Valas nodded and set off at once. Instead of heading back to the lake-side district and the Cold Foundry, he turned deeper, toward the heart of the cavern. They weaved through the foul-smelling streets and dark alley-ways for a fair distance, passing through business districts where duergar artisans and merchants kept their shops in cramped buildings of field-stone. The hour was growing late, and traffic along the dwarf city's streets seemed to be diminishing. The two dark elves finally reached a street that ran along the edge of a deep cleft or chasm bisecting the city's higher, more inaccessible districts from its ramshackle lakeside neighborhoods. Numer-ous bridges of stone spanned the gap, leading to narrow streets that con-tinued on the far side. A squad of vigilant duergar soldiers stood watch at the foot of each, barring passage across the chasm.
The scout drew Ryld into the shadow of an alleyway and nodded toward the rift and its bridges.
Laduguer's Furrow, he signed. Also known as the Cleft. Everything on the west side is strictly off limits to foreigners. There are a couple of large side cav-erns on the far side that might serve as good marshalling grounds, and they'd be secure from any casual observation.
Ryld studied the Bregan D'aerthe scout thoughtfully, wondering how he knew so much about a part of the city that was supposedly off limits.
I take it you've been there before? Ryld asked.
I've passed through Gracklstugh a couple of times.
I wonder if there's anyplace Valashasn't been, Ryld thought. He shifted in the shadows to get a better look at the guarded bridges. He was a fair hand at staying out of sight when he needed to, but he didn't like the pos-sibilities offered by the narrow, railless spans. There was no cover at all once one set foot on any of the bridges.
How do we cross? he asked.
Valas finished his knots and stepped close, setting his right foot in one bottom loop and crooking his right arm through the topmost.
"Stay close to this stalagmite as you ascend," he said. "We'll want the cover."
Ryld nodded and reached up absently to touch the insignia pinned to his breast. It identified him as a Master of Melee-Magthere, and like the clasps and brooches of many noble Houses, it was enchanted with the power of levitation. Valas didn't doubt that Ryld had fought long and hard to win the right to wear it.
As he'd hoped, the enchantment proved strong enough to support both Ryld's weight and the Bregan D'aerthe's. Effortlessly they glided up into the smoke and gloom of Gracklstugh's upper reaches, until the fumes obscured the streets below. From the top of the great cavern, the floor seemed shrouded in haze and smoke, glaring firelight making bright circles of glowing red mist in a hundred spots around them.
"This is better than I thought," Valas said. "The smoke and fumes give us some concealment."
"And they make my eyes water," Ryld said. He reached the ceiling and found that the cavern roof was rough and pitted. "Which way?"
"To your right. Yes, that's it."
Valas indicated the northern wall of the city with a jerk of his chin, keeping his foot and arm secure in the rope stirrups he'd fashioned. Care-fully, Ryld turned to face the ceiling more evenly, and he pulled himself along hand over hand as if he were climbing a vertical wall of rock. The scout shifted to secure his grip, and kept his own eyes down at the cavern floor below, directing the weapons master in his progress.
"One gray dwarf wizard with a spell of cancellation would certainly ruin our day," Ryld remarked. "Aren't you a little nervous in that arrangement?"
"I've always had a good head for heights, but let's not talk about it anymore."
Ryld chuckled.
For days, the journey had been simply uneventful and dreary. The tac-tical challenge of spying in the heart of the duergar city, though, fully en-gaged them both.
"Head more to your left," Valas said, interrupting his own thoughts. "There's a bit of a ledge on the cavern wall that should run the way we want to go."
Ryld complied, and the two of them carefully leveled off and descended along the sloping roof of the cavern until they found the place where it dropped more or less straight down and became the wall. There, an old weathered seam circled the cavern like the eaves of an old tavern. The weapons master looked at it dubiously, but as they drew