They got a bit of a reprieve when they passed around an eastern spur, for the wind was from the northwest and suddenly both of those directions were blocked by mountain walls. Drizzt put his back against the bare stone and exhaled.
"If we can find a suitable overhang, perhaps we should put up for the day until the storm blows over," he offered, and he was glad that he was able to lower his voice without the wind to intercept and dissipate it.
He took another deep breath and pulled the frozen cowl back from his face. He wiped the snow from his brow, chuckling helplessly when he realized that his eyebrows were iced over, and he looked at his companion to see that she was paying him no heed.
"Innovindil?" he asked.
"No need," the elf answered. "To camp, I mean."
She met Drizzt's gaze then motioned for him to look across the way.
The rock wall ran north for some distance, then bent back to the east. Along that facing, a few hundred yards from them, Drizzt saw a gaping darkness, a cave face in the stone.
"Shining White?"
"Yes," Innovindil answered. "An unremarkable entrance to a place rumored to be anything but."
The two stood there a while, catching their breath.
"A plan?" Innovindil finally asked.
"Sunrise is in there," Drizzt answered. "So we go in."
"Just walk in?"
"Swords drawn, of course." He turned to his companion and offered a grin.
He made it sound so simple, which of course it was. They had come for Sunrise, and Sunrise was inside Shining White, and so they collected themselves and moved along, staying close to the mountain wall where the snow had not piled.
A dozen feet or so before the closest edge of the cave entrance, Drizzt motioned for Innovindil to stay back and crept ahead. He came up straight at the edge of the cave, then slowly bent and turned and peeked in.
He slipped around the edge, inching into a tunnel that widened almost immediately to nearly twenty feet across. The drow froze, hearing deep and steady breathing from across the way. He quick-stepped across the tunnel to the other wall, then crept along to an alcove.
Inside, a seated giant leaned back against the wall, its hands tucked behind its head, lips flapping with every snore. A massive maul lay across its outstretched legs, the business end worked brilliantly into the design of an eagle's head, with the sharp, hooked beak comprising the back side of the head.
Drizzt crept in. He could tell that the behemoth was sleeping soundly, and recognized that he could move right up and open wide its throat before it ever knew he was there. To his surprise, though, he found himself sliding his scimitars away. Gently, but with great effort, he lifted the maul from the giant's lap, and the beast snorted and grumbled, bringing one hand down and turning sideways.
Drizzt moved out of the alcove and back to the cave entrance, where Innovindil and Sunset stood waiting.
"Fine weapon," he whispered, though it seemed as if he could hardly hold the maul.
"You killed its wielder?" asked the elf.
"Fast asleep, and no threat to us."
Innovindil's curious expression reminded Drizzt of his strange choice.
Why hadn't he simply killed the giant; would that not be one less enemy to battle?
His answer was just a shrug, though, and he put a finger to pursed lips and bade the elf to quietly follow.
The three moved past the alcove on the opposite side of the corridor. Many feet farther along, the tunnel turned sharply to the right, and there the roof climbed much higher as well. A short way from the trio beamed a natural skylight, some fifty feet or more from the floor, the gray light of the stormy day streaming in. The floor became slick and some areas lay covered in snow. Farther down, a pair of large doors loomed before them.
"Let us hope that they are not locked, and that they are well greased," Innovindil quietly remarked.
The three inched along, Sunset clip-clopping with every stride, the sharp echoes making the other two more than a little nervous. Both the drow and the elf entertained thoughts of leaving the pegasus outside, and would have had it not been for the brutal storm.
Drizzt put his ear to the door and listened carefully for a long while before daring the handle—or almost daring the handle. For as he reached up, the ring being more than two feet above his head, he noted that its inner edge was not smooth, with one particularly sharp lip to it. He retracted his hand quickly.
"Trapped?" Innovindil asked.
Drizzt motioned that he did not know. He pulled off his cloak, then loosened his enchanted, armored shirt so that he could pull one sleeve down over his hand. He reached up again and slowly grasped the handle. He could feel the sharp edge through the shirt, and he gingerly altered the angle of his grasp so that the trap, if that's what it was, would not press on his palm.
"Ready to fight?" he mouthed to his companion, and he drew out Icing-death in his left hand. When Innovindil nodded, Drizzt took a deep breath and pulled the door ajar, immediately snapping his hand down across his body to Twinkle, sheathed on his left hip.
But the sight that greeted the two had their hands relaxing almost immediately. A warm glow washed out of the open door. Beyond the portal, that light reflected brilliantly off of a myriad of walls and partitions, all made of shining ice—not opaque and snowy, but clear and highly reflective. Images of a drow, an elf, and a pegasus came back at the companions from every conceivable angle.
Drizzt stepped in and found himself lost in a sea of reflected Drizzts. The partitions were barely wide enough to admit a giant and sorted in a mazelike manner that set off alarm bells in the wary drow's mind as soon as he recovered from the initial shock of it all. He motioned to Innovindil to quickly follow and rushed ahead.
"What is it?" the elf finally asked when she caught up to Drizzt as he paused at a four-way intersection of shiny ice walls.
"This is a defense," Drizzt replied.
He looked around, soaking it in, confirming his fears. He noted the bare stone floor, in such a sharp contrast to the walls, which seemed to have no stone in them. He looked up to the many holes in the high ceiling, set strategically from east to west along the southern reaches of the chamber, designed, he realized, to catch the sunlight from dawn to twilight. Then he sorted through his images, following the line across the breadth of the huge chamber. A single sentry at any point along the wall would easily know of the intruders.
Magic had created that hall of mirrors, Drizzt knew, and for a specific purpose.
"Move quickly," the drow said even as he started off.
He dipped and darted his way through the maze, trying to find side aisles that would reflect him in a confusing manner to any sentries. He had to hope that any guards who might be posted to watch over the hall were, like the one in the previous tunnel, less than alert.
No alarm horns had blown and no roars had come at him from afar. That was a good sign at least, he had to believe.
Around one sharp bend, the drow pulled up short, and Innovindil, leading Sunset right behind him, nearly knocked him forward onto his face.
Still Drizzt managed to hold back, absorbing the energy of the bump and skittering to the side instead of forward, for he did not want to take another step, did not want to step out onto the open, twenty-foot border of the eastern end of the cavern. That border was a river, and though it was iced over, Drizzt could clearly see the water rushing below the frozen surface.
Across the way and down to his left, the drow spotted another tunnel.
He motioned for Innovindil to carefully follow, then inched down the bank, stopping directly across from the exit tunnel. Up above him, he saw a large rope dangling—high enough for a giant to reach, perhaps, so that it might swing across.