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."I do not doubt that you did your job, Danilo.But did you know that this drow also singlehandedly rescued a criminal from Skullport's dungeon, then booked passage upon this man's pirate ship and used some sort of powerful gate spell to remove it from the underground port?""No," the youth admitted and grimaced."I stopped gathering information after the battle, assuming that the lovely lady had achieved happily-ever-after, as the bards are wont to say."Khelben lifted one eyebrow at Danilo's reference to bards, but for once the archmage refrained from giving his opinion on the matter of bardic reliability."It is the drow's magical escape from Skullport that concerns me and gives credence to the baron's report.Anyone who commands power enough to bypass Halaster's gates is a potential danger."The young man nodded somberly as he picked up the parchment.Once again he read the reports of increased drow activity in the area of the River Dessarin.There had been sightings of a raiding party traveling the Dessarin, and the bodies of several drow males had been discovered in the hills east of the river.Several different bands of human adventurers were apparently squabbling over bragging rights for this victory.The small town of Trollbridge had claimed an attack by a drow female who wielded powerful magic and who had apparently enspelled a young swordsman to do her bidding.Danilo did not doubt that the pair described were the same he had met less than a month before.By all accounts, the pretty little drow had been busy.But he could not credit to her the atrocities that Baron Khaufros reported or accept the baron's suggestion that the dark sorceress would take over the wills of whatever men she happened to meet.But he did understand Khelben's concern about the girl's magical ability.A powerful wizard, drow or otherwise, was always a wild card, and the game currently playing out in the northern seas was complicated enough."She should be watched," Danilo admitted."She should be stopped," the archmage retorted and then paused."There is something else you should know.We have received word from the harbor merfolk that a Waterdhavian hunting vessel known as the Cutter was scuttled by pirates.There were no survivors; all of the men aboard were put to the sword.The captain of the attacking ship was Hrolf the Unruly, the man your drow rescued from Skullport's dungeons."The young man's face went very still."Wasn't Caladorn aboard that ship?""I'm afraid so," Khelben said somberly."Since the young fool has his mind set on adventuring at sea, the Lords of there was, in truth, little for them to do.At length they fell to drinking and the telling of grim tales.For once Fyodor took no part in the storytelling.The old legends of Rashemen, however, were very much on his mind.He took a solitary post on the forecastle, gazing at the horizon with sightless eyes as he sought inspiration in his country's rich treasury oflore.Fyodor had learned that no matter what puzzle life offered him, he could usually find an answer in the remembered deeds of ancient gods and heroes.Alone in Hrolrs cabin, Liriel frantically studied her book of sea magic for the means to overcome a water elemental.There were no spells listed that could accomplish this feat.Nor could she send it back to its home planeapparently the preferred method of dealing with such creatures-for few drow studied the elemental planes, and water was hardly their favored element.Liriel knew little of the sea, and less about the plane of water and its creatures.The drow resolved to redress this lack, if and when she reached Ruathym.At the moment, though, she was severely taxed by the double effort of maintaining the bubble shield that enclosed the ship and devising a way to escape from the elemental.The day was nearly spent when Fyodors shout roused her from her reverie.Liriel heard his distinctive bass voice calling out something about an approaching ship.Armed with her newly learned spells and those stored in her Windwalker amulet, the drow hurried to the deck to investigate this new development.There were actually two ships-a large two-masted caravel sailing from the west and a tiny dot on the northern horizon that was still well beyond the reach of any eyes but hers."The ship is fully armed!" Fyodor exclaimed, pointing to the arsenal of catapults and ballistae on the decks of the approaching caravel."Perhaps they can help us escape from this creature."Ibn glowered at the young warrior."Help, from a Waterdhavian ship? It's well that you can fight, boy, since you haven't the good sense the gods gave a clam.That's plain enough by the company you keep," he concluded, casting a significant glance toward Liriel.The drow ignored the sailor's insults in favor of more important matters.Her eyes narrowed as she gazed at the approaching ship.There was an aura of magic about it.Strong magic.Since leaving her home city, Liriel had noticed that her eyes were becoming more and more attuned to the nuances of power.Menzoberranzan was permeated with magic.She could no more see magic there than she could employ her heat vision when the midday sun turned sea and sky to pale blue fire.Magic was hardly unknown on the surface world, but it was comparatively rare, and Liriel was finding that she could sense its occurrence and gauge its power.So she did not doubt the instinct that warned her of a mighty spellcaster aboard the approaching vessel.Since it stood to reason that a ship's wizard would know more of sea magic than a drow, Liriel planned to take full advantage of the unknown wizard's skill.But first, she had to wrest the Elfmaid from the elemental's watery grasp.The drow faced the creature and began to chant the words to a part-water spell, her body swaying as she drew power from the weave of magic and reshaped it into an invisible sword.She flung one arm up high, instinctively falling into a battle stance as she lashed out with her eldritch weapon.But Liriel was near exhaustion, and sea magic was new to her.Her usually lethal aim failed her; the spell, which should have parted the elemental neatly in two, merely lopped off an arm.Water gushed, like a mighty waterfall, from the wound.The Elfmaid, still in its protective bubble, was swept away on the flow.Sailors tumbled to the deck and rolled toward the bow of the ship.Fyodor, high atop the forecastle, was thrown from his perch and into the air.He hit the bubble of force and slid down its curved surface toward the water.At once he saw his danger: if he fell into the water he would slip down to the lowest part of the magical globe and be crushed between the ship and the bottom of the bubble.His flailing hands found a hold-the wooden bodice of the figurehead's low-cut gown.Fyodor hauled himself onto the perch offered by the elf maid's ample bosom.Holding fast to the statue's pointed ears, he hung on for dear life as the ship plummeted into the sea.A solid wall of seawater splashed over the domed shield as the ship dropped under the surface of the water.But Liriel's spell held; the air-filled bubble bobbed to the surface, the Elfmaid rocking wildly within its protective shield.Now that the ship was free, the exhausted drow dropped the magical defense.Too soon-a vast wave of water flowed upward and re-formed into the elemental.Ignoring the approaching caravel, the elemental once again closed on the Elfmaid
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