Realms of the Underdark

Kill or be killed. There could be little doubt which outcome Xandra preferred.

Liriel tore her gaze away from the vindictive crimson stare and did her best to attend to the ceremony that followed. As she stood silently through the matron's ritual blessing, the girl was struck by a strange and very vivid mental image: somewhere deep within her heart, a tiny light flickered and died-a harbinger, perhaps, of darkness to come. A moment of inexplicable sadness touched Liriel, but it was gone before she could marvel at so strange an emotion. To a young dark elf, such a vision seemed right and fitting-a cause for elation rather than regret. Soon, very soon, she would be a true drow indeed!

Chapter Five: Kill or Be Killed

On silent feet, Liriel eased her way down the dark tu

She also wore a fine new cloak-not a piwafwi, for that uniquely drow cloak was usually worn only by those who had proven themselves by this very ritual. Of course, there were exceptions to this rule, and Liriel did indeed possess one of the magical cloaks of concealment-it played a significant role in her frequent escapes from House Shobalar-but youngling dark elves were not permitted to wear them during the Blooding. The advantage of invisibility removed most of the challenge, and was therefore deemed inappropriate for the first major kill.

Thus Liriel was plainly visible to the heat-perceptive eyes of the Underdark's many strange and deadly creatures, and therefore in constant danger.

The young drow kept keenly alert as she walked. Yet her heart was not in the hunt. She was not entirely certain she still had a heart: grief and rage had left her feeling strangely hollow.

Liriel was accustomed to betrayals both large and small, and she was still trying to assimilate her realization that she must shrug them off and move ahead – albeit with caution. So it had been with Bythnara, whose snippy comments and small jealousies had once pained her deeply. So it had been even with her father, who twelve years earlier had wronged Liriel more deeply than any other person had before or since.

But it would not be so with Xandra Shobalar, Liriel vowed grimly. Xandra's betrayal was different, and it would not go unremarked – or unavenged.

Vengeance was the principle passion of the dark elves, but it was an emotion new to Liriel. She savored it as if it were a goblet of the spiced green wine she had recently tasted – bitter, certainly, but capable of sharpening the passions and hardening resolve. Liriel was very young, and willing to accept and overlook many things in her dark-elven kindred. This, however, was the first time she had seen the desire for her death written in another drow's eyes. Liriel understood instinctively that this could not go unpunished if she herself hoped to survive.

But at a deeper, even more personal level, the girl bitterly resented Xandra for forcing her to disregard her own deep instincts and act against her will.

Liriel rebelled bitterly against the need to submit to her Mistress's demands, yet what else could she do if she was to be accounted a true drow?

What else, indeed?

A smile slowly crept over Liriel's dark face as a solution to her dilemma began to take shape in her mind. There is much more to being a drow, her father had admonished her, than engaging in crude slaughter.

The painful weight on the young drow's chest lifted a bit, and for the first time she realized a very strange thing: she did not fear the dreaded wild Underdark. It seemed to her that this wilderness was a wondrous, fascinating place full of unexpected turns and twists. There was danger and adventure and excitement in the very air and stone. Unlike Menzoberranzan, where every bit of rock had been shaped and carved into a monument to the pride and might of the drow, out here everything was new, mysterious, and full of delightful possibilities. Here she could carve out her own place. Liriel fell suddenly, deeply, and utterly in love with this vast and untamed world.

"A grand adventure," she said softly, repeating without a trace of irony the words of her own discarded dream. A sudden smile brightened her face, and as she bestowed an affectionate pat upon an enormous, down-thrust spire of rock, she added, "The first of many!"

Without warning, a bright ball of force rounded the sharp corner of the tu

The battle had begun.

Training and instinct took over at once: Liriel snapped both hands up, wrists crossed and palms out. A field of resistance sprung up before her an instant before the fireball would have struck. The girl squeezed her eyes shut and tossed her head to one side as the brilliant light exploded into a sheet of magical flame.

Liriel dropped flat and rolled aside, as she'd been taught to do in such attacks. The magical shield could not withstand more than one or two impacts of such power, and it was prudent to get out of the line of fire. To her astonishment, the second blast came in low and hard-and directly toward her. Liriel leapt to her feet and dived for the far side of the tu

The explosion rocked the tu

In response to her magic, the dust and the sulfurous smoke swirled to a central spot of the tu

She waited, hardly daring to breathe, for the next attack to come. When it did not, she began to creep slowly and cautiously around the bend. There was no sound in the tu

The tu

Luminous fungi covered much of the stone and filled the entire cave with a faint, eerie blue glow. Stalagmites and stalactites met in long, irregular pillars of stone, and large crystals embedded in them tossed off glittering shards of light that stabbed at her eyes like tiny daggers.

At once, a brilliant ball of light flashed into being in the center of the cavern. Liriel reeled back, clutching at her blinded eyes. Her keen ears caught the whine and hiss of an approaching missile, she dropped flat as yet another fireball blazed toward her.

The fireball missed her, but barely. Heat assailed Liriel with searing pain as it passed over her, and the smoke and stench of her own scorched hair assaulted her like a blow to the gut. Coughing and gagging, she rolled aside. She blinked rapidly as she went, trying to dispel the lingering sparks and flashes that obscured her vision.

Think, think! she admonished herself. So far she had only reacted: along that path lay certain defeat.

To give herself a bit of time, Liriel called upon her i