The duergar boats pulled out of earshot.

"I suppose it depends on whether or not he can swim," Halisstra said.

CHAPTER NINE.

A long day's march later, pausing only long enough to allow Pharaun to finally craft a sending to pa.s.s news of Gracklstugh's army to Gromph, the company came to the Labyrinth. They emerged from winding, unexplored pa.s.sageways into a series of miles-long natural tunnels interspersed with long, hewn ways and small, square chambers. Coalhewer, his boat, and the pursuit from Gracklstugh they'd left twenty miles or more behind them.

The tunnels were black basalt, cold and sharp, the frozen remnants of great fires from the beginning of the world. From time to time the party encountered great vertical rifts hundreds of feet high, where tunnels ended in blank walls with rough, perilous steps cut up or down to a different level where the path continued. Whole sheets of the world's crust had sunk or fractured in places, shearing off the old lava tunnels and leaving behind vast, lightless chasms deep in the earth. A few of these places were spanned by slender bridges of stone, or circled by crude paths hacked from the hard rock of the walls. Everywhere they turned, more square pa.s.sages and twisting, smooth-floored tunnels branched from their line of march, so that in the s.p.a.ce of an hour Halisstra was forced to concede that she'd become hopelessly lost.

"I see why they call this place the Labyrinth," she said softly, as the company threaded its way along a narrow ledge overlooking another of the chasms. "This place is truly a maze."

"It's worse than you think," Valas replied from the front of the party. He paused to examine the path ahead, and another of the ubiquitous openings on one side. "It's close to two hundred miles from north to south, and almost half that from east to west. Most of it is exactly like this, a confusion of lava tubes and hand-cut tunnels with thousands of branching turns and twists."

"How can you hope to find House Jaelre in all this?" Ryld asked. "Do you know this place so well that you've mastered it?"

"Mastered it? Hardly. You could spend a lifetime here and never see the whole thing, but I do know something of its ways. Several well-traveled caravan routes exist along some of the straighter paths, though we're not near any of those. Few travelers approach the Labyrinth from the east, as we have." The scout stepped a little ahead and brushed his hand against the wall, near the place where the other tunnel opened up. Old, strange symbols glowed with a greenish light beneath his fingertips. "Fortunately, the builders carved runes to identify their secret ways. It's a code of markings that holds true throughout the Labyrinth. I solved the puzzle when I last journeyed here. We're not in tunnels I traveled before, but I think I know how to reach them from here."

"You are a lad of many talents," Pharaun observed.

"Who carved these tunnels?" Halisstra asked. "If this place is as big as you say, it must have been a powerful realm in its day, but I can tell at a glance those marks aren't ours. Nor are they duergar, illithid, or aboleth."

"Minotaurs," Valas replied. "I don't know how long ago their realm rose or fell, but there was a great kingdom of them here at some point in the past."

"Minotaurs?" Quenthel sneered. "They're b.e.s.t.i.a.l savages. They could hardly have the wits or the patience to undertake work of this scope, let alone build a great realm."

Valas shrugged and said, "That may be true now, but a thousand years ago, who knows? I've found plenty of their artifacts and remains scattered through this region. The horned skulls are quite distinctive. My friends among House Jaelre told me that many minotaurs still roam the wild places and disused pa.s.sages of the Labyrinth, including demonic beasts armed with powerful sorcery. Their patrols skirmished with the monsters regularly."

"One wonders whether we might at some point in our journey happen to pa.s.s through a realm filled with cheerful, civilized folk genuinely concerned for our well-being and eager to help us on our way," Pharaun muttered. "I am beginning to think our fair city lies at the bottom of a barrel of venomous snakes."

"If so, we're quicker, stronger, and more venomous than any other snake in the barrel," Quenthel said with a smile. "Come, let's continue. If there are any minotaurs about, they would be well-advised not to show themselves where the children of Menzoberranzan choose to walk."

The company continued on for several hours more through endless gloomy halls and contorted pa.s.sages before calling a halt to rest and replenish their strength. The stretch of the Labyrinth they wandered seemed to be quite deserted. They found few signs that anything, even the mindless predatory creatures of the Underdark, had pa.s.sed that way in many years. The air was preternaturally still and silent. Whenever their whispered conversation died away for a moment, the quiet of the place seemed to rush in upon them, pressing close with a strangely hostile quality, as if the very stone resented their presence.

After Valas and Ryld had been set to watch, the rest wrapped themselves in their piwafwis and made themselves as comfortable as possible on the cold stone floor of the cavern. Halisstra let her eyes fall half-closed and drifted off into a deep Reverie, dreaming about endless tunnels and strange old secrets buried in mold. In her dream she thought she could make out a faint, distant rustling or whisper in the quiet, as if she might hear something more if only she moved a little ways off from the others, out into the darkness alone. Despite the fact that the air was completely still and motionless, she discerned the distant deep sighing of wind far off in the tunnels, a low moaning sound that tickled at the edge of her awareness, like something important she had forgotten. Lolth's whispers sometimes came to one in that fashion, a sibilant sigh of wordless intent filling a priestess with knowledge of the demon queen's desires.

Hope and fear stirred in Halisstra's heart and she came closer to wakefulness.

What is your wish, G.o.ddess? she cried out in her mind. Tell me how House Melarn might win your favor again. Tell me how Ched Nasad might be made whole. I will do anything you command of me!

Faithless daughter, the wind whispered back to her. Foolish weakling.

Horror jolted Halisstra from her Reverie and she sat up straight, her heart pounding.

Only a dream, she told herself. I dreamed of what I wished to happen, and what I feared might come, but nothing more. The Spider Queen has not spoken. She has not condemned me.

Nearby, the others lay on the cold stone floor or sat wrapped deep in their own meditations, taking their rest, while a little distance away Ryld stood guard, a broad-shouldered shape motionless in the dark. The daughter of House Melarn lowered her eyes and listened to the curious sound of the wind, surrounded in the darkness her people had made theirs.

"Lolth does not speak," she whispered. "I heard only the wind, nothing else."

Why has the G.o.ddess abandoned us? Why did she allow Ched Nasad to fall? How did we incur her wrath? Halisstra wondered. Her eyes stung with bitter tears. Were we unworthy of her?

The wind rose again, this time closer, louder. It was not a whistling, or even a rushing sound. It reminded her of the call of a deep-voiced horn far off, perhaps many horns, and it was growing. Halisstra frowned, puzzled. Was this some strange phenomenon of the Labyrinth, a rush of air through pipelike tunnels in the dark? Such things were not unknown in other places of the Underdark. In some cases the winds could scour a tunnel bare of life, they were so sudden and powerful. This one muttered and babbled and thrummed as she listened, many great horns roaring at once Halisstra leaped to her feet. Ryld stood staring back the way they had come, Splitter gleaming in his hand.

"Do you hear them?" she called to Ryld. "The minotaurs are coming!"

"I thought it was the wind," the fighter growled. "Rouse the others."

He sprinted down the pa.s.sageway toward the approaching host, shouting for Valas to join him from his post in the other direction. Halisstra s.n.a.t.c.hed up her pack and shouldered it quickly, rousing the rest of the company with shouts of alarm and the occasional quick kick for those who were slow to shake off their deep trances.

She readied her crossbow, loading a quarrel as she peered down the tunnel behind them.

The floor quivered beneath her feet. Great footfalls as hard as rock came in a stamping rush, and deep bellows and snorts echoed and echoed again in a roiling cacophony that filled the pa.s.sage. Hot animal stink a.s.saulted her nostrils, and she saw theman onrushing mob of dozens of the hulking brutes, huge bull-headed monsters with s.h.a.ggy pelts and ma.s.sive hooves, clutching mighty axes and flails in their thickly muscled fists.

Before that storm Ryld and Valas skipped and darted like sparrows blown before a gale, battling furiously for their lives against the bloodthirsty savages. Halisstra took aim quickly and shot one monster in the chest with her powerful crossbow, but the creature was so blood-maddened it simply ignored the bolt buried in its thick torso. She laid in another quarrel as the bow's magic c.o.c.ked it again, only to have her shot spoiled by Jeggred's rush into the fray.

"Jeggred, you idiot, there are too many to fight!" she cried.

The draegloth ignored her and threw himself against the horde. For a moment the half-demon's size and fury held up the minotaurs' charge, but over Jeggred's white-furred shoulders and the flashing blades of Ryld and Valas, Halisstra could make out dozens more of the hirsute monsters, fanged mouths bellowing challenges, eyes glowing red with rage. Several had fallen before Splitter, Valas's curved knives, and Jeggred's talons, but battle-frenzied minotaurs shrugged off all but the most grievous of injuries, clawing over each other to get at the drow invaders.

Halisstra shifted to one side and shot again, while Danifae joined her with her own crossbow. Quenthel danced just behind Jeggred, flicking her deadly scourge at monsters threatening to swarm over the draegloth, and Pharaun shouted an arcane word that hurled a bright globe of crackling energy into the midst of the minotaur ranks. The sphere detonated with a clap of thunder and blasted bright arcs of lightning across the tunnel, charring some minotaurs into cinders, and burning great black wounds in others.

In the searing light of the lightning ball, Halisstra saw something taller and lankier than the minotaurs, behind the front ranks, a demonic presenceno, several demonsdriving the angry monsters on. Huge black wings shrouded the things in shadow, and their dark horns glowed red with heat.

Roars and bellows filled the pa.s.sage with rage, while the ring of steel on steel came so fast and hard that Halisstra could barely hear herself shout, "There are demons back there!"

"I see them," Quenthel replied. She fell back a couple of steps and seized Pharaun by the arm. "Can you dismiss them?"

"I have no such spell ready," the wizard replied. "Besides, getting rid of the demons isn't going to get us out of this little imbroglio. I think we"

"I don't care what you think!" Quenthel screamed. "If you can't banish the demons, then bar the pa.s.sage!"

Pharaun grimaced, but he complied by beginning another spell. Halisstra reloaded and searched for another clear shot. Ryld crouched low and hamstrung a minotaur attacking him with an axe big enough to split an anvil, and gutted the creature with an upward draw cut across its belly. Valas was upended by a flailing chain that yanked his feet out from under him. The scout rolled away, narrowly escaping having his skull pulped.

One or more of the demons behind the battling minotaurs hurled a barrage of green, fiery bolts at the dark elves. One dissipated against Quenthel's inborn resistance to magic, while two others burned Pharaun and Danifae with vitriolic fire. Somehow the wizard managed to complete his spell.

What Halisstra a.s.sumed was some sort of invisible barrier forced most of the minotaurs and their demonic masters back, while a pair of the frontline fighters found themselves suddenly cut off from their allies. While the main host of the bull creatures hurled themselves against Pharaun's invisible wall and tried vainly to batter their way through with their crude, clumsy weapons, the dark elves quickly cut down the minotaurs unfortunate enough to have been caught on the drow's side.

In a few moments the screams and impacts of the fight had died away to the dull, attenuated bellowing of the minotaurs on the other side of the wall, milling about and shaking their weapons in anger at the drow. The minotaurs turned away all at once and darted back the way they'd come, running hard. A dozen or more hulking carca.s.ses remained scattered on the floor.

Ryld backed away carefully, helping Valas to his feet. Jeggred stood panting, bleeding from a dozen small wounds.

"How long will that wall hold?" Quenthel asked.

"No more than a quarter of an hour," Pharaun answered. "The demons can probably get through it if they wish, but I suspect that they're leading those minotaurs around through other tunnels to come at us from the other side. May I suggest we remove ourselves from the vicinity before we find out how they mean to circ.u.mvent my barrier?"

Quenthel scowled, grabbed her pack, and said, "Fine. Let's go."

If it had been in his nature to show alarm by pacing back and forth across his sanctum, Gromph Baenre would have spent most of the previous hour doing so. Instead, he peered into the great crystal ball that rested in the center of his scrying sanctum, confirming Pharaun's report. How exactly had the Master of Sorcere worded it?

Felicitations, mighty Gromph. It may interest you to learn that the army of Gracklstugh now marches on Menzoberranzan. We continue on our course. Good luck!

"Arrogant popinjay," Gromph muttered to himself. The boy had no respect for his elders.

Before dashing off to the matron mothers in a panic, Gromph had of course decided to investigate Pharaun's report with his own careful scrying and study. The milky orb revealed a fine scene for the archmage's eyes, a long column of marching duergar warriors winding through the Underdark. Huge pack lizards carried heavy bundles of supplies and various infernal devices of war. Siege engines trundled along behind long lines of ogre slaves.

Gaining even that glimpse of the army on the move was difficult, as duergar wizards sought to conceal the movements of their prince's army from the scrying efforts of hostile mages. Gromph, however, was an extraordinarily capable diviner. It had taken him some time, but he had eventually pierced the duergar wizards' defenses.

Gromph examined the scene closely, seeking out the most minute detailsthe insignia of marching soldiers, the exact size and condition of the tunnels they pa.s.sed through, the cadence of the Dwarvish marching chants. He wanted to be absolutely certain he understood the scope and immediacy of the threat before he brought his news to the attention of the Council, as the matron mothers would doubtless expect him to have already divined the answers to any questions they might think of. The most disturbing question, of course, was how long it might have taken him to learn of the marching army if Pharaun Mizzrym hadn't been pa.s.sing through Gracklstugh. The duergar might have covered half the distance between the cities before an outpost or a far-ranging patrol detected the army.

"d.a.m.nation," the archmage growled.

Whether or not Menzoberranzan was ready, the next challenge to the city gathered in the smoky pits of the duergar realm a hundred miles to the south. Gromph sighed and decided that he might as well deal with the unpleasant business of telling the Council what he'd seen sooner rather than later. He rose with one smooth motion, arranged his robes, and took up his favorite staff. It would not do to appear before the matron mothers in anything less than complete and total self-a.s.surance, especially when bringing such dire news to them.

He was just about to step into the stone shaft at the rear of the chamber and descend to his apartments in Sorcere when he felt a familiar, crawling sensation. Someone was scrying upon himan accomplishment of no small skill, considering the steps he took to prevent such occurrences. Gromph started to work a spell to sever the magical spying, but stopped himself. He was engaged in nothing he cared to conceal, and he was curious to discover whether a duergar wizard had managed to detect his own scrying.

"Do you have anything you wish to say to me," he asked the air, "or shall I simply strike you blind where you sit?"

Save your spell, came a cold, rasping voice in his head. As I haven't had eyes in my skull in over a thousand years, I doubt you could do them much harm.

"Lord Dyrr," Gromph said, frowning. "To what do I owe the honor of your attentions?"

And how did you find me? he wondered, though he was careful not to voice the question.

I wish to continue the conversation we began a few days past, young Gromph, the lich's voice replied. I intend to expand upon my earlier offer by describing in greater detail some of the schemes I have in mind. After all, if I am to ask you to trust me, then I suppose I must extend you a token of trust first.

"Indeed. Well, I would be happy to oblige you, but I have urgent business with the Council. Perhaps we could take up this conversation a little later?"

Gromph glanced around the room, and his eyes fell on the crystal orb in the chamber's oriel. The sphere swirled with pearly green opalescence.

Ah, of course, the archmage realized. He found me here, where my screens against hostile divinations are weakened by the transparency of my scrying place. I must investigate ways to guard against such occurrences without hampering my own efforts.

I fear I must speak with you now, Dyrr pressed. I will not delay you for very long, and I believe you will be glad you listened to me before facing our scheming females. May I join you there?

Gromph paused and gazed up at the unseen presence watching him, repressing an angry scowl. Inviting a creature like Dyrr into his conjuring chambers was not something he cared to do on a whim. Whether or not the ancient sorcerer had anything Gromph wished to hear, it was true that the matron mothers would not take kindly to waiting on his arrival. He tapped his finger on the great wooden staff at his side, considering carefully. He had no wish to give offense to Dyrr if it could be avoided, and after long centuries of undeath it was hard to say what the lich might or might not find offensive. Besides, Gromph stood in his own sanctum, where many potent magical defenses lay within his reach. . . .

"Very well, Lord Dyrr. Though I really must insist that we keep our conversation short, as my business with the Council is exceedingly urgent."

The air began to seethe and hum a few feet in front of the archmage, and with a sudden crack of sound, the ancient lichdrow stood before him. The creature leaned on a staff of his own, a mighty implement made from four adamantine rods twisted around each other and bound at head and heel. A small buckler of black metal in the shape of a demonic face twisted in an idiot's grin hovered in the air at his elbow. Dyrr did not bother with his living guise, and stood revealed as a horrid skeleton with eyes as black as death.

"Greetings, Archmage. I apologize for inconveniencing you," the lich said. He fixed his blank sockets on Gromph. "What is it that drives you to seek an audience with the matrons today, young Gromph?"

"With all due respect, Lord Dyrr, I believe that is a matter for their ears, not yours. Now, what offer do you have for me that cannot wait?"

"As you wish, then," Dyrr said. "An army marches against Menzoberranzan from the souththe gray dwarves have apparently heard of our troubles and have decided to take advantage of the opportunity this offers."

"Yes, I know," Gromph snapped. "It is for this very reason that I must leave at once. If you have nothing else . . . ?"

He started toward the plain stone shaft leading down into his apartments.

"I find that I am pleased that my news did not surprise you," the lich said. "If you had not known of the duergar army, I would have had to make sure that it did not come to your attention, if you take my meaning." Dyrr turned to face Gromph's back with a terrible sc.r.a.ping and clicking sound of bones rubbing together. "You may recall we spoke a few days past regarding a time when you must make a decision. The time has come to do so."

Gromph stopped in his tracks and turned around carefully. He'd hoped that wasn't the lich's motive in confronting him, but it seemed Dyrr intended to press the issue whether the archmage wished him to or not.

"A decision, Dyrr?"

"Do not play at misunderstanding me. I know you're far too intelligent for that. All you need do is withhold your report for a few more days, and you can rush over to panic the matrons with news of a duergar army on our doorstep. In fact, my plans will be well served if you do so at a time and in a manner convenient to me."

"That would place the city in peril," Gromph said.

"It is in peril already, young Gromph. I mean to impose some measure of order on the inevitable. You could be of great a.s.sistance to me in the coming days, or. ..."

"I see," said Gromph.

He narrowed his eyes, considering his options. He could feign acceptance, and do as he wished anyway, but that would certainly invite the lich's wrath at the time and place of Dyrr's choosing. He could refuse outright, which would likely result in a deadly contest on the spot to determine whose will would prevail.

Or I could agree in earnest, he thought. Who's to say that we might not channel the forces marshalling against the city into useful chaos, valuable progress? There will doubtless be tremendous damage, but the Menzoberranzan that emerged from such a crucible of blood and fire might be a better, stronger city in the end, a city purged of the ruthless tyranny of the s.a.d.i.s.tic priestesses and instead governed by the cold, pa.s.sionless intelligence of pragmatic wizards. Every cruelty could be made to serve a rational purpose, every excess curbed to produce a city whose strength was not spent on its own internecine strife. Would not such a city be worthy of his loyalty?

Would such a city have any place for a Baenre? he answered himself.

No revolution such as Dyrr dreamed of could possibly end with anything but complete annihilation for the First House of Menzoberranzan. While Gromph despised his sisters and loathed many of the simpering relations who populated Castle Baenre, he would be d.a.m.ned if he would allow some lesser House to unseat his high and ancient family as the supreme power of Menzoberranzan. There could be, really, only one response.

As quick as thought, Gromph raised his hand and unleashed a terrible, brilliant blast of colors at the lich, a spell whose energy he had prepared with such care and effort that it took only the merest act of will to unleash it. Colors never seen in the gloom of the cavern city lanced through his conjury, each carrying with it a different doom, blight, or energy. A quivering blue bolt of electricity pa.s.sed so close to Dyrr that the lich's ancient robes crackled with tiny arcs, while a bright orange ray burned the ancient creature with acid powerful enough to melt stone. A third ray, a beam of insidious violet, was deflected by the lich's animated buckler. The device t.i.ttered like a wicked child as it intercepted the attack.

"I am the Archmage of Menzoberranzan," Gromph roared. "I am no one's errand boy!"

Dyrr recoiled with a wailing shriek of anger as the acid splattered and hissed, gnawing at his ancient flesh. The smell of burning bone filled the magnificent conjury with a horrid stench. Gromph followed up his first a.s.sault by raising an abjuration he hoped would turn Dyrr's spells back at him. The archmage fully expected that it would take every ruse, every defense, every subtle and deadly spell at his command to defeat a thing as powerful as the Lord of Agrach Dyrr.

Gromph concluded his turning spell just in time, as Dyrr recovered with impossible speed and lashed out with a dire black ray of invidious energy that would have ripped away great portions of the archmage's very life-force had it struck home. Instead, the ebon beam rebounded on Gromph's shield and struck Dyrr in the center of his torso. This, however, had an unforeseen effect. Instead of shredding the ancient lich's own life-force, the crackling black energy swelled the Lord of Agrach Dyrr with its horrible power. The lich laughed aloud.

"A clever move, Gromph, but I fear it miscarried. Living creatures are grievously harmed by that spell, but the undead are invigorated by it!"

The archmage muttered a curse and struck again, this time directing a vile green ray at the laughing lich. It burned a perfect round hole in Dyrr's breastbone, blasting undead flesh and bone to dust. The lich screeched again in whatever pa.s.sed for pain in its undead state and leaped aside before Gromph could disintegrate him outright.

Even as the archmage commenced another casting, Dyrr snarled out the words of a dark and murderous spell that clawed horribly at Gromph's flesh, sucking greedily at the very fluids of his body and bleaching his skin with a thousand needles of agony. Gromph gasped aloud in pain and lost the spell he'd been preparing to cast, stumbling back over a marble bench and falling heavily to the floor.

d.a.m.n it all, he thought. I need to buy a moment's respite.

Fortunately, he was in his sanctum, surrounded by a dozen weapons he might employ.

Gromph rolled to his elbow and barked out, "Szashune! Destroy him!"