blade. Her blood would purchase treason on a grand scale, and place into the assassin's hand the stiletto Nimor meant to drive into Menzoberranzan's heart.
A scrabbling sound and the clink of mail caught Nimor's notice. He withdrew softly into the shadows and waited patiently as a squad of Tlabbar warriors mounted on great riding lizards climbed along a small, unworked stalactite nearby. The pallid reptiles possessed large, sticky pads on their clawed feet that allowed them to cling to the sheerest of sur-faces, and many of Menzoberranzan's noble Houses used the creatures for patrolling the high places of the city's vast cavern. Faen Tlabbar was renowned for its squadrons of lizard cavalry. The assassin had studied the Tlabbar patrols from his precarious perch for more than an hour, care-fully timing their sweeps.
Right on time, Nimor observed. You've allowed yourselves to become predictable, lads.
The riders carried crossbows and lances at the ready, scurrying along in single file as they looped around the smaller stalactite and scanned the cavern ceiling. As Nimor expected, the leader turned to the left and fol-lowed the curve of the stone pinnacle down and out of sight.
"You would do well to vary your routine, Captain," Nimor whispered to the departing squad. "An intrepid fellow such as myself might be de-terred by the possibility of your unexpected return."
With a single silent spring, Nimor launched himself out into the vast darkness, plunging through the eternal night.
By an accident of cavern formation, House Tlabbar held little of the city's roof and overcaverns. One large column and a pair of small stalactites linked Tlabbar to the ceiling, which meant that Tlabbar had something of a blind spot directly over its palace roof. This was the weakness Nimor in-tended to exploit. His black cloak streamed behind him, and cold air rushed past his face. Nimor bared his teeth in a savage grin, delighting in the long seconds of his great leap. His body burned with the dark fires of his her-itage, and he longed to shed his rakish guise, but this was not the time.
While he fell, he mouthed the words to a spell that made him in-visible, and as the spearlike pinnacle of Faen Tlabbar's central palace rushed up at him, he quickly halted his fall by employing his power of lev-itation. Less than six heartbeats from the moment he'd leaped from the abandoned stalactite overhead, Nimor alighted on the knifelike ridge of a steep hall, invisible and undetected. He listened for any sign that he had been detected, then he glided toward the hall's juncture with the castle proper, his steps as silent as death.
The dark elves of Faen Tlabbar were not unaware of their vulnerabil-ity to assault from above, and vigilant sentries manned battlements and cupolas atop the palace, watching for intruders. Nimor avoided them care-fully. Those who were able to see invisible foes - and there were more than a few - were not in the habit of watching for an invisible foe who also glided from shadow to shadow with the stealth of a master assassin. Nimor was more concerned with the various magical barriers shielding the house. He habitually protected himself with spells designed to counter and con-fuse various forms of magical detection, but they were not foolproof.
Green and gold radiance glimmered around him as he crept along the steep,tiled roof of a square tower. The Faen Tlabbar, like many other Houses, used magic to illuminate and decorate the baroque spires and balconies of their home. Nimor lowered himself to his belly and edged down even farther, headfirst, listening carefully. Below him he expected to find a guard post, and an entrance leading into the manor itself. Over the decades the Jaezred Chaulssin had used magic to scry what they could of the layout and defenses of many great Houses in more than one drow city, and the slender assassin had carefully studied his brotherhood's notes and drawings on House Tlabbar. The information was, of course, incomplete and out of date, as parts of the castle were blocked from all scrying, and the Jaezred Chaulssin had not studied the Houses of Menzoberran-zan in a very long time. Nimor would have preferred to update his infor-mation through the bribery or capture of a Tlabbar guard, but he simply did not have the time to arrange such a thing and keep the rest of his timetable intact.
He heard the soft sounds of movement on the balcony below the eave of the roof he lay on. Two, he guessed,