true now, but a thousand years ago, who knows? I've found plenty of their artifacts and remains scattered through this region. The horned skulls are quite distinctive. My friends among House Jaelre told me that many minotaurs still roam the wild places and disused passages of the Labyrinth, including demonic beasts armed with powerful sorcery. Their patrols skirmished with the monsters regularly."
"One wonders whether we might at some point in our journey happen to pass through a realm filled with cheerful, civilized folk gen-uinely concerned for our well-being and eager to help us on our way," Pha-raun muttered. "I am beginning tothink our fair city lies at the bottom of a barrel of venomous snakes."
"If so, we're quicker, stronger, and more venomous than any other snake in the barrel," Quenthel said with a smile. "Come, let's continue. If there are any minotaurs about, they would be well-advised not to show them-selves where the children of Menzoberranzan choose to walk."
The company continued on for several hours more through endless gloomy halls and contorted passages before calling a halt to rest and re-plenish their strength. The stretch of the Labyrinth they wandered seemed to be quite deserted. They found few signs that anything, even the mind-less predatory creatures of the Underdark, had passed that way in many years. The air was preternaturally still and silent. Whenever their whis-pered conversation died away for a moment, the quiet of the place seemed to rush in upon them, pressing close with a strangely hostile quality, as if the very stone resented their presence.
After Valas and Ryld had been set to watch, the rest wrapped them-selves in theirpiwafwis and made themselves as comfortable as possible on the cold stone floor of the cavern. Halisstra let her eyes fall half-closed and drifted off into a deep Reverie, dreaming about endless tunnels and strange old secrets buried in mold. In her dream she thought she could make out a faint, distant rustling or whisper in the quiet, as if she might hear some-thing more if only she moved a little ways off from the others, out into the darkness alone. Despite the fact that the air was completely still and mo-tionless, she discerned the distant deep sighing of wind far off in the tun-nels, a low moaning sound that tickled at the edge of her awareness, like something important she had forgotten. Lolth's whispers sometimes came to one in that fashion, a sibilant sigh of wordless intent filling a priestesswith knowledge of the demon queen's desires.
Hope and fear stirred in Halisstra's heart and she came closer to wakefulness.
What is your wish, Goddess? she cried out in her mind. Tell me how House Melarn might win your favor again. Tell me how Ched Nasad might be made whole. I will do anything you command of me!
Faithless daughter, the wind whispered back to her. Foolish weakling.
Horror jolted Halisstra from her Reverie and she sat up straight, her heart pounding.
Only a dream, she told herself. I dreamed of what I wished to happen, and what I feared might come, but nothing more. The Spider Queen has not spoken. She has not condemned me.
Nearby, the others lay on the cold stone floor or sat wrapped deep in their own meditations, taking their rest, while a little distance away Ryld stood guard, a broad-shouldered shape motionless in the dark. The daugh-ter of House Melarn lowered her eyes and listened to the curious sound of the wind, surrounded in the darkness her people had made theirs.
"Lolth does not speak," she whispered. "I heard only the wind, noth-ing else."
Why has the Goddess abandoned us? Why did she allow Ched Nasad to fall? How did we incur her wrath? Halisstra wondered. Her eyes stung with bitter tears. Were we unworthy of her?
The wind rose again, this time closer, louder. It was not a whistling, or even a rushing sound. It reminded her of the call of a deep-voiced horn far off, perhaps many horns, and it was growing. Halisstra frowned, puzzled. Was this some strange phenomenon of the Labyrinth, a rush of air through pipelike tunnels in the dark? Such things were not unknown in other places of the Underdark. In some cases the winds could scour a tunnel bare of life, they were so sudden and powerful. This one muttered and babbled and thrummed as she listened, many great horns roaring at once -
Halisstra leaped to her feet. Ryld stood staring back the way they had come, Splitter gleaming in his hand.