In the silence that followed, Halisstra could hear only the sound of her own breathing. Opening her eyes, she saw dozens of stirges lying on the ground, some of them still twitching. She picked up the closest one and squeezed it. Its blood?her blood?soaked her gloves as its body burst. Dropping it, she continued from one stirge to the next, killing them one by one. Then she pulled off her blood-soaked gloves and cast them aside.

Perhaps the surface was not a place of beauty, after all.

Then she realized that something had disturbed the stirges?something that was moving through the forest toward the bluff where she stood. Hunkering down, she crept back toward the stairs, looking for a place to hide.

Valas signaled for the party to stop when the tunnel, which had been twisting its way ever deeper toward the Underdark, opened into a jumble of broken stone that led down to a medium-sized cavern whose floor was hidden by a deep pool of water. Pharaun gave a low chuckle, breaking the silence.

"Perfect," he breathed.

Keep quiet, Valas chastised, but Pharaun only laughed.

"It's going to be loud enough in here in just a moment," the mage said with a wink. Then he called back to the others, who were higher in the tunnel, up beyond where Valas could see. "Mistress, I've found a spot that will do nicely. Get Jeggred ready."

Valas heard Quenthel ordering the draegloth to kneel and the sound of a drawn dagger. Pharaun, meanwhile, laid a hand on Valas's shoulder.

"Excuse me," he said. "I need to get by."

Valas still wasn't certain what the mage was doing, but he flattened obediently against the cold stone, allowing Pharaun to squeeze past him into the cavern. Pharaun reached into a pocket of his piwafwi and pulled out a tiny cone of glass. Rolling up his sleeve, he pointed the cone at the water at his feet.