making him more visible. He couldn't risk that. It would not do for any of the other noble houses to see him and grow curious concerning his actions. Gaining the Dagger would be hard enough without competition. Zak would have to reach the top of the pillar the mundane way.
He did not pause to determine if anyone was watching him. Speed was his only hope. With swift, supple movements, Zak began scaling the surface of Narbondel. He shut his eyes, concentrating, letting touch alone guide his hands and feet to those cracks and protrusions he might use to force his body upward. Soon he was sweating with effort. He clenched his teeth and kept climbing. At last he heaved himself over a sharp edge of stone. For a moment he lay on his back, panting. Then he forced himself to his feet.
Zaknafein stood upon the summit of Narbondel.
A gasp escaped him. Menzoberranzan lay spread out below him like a vast web tangled beyond possibility. Pale faerie fire danced along the edges of the city's countless spires and stairways, emphasizing the darkness rather than driving it back. It was a glorious yet forbidding sight.
'What is this beautiful nightmare we have wrought?' Zak murmured in awe to the dusky air.
Distant specks of light caught the corner of his eye, breaking his trance. He turned to see several tiny blobs of purple magelight bobbing as they descended the long stairway from the academy of Tier Breche into the city. The archmage had left his chambers in Sorcere and was even now making his way toward Narbondel with his entourage. Zak did not have much time left.
Reaching back into his neck-purse, he pulled out the spiderjewel once more. To his surprise, the magical creature crawled to the edge of his hand and jumped to the rough stone at his feet. The little arachnid scuttled across the top of the pillar. Zak followed the winking light of the ruby in its abdomen. Without warning, the red spark vanished. Zak swore, thinking he had lost the spiderjewel. A second later he realized it had scurried into a small hole in the rock.
Kneeling beside the hole, he slipped a hand inside. His fingers brushed a smooth knob of some sort, and it sank beneath his touch. At the same moment, a hiss of dry air rushed upward, along with the sound of stone grating on stone. A circle of rock sank into the top of the pillar and vanished, leaving an opening large enough for an elf to crawl through.
A low laugh escaped Zak's lips. So the spiderjewel had done its work after all.
Ready for anything, the weapons master crouched beside the opening in the pillar. He peered within, but his preternatural eyes met only cool darkness: black, and black again. There was nothing to do but go down. Zak lowered himself into the opening, and his feet met stone steps. It was a staircase. At his feet, a spark of scarlet light glinted. The spiderjewel. He scooped up the gem and slipped it back into his neck-purse.
Alone, he descended the staircase, spiraling deeper and deeper into the heart of Narbondel. With every step, the air grew thicker, more stifling. Walls and steps alike radiated the same uniform coolness, so that all was a featureless blur to his drow eyes and he was forced to make his way by touch alone. Soon he was certain he had descended farther than the height he had climbed. He must have been below Narbondel now. Still, the staircase plunged downward, through solid rock, delving ever deeper into the bones of the world.
Without warning the staircase ended at a sheer drop. Zak barely caught himself in time, teetering on the last step. Beyond was only emptiness and a faint blue phosphorescence, floating on the air. Blinking, Zak forced his eyes to see in the realm of light. A low path escaped his lips.
He stood on the edge of a vast web. Thick, silky strands formed a gigantic net over a bottomless chasm. It was from the cords that the faint glow emanated.
He glimpsed something resting at the very center of the gigantic tangle. A bundle of some sort. No, not a bundle. A cocoon. Purple light pulsed within. Something was inside. Zak had a hunch, but there was only one way to find out for certain.
Concentrating, Zak attempted to levitate, but his body felt strangely leaden. A ward against sorcery lay upon this place. Magic would not work here. He would have to reach the center of the web by other means. One of the web's strands passed within several feet of the last step. Zak judged the distance, then sprang from the staircase. He landed on the thread-no more than two fingers thick-with the ease of an acrobat.
Displaying the eerie grace known only to elvenkind, the weapons master moved along the web strand. The silken material pitched and swayed beneath even his slight weight, but this caused him no difficulty. Without glancing down, he danced along the interconnecting threads. Soon he reached the center of the web.
The cocoon was large, an orb of matted threads longer than his arm. Mottled violet light continued to throb inside, as though from a living thing. Drawing the knife at his belt, Zak slashed at the cocoon. The threads were tough and resilient, and the knife bounced back. He hacked at the cocoon again. On the third try, the adamantite knife snapped, but not before slicing a deep gouge in the cocoon. Zak tossed the broken haft into the chasm below, then reached into the slit in the cocoon. His fingers closed around something smooth and cool. He pulled back, staring in wonder at the ornate silver knife he gripped in his hand. The large jewel embedded in its hilt winked like a purple eye. The Dagger of Menzoberra.
Zak let out a whoop of victory. He rose, balancing on the web and gripping his prize. The cocoon was dark now. Even as he watched, the slit he had made in it grew and the tangled threads began to snap and unwind. Yellowed bones fell out of the cocoon, dropping into the chasm. So this had been a tomb, the final resting place of Menzoberra.
A sudden sound, like the cracking of a whip, echoed off the stone walls. At the same moment the strand beneath Zak's feet shuddered, nearly sending him tumbling into the depths below. The web was unraveling. Nearby, another of the ropy strands parted. Like a giant's whip, one of the broken ends hissed past Zak, tracing a line of fire across his cheek. Blood trickled from the wound. An inch nearer, and it would have struck his head from his shoulders. The entire web shuddered as more strands snapped and unraveled.
Thrusting the Dagger into his belt, Zak ran down an undulating thread, somehow managing to keep his balance. A high-pitched groan gave him a moment's warning. He leapt from the thread a heartbeat before it broke. Landing on another strand, he kept moving, toward the thread that passed near the base of the stairway. Three more times he was forced to jump from a thread just as it parted beneath his feet. Clumps of web were dropping into the chasm now. But he was almost there.
Zak paused on the strand, tensing his legs, ready to jump to the stairs. He was too slow. Before he could move, the cord snapped beneath him. Zak tried to leap to another strand, but there were none left. The last remnants of the vast weaving unraveled. Together, web and weapons master plunged into the darkness below.
Instinct summoned his levitation ability, and this time, power flooded through him. Zak rose through the air as the falling web vanished below. He laughed at his own foolishness. Of course! The aura of unmagic had come from the web. When the web had broken, so had the aura, and his magical powers had returned.
Zak landed on the bottom step of the stairs, then started climbing. He had ascended some distance before he heard, faintly but clearly in his sensitive ears, a voice.
'Midnight approaches. The moment has come. Let the fires be lit.'
Zak froze. The voice could only belong to one: the archmage. Zak had climbed to the base of Narbondel. By some trick of cracks and crevices, the archmage's words had reached the interior of the column, and their meaning renewed Zak's dread.
Let the fires be lit…
Filtering through the stone, faint words of magic drifted on the air. A spell. Zak did not wait to hear the end of it. With redoubled urgency, he hurled himself up the staircase. He had gone no more than three twists of the stairwell when he heard the roar of fire. Orange light burst up from below, along with a blast of scorching air. Midnight had come. The archmage had cast his spell. The fires of Narbondel were rising.
Zak kept climbing. The parched air burned his lungs and nostrils, and tears streamed down his face. The orange glow brightened beneath him. It would take hours for the magical heat to spread throughout the pillar's stones, but in the meantime the spiral stairwell in the center of the column acted like a chimney. Enchanted flames coursed upward with the terrible speed of dragon's breath.
Zak was faster still. Choking for air, he reached the top of the stairwell. A circle of cool darkness appeared above him. The trapdoor way. He reached for the edge of the opening. The mission was a success. Malice would have her precious Dagger…
Zak halted. Searing light welled up the stairway. A roar filled his ears. The magical fire was mere seconds behind. Despite this, the weapons master hesitated. He pulled the Dagger of Menzoberra from his belt and stared
