Beside her, Ryld shivered.

"I don't like it up here," he said, holding a hand to his eyes to shade them. "It makes me feel. . exposed."

Halisstra glanced at the sweat trickling down Ryld's ebony temple and shivered herself as the chill winter wind blew against her face. The climb had been a long, hot one, despite the age-worn stairs they'd found carved into the rock at one side of the bluff. She couldn't explain what had compelled her to lead Ryld up there, nor could she explain why she felt none of the apprehensions the weapons master did. Yet despite his anxiety, Ryld?who stood fully as tall as Halisstra herself, even though he was a male?was in every respect a warrior. He wore a greatsword strapped across his back; a cuirass with a breastplate wrought of dwarven bronze; and vambraces, articulated at the elbows, that sheathed his lean, muscled arms in heavy steel. A short sword for fighting at close quarters hung in a scabbard at his hip. His hair was cut close to his scalp so that enemies could not grab it during combat. Only a fine stubble remained: hair as white as Halisstra's own shoulder-length locks.

"There was a surface dweller?a human mage?who dwelt for a short time in Ched Nasad," Halisstra said. The vastness of the sky above them made her speak softly; it felt as if the gods were lurking up there just behind the clouds, watching. "He spoke of how our city made him feel like he was living in a room with too low a ceiling?that he was always aware of the roof of the cavern over his head. I laughed at him; how could anyone feel enclosed in a city that was so loosely woven?a city balanced on the thin lines of a calcified web? But now I think I understand what he meant." She gestured up at the sky. "This all feels so … open."

Ryld grunted and asked, "Have you seen enough? We're not going to find an entrance to the Underdark up here. Let's climb back down and get out of the wind."