Free Windwalker by Elaine Cunningham

the embrace of a malevolent spirit.
    After the first shock, Liriel recognized a familiar presence, one she had welcomed during her short stay in Arach Tinileth. Back then, the young drow had looked upon Lolth with affection. The goddess listened to prayers and rewarded devotion with gifts of magic. This was a level of attention and generosity beyond anything Liriel had experienced. She knew the goddess better now. Lolth was no loving parent; Lolth was a power that corrupted and destroyed.
    A jealous power.
    Liriel’s eyes darted to Fyodor’s face, and in her mind’s eye she saw again a devotion common in Menzoberranzan: a priestess walking swiftly to Lolth’s altar, holding in bloody hands a tray bearing the still-beating heart of her lover. Such was the dedication Lolth demanded. Whenever lust’s smoldering embers threatened to flame into something pure and bright, a drow’s heart-fires were extinguished in blood.
    She struck aside Fyodor’s offered hand and backed away, her arms wrapped tightly around herself and her head shaking from side to side in frantic denial.
    Fyodor instinctively took a step toward the drow. She shied away from him, flinging one hand toward him in vehement rejection.
    “Get away. Get away!” she shrieked.
    He watched as she continued to back away, her eyes wide with horror and fixed upon the deck. With the sudden surety of Sight, Fyodor realized that she was not fleeing something, so much as leading it away.
    It was then that Fyodor saw the shadow—an enormous spider with the head of a beautiful elf woman. The rising moon was directly behind Liriel, and the shadow stalked her, moving with her as if it were her own.
    Acting on impulse, Fyodor drew his sword and thrust it into the shadow-spider’s heart. The blade bit deep between the deck’s planking. Before he could release the hilt, a spurt of power—cold, dark, and angry—shot up through the sword and sent him hurtling backward through the air. He hit the ship’s rail with a bone-shaking thud.
    “Run,” Liriel pleaded, “or swim. Anything, but stay away!”
    He could not understand the anguish in her voice, but neither could he leave her to fight this battle alone. He pushed himself off the rail and came back in at a run. Instead of renewing his attack, he took Liriel in his arms, sweeping her aside and standing so that their combined shadow covered that of the Spider Queen.
    “You have no hold upon Liriel,” he said softly, speaking directly to the lurking evil. “You have broken with her and she with you.”
    Faint, mocking laughter rang through his head. Once a wolf, always a wolf, taunted a too-beautiful female voice, speaking in a strange language that he somehow understood.
    Liriel covered her ears. “She was listening to us,” she said in a despairing whisper. “Fyodor, leave me now.”
    “No.”
    “You don’t understand! No male comes between a priestess and her goddess and lives!”
    “What of it? You are no priestess.”
    “I was,” Liriel said, “and She’s not going to let me go.”
    “She has no choice,” Fyodor said firmly. “No god, no goddess can force worship upon a sovereign soul. You wish to be free of her?”
    “Yes!”
    “Tell her so.”
    “I have.”
    “Again,” Fyodor urged, “then one time more. Repudiate a god three times, and all ties are broken. All the old stories promise this.”
    It seemed worth a try. Liriel nodded and took a deep breath. “Lady Lolth, I am your priestess no longer. Mother Lolth, I am your child no more,” she said in whisper.
    The chill intensified. Liriel noted the pallor of her friend’s face, the blue-gray hue that touched his lips. Her fear for him returned, and she tried to wriggle away. Fyodor shook his head and tightened his grip, then drew his cloak around them both. The warmth they shared coursed through them both, pushing back the darkness and cold.
    The drow and her sworn guardian clung together for several moments, breath abated as they awaited the