“I ain’t likin’ this,” the dwarf said, in a crouch with his hands out to the sides, as if he expected the disc to vanish and leave him scrambling to find something to hold onto.
“You will be soon, I promise,” Dahlia said, and she pulled the magical cloak around her and in the blink of an eye had transformed herself into a crow. She dived into the pit.
Next went Athrogate, with Jarlaxle bringing up the rear. Before he stepped back onto Valindra’s conjured disc, the drow put his hand near the insignia he wore, of House Baenre of Menzoberranzan. He had his own levitation magic, just in case.
But he needn’t have feared any mischief from the lich, he soon discovered. The discs floated steadily and easily, moving to the mental commands of their riders. Fifty feet down, the tunnel changed from a sheer drop to a steep decline, as Dahlia had said, but they didn’t dismiss the discs or step off them. It was easier to float above the broken, uneven floor than to walk.
The corridor grew tighter around them, forcing a crouch or a lean here and there, and at one point, they actually had to lie down on their discs to pass under a low overhang. Still, they wound their way left and right, and ever downward.
Because of one last obstacle, Athrogate pulled a bit ahead of Jarlaxle over the final expanse of broken tunnel, and just as the drow came to see that the narrow passage widened up ahead, he heard Athrogate mutter in tones reverent and awe-filled, “By Dumathoin.”
The reference to Dumathoin, in dwarven lore the Keeper of Secrets Under the Mountain, somewhat prepared the drow for what might be beyond, but still he found it hard to breathe when he came out onto the ledge beside his four companions.
They were on a natural balcony overlooking a huge chamber, perhaps a third the size of Menzoberranzan. Whether from natural lichen or residual magic, there was enough light for him to make out the general contours of the cavern. A pond lay before them, its still, dark waters interrupted by a series of large stalagmites, some ringed by stairwells and balconies that must once have served as guard posts or trade kiosks. Stalactites hung from the ceiling on their end of the cavern as well, and Jarlaxle noted similar construction on several of them. The dwarves who had worked the cavern had adopted the fashion of the drow, he realized, and had used the natural formations as dwellings. Jarlaxle had never heard of such a thing before, but he had little doubt in his guess. The work on the stalagmites and stalactites was surely not drow in nature, not delicate and curving, nor limned with glowing faerie fire.
“There are ballistae up there,” Dor’crae, who had returned to his human form, explained, pointing to the stalactites. “Guard stations overlooking the entrance.”
“No … no it canno’ be,” Athrogate whispered, and he slouched on his disc as if the strength simply fled his body.
But Jarlaxle heard hope in the dwarf’s voice more than anything else, a recognition beyond anything Athrogate had, perhaps, dared to hope, and so Jarlaxle paid the dwarf no concern at that moment and continued instead his study of the cavern.
On the far side of the dark pond, a couple hundred feet or more from their balcony, stood half a dozen clusters of small structures, each grouping set at the end of a mine rail, and more than one of those lines held an ancient mine cart, battered and rusted. The rail lines converged straight away from the balcony, running toward the back of the expansive cavern beyond even his superior darkvision.
“Come,” Dahlia bade them, her voice whistling like a giant bird. She slipped over the balcony’s low natural rail and glided on black feathered wings down to the water and across. Dor’crae became a bat once more and quickly followed, as did Valindra on her disc.
“Are you joining us?” Jarlaxle asked Athrogate when he saw that the dwarf made no move to follow.
Athrogate looked at him as if he’d just awakened from a deep, though tumultuous slumber. “It canno’ be,” he whispered, barely able to get the words out.
“Well, let us see what it be, my friend,” Jarlaxle replied, and started away.
He’d barely descended to skim above the pond on his disc when Athrogate passed him by, the dwarf apparently shaking off his stupor and willing his own disc on with all speed.
On the far side of the pond, Dahlia, an elf once more, was helping Valindra off her disc, and Athrogate simply leaped down from his, which was still half a dozen feet above the ground. The fall didn’t hinder the dwarf at all, though—in fact, he didn’t even seem to notice it as he bounced right back to his feet and stumbled and scrambled forward, following the central rail line.
“This place knew much battle,” Dor’crae remarked after shedding his bat form and bending low to pick up a whitened bone. “Goblin, or a small orc.”
Jarlaxle glanced around to confirm the vampire’s observations. The soft ground was scarred and many bits of bone showed clearly. More interesting, though, were the sights that lay ahead, the image that had Athrogate on his knees, and though his back was to the drow, Jarlaxle could well imagine the tears streaming down his hairy face.
And who could blame him? For even Jarlaxle, only partially acquainted with the legends of the Delzoun dwarves, could guess easily enough that they had stumbled upon Gauntlgrym, the legendary homeland of the Delzoun dwarves, the most sacred legend of their history, the place Bruenor Battlehammer himself had sought for more than half a century.
A great wall faced them, sealing off the end of the cavern. It was built much like one would expect of a surface castle, with gate towers on either side of a massive set of mithral doors, and a crenellated battlement lining the top of the wall that spanned the cavern and seemed as if it had been built deep into the stone at either end. The strangest part, aside from the huge silvery doors, was the tightness of it all. Looking up the wall, Jarlaxle almost expected to see it give way to open sky, but instead there was only a very short space to the natural ceiling of the cavern. A tall human would have a hard time even standing straight up there, and even Jarlaxle would have to crouch in many places.
“It canno’ be,” Athrogate was saying as Jarlaxle came up beside him, and confirmed that the dwarf was indeed crying.
“I can think of no other place it could be, my friend,” Jarlaxle replied, patting Athrogate’s strong shoulder.
“You know it, then?” asked Dahlia, moving up behind them with Dor’crae and Valindra in tow.
“Behold Gauntlgrym,” Jarlaxle explained. “Ancient homeland of the Delzoun dwarves, a place thought to be but a legend—”
“Never did a dwarf doubt it!” Athrogate bellowed.
“… by many nondwarves,” Jarlaxle finished, flashing a smile at his friend. “It’s been a mystery even among the elves, with memories long, and among the drow, who know the Underdark better than any. And doubt not that we have searched for it all these centuries. If one-tenth of the claims of the treasures of Gauntlgrym are true, then there is unimaginable wealth behind that wall, behind those doors.” He paused and considered the sight before him, and their location and depth in a region that was far from remote, by Underdark standards.
“Great magic must have masked this place all these years,” he said. “Such a place as this cavern alone could not have gone unnoticed in the Northdark through so many centuries.”
“How do you know this is Gauntlgrym?” Dor’crae asked. “The dwarves have built, and abandoned, many kingdoms.”
Before Jarlaxle could respond, Athrogate broke out into verse:
Silver halls and mithral doors