burning throb. Shakti smiled and ran her fingers over the part of the gem still exposed. “A third eye,” she explained. The ruby is attuned to a scrying bowl that will enable me to see whatever you see, even in the Night Above.”

It was that term, more than anything, that convinced Nisstyre the drow god was truly with Shakti. Only the followers of Vhaeraun referred to the surface lands as the Night Above. The god had spoken with this priestess and had made her his own despite the weapons of Lloth she wielded. Which deity claimed Shakti’s deepest allegiance, Nisstyre could not know. That uncertainty made the priestess dangerous beyond reckoning.

“Wherever you go, my eyes will be upon you,” Shakti continued. “Through the power of the gem I can speak into your mind at will, and I can inflict terrible pain. If you try to betray me, you will die,” she announced with the newfbund calm and confidence of the truly powerful.

She settled into Nisstyre’s own chair, pointed to a lesser chair, and bade him take a seat. He did so, without any act of will on hie own part. “You have received the gift of Vhaeraun. Now it is Lloth’s turn.”

The wizard received this announcement with silent dread. If his own god had made him a virtual slave to this female, what might the Spider Queen do? Then came the second surprise: Lloth’s gift was information.

Shakti told him all she knew about Liriel Baenre’s amulet, even gave him copies of the notes the girl had written. The particulars of the young wizard’s experiments were not spelled out, but this much was clear: Liriel’s amulet was indeed the one Nisstyre had stolen from the human warrior, and it gave her the power to take both her innate drow magic and dark-elven wizardry into the Night Above.

Nigstyre received this news with an excitement that transcended his pain and humiliation. This was the key he sought, the thing that might lure the proud drow from their subterranean homeland! And if this device could be duplicated, what wonders might he accomplish! He envisioned an army of drow, a silent and invisible force sweeping the surface lands. With such a thing, Vhaeraun’s kingdom—and his own reign—was virtually ensured.

The wizard looked into Shakti’s glowing crimson eyes and saw there a lust for power to equal his own. “The interests of Vhaeraun and Lloth need not conflict,” he ventured. When Shakti did not interrupt, he continued with more confidence. “You know what this amulet could mean. If it falls into the hands of the matriarchy, it will only increase their power, fuel the endless chaos. The city will continue much as it has for centuries. But with such magic in my hands, I could entice an army of drow to the Night Above. You are young; before you end your second century of life this army could return and march to your command. You could come to rule Menzoberranzan.”

“And from Menzoberranzan, the Underdark,” Shakti added confidently. The First Directive of Lloth has been ignored for too long. Most drow will welcome the chance to conquer the Lands Below.”

“I have many alliances on the surface world,” the male continued. “Supplies, slaves, information—you will need all these things to accomplish your goals. The more power I have, the more assistance I can offer you.”

The priestess nodded. “Your kingdom above, mine below.”

Despite everything, it was a most satisfactory arrangement. Nisstyre smiled, and the sharp pain in the center of his forehead fled as they spoke the words that bound their pact.

Shakti hurried to her private chamber in the Hunzrin compound. She rapped sharply on the wall, and in response to her summons, the dark naga slithered up through its tunnels and into her room.

“What have you found for me?” she demanded.

The naga promptly coughed up a map of the surface world. When Shakti smoothed the scroll flat, the creature flicked out its long blue tongue, marking a spot near a large forest.

“Here be many caverns,” hissed the snakelike mage. “Ssasser been there, born there. Close to surface, no radiation magic. Many time Ssasser see drow come through gates there. If drow female be wizard, then this way she might have gone. Ssasser take quaggoth fighters, travel through magic gate.” The dark naga paused for a thunderous belch. He spat out a set of combs, beautiful, costly things made of the shells of giant Underdark turtles and studded with gems. “These Ssasser take from drow female’s house. The quaggoth fighters get from them the female’s scent, track her down.”

It was a logical plan, but Shakti’s nearsighted eyes narrowed in suspicion. The naga had received most of its magical training in House Hunzrin, and priestesses seldom used spells of teleportation. Through the power of Lloth they plane-walked, moving to the lower planes and back with ease, but they seldom had the wizardly skill needed to command the gates that took them from one place to another on the material plane.