For the hundredth time since Quenthel had announced her plan to have Pharaun summon a demon, Valas wondered how that was going to help. In all likelihood, the demon would turn on them and swallow them whole without guiding them a single step of the way.

He reminded himself that the lot of a mercenary was not to question how, but to do?and bow. And so he led them on. As he moved cautiously ahead into the unknown darkness. Pharaun still crowding close behind him, Valas fingered one of the magical amulets pinned to his shirt?his lucky, double-headed coin?and hoped it would give him the edge he'd need when the demon eventually turned on them, as he was certain it would.

Halisstra stood on the bluff that overlooked the ruined temple, staring out at the horizon. The others had descended into the Underdark some time before, and the sun was slowly sinking below the horizon, painting the clouds shades of pink and gold. Though it made her eyes water to look at the sunset, Halisstra stared in fascination, watching the colors shift into ever darker shades of orange, then red, then purple, gazing as new patterns formed each time the sun's slanting rays struck the clouds at a different angle. She was beginning to understand why the surface dwellers spoke in such rapturous tones about sunsets.

As the forest below darkened, her sight began to shift toward darkvision. She could see birds flitting through the branches below and could hear the thrumming of numerous wings as a flock of birds moved through the trees toward the bluff. She'd heard that surface-dwelling creatures followed the cycles of day and night, and it struck her that Ched Nasad's magic-controlled lighting and Menzoberranzan's famous pillar Narbondel?used for marking the passage of «day» and "night"?must have been holdovers from a distant time when drow still dwelt upon the surface. Had House Jaelre simply been following a call that other drow had not yet heard when they returned to the surface, forsaking the worship of Lolth?