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The collected dark elves nodded assent Mauzzkyl turned to face Nimor

"Nimor,fire that has purged Ched Nasad Do not fail in this"

"Revered Grandfather, I assure you that I will not," Nimor said "I have already preparedwith one of the great Houses They will support us, but they require a demonstration of our resolve and coe the a matron mother and another will be ensnared in our net"

Mauzzkyl s, then, Anointed Blade"

Nimor bowed once, and turned to leave the circle Behind hi, each to return to his own hidden House in cities scattered over thousands of h the Underdark Secret cabals of the Jaezred Chaulssin existed in at least one minor House of most drow cities Each patron father ruled absolutely over a conspiracy of faith and gender that spanned generations, centuries, and the for excep-tion was Menzoberranzan There, the old Matron Baenre who had ruled absolutely for so long had never allowed the assassin House to gain a foothold While eight patron fathers returned to cities where there were dozens of loyal killers and priests of Lolth-hating gods at their command, Nimor Imphraezl went alone to Menzoberranzan to resume the destruc-tion of a city

Sunrise was splendid and terrible For an hour or hter, as the stars paled in the rose-streaked sky and the frigid blast of desert wind slackened toward a fitful cal fro before the sun broke over the horizon she was astounded by how far she could see, picking out dark jagged ht have been ten miles or a hundred miles away When the sun finally rose, it was like a fountain of liquid gold exploding across the barren landscape, in the space of a asped and pressed the heelsof her hands to her eyes, which ached frogers into her head

"That was unwise, my lady," murmured Danifae froht You ht do your-self an injuryand without Lolth&039;s favor, it "

"I wished to see a dawn," Halisstra said

She turned away frohtly to the sand in the shade of the great wall In shadow she could tolerate the brilliance of the sun, but ould it be like in the middle of the day? Would they be able to see at all, or would they all be blinded coazed on the daylit world without fear of the sun They walked unafraid beneath the sky, beneath the fires of day, and the darkness hat they feared Can you i?"

Danifae offered a demure smile that did not reach her eyes Halisstra knew the look well It was an expression theto a remark to which she had no response Danifae indicated the ruined palace and its courts with a tilt of her head

"Mistress Baenre has called Pharaun and the others to attend her," the battle captive said "I believe she means to decide what to do next"

"She sent you for me?" Halisstra asked absently

"No, Mistress"

Halisstra looked up sharply Danifae offered a shy shrug

"I thought you ht wish to be present anyway"

"Indeed," replied Halisstra

She slanced around onceruins that stretched as far as she could see In the long shadows of sunrise, the wall tops glowed orange, and pools of blackness lay behind them Since the wind had died, Halisstra became aware of a sense of watchfulness, of old hostility perhaps, waiting somewhere in the walls and broken domes

The tomen picked their way back to the party&039;s caed courtyard and quietly joined the discussion Quenthel glanced at them as they approached, but kept her attention on the others

"We have learned that the priestesses of Ched Nasad have lost Lolth&039;s favor, just as we have We did not learn why We learned that Houses allied to us through trade and blood had elected to appropriate ourtheir backs on us We failed to re-store the flow of trade toMenzoberranzan - "

"A failure for which we can hardly be held accountable," Pharaun interrupted "The city is completely destroyed The status of Baenre trade interests in Ched Nasad is now moot"

Quenthel continued as if the wizard had not spoken, "Finally, we find ourselves in soodsforsaken portion of the World Above, at some unknown distance from our home, low on provisions and stranded in a hostile desert Have I accurately summed up events?"

Valas shifted uncomfortably and said, "All but the last, I think I be-lieve that we are somewhere in the desert known as Anauroch, in fact in its northwestern portions If I am correct, Menzoberranzan lies perhaps five hundred miles west of us, and somewhatdown, of course"

"You have been here before?"

"No," the scout said, "but there are only a few deserts in Faerun, es-pecially at so northerly a latitude, so it is a very good bet that Anauroch is where we e of snow-capped mountains perhaps forty or fifty miles to our west, which you can see quite clearly in the day-light Those I believe to be the Graypeak or Nether Mountains They could be the Ice Mountains, but if ere so far north as to see theh Ice, and not in this sandy and rocky stretch of the Great Desert"

"I&039;ve come to trust your sense of direction, but I can&039;t say I relish the prospect of et ho his hand over his short-cropped hair He moved stiffly in his armor, bruised and battered beneath the ht to escape Ched Nasad "Citadel Adbar, Sund-abar, and Silverymoon would all stand in our way, and they have very little love for our kind"

"Let theht, when the huht-elves are blind Even if someone should stumble into us, well, the surface dwellers are soft I don&039;t fear theloth&039;s remark, but Quenthel silenced him with a raised hand

"We will do e have to do," she said "If we have to spend the next two ht, ill do exactly that"

She turned gracefully and paced away, gazing thoughtfully at the ruined court around them

The party fell silent as each of the dark elves watched Quenthel&039;s back Pharaun pushed himself erect and wrapped hispiicloser around his lean torso The black cloak flapped in the bitter wind

"The question that vexes e said to no one in particular, "is whether we have accomplished e set out to do I do not relish the idea of crawling back to Menzoberranzan with nothing more to show for months of effort than news of Ched Nasad&039;s fall"

"No priestess of the Spider Queen holds the anse seek," said Quenthel "We will return to Menzoberranzan I can only trust that the goddess willof her silence when it suits her"

Pharaun grimaced and said, "Blind faith is a poor substitute for a plan by which you oddess is the only thing we have," Halisstra snapped She shifted half a step closer to the otten your place if you address a high priestess of Lolth in such a ain"

Pharaun opened his mouth to frame ould no doubt have been anevennext to him, simply cleared his throat and scratched at his chin The wizard paused a ed

"All I meant was that it seems clear to me that the Spider Queen means for us to puzzle out her silence for ourselves"

"How do you suggest we should do that?" Quenthel asked She folded her arotten, we&039;ve toiled for months to discern the cause of the Silence"

"But we have not exhausted all avenues of investigation, have we?" Pharaun said "In Ched Nasad, we spoke of seeking the assistance of a priest of Vhaeraun, possibly Master Hune&039;s acquaintance Tzirik We drow have other deities beside Lolth, after all Is it so unreasonable to speculate that another god ht be able to explain Lolth&039;s unusual silence?"

The circle fell still The wizard&039;s words were not ones cohts in the presence of the Spider Queen&039;s clergy

"I see no need to go begging favors of a od," Quenthel said "I doubt that Lolth has deigned to confide her purposes in any lesser powers"

"You are probably correct," said Pharaun "She certainly hasn&039;t con-fided thered snarled at the wizard, and Pharaun raised his hands in a pla-cating gesture, rolling his eyes

Valas licked his lips nervously and offered, "Most of you have spent the great majority of your lives in Menzoberranzan, as is fit and proper for drow of your respective stations I have traveled more widely, and I have visited places that secretly - even openly, in soods other than Lolth" He noticed the gathering thunder in Quenthel&039;s face, mirrored in Halisstra&039;s The scout winced but pressed on "Under the wise rule of the ods other than Lolth has hardly flourished in Menzoberranzan, and so you h opinion of the practice, but I can attest to the fact that the priests of the lesser gods of our race can call upon spells and guidance froht we find Tzirik?" Ryld asked Valas

"When last I ion known as the Labyrinth, south and west of the Darklake by perhaps a hundred o, of course"

"Outcasts," snorted Halisstra

She was not the only one to express disgust In the endless gareat Houses of the drow, of course there were losers Most died, but sonominious existence in the remote stretches of the Underdark Others abandoned their ho, Halisstra supposed, the veneration of gods other than Lolth She found it hard to believe that anyone so weak as to have been run out of her home city could offer much help at all

"We&039;ll solve our own problelanced up at Halisstra, cold huot that you now have so deprived of a home city," he re yourself in &039;our&039; discussions and &039;our&039; problems Your selflessness is laudable"

Halisstra shut herby the words There would be many hundreds, even thousands of survivors from Ched Nasad scattered in as es around the city Most of those would end their lives in the jaws of mindless monsters, or perhaps fall into wretched slavery as captives of drow froar, or even more horrible Underdark races like the ht hope to find soh their oits and resourcefulness It was not unknown for a House to take into its ranks a defeated enemy who had demonstrated her usefulness House Melarn was dead Wherever Halisstra journeyed next, she would be starting froes of her birth, the wealth and power of her city, all thatanymore

She considered her reply carefully, conscious of the acute interest of the other drow around her, and said, "Spareiron in her voice that she did not feel "Unless I uess, Menzoberranzan doesn&039;t stand so very far from Ched Nasad&039;s fate, else you never would have come to seek our aid Our diffi-culties are your difficulties, are they not?"

Her words had the desired effect The wizard looked ahile the other Menzoberranyr shifted nervously, studying each other&039;s reactions Quenthel visibly flinched, her h, both of you," she said, turning to Valas "This outcast priest of Vhaeraun - ould he aid us in any way? He is not likely to enter-tain an especially charitable attitude toward our cause"

Valas replied, "I couldn&039;t say, Mistress All I can do is bring you to him What happens after that depends on you"

The ruined courtyard fell silent The sun was a double handspan into the sky, and blinding shafts of pure light sliced through the darkness of the ruined court froh walls The ruins were apparently not as desolate as Halisstra had thought She could hear the furtive sounds of s across sand and rubble, faint and small in the distance

"The Labyrinth lies only a hundred miles from the Darklake?" Quen-thel asked The scout nodded once The priestess folded her arht "Then it&039;s not very far from our hoic thatour way home across the surface realms appeals to me no more than it does the weaponsunder Quenthel&039;s request for help

"Teleportation is risky," he said "First, thefaerzress of the Underdark erous to attempt transport spells More to the point, I have never visited the Labyrinth, and so have no idea where I would be going I would almost certainly fail I know a spell to transform myself or others into different shapes ons or giant bats or soht " The wizard tapped his chin, considering the problem "Whomever we press into service as a ed hi at a couple of tendays of travel OrI know a spell of walking through shadows It&039;s dangerous, and I couldn&039;t take us straight to the Labyrinth, as I have never been there and the spell is best employed to reach places you knoell I could take you to Mantol-Derith, though, which is hard by the shores of the Darklake It would shorten our journey considerably"

"Why didn&039;t youhis head in irritation

"If you recall, we had not yet decided where ere going," Pharaun replied "I intended to offer my services at the appropriate time"

Ryld said, "You could have transported us from Menzoberranzan to Ched Nasad in the first place Why in the world did alk?"

"Because I have good reason to fear the plane of shadow As a younger and e I learned - the hard way - that shadoalking confers no special protection against the attentions of those creatures that dwell in the dark real I would not care to rin and added, "Naturally, I now regard shadoalking as an option of last resort I only suggest it now because I deeerous than tendays of travel across the surface world"

"We will exercise all due caution," Quenthel said "Let&039;s be about it, then"

"Not so fast I must prepare the spell I will require about an hour to lanced around at the ruins, and shaded her eyes "The sooner we are back below ground, the better"