The scout looked after the duergar, and shrugged. "I don't think he would cheat us. If he was that kind of duergar, well, he wouldn't last long in Mantol-Derith. People here don't take kindly to being cheated."
"He can securesafe passage through Gracklstugh?" Ryld asked.
Valas spread his hands and replied, "We'll have to carry some kind of documents or letters, which Coalhewer can arrange for us. I think it's some kind of mercantile license."
"We're carrying no goods," Pharaun observed dryly. "Doesn't that ex-planation seem a little thin?"
"I told him that Lady Quenthel's family has business holdings in Eryndlyn she wishes to check on, and that if she finds things in order, she might be interested in negotiating for the services of duergar teamsters to transport her goods across Gracklstugh's territory. I also implied that Coal-hewer might do well to make himself a part of the arrangement."
Pharaun didn't have time to reply before the cavern echoed softly with the stealthy padding of numerous feet. The dark elves glanced up from the fire to see a large band of bugbear warriors approaching, led by the two mercenaries who had fled a few minutes before. At least a dozen of their fellows followed close behind them, axes and spiked flails dangling from hairy paws, murder in their eyes. The other patrons of Dinnka's inn began to slip away from their places, seeking safer envi-rons. The hulking humanoids muttered and growled to each other in their own tongue.
"Tell me," said Valas, "did someone happen to kill, maim, or humili-ate a bugbear when I was talking with Coalhewer?" The scout glanced back at the others, and at Jeggred, who shrugged. He sighed. "Was I un-clear when I advised against starting fights here?"
"There was a misunderstanding over the seating arrangements," Quenthel explained.
Ryld stood, threw his cloak over his shoulder toclear his arms for fighting, and said, "Should've guessed there might be more of them nearby."
"Time to remind these stupid creatures of the order of things," Halis-stra remarked.
Quenthel stood and drew her five-headed whip, eyeing the approach-ing warriors with a wry smile.
"Jeggred?" she said.
Gromph Baenre stood on a balcony high above Menzoberranzan, studying the dim faerielights of the drow city. He had been waiting for nearly an hour, and his patience was almost exhausted. Under most cir-cumstances an hour here or an hour there would have meant nothing to a dark elf with centuries of life behind him, but this was different. The archmage waited in fear, dreading the arrival of the one who had summoned him to this clandestine encounter. It was not a sensation Gromph was accustomed to, and he found that he did not care for it at all. He had, of course, taken extreme steps to protect his person, girding himself with an array of formidable defensive spells and a carefully considered selec-tion of protective magical devices. The archmage was not entirely confi-dent that those precautions would deter the one who came to meet him in that lonely, windswept spot.
"Gromph Baenre," a voice, cold and rasping, greeted him. Before the archmage even began to turn, he felt the presence of the other, an icy chill that somehow managed to sink past his defenses, the smell of great and terrible magic. "How good of you to accept my invitation. It has been a long time, has it not?"
The ancient sorcerer Dyrr approached from the shadows at the back of the balcony, leaning on his great staff, his feet seeming not to move at all as he glided forward in a rustle of robes no quicker than an old man's shuffle.
Among the ambitious drow of his own House, it suited Dyrr to wear the shape of a venerable old dark elf of fantastic age, but Gromph's arcane sight pierced the guise to the truth behind it. Dyrr was dead, dead these many centuries. Nothing remained of the ancient mage but dusty bones clothed in tattered shreds of mummified flesh.His hands were the claws of a skeleton, his robes were faded and threadbare, and his face was a hideous grinning skull, the black eye sockets alight with the bright green flame of his powerful spirit.
"I see that my poor guise does not deceive you," the lich rasped. "In truth, I would have been disappointed if you were so easily beguiled, Archmage."
"Lord Dyrr," said Gromph, a cautious greeting. He inclined his head without taking his eyes off the lichdrow. "In truth, I am surprised to find that you are still among us. I have heard whispers that you