The Dark Elf Trilogy | Page 2

drow houses, the insignia of House Do'Urden held
several magical dweomers, one of which gave 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 from its maw.
Dinin took a deep breath and gingerly stepped to the archway. He could see the
spiders leering down at him from their fifteen-foot height. He was a drow of the
city, not an enemy, and could pass through 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 utmost importance to his family's battle plans. Looking
straight ahead, away from the towering 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 admire the sweeping 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-mile cavern,
affording a panoramic view to the rest of Menzoberranzan. The cubby of the
Academy was narrow, holding only the three structures that comprised the drow
school: Arach Tinilith, the spider-shaped school of Lloth, Sorcere, the gracefully
curving, many-spired tower
of wizardry, and Melee Magthere, the somewhat plain pyramidal structure where
male fighters learned their trade. Beyond Tier Breche, through the ornate
stalagmite columns that marked the entrance to the Academy, the cavern
dropped away quickly and spread wide, going 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
from various fissures and hot springs swirled about the entire cavern. Purple and
red, bright yellow and subtle blue, crossed and merged, climbed the walls and
stalagmite mounds, or ran off singularly in cutting lines against the backdrop of
dim gray stone. More confined than these generalized and natural gradations of
color in the infrared spectrum were the regions of intense magic, like the spiders
Dinin had walked between, virtually glowing with energy. Finally there were the
actual lights of the city, faerie fire and highlighted sculptures on the houses. The
drow were proud of the beauty of their designs, and especially ornate columns or
perfectly crafted gargoyles were almost always limned in permanent magical
lights.
Even from this distance Dinin could make out House Baenre, First House of
Menzoberranzan. It encompassed twenty stalagmite pillars and half again that
number of gigantic 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 immense structure glowed in faerie fire, blue at the outlying towers
and brilliant purple at the huge central dome.
The sharp light of candles, foreign to the Underdark, glared through some of the
windows 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 smile spread across Dinin's thin lips when he thought of some of those
soldiers who would fall this night.
Dinin studied Narbondel, the huge central pillar that served as the timeclock of
Menzoberranzan. Narbondel was, the only way the drow had to mark the
passage of time in aworld that otherwise knew no days and no seasons. At the
end of each day, the city's appointed Archmage cast his magical 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 warmth up the structure of Narbondel
until the whole of it glowed 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 midnight, the appointed hour.
Dinin moved away from the spiders and the tunnel exit and crept along 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 arms out before him and bent at the elbows, his hands tight
together, one on top of the