Chapter 19
The PrIce of Power

It was nearly dawn when Fyodor caught sight of the raofs of Ruathym village. A rustle in the  bushes along the path caught his attention and, before he could draw a weapon, Liriel sprang out onto the path, her dark face joyful. She ran to meet him and threw herself into his arms.

Fyodor was accustomed to such gestures from the impulsive draw. She always drew away quickly, like lighting that flares and retreats. But this time she seemed to be in no hurry to part. Her arms were flung tightly about his neck, and her breath felt warm through the linen of his shirt.

Although he was loath to end the embrace, Fyodor buried his hands in the drow’s wild, snow-colored hair and tilted her face up so he could meet her eyes. “There are things I must tell you,” he said somberly.

Liriel responded with a smile that warmed his blood and sent it singing urgently through his veins.

“There are those who think, and those who dream,” she mocked him softly, “and then there are those who talk too damn much!”

Fyodor’s answering smile was slow and incredulous. “It seems we have even more to talk about than I imagined.” “Words can wait,” she murmured, and the young man found himself in complete agreement.

Impulsively he swept the dark-elven girl into his arms and carried her off into the forest. To his surprise Liriel did not object. Indeed, she guided his path with whispered directions and sped his step with pramises that would have seemed improbable had he not witnessed some of the other wonders of which she was capable. And in the moments when she did not speak, her lips and teeth found keenly sensitive places on his neck and throat and ears that he had not known he possessed. Sometimes gently, sometimes not, she teased him to near madness. Fyodor did not know how far they traveled-a few steps would have seemed as endlessly long to him as a league-but at last Liriel wriggled free of his grasp.

They came to each other at the foot of an ancient oak. For once Fyodor did not think of the vast differences between them or of the unresolved emotions that had haunted him since their last, ill-fated encounter. He cared only that this time there was no fear in Liriel’s golden eyes. Their union was like nothing he had ever known or imagined-a fierce and joyful thing that in its own way rivaled the abandon of his berserker rage. But this he chose, and with all of his heart.

Much later, Fyodor stroked Liriel’s damp curls and watched her as she slept. He himself had no desire to sleep. Never had he felt so alive. For the first time, he allowed himself to admit that he loved this little elfwoman, and he even dared to hope she might return his love.

There was also something about this place that quickened Fyodor’s fey senses. He knew nothing of wizardly spells and did not pretend to understand the magic that Rashemen’s Witches wielded with such fearful authority, but he could feel the natural magic that lingered in certain glades and springs. Never, not even in the Witches’ spelltower that overlooked the enchanted Lake Ashane, had he felt such power in a place. His eyes lifted to the soaring branches of the oak tree overhead, and suddenly he understood why Liriel had chosen to bring him to this place. “Little raven,” he said softly. The sleeping drow’s eyes flashed open, and she regarded him alertly. “This is Y ggsdrasil’s Child, is it not?”

She sat up and regarded him with a brilliant smile. “You can feel it, then. That is a good sign.”

Fyodor reached out and took her hands. “This I must know: what happened, to make such a change in you?”

The drow did not need to ask what he meant. “I tried to cast the rune and could not. Until then I’d thought of myself as the keeper of your quest and mine. That lesson was hard enough to learn,” she added wryly.

Fyodor nodded, recalling how difficult it had been for the drow to expand her dream to iuclude his. “And now?”

“I realized we must be as one if either quest is to succeed. The rune is not mine only. There are things I need of you,” she admitted.

“Whatever you need, the same is yours,” he promised softly. “And now that you know this, you are ready to cast the rune?”

Liriel did not miss the note of concern in Fyodor’s voice. Something had happened to add urgency to their quest. “Tell me,” she demanded.

And so he did, leaving out nothing. The drow listened thoughtfully, her dismay mounting as he described the new turn his curse had taken. She had fought Wedigar in the form of a giant hawk; she did not want to know what sort of destruction a shapeshifting Fyodor could leave behind.

“I will cast the rune,” she said with more conviction than she felt. She cast a glance up at the sky; already the sunset colors stained the west. “But I will need time to prepare. If the lore books speak true, a trance will come upon me, and I will carve the rune upon the tree unknowing. Will you stand guard?”

“As long as you need,” he agreed.

The drow nodded and began the concentration needed for the casting. She sought the power of the ancient oak, the symbolic embodiment of all life, and sank into it. As she went deeper, the days and nights of her rune quest came back to her in vivid detail, each event and sorrow and joy giving shape to the rune she must use. But try as she might, she could not envision the rune in its entirety.

After a time—perhaps a short time, perhaps not-the drow abandoned this attempt. She did not try to shape the rune, but focused instead on the powers she wished to reclaim, and the need to exorcise the errant magic that kept Fyodor from being the warrior he was meant to be. She chanted her goals silently, and the chant grew in intensity as something dark and compelling slipped into her silent voice. The magic of Rashemen, the magic of the drow. Fearful things both, they combined in a way that Liriel did not understand, sweeping her away into a trance that went beyond mere meditation, beyond spellcasting. No longer ordering her own movements, Liriel watched as if from a high place—as if from all places-as her physical being took the Windwalker amulet from its chain and placed the tiny chisel against the tree. Her hands moved swiftly, surely, but she did not know what marks she made. All she knew for certain was that the faint blue light emanating from her amulet’s sheath-the captured magic of the Underdark-faded steadily as she worked. Her conscious thoughts ebbed slowly away, too; this she expected, for in her mind she and her dark-elven magic were inseparable parts of one whole. At last the blue light flickered and died. The empty amulet dropped from Liriel’s nerveless hands, and the drow followed it into the darkness.

When Liriel awoke, the fat crescent moon was high in the sky, bathing the forest with its silver light. She stirred, winced, and pressed her fingers to her throbbing temples. Within her head raged the violent cacophony of spellsickness. Long moments passed before the confused girl realized that some of the noise—perhaps most ofit-came from without.

The drow lowered her hands from her head and gazed with horror at the scene before her. In the grip of a horrendous battle frenzy, Fyodor fought against opponents that he alone could see. The Rashemi had not gone unscathed, though: his clothes and skin had been torn repeatedly by branches and brambles as he raged through the woods, lunging and slashing again and again.

How long this had gone on Liriel could not know, but her keen eyes caught the bubble of pink-tinged froth that collected in the corner ofhis faint, unnerving smile. She knew only that she had failed and that Fyodor would die if she could not find a way to stop him.

Instinctively she flung out a hand. To her surprise and relief, drow magic flowed from her fingertips and sent thick streams of spider silk hurtling into the young man’s wild path. The sticky strands exploded outward, forming a giant web that stretched from the trunk of Yggsdrasil’s Child to a sister oak some twenty feet away.

The amok warrior tore through the web without missing a step.

Now that she knew her Underdark magic was still with her, Liriel reached for a more potent tool. Up came her tiny crossbow. She fired a dart into Fyodor’s thigh. He ignored it and parried some nonexistent sword thrust. Again she fired, and again, until her quiver at last was empty. The young warrior bristled with darts and resemhled nothing so much as a tall and angry hedgehog.

Yet Fyodor did not fall. He continued to fight shadowsor more likely, Liriel realized with sudden bright certainty, he continued to do battle with all the ghosts who haunted his dreams. And the phantom warriors would kill him, as surely as he had killed them.

Shaking with frustration and fear, the drow leaped into Fyodor’s wild path and shrieked at him to stop. To her astonishment, he did just that. The frenzy fell from him like a cloak, and the heavy black sword dropped to the ground as his magically enhanced form shrank abruptly down to its natural size. Fyodor swayed and fell at last into an exhausted-and poisoned-slumber.

Liriel fell to her knees beside him and began to tear out the darts. He’d already taken enough drow sleeping poison to kill a bugbear; she only hoped the berserker rage had absorbed much of it. To her relief, he continued to breathe—shallow, but steady.

She watched over her friend throughout the remainder of the night and long into the next day, dosing him repeatedly with antidote until her precious flask was empty. The forest was heavy with twilight shadows when Fyodor finally awoke. Nearly giddy with joy and relief, Liriel spilled out the story of what had happened-to her, and to him, and how he had stopped only after she’d given up rational hope. “But I’ve no idea what any of it means,” she concluded. “I do,” Fyodor said softly. “Such things have been done before, but not in my lifetime or yours.”

Liriel waited for him to continue, but his eyes were distant, fixed upon the old tales and legends that were so much a part of him.

“In ancient times,” he began, “there were warriors who gave pledged service as berserker knights, becoming personal champion to a powerful wychlaran. When this magic was granted, it was taken as a sign that the Witch was destined for a great task. You did not fail, little raven,” he said earnestly. “The control of my battle frenzies has indeed been gained-but it is in your hands.”

Liriel gazed at him in utter horror. “But I don’t want it! I never wanted that!”

“You sought power,” he reminded her. “Now that it is yours, you may not always be able to choose how and when to wield it. I think,” he concluded thoughtfully, “that this is ever the way of power.”

The drow brushed aside these philosophical musings. “But where is my choice in all of this?”

“Where was Wedigar’s?” Fyodor countered. “Remember how he was after you freed him from the nereid’s charm? He wished to atone for his acts at once, but when convinced this would not best serve his people, Wedigar gave up his warrior-bred sense of honor for the greater good. You, too, seem to be destined to lead,” he told her. “You will have to learn to consider things beyond your own desires.”

Liriel was in no mood for all this talk of nobility and service. All she’d wanted was her innate drow powers back. She did not seek to rule, or to lead, or to do any of these troublesome things, and she did not see why such might be required of her. Nothing in her training had prepared her for this, and she said so.

“Do you wish to leave Ruathym?” he asked her. “Do you wish to be free of me and this burden you did not seek?”

As she considered this, Liriel discovered she did not. “It seems we have both found a place here, and together. When I tried to cast the rune that first time, I got the feeling we have some sort of entwined destiny.” She shrugged. “Don’t ask me to explain that.”

“There is no need,” Fyodor responded. “I have sensed that myself, almost from the beginning. Whatever your fate,1 accept it, and my part in it.”

He spoke these words with an awe that exasperated the drow. She had struggled so hard to accept Fyodor first as a friend, and now as a lover. After all she had endured, she did not want to lose him to her own success!

“Let’s get back to the village,” she said abruptly.

“At first light,” he agreed.

Liriel’s heart quickened, but it rapidly became clear Fyodor was concerned only with ensuring them a safe journey. The brief, shining oneness they had shared was gone. She had never thought respect could be a barrier, but she felt the force of Fyodor’s new regard for her forcing distance between them. To him, she was no longer just Liriel, but wychlaran. Not a female to be cherished, but a power to be revered.

In utter frustration, she turned away. She curled up into a tight ball and wrapped herself in her piwafwi, taking little comfort in the renewed sheen of the magical drow cloak. At least, she thought as she drifted toward slumber, Fyodor would no longer be tormented by his dreams. Those ghosts had been exorcised by the power of the rune she’d cast for them both.

But that small freedom seemed pale indeed, when the drow contemplated the servitude to which she had unwittingly condemned her friend. She did not know why this did not bother the freedom-loving Rashemi more than it did. She strongly suspected, however, that a time would come when it would.