clerics should be trusted with the rule of this city for very much longer at all. You and I, we still command great and terrible powers, do we not? The mystic secrets of our Art have not abandoned us, nor are they likely to at any point in the future. Perhaps it is time to look to the security of our civilization, the defense of our city, by taking up the reins of governance the matron mothers are no longer strong enough to hold. Our city's peril grows with every hour. We have rivals outside the Dark Dominion, after all, other races and realms that threaten us."
"And that is precisely why I am hesitant to turn drow wizards against drow priestesses," Gromph replied. "The only thing that could possibly increase our current vulnerability would be to start a civil war. To spare ourselves the fate of Ched Nasad, we must shore up the existing order until the crisis has passed."
"And what thanks do you think you will earn, from the priestesses or from the Spider Queen herself, for that blind loyalty?" Dyrrturned back to Gromph and tapped one skeletal forefinger in the center of the archmage's chest. Gromph could not restrain a shudder. "You have poten-tial, young Gromph. You are not without talent, and you see past House Baenre to Menzoberranzan itself. Put those qualities to work and consider carefully the course you choose in the next few days. Events are coming that will provide you with an opportunity for greatness, or failure. Do not make the wrong choice."
Gromph took a cautious step backward, moving out over the vast gulf of the cavern and hovering in the air.
"I am afraid I must tend Narbondel, Lord Dyrr. I will take my leave now . . . and I will think carefully on your words. You may have appreci-ated the situation more accurately than I."
The burning green gaze of the lichdrow followed Gromph down into the darkness as he fell softly toward the city below. He would indeed think long and hard about the lich's words. He might stall Dyrr once with civility and caution, but he wouldnot be able to do so indefinitely. Gromph didn't doubt the lich would expect a different answer when next they spoke.
The Darklake was a strange and terrible place. A blackness greater than any Halisstra had ever known enveloped her and her companions, a space so vast that its unseen recesses gnawed at the mind. The great cav-erns of the drow were often miles across, tremendous places harboring cities of many thousands, but - if Coalhewer did not exaggerate - the Darklake occupied a cavern well over one hundred miles from side to side, and thousands of feet in height. Great island columns the size of moun-tains held up the mighty roof, creating fanglike archipelagos in the dark-ness. The waters of the lake virtually filled the immense space. As they sailed across its surface the ceilingwas often less than a spearcast above them, leaving many hundreds, or even thousands of feet of black mystery below their feet. It was an unsettling sensation.
Coalhewer's boat was less than comforting itself. It was an asymmet-rical vessel made mostly of planks sawn from the woody stems of a partic-ular type of gigantic Underdark mushroom, and treated with lacquers for strength and rigidity. The zurkhwood formed a broad platform, which floated on a cluster of soft air bladders taken from some aquatic species of giant fungus. The whole thing was riveted together with the excellent met-alwork of the gray dwarves.
Four hulking skeletons - ogres in life, perhaps, or maybe trolls - crouched in a well-like area in the boat's center, endlessly turning two large cranks that drove a pair of zurkhwood waterwheels. The mindless undead never tired, never complained, never even slowed their pace unless Coalhewer ordered them to, driving the boat onward with no sound but the soft rush of water over the wheels and the faint clicking and scraping of their bones in motion. The gray dwarf stood near the stern on a small, elevated bridge, high enough to see over the waterwheels. He peered ahead into the darkness, arms folded across his thick chest, keeping his thoughts to himself.
The passengers crouched on the cold, uncomfortable deck or paced back and forth, staying a little ways back from the railless edge of the plat-form. The journey from Mantol-Derith was not extremely swift, as the vessel was not quick, and Coalhewer had to carefully thread his way around places where