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To a surface dweller, he ht have passed undetected only a foot away The padded footfalls of his lizard ht to be heard, and the pliable and perfectly crafted mesh armor that both rider and mount wore bent and creased with their rown over their skin

Dinin’s lizard trotted along in an easy but swift gait, floating over the broken floor, up the walls, and even across the long tunnel’s ceiling Subterranean lizards, with their sticky and soft three-toed feet, were preferred mounts for just this ability to scale stone as easily as a spider Crossing hard ground left no dahted surface world, but nearly all of the creatures of the Underdark possessed infravision, the ability to see in the infrared spectrum Foot-falls left heat residue that could easily be tracked if they fol-

lowed a predictable course along a corridor’s floor

Dinin cla a stretch of the ceiling, then sprang out in a twisting descent to a point farther along the wall Dinin did not want to be tracked

He had no light to guide him, but he needed none He was a dark elf, a drow, an ebon-skinned cousin of those sylvan folk who danced under the stars on the world’s surface To Dinin’s superior eyes, which translated subtle variations of heat into vivid and colorful ihtless place Colors all across the spectrum swirled before him in the stone of the walls and the floor, heated by sos was thethe dark elf view his enemies in details as intricate as any surface dweller would find in brilliant daylight

Normally Dinin would not have left the city alone, the world of the Underdark was too dangerous for solo treks, even for a drow elf This day was different, though Dinin had to be certain that no unfriendly drow eyes low beyond a sculpted archway told the drow that he neared the city’s entrance, and he slowed the lizard’s pace accordingly Few used this narrow tunnel, which opened into Tier Breche, the northern section of Menzoberranzan devoted to the Academy, and none but the mistresses and h here without attracting suspicion

Dinin was always nervous when he came to this point Of the hundred tunnels that opened off the uarded Beyond the archway, twin statues of gigantic spiders sat in quiet defense If an eneh, the spiders would anihout the Acade comfortably to a wall at his chest level He reached under the collar of his pii, hiscloak, and took out his neck purse Fronia of House Do’Urden, a spider wielding various weapons in each of its eight legs and emblazoned with the letters "DN"’ for Daermon N’a’shezbaernon, the ancient and formal name of House Do’Urden

"You will await nia before it As with all the drow houses, the insignia of House Do’Urden held several ave family members absolute control over the house pets The lizard would obey unfailingly, holding its position as though it were rooted to the stone, even if a scurry rat, its favorite morsel, napped a few feet froerly stepped to the archway He could see the spiders leering down at hiht He was a drow of the city, not an eneh any other tunnel unconcerned, but the Academy was an unpredictable place, Dinin

had heard that the spiders often refused entry viciously,even to uninvited drow

He could not be delayed by fears and possibilities, Dinin reminded himself His business was of the ut straight ahead, away fro spiders, he strode between them and onto the floor of Tier Breche

He moved to the side and paused, first to be certain that no one lurked nearby, and then to ad view of Menzoberranzan No one, drow or otherwise, had ever looked out from this spot without a sense of wonder at the drow city Tier Breche was the highest point on the floor of the two- a panoramic view to the rest of Menzoberranzan The cubby of the Acade only the three structures that comprised the drow school: Arach Tinilith, the spider-shaped school of Lloth, Sorcere, the gracefully curving, there, the sohters learned their trade Beyond Tier Breche, through the ornate stalagmite columns that marked the entrance to the Acade far beyond Dinin’s line of vision to either side and farther back then his keen eyes could possibly see The colors of Menzoberranzan were threefold to the sensitive eyes of the drow Heat patterns fros swirled about the entire cavern Purple and red, bright yellow and subtle blue, crossed and ainst the backdrop of dieneralized and natural gradations of color in the infrared spectruic, like the spiders Dinin had walked between, virtually gloith energy Finally there were the actual lights of the city, faerie fire and highlighted sculptures on the houses The droere proud of the beauty of their designs, and especially ornate coluoyles were alhts

Even from this distance Dinin could make out House Baenre, First House of Menzoberranzan It encoain that nuantic stalactites House Baenre had existed for five thousand years, since the founding of Menzoberranzan, and in

that time the work to perfect the house’s art had never ceased Practically every inch of the i towers and brilliant purple at the huge central dolared through some of the s of the distant houses Only clerics or wizards would light the fires, Dinin knew, as necessary pains in their world of scrolls and parchments

This was Menzoberranzan, the city of drow Threnty thousand dark elves lived there, twenty thousand soldiers in the army of evil

A wicked sht of soht

Dinin studied Narbondel, the huge central pillar that served as the timeclock of Menzoberranzan Narbondel was, the only way the drow had to e of time in aworld that otherwise knew no days and no seasons At the end of each day, the city’s appointed Archical fires into the base of the stone pillar There the spell lingered throughout the cycle a full day on the surface and gradually spread its warlowed red in the infrared spectrum The pillar was fully dark now, cooled since the dweomer’s fires had expired The wizard was even now at the base, Dinin reasoned, ready to begin the cycle anew

It was ht, the appointed hour

Dinin moved away fro the side of Tier Breche, seeking the "shadows" of heat patterns in the wall, which would effectively hide the distinct outline of his own body temperatures He came at last to Sorcere, the school of wizardry, and slipped into the narrow alley between the tower’s curving base and Tier Breche’s outer wall

"Student or master?" came the expected whisper

"Only a master may walk out of house in Tier Breche in

the black death of Narbondel" Dinin responded

A heavily robed figure moved around the arc of the structure to stand before Dinin The stranger remained in the customary posture of a master of the drow Academy, his arether, one on top of the other in front of his chest

That pose was the only thing about this one that seenaled in the silent hand code of the drow, a language as detailed as the spoken word The quiver of Dinin’s hands belied his calht of this wizard put hie of his nerves as he had ever been

"Secondboy Do’Urden" the wizard replied in the gestured code "Have you naled pointedly, regaining his co bubbles of his temper "Do you dare to doubt the promise of Malice Do’Urden, Matron Mother of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon, Tenth House of Menzoberranzan?"

The Faceless One sluies, Secondboy of House Do’Urden" he answered, dropping to one knee in a gesture of surrender Since he had entered this conspiracy, the wizard had feared that his iht in the violent throes of one of his ownaway all of his facial features and leaving behind a blank hot spot of white and green goo Matron Malice Do’Urden, reputedly as skilled as anyone in all the vast city inpotions and salves, had offered him a sliver of hope that he could not pass by

No pity found its way into Dinin’s callous heart, but House Do’Urden needed the wizard "You will get your salve" Dinin promised calreed "This night?"

Dinin crossed his arms and considered the question Matron Malice had instructed him that Alton DeVir should die even as their families’ battle commenced That scenario now seemed too clean, too easy, to Dinin The Faceless One did not low in the young Do’Urden’s heat-sensing eyes

"Wait for Narbondel’s light to approach its zenith" Dinin replied, his hands working through the signals excitedly and his gririn

"Should the doomed boy know of his house’s fate before he dies?" the wizard asked, guessing the wicked intentions behind Dinin’s instructions

"As the killing blow falls" answered Dinin "Let Alton

DeVir die without hope"

Dinin retrieved hisan intersecting route that would take hih a different entrance to the city proper He careat cavern, Menzoberranzan’s produce section, where no drow families would see that he had been outside the city limite pillars rose up fro the banks of Donigarten, the city’s small pond with its moss-covered island that housed a fair-sized herd of cattlelike creatures called rothe A hundred goblins and orcs looked up fro duties totheir restrictions as slaves, they took care not to look Dinin in the eye

Dinin would have paid theency of the ain was on the flat and curving avenues between the glowing drow castles He ion of the city, toward

the grove of giant mushrooms that marked the section of the finest houses in Menzoberranzan

As he caroup of four wandering bugbears The giant hairy goblin things paused a moment to consider the drow, then bears recognized him as a member of House Do’Urden, Dinin knew He was a noble, a son of a high priestess, and his surname, Do’Urden, was the name of his house Of the twenty thousand dark elves in Menzoberranzan, only a thousand or so were nobles, actually the children of the sixty-seven recognized fabears were not stupid creatures They knew a noble froh drow elves did not carry their fania in plain view, the pointed and tailed cut of Dinin’s stark white hair and the distinctive pattern of purple and red lines in his black pii told theency pressed upon Dinin, but he could not ignore the bugbears’ slight How fast would they have scampered away if he had been ahouses? he wondered

"You will learn respect of House Do’Urden soon enough!" the dark elf whispered under his breath, as he turned and charged his lizard at the group The bugbears broke into a run, turning down an alley streith stones and debris

Dinin found his satisfaction by calling on the innate powers of his race He sulobe of darkness i creatures’ path He supposed that it was unwise to call such attention to hi and sputtered curses as the bugbears stumbled blindly over the stones, he felt it orth the risk

His anger sated, he h the heat shadows As a o as he pleased within the giant cavern without question, but Matron Malice had made it clear that no one connected to House Do’Urden was to be caught anywhere near the rove

Matron Malice, Dinin’s mother, was not to be crossed, but it was only a rule, after all In Menzoberranzan, one rule, took precedence over all of the petty others, Don’t get caught

At the rove’s southern end, the i for: a cluster of five huge floor-to-ceiling pillars that were hollowed into a network of chaes Red-glowing gargoyles, the standard of the house, glared down from a hundred perches like silent sentries This was House DeVir, Fourth House of Menzoberranzan

A stockade of tall ed the place, every fifth one a shrieker, a sentient fungus nauardians) for the shrill cries of alar passed it by Dinin kept a cautious distance, not wanting to set off one of the shriekers and knowing also that other, more deadly wards protected the fortress Matron Malice would see to those

An expectant hush pere throughout Menzoberranzan that Matron Ginafae of House DeVir had fallen out of favor with Loth, the Spider Queen deity to all drow and the true source of every house’s strength Such circu the drow, but everyone who knew fully expected that soainst the crippled House DeVir

Matron Ginafae and her family had been the last to learn of the Spider Queen’s displeasure ever was that Lloth’s devious way and Dinin could tell just by scanning the outside of House DeVir that the doomed family had not found ample time to erect proper defenses DeVir sported nearly four hundred soldiers, many fe the parapets seemed nervous and unsure