But would he then be trapped within the web of his own deception? What freedom could he find in denying the truth about himself?

Drizzt looked over at Catti-brie, peacefully slumped in the room’s single bed, and smiled. There was indeed wisdom in innocence, a vein of truth in the idealism of untainted perceptions.

He could not disappoint her.

Drizzt sensed a deepening of the outside gloom. The moon had set. He moved to the room’s window and peeked out into the street. Still the night people wandered, but they were fewer now, and the night neared its end. Drizzt roused his companions; they could not afford any more delays. They stretched away their weariness, checked their gear, and moved back down to the street.

Rogues Circle was lined with several iron sewer grates that looked as though they were designed more to keep the filthy things of the sewers underground than as drains for the sudden waters of the rare but violent rainstorms that hit the city. The friends chose one in the ally beside their inn, out of the main way of the street but close enough to the guildhouse that they could probably find their underground way without too much trouble.

“The boy can lift it,” Bruenor remarked, waving Wulfgar to the spot. Wulfgar bent low and grasped the iron.

“Not yet,” Drizzt whispered, glancing around for suspicious eyes. He motioned Catti-brie to the end of the ally, back along Rogues Circle, and he darted off down the darker side. When he was satisfied that all was clear, he waved back to Bruenor. The dwarf looked to Catti-brie, who nodded her approval.

“Lift it, boy,” Bruenor said, “and be quiet about it!”

Wulfgar grasped the iron tightly and sucked in a deep, draft of air for balance. His huge arms pumped red with blood as he heaved, and a grunt escaped his lips. Even so, the grate resisted his tugging…

Wulfgar looked at Bruenor in disbelief, then redoubled his efforts, his face now flushing red. The grate groaned in protest, but came up only a few inches from the ground.

“Suren somethings holdin’ it down,” Bruenor said, leaning over to inspect it.

A “clink” of snapping chain was the dwarf’s only warning as the grate broke free, sending Wulfgar sprawling backward. The lifting iron clipped Bruenor’s forehead, knocking his helmet off and dropping him on the seat of his pants. Wulfgar, still clutching the grate, crashed heavily and loudly into the wall of the inn.

“Ye blasted, fool-headed…” Bruenor started to grumble, but Drizzt and Catti-brie, rushing to his aid, quickly reminded him of the secrecy of their mission.

“Why would they chain a sewer grate?” Catti-brie asked.

Wulfgar dusted himself off. “From the inside,” he added.

“It seems that something down there wants to keep the city out.”

“We shall know soon enough,” Drizzt remarked. He dropped down beside the open hole, slipping his legs in. “Prepare a torch,” he said. “I will summon you if all is clear.”

Catti-brie caught the eager gleam in the drow’s eyes and looked at him with concern.

“For Regis,” Drizzt assured her, “and only for Regis.” Then he was gone, into the blackness. Black like the lightless tunnels of his homeland.

The other three heard a slight splash as he touched down, then all was quiet.

Many anxious moments passed. “Put a light to the torch,” Bruenor whispered to Wulfgar.

Catti-brie caught Wulfgar’s arm to stop him. “Faith,” she said to Bruenor.

“Too long,” the dwarf muttered. “Too quiet.”

Catti-brie held on to Wulfgar’s arm for another second, until Drizzt’s soft voice drifted up to them. “Clear,” the drow said. “Come down quickly.”

Bruenor took the torch from Wulfgar. “Come last,” he said, “and slide the grate back behind ye. No need in tellin’ the world where we went!”

The first thing the companions noticed when the torchlight entered the sewer was the chain that had held the grate down. It was fairly new, without doubt, and fastened to a locking box constructed on the sewer’s wall.

“Me thinking’s that we’re not alone,” Bruenor whispered.

Drizzt glanced around, sharing the dwarf’s uneasiness. He dropped the mask from his face, a drow again in an environ suited for a drow. “I will lead,” he said, “at the edge of the light. Keep ready.” He padded away, picking his silent steps along the edge of the murky stream of water that rolled slowly down the center of the tunnel.

Bruenor came next with the torch, then Catti-brie and Wulfgar. The barbarian had to stoop low to keep his head clear of the slimy ceiling. Rats squeaked and scuttled away from the strange light, and darker things took silent refuge under the shield of the water. The tunnel meandered this way and that, and a maze of side passages opened up every few feet. Sounds of trickling water only worsened the confusion, leading the friends for a moment, then coming louder at their side, then louder still from across the way.

Bruenor shook the diversions clear of his thoughts, ignored the muck and the fetid stench, and concentrated on keeping his track straight behind the shadowy figure that darted in and out at the front edge of his torchlight. He turned a confusing, multicornered intersection and caught sight of the figure suddenly off to his side.

Even as he turned to follow, he realized that Drizzt still had to be up front.

“Ready!” Bruenor called, tossing the torch to a dry spot beside him and taking up his axe and shield. His alertness saved them all, for only a split second later, not one, but two cloaked forms emerged from the side tunnel, swords raised and sharp teeth gleaming under twitching whiskers.

They were man-sized, wearing the clothes of men and holding swords. In their other form, they were indeed humans and not always vile, but on the nights of the bright moon they took on their darker form, the lycanthrope side. They moved like men but were mantled with the trappings—elongated snout, bristled brown fur, and pink tail—of sewer rats.

Lining them up over the top of Bruenor’s helm, Catti-brie launched the first strike. The silvery flash of her killing arrow illuminated the side tunnel like a lightning bolt, showing many more sinister figures making their way toward the friends.

A splash from behind caused Wulfgar to spin about to face a rushing gang of the ratmen. He dug his heels into the mud as well as he could and slapped Aegis-fang to a ready position.

“They was layin’ on us, elf!” Bruenor shouted.

Drizzt had already come to that conclusion. At the dwarf’s first shout, he had slipped farther from the torch to use the advantage of darkness. Turning a bend brought him face to face with two figures, and he guessed their sinister nature before he ever got the blue light of Twinkle high enough to see their furry brows.

The wererats, though, certainly did not expect what they found standing ready before them. Perhaps it was because they believed that their enemies were solely in the area with the torchlight, but more likely it was the black skin of a drow elf that sent them back on their heels.

Drizzt didn’t miss the opportunity, slicing them down in a single flurry before they ever recovered from their shock. The drow then melted again into the blackness, seeking a back route to ambush the ambushers.

Wulfgar kept his attackers at bay with long sweeps of Aegis-fang. The hammer blew aside any wererat that ventured too near, and smashed away chunks of the muck on the sewer walls every time it completed an arc. But as the wererats came to understand the power of the mighty barbarian, and came in at him with less enthusiasm, the best that Wulfgar could accomplish was a stalemate—a deadlock that would only last as long as the energy in his huge arms.

Behind Wulfgar, Bruenor and Catti-brie fared better. Catti-brie’s magical bow—loosing arrows over the dwarf’s head—decimated the ranks of the approaching wererats, and those few that reached Bruenor, off-balance and ducking the deadly arrows of the woman behind him, proved easy prey for the dwarf.