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"Now this I did not expect," rehed and sat down on a rock, allowing his pack to drop to the round The co up at a daylit forest, somewhere on the surface The Jaelre portal lay a few hundred yards behind thee, steep-sided sinkhole with lichen-covered boulders and trickling rills of cold water splashing down from the hillside above

The day was heavily overcast - in fact, a light rain was falling - and the clouds, coupled with the gloohtness of the sun It was not so harshly brilliant a day as they had seen in the cloudless desert of Anauroch a tenday past, but to eyes long accustohtlessness of the Underdark, the diffuse sunlight still see stroke

"Should we keep ?" Ryld asked He&039;d returned Splitter to its sheath, angled across his broad back, but he held a crossbow at the ready and squinted into the towering green trees "It won&039;t take the ure out where ent"

"It doesn&039;t matter if they do," Pharaun said "The portal was keyed to function for drow alone It&039;s nothing more than a wall of blank stone to our friends in the Labyrinth - a sensible precaution on the part of the Jaelre, I suppose, though had I been in their shoes I believe I would not have ruled out the possibility of attackers of my own race"

"You&039;re certain of that?" Quenthel asked

The wizard nodded and replied, "I was careful to exa blindly through portals is a bad habit, and should be reserved only for the gravest of situations, such as escaping imminent death in the destruction of a city And, before anyone asks, we can still retrace our steps if ish The portal functions in both directions"

"I am not in a hurry to return to the Labyrinth Better the sun-blasted surface than that," Halisstra murmured

She picked her way across the floor of the sinkhole, studying the forest overhead The air was cool, and she noted that the trees nearby were mostly needleleafs of soe in the wintertime, if she remembered correctly A nu the evergreens, trees with slender white trunks and only a handful of ragged red and brown leaves clinging in an odd clump near the crown Dead? she wondered Or merely bare of leaves for the winter months? She&039;d read reen plants and anireat difference between reading about so it firsthand

"Where on the surface are we?" Quenthel asked

Valas stared hard at the trees for a long ti patch of clouds that hid the sun He turned in a slow circle to exaers over the soft greento the boulders in the cavern mouth

"Northern Faerun," he said "It&039;s early winter, as it should be You can&039;t see the sun too well to judge its position in the sky, but I can certainly feel it, as I suspect we all do We&039;re in the saeneral latitude as the lands above Menzoberranzan - not more than a few hundred h Forest, then?" Danifae asked

"Possibly I&039;ht I&039;ve traveled the surface lands near our city, and the foliage looks different froht be some ways distant from Menzoberranzan"

"Excellent," h the Underdark to Ched Nasad, are forced through a portal to the surface hundreds of miles froh shadow and peril, only to pass through another portal that takes us back to the sur-face, perhaps even farther froht have siadath without our pleasant detour through the Plane of Shadow, the delightful hospitality of Gracklstugh, and our lovely little tour of the minotaur-infested Labyrinth"

"Your spirits , Pharaun," Ryld observed "You&039;ve found your sarcasain"

"A sharper weapon than your sword,when properly employed," the wizard said He ran his hands over his torso and winced "I feel half dead Every ti to cleave ht I trouble you for one of your heal-ing songs, dear lady?" he asked Halisstra

"Do not repair his injuries," Quenthel snapped She still stood with one hand claers "No one is ic"

"Now, that is precisely - " Pharaun began again, glaring at Quentheland cli to his feet

"Stop it!" Halisstra snapped "I have exhausted s of power, so it does not th I will heal all who need it, because it is foolish to press on in our state Until then, ill have to rely on mundane methods to address your injuries Danifae, help red, who stood near, andher pack froes and ointn of how ex-hausted he was

Halisstra glanced over the others and decided that the wizard washim back down onto the boul-der, she took out her own supply of bandages She studied Pharaun&039;s upper arred&039;s talons had scored the flesh, and she began to apply an oint the supplies they&039;d purchased in Gracklstugh

"This will sting," she said pleasantly

Pharaun mouthed an awful curse and ju in pain

"You did that on purpose!" he said

"Of course," Halisstra replied

While she and Danifae worked on the others, Valas scra the wall of the sinkhole He studied the ground carefully, and paused to stare thoughtfully into the forest nearby

Halisstra looked up at hi of in-terest, Master Hune?"

"There is a path here that clian D&039;aerthe answered, "but I couldn&039;t say where the Jaelre went Sev-eral gae here, but none seem to have been used by any number of folk"

"In the Jaelre palace in the Labyrinth you said you&039;d found clear signs that they had used the portal How could there be no signs on this side?" Quenthel dens of passage for many years, Mistress On the surface, it is not so easy It rains, it snows, the srow over disused paths Had the Jaelre passed this way in great numbers within the last tenday or two, I would probably see the signs, but if they cao, I would be left with nothing to read"

"They would not have marched far across the surface," Quenthel mused "They can&039;t be far away"

"You&039;re probably correct, Mistress," Valas replied "The Jaelre would doubtless have preferred tothe day If this is a very large forest - the High Forest, or per-haps Corht be hundreds of ht," Pharaun ht the Jaelre up here, anyway? Didn&039;t they consider the possibility that the surface dwellers would slaughter theerly as the o, Tzirik and his fellows spoke fro to the surface," Valas said He turned away frohtly dropped back down into the cavethe World Above is part of the doctrine of the Masked Lord, and the cap-tains and rulers of House Jaelre wondered if the so-called Retreat of our light-blinded surface kin ht not be an invitation to clai"

"Did it not occur to you back in Ched Nasad that your heretical friendsand aban-don that black, fiend-ravaged warren they called hoht have been leading us into a dead end in the Labyrinth?"

The Bregan D&039;aerthe scout shifted nervously under Quenthel&039;s gaze, and said, "I didn&039;t see any better alternatives, Mistress Not if we truly want to get to the bottoer to solve the amble that your friend Tzirik was still in the Labyrinth, even though you knew his House had been planning to flee the place for years?" Ryld asked "We endured a great deal of peril in the city of the duer-gar and the domain of the minotaurs to satisfy your curiosity"

"Perhaps ere not meant to find this Tzirik at all," said Quenthel "Perhaps Master Hune has led us far away from our true mission over the last few tendays, and perhaps it was no accident that he did so"

"When we considered the question of whether we should return to Menzoberranzan," Jeggred said, "it was the Bregan D&039;aerthe who urged us to set off in search of this priest Tzirik - a heretic priest none of us have even heard of, except for Valas" His eyes narrowed, and the draegloth cli into fists as he shouldered Dani-fae aside "Things becouide is a Vhaeraunite heretic, and he has served the Masked Lord well by leading us through useless perils for days on end"

"This is ludicrous," Valas protested "I would hardly have led the Bregan D&039;aerthe to the defense of Menzoberranzan if I was an enemy of the city"

"Ah, but it is the classic ruse," Danifae purred "Introduce your vic-tiiving them reason to trust her In your case, the job seems to have been expertly done indeed"

"Even if that was the case," Valas said, "why did I not betray you to the duergar in Gracklstugh? Or leave you to the ed your deaths, not a mere delay If I was your enemy, you can be certain that is what I would have done"

"Perhaps you would have placed yourself in peril by betraying us in either Gracklstugh or the Labyrinth," Pharaun observed "Still, you raise a cogent point in your own defense"

"Nothing lanced at Quenthel "Command me, Mistress Shall I rend him limb from limb for you?"

Valas lowered his hands to the hilts of his kukris, and licked his lips He was gray with fear, but his eyes sparked with anger Each of the others in the coainst a boulder, her whips quiescent at her waist She stayed silent, as rain splat-tered down in the forest and birds chirped and called in the distance

"I withhold judg at the scout "If you are loyal, we shall need you to find Tzirik - if the Vhaeraunite priest exists, of course - but you would be well advised to produce the Jaelre and their high priest quickly, Master Hune"

"I have no idea where they ht as well condean D&039;aerthe&039;s response"

Quenthel exchanged a long look with Jeggred The draegloth s in his dark face

Halisstra wasn&039;t sure what to think, as she hadn&039;t known the scout for ht not have hap-pened in Menzoberranzan before the Menzoberranyr came to Ched Nasad She was, however, certain that they would all regret it if Quenthel had Valas killed and it turned out that the guide&039;s services were still re-quired, or that his powerful eance for the death of their scout

"What is the bestthe Jaelre fro to deflect the conversation into a less dangerous course

Valas hesitated, then said, "As Mistress Quenthel pointed out, they are unlikely to havespiral until we co and tedious," Pharaun co woodland does not appeal to me"

"Find a surface dweller and pry infor, of course, that any are nearby, and that they know anything of the whereabouts of House Jaelre"

"Again, ould have to march off in order to locate a surface dweller, as none conveniently present thenificant respects from Master Hune&039;s"

"Then ould you propose?" asked Quenthel, her voice icy

"Allow , I can pre-pare a spell thatHouse of heretical outcasts" He raised his hand toforestall the Baenre&039;s protests and added, "I know, I know, you would like to continue this very oal of our search, it is likely to save usdirection The delay will also give the lovely Lady Melarn a chance to regain her own th, and per-haps heal us of the worst of our wounds"

"You ic of that sort is notoriously fickle"

Pharaun si in the hed and looked back down at the others, her eyes lingering overlong on Danifae The battle captive tilted her head down in a single, almost imperceptible nod that Halisstra wasn&039;t even certain she saw