The threshold measurement

The council meets in a chamber above the basins, where the ceiling formed a low vault. Five svirfneblins took a seat around a stone table. Ilda stood near the entrance, without sitting with them.

Zaelyra was allowed to enter with Nym and Rhylor. The others would wait at the threshold, weapons lined up. Before crossing the door, Zaelyra asked if anyone wanted to stay behind.

The guard who had opened the step raised two fingers. "I stay with mine."

"Good."

She didn't ask him to justify himself. He took his place near Brakka, and the door closed silently.

The oldest of the counselors was called Nara Grise-Mèche. A dark spot marked his cheek; a copper compass hung from his neck. She began by examining Zaelyra's hands, then her boots, as if she was trying to find out what terrain had led her there.

"Are you being prosecuted?"

"Yes."

"By whom?"

" Mercenaries who attacked the Veyr relay. The House I come from also asked for our return. I don't know if she sent these men."

"You don't know or you refuse to say it?" asked an advisor.

"I don't know."

"Yet you are the daughter of a Matron."

"Yes."

"That should allow you to answer."

"It should."

The counselor crossed his arms. Nara, on the other hand, seemed more attentive to the confession than to the answer.

"What are you looking for here?"

"A passage to the west. We have families, the injured and little food. We ask for the right to cross the High Salts."

"And what do you offer?"

"A map of the road to the bridge. We noted the hazards and unchecked parts. We can also examine your conduct, if Nym thinks he knows how to do it without damaging them."

Nym tilted his head. "I don't know your network. I can examine a conduct with the agreement of your guardians. I don't promise to fix it."

"You refuse to offer a service you don't know how to render," says Nara.

"Yes."

"It's rare."

"It's safer than the other way around."

The cross-armed advisor leaned forward. "Drows have already promised us maps. They asked us to open a passage. They left with our water and our son."

Rhylor tensed up. Zaelyra put two fingers on the edge of the table to prevent him from answering too quickly.

"Your son has disappeared? She asked.

"He followed them. He thought they knew a road to the surface."

"When?"

"Three years ago."

"Did you find a trace?"

"A button near a collapsed passage. No body."

The counselor stared at her, perhaps looking for a promise that she had no right to make.

"I don't know what happened to him," she says. "I won't tell you he's alive."

"But would you look for it?"

"If we get the right to pass and if we discover something that can help, we will let you know. I can't promise to come back here."

"That's a very convenient promise."

"Yes. She is for me. It is also for you, because it does not force you to believe us."

The dean exchanged a look with Ilda.

"Do the houses of Menzoberranzan still fight the roads?" asked Nara.

"Yes."

"And Drizzt?"

Zaelyra did not expect this name. "What, Drizzt?"

"It is said that he left, that he crossed the tunnels, that he fought armies. The drows say he was a traitor. Merchants say he protected caravans. Some say he's back. Others that he died. You come from the city. Which version is true?"

Zaelyra took the time to choose her words. "I've never met Drizzt. I have never seen a reliable document that confirms the exploits attributed to it. I heard his name used to scare children, justify hunting and give courage to those who wanted to leave."

"And you, what did you do with it?"

"I thought he had left the city. I don't know what he did next."

Nara put the copper compass on the table. "Why does his story matter to you?"

"Because I was taught that there was only one way to be drow. His departure may prove that it was wrong. Not that he was right about everything."

The counselor nodded slowly. "A legend can open a door. It can also become another cage."

"Yes."

The silence was interrupted by hurried steps in the corridor. A young svirfneblin entered without waiting for him to be invited. He spoke too fast, his hands waving.

"The low driving has lost its pressure. Room three fills with water."

Ilda stood up before the council responded. Nym looked at Zaelyra.

"Do you know how to isolate driving? She asked.

"I can try to understand your device. I can't guarantee that I'll fix it."

Nara got up. "Come. But you don't touch anything before the guardians allow you."

Room three was two terraces lower. The water flowed from a copper duct, fast and cloudy. Several residents tried to hold the flow with rags and boards. A little girl was perched on a box, clutching a bag of seeds against her.

Nym crouches near the joint. He observed the marks, but kept his hands behind his back.

"Is there a valve?"

Ilda showed him a stone wheel stuck between two pillars. "She commands three conduits. If we close it, we cut the water from the high terraces."

"What if you don't?"

"The lower chamber will be flooded."

"Is there anyone in it? Zaelyra asked.

"Two people," replied the messenger. "They are looking for my sister's child."

The girl on the box got up. "He's with me."

The messenger looked at her, then swore softly. He had run before checking.

"We can divert the water towards the salt gutter," says Nym. "But you have to know if it's clear."

Ilda indicated a passage at ground level, too low for an adult to slip in without tools.

The girl put down the bag of seeds. "I can look."

Her sister held her back. "No."

Nym shook his head. "No one should be sent into the gutter."

He asked for a rope, a flexible rod and a lamp. With Zaelyra, he slid the rod into the conduit, gently, counting the elbows. In the third, she encountered an obstacle. They started again from the other side. The metal hung something flexible.

"Roots?" asked Ilda.

"Maybe."

The caretaker had a hook brought. Nym tied it to the rod and pulled slowly. A package of tempered canvas came out of the gutter, followed by twigs and a wooden plate.

The water gushes harder for a few seconds, then the flow is reduced. The stone wheel was still blocked, but Ilda and two residents managed to turn it a quarter in a circle. The conduit stopped leaking.

No one applauds. They had prevented the flood, not repaired the driving. A line of cracks still ran through the copper.

"The seal will have to be replaced," says Nym. "Today, we only cleared the gutter and decreased the pressure."

"You could fix it?" asked Ilda.

"If I have the right metal and if I understand how to close the three pipes without cutting off the water. I don't know yet."

Nara examined the wheel, then Nym's hands. "You just helped without touching what didn't belong to you."

"The guards showed us what we could do."

"This is not what the others did."

The girl's sister put the bag of seeds on the crate, sheltered from the water. "You prevented my daughter from driving."

"She had offered her help," says Nym.

"She does not always have the right to measure the danger."

"It's true."

The woman did not smile, but her shoulders relaxed.

The council meets a second time, standing in the wet room. The decision was not unanimous. Two councilors agreed that the group would cross the Salines Hautes by the eastern route, provided that they did not approach the living rooms. The third asked them to go back to where they had come from.

Nara proposed a period of observation: Zaelyra and four companions would follow Ilda to the next door. The rest of the group would wait at the threshold under the supervision of the guards. There, they could check the passage and come back to report. If the information agreed, the council would re-examine their application.

"It's not yet the right to pass," says Zaelyra.

"No," Nara replied. "It's the right to check what we told you."

"What if the road is closed?"

"You will leave."

Zaelyra looked at the travelers waiting behind the door. Some would have wanted to refuse. Others would have followed anyone to the west. She presented the proposal without presenting it as a victory.

Rhylor was chosen to accompany him, with Nym, Kethra and the guard who had opened the march. Brakka would remain on the threshold with the injured. Zaelyra did not take Tazri: the child had already walked a lot, and no one knew what the passage contained.

Before departure, Ilda gave them a copper flap lamp.

"If you see two lights, you come back. Only one means that we are waiting for your response."

"What if we don't come back?" asked Kethra.

"Then we will know that we were right to hesitate."

Kethra accepted the lamp. She did not seek to negotiate another rule.

They crossed the eastern gate. Behind them, the salt pan resumed its work. In front, the tunnel descended towards a darkness that smelled of cold water.

Zaelyra finally had a road to the west.

She did not yet have permission to take it.