the rest of the party. 'Keep your eyes open, friends. I am very concerned about what might or might not come up behind us in the dark.'
Yu Wei stepped aboard last and carefully touched the heel of his staff to the old dwarven stone, speaking a word that Jack did not recognize. After a moment, the platform began to sink, dropping quickly and smoothly down the crevasse as the walls seemed to climb away from them.
The wind screamed like something flayed alive as they dropped into the darkness.
'Dungeon delving,' mused Jack, 'is an occupation for those unfortunate souls who have demonstrated that they are too stupid, ill-tempered, or incompetently noble to hold down any honest job.'
He gazed out into the great vast darkness around him and shivered. For several minutes the stone platform had descended through empty air, as the crevasse had widened drastically hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of feet below its upper entrance. The walls were now well out of sight, and still they dropped. At least the platform hadn't yet taken them into any life-threatening peril, but that, of course, was no guarantee that it wouldn't at any moment. A cold, damp stream of air raked the open platform, hinting of vast subterranean spaces stretching away around them. The platform was a bubble of golden light, sinking into darkness like a coin dropped into a bottomless well.
'Surely recovering treasures long forgotten is better than outright theft and burglary?'' Illyth replied. 'It's dangerous, but it's honest.'
Jack stood close by her, holding her closely to keep her warm. Jelan had not provided Illyth with garb particularly suited for marching around in the frigid depths, and the noblewoman shivered constantly.
Jack shrugged and threw his cloak over her shoulders. 'I'll trade risk for guilt any time,' he said with a laugh.
Illyth's disapproving look stung him, and he fell silent. They gazed into the limitless dark, wondering when the descent would come to an end.
'Hathmar, what do you know of the depths beneath Sarbreen?' Jelan asked the drow swordsman. The Warlord did not take her eyes away from the wall of darkness around them, watching vigilantly for any sign of trouble. 'Are there any monsters common to this region we should watch for? Hazardous conditions that might cause injury or death?'
'I have never walked these ways, Warlord,' the drow said. 'In Sarbreen's day, the region beneath the city was vigorously patrolled by the dwarven city above. If drow had lived here when Sarbreen was great, there would have been war. My people lived in the deep Underdark near this region, but they must have been long gone by the time of Sarbreen's founding. Certainly the Sarbreenaar never had any truck with them.'
'Silence,' hissed Yu Wei. 'We've reached the bottom.'
Around them long spires of rock now appeared at the edge of their bubble of light, gleaming wetly in the darkness and growing thicker and wider as they descended toward the giant stalagmites' unseen bases. Jack had the curious fear that the platform would settle on one of the rocky points and upend itself, but the makers of the ancient mechanism were not so careless; the platform came to rest on a square of polished granite with a soft grating sound. Jack hopped to the floor of the chamber and helped Illyth down; the others dismounted carefully, searching for any signs of danger.
'The gargoyles did not pursue us,' Jelan said, looking up into the darkness. The Warlord frowned in concern. 'They have wings. Why didn't they chase us down here?'
'Perhaps they have not yet broken through Yu Wei's wall,' Amarana, the Shar priestess, said.
'Or perhaps they have no wish to be where we are now,' Jack muttered. 'It could be that they feared to follow you into the chasm.'
'A cheerful thought,' said Jelan. She shook herself and looked around the stone forest surrounding them. Great needles of stone rose into the darkness, as tall as the turrets of a castle. 'Which way now?'
'According to my divinations, we should seek a lake of darkness,' Yu Wei said. 'We will find the wild mythal there.' He consulted a small, dark orb held in his left hand and studied it for a moment. Then he pointed off into the darkness. 'That way.'
'Hathmar, you lead,' said Jelan. 'Amarana, would you join him? Your dark lady favors you with sight in places such as this. Yu Wei, Kel Kelek, follow them. Jack, you and I will stay close to Illyth. Tenghar, you and the rest cover the rear. And make sure you keep your eyes open.'
With the drow and the Shar priestess in the lead and half a dozen swordsmen guarding their backs, they set off between the huge stalagmites, winding across an uneven floor of natural rock that surrounded the dwarven platform at the foot of the long descent. Jack offered Illyth an arm to steady herself and picked his way carefully across the damp stone. He could feel something now, even without closing his eyes or concentrating on it, a subtle tide that seemed to tug on his soul. It almost felt as if he were caught in an undertow, the race of water receding away from the shore to gather for a tremendous wave still unseen. And the power of the magic streaming past him resonated, recharged him, so that he felt full of power and skill and confidence. With every step he could sense his magical strength replenishing itself, a sensation he never experienced on the surface.
'I think we're getting close,' he told Illyth. 'I can feel something ahead of us, a very strong magic indeed. I don't think I've ever held this much power.'
'The lake,' called Blademark from the front, softly.
A moment later they all reached the shore. The water was oily and blacker than night, a great dark expanse whose farther shores might have been a hundred yards away or a hundred miles. Here, at least, the shore seemed to indicate a sizable body of water. Small waves lapped at the gravel strand, and a band of damp stones above the waterline hinted at a small tidal range. Left and right the shore was bare, marked only by boulder falls and rare pinnaclelike stalagmites rising up into the darkness.
'Are we supposed to swim from this point forward?' Jack asked.
'If necessary, I can arrange it,' Yu Wei retorted. 'We will do what must be done.'
'Quiet,' said Jelan. 'Look.' She pointed toward the center of the black lake. Out over the water, hundreds of yards beyond the limit of their vision, a green aurora danced. Emerald energy twisted in an ever-changing spiral, weird and ethereal. Jack felt each undulation as a tremor in his bones. 'The wild mythal. That must be where it lies.' She smiled and started forward-
— only to be abruptly lassoed by a slimy, brown tendril from the darkness to their right. Two more shot out, tangling her arms and wrapping several times around the Warlord's torso.
'Look out!' she cried. 'Ropers!'
In the murk and shadows of a large fallen boulder, three dark, pulsing things shifted and gaped. Each looked like a stalagmite that had suddenly sprouted six long, thin tentacles. Jack caught a quick glimpse of bright teeth in their huge maws, and then more tentacles shot out, looping around Yu Wei, Amarana, and Jelan again.
Tenghar shouted a battle cry and leaped forward to hew at the tendrils binding the Warlord, only to be caught in turn by four more tendrils. He had the curious misfortune of being lassoed by two of the creatures at the same time, and between them the monsters were far stronger than him. The Tuigan was hauled off his feet and dragged toward the waiting fangs.
'Get off me!' he shrieked, flailing ineffectually with his tulwar.
His cries rose to a fevered pitch as he was dragged within reach of the ropers' maws. Something crunched in the darkness, and Tenghar abruptly stopped screaming.
'Merciful Oghma!' Illyth choked. 'Those monsters-'
'I know,' said Jack.
He looked around quickly. Jelan's warriors rushed forward to hack at the monsters. Yu Wei burned away one tendril, but two more seized him. Amarana fought to invoke her dark powers, but whipping tendrils spoiled her magic. The Warlord fought silently to keep from being dragged closer. She suddenly dropped flat and braced her feet against a ridge of rock, wedging herself in place. Calmly she released her sword and drew a dagger to begin sawing at the tendrils binding her.
'Kel Kelek! Hathmar! Aid Yu Wei and Amarana! The rest of you, slay those things!'
Jack saw his opportunity. Every one of the Warlord's followers was engaged by the ropers. He took Illyth's hand and quickly worked the spell of shadow-jumping, moving several hundred yards into the darkness and broken
