Exile

Chapter 16. Insidious Chains

Clacker looked down to the far end of the long and narrow cavern, to the many-towered structure that served as a castle to the illithid community. Though his vision was poor, the hook horror could make out the squat forms crawling about on the rock castle, and he could plainly hear the chiming of their tools. They were slaves, Clacker knew duergar, goblins, deep gnomes, and several other races that Clacker did not know―serving their illithid masters with their skills in stonework, helping to continue the improvement and design on the huge lump of rock that the mind flayers had claimed as their home.

Perhaps Belwar, so obviously suited to such endeavors, was already at work on the massive building.

The thoughts fluttered through Clacker’s mind and were forgotten, replaced by the hook horror’s less involved instincts. The mind flayers’ stunning blasts had reduced Clacker’s mental resistance and the wizard’s polymorph spell had taken more of him, so much so that he could not even realize the lapse. Now his twin identities battled evenly, leaving poor Clacker in a state of simple confusion.

If he understood his dilemma, and if he had known the fate of his friends, he might have considered himself fortunate.

The mind flayers suspected that there was more to Clacker than his hook horror body would indicate. The illithid community’s survival was based on knowledge and by reading thoughts, and though they could not penetrate the jumble that was Clacker’s mind, they saw clearly that the mental workings within the bony exoskeleton were decidedly unlike those expected from a simple Underdark monster.

The mind flayers were not foolish masters, and they knew, too, the dangers of trying to decipher and control an armed and armored quarter-ton killing monster. Clacker was simply too dangerous and unpredictable to be kept in close quarters. In the illithids’ slave society, however, there was a place for everyone.

Clacker stood upon an island of stone, a slab of rock perhaps fifty yards in diameter and surrounded by a deep and wide chasm. With him were assorted other creatures, including a small herd of rothe and several battered duergar who obviously had spent too long under the illithids’ mind-melting influences. The gray dwarves sat or stood, blank-faced, staring out at nothing at all and awaiting, Clacker soon came to understand, their turn on the supper table of their cruel masters.

Clacker paced the island’s perimeter, searching for some escape, though the pech part of him would have recognized the futility of it all. Only a single bridge spanned the warding chasm, a magical and mechanical thing that recoiled tightly against the chasm’s other side when not in use.

A group of mind flayers with a single burly ogre slave approached the lever that controlled the bridge. Immediately, Clacker was assaulted by their telepathic suggestions. A single course of action cut through the jumble of his thoughts, and at that moment, he learned of his purpose on the island. He was to be the shepherd for the mind flayers’ flock. They wanted a gray dwarf and a rothe, and the shepherd slave obediently went to work.

Neither victim offered any resistance. Clacker neatly twisted the gray dwarf’s neck, then, not so neatly, bashed in the rothe’s skull. He sensed that the illithids were pleased, and this notion brought some curious emotions to him, satisfaction being the most prevalent.

Hoisting both creatures, Clacker moved to the gorge to stand opposite the group of illithids. An illithid pulled back on the bridge’s waist-high lever. Clacker noted that the action of the trigger was away from him; an important fact, though the hook horror did not exactly understand why at that time. The stone-and-metal bridge grumbled and shook and shot out from the cliff opposite Clacker. It rolled out toward the island until it caught securely on the stone at Clacker’s feet.

Come to me, came one illithid’s command. Clacker might have managed to resist the command if he had seen any point in it. He stepped out onto the bridge, which groaned considerably under his bulk.

Halt! Drop the kills, came another suggestion when the hook horror was halfway across. Drop the kills! the telepathic voice cried again. And get back to your island!

Clacker considered his alternatives. The rage of the hook horror welled within him, and his thoughts that were pech, angered by the loss of his friends, were in complete agreement. A few strides would take him to his enemies.

On command from the mind flayers, the ogre moved up to the lip of the bridge. It stood a bit taller than Clacker and was nearly as wide, but it was unarmed and would not be able to stop him. Off to the side of the burly guard, though, Clacker recognized a more serious defense. The illithid who had pulled the lever to activate the bridge stood by it still, one hand, a curious four-fingered appendage, eagerly clenching and unclenching it.

Clacker would not get across the remaining portion and past the blocking ogre before the bridge rolled away from under him, dropping him into the depths of the chasm. Reluctantly, the hook horror placed his kills on the bridge and stepped back to his stone island. The ogre came out immediately and retrieved the dead dwarf and rothe for its masters.

The illithid then pulled the lever, and, in the blink of an eye, the magical bridge snapped back across the gorge, leaving Clacker stranded once more.

Eat, one of the illithids instructed. An unfortunate rothe wandered by the hook horror as the command came surging into his thoughts, and Clacker absently dropped a heavy claw onto its head.

As the illithids departed, Clacker sat down to his meal, reveling in the taste of blood and meat. His hook horror side won over completely during the raw feast, but every time Clacker looked back across the gorge and down the narrow cavern to the illithid castle, a tiny pech voice within him piped out its concern for a svirfneblin and a drow.

Of all the slaves recently captured in the tunnels outside the illithid castle, Belwar Dissengulp was the most sought after. Aside from the curiosity factor of the svirfneblin’s mithril hands, Belwar was perfectly suited for the two duties most desired in an illithid slave: working the stone and fighting in the gladiatorial arena.

The illithid slave auction went into an uproar when the deep gnome was marched forward. Bids of gold and magic items, private spells and tomes of knowledge, were thrown about with abandon. In the end, the burrow-warden was sold to a group of three mind flayers, the three who had led the party that had captured him. Belwar, of course, had no knowledge of the transaction; before it was ever completed, the deep gnome was ushered away down a dark and narrow tunnel and placed in a small, unremarkable room.

A short while later, three voices echoed in his mind, three unique telepathic voices that the deep gnome understood and would not forget―the voices of his new masters.

An iron portcullis rose before Belwar, revealing a well-lighted circular room with high walls and rows of audience seats above them.

Do come out, one of the masters bade him, and the burrow-warden, fully desiring only to please his master, did not hesitate. When he exited the short passageway, he saw that several dozen mind flayers had gathered all about on stone benches. Those strange four-fingered illithid hands pointed down at him from every direction, all backed by the same expressionless octopus face. Following the telepathic thought, Belwar had no trouble finding his master among the crowd, busily arguing odds and antes with a small group.

Across the way, a similar portcullis opened and a huge ogre stepped out. Immediately the creature’s eyes went up into the crowd as it sought its own master, the focal point of its existence.

This evil ogre beast has threatened me, my brave svirfneblin champion, came the telepathic encouragement of Belwar’s master a short while later, after all of the betting had been settled. Do destroy it for me.

Belwar needed no further prompting, nor did the ogre, having received a similar message from its master. The gladiators rushed each other furiously, but while the ogre was young and rather stupid, Belwar was a crafty old veteran.

He slowed at the last moment and rolled to the side. The ogre, trying desperately to kick at him as it ended in a charge, stumbled for just a moment.

Too long.

Belwar’s hammer-hand crunched into the ogre’s knee with a crack that resounded as powerfully as a wizard’s lightning bolt. The ogre lurched forward, nearly doubling over, and Belwar drove his pickaxe-hand into the ogre’s meaty backside. As the giant monster stumbled off balance to the side, Belwar threw himself at its feet, tripping it to the stone.

The burrow-warden was up in an instant, leaping onto the prone giant and running right up it toward its head. The ogre recovered quickly enough to catch the svirfneblin by the front of his jack, but even as the monster started to hurl the nasty little opponent away, Belwar dug his pickaxe-hand deep into its chest. Howling in rage and pain, the stupid ogre continued its throw, and Belwar was jerked out straight.

The sharp tip of the pickaxe held its grip and the deep gnome’s momentum tore a wide gash in the ogre’s chest. The ogre rolled and flailed, finally freeing itself from the cruel mithril hand. A huge knee caught Belwar in the rump, launching him to the stone many feet away. The burrow-warden came back up to his feet after a few short bounces, dazed and smarting but still desiring nothing but to please his master.

He heard the silent cheering and telepathic shouting of every illithid in the room, but one call cut through the mental din with precise clarity. Kill it! Belwar’s master commanded.

Belwar didn’t hesitate. Still flat on its back, the ogre clutched at its chest, trying vainly to stop its lifeblood from flowing away. The wounds it already had suffered probably would have proved fatal, but Belwar was far from satisfied. This wretched thing had threatened his master! The burrow-warden charged straight at the top of the ogre’s head, his hammer-hand leading the way. Three quick punches softened the monster’s skull, then the pickaxe dived in for the killing blow.

The doomed ogre jerked wildly in the last spasms of its life, but Belwar felt no pity. He had pleased his master; nothing else in all the world mattered to the burrow-warden at that moment.

Up in the stands, the proud owner of the svirfneblin champion collected his due of gold and potion bottles. Contented that it had done well in selecting this one, the illithid looked back to Belwar, who still chopped and bashed at the corpse. Although it enjoyed watching its new champion at savage play, the illithid quickly sent out a message to cease.

The dead ogre, after all, was also part of the bet. No sense in ruining dinner.

At the heart of the illithid castle stood a huge tower, a gigantic stalagmite hollowed and sculpted to house the most important members of the strange community. The inside of the giant stone structure was ringed by balconies and spiraling stairways, each level housing several of the mind flayers. But it was the bottom chamber, unadorned and circular, that held the most important being of all, the central brain.

Fully twenty feet in diameter, this boneless lump of pulsating flesh tied the mind flayer community together in telepathic symbiosis. The central brain was the composite of their knowledge, the mental eye that guarded their outside chambers and which had heard the warning cries of the illithid from the drow city many miles to the east. The illithids of the community, the central brain was the coordinator of their entire existence and nothing short of their god. Thus, only a very few slaves were allowed within this special tower, captives with sensitive and delicate fingers that could massage the illithid god-thing and soothe it with tender brushes and warm fluids.

Drizzt Do’Urden was among this group.

The drow knelt on the wide walkway that ringed the room, reaching out to stroke the amorphous mass, feeling keenly its pleasures and displeasures. When the brain became upset, Drizzt felt the sharp tingles and the tenseness in the veined tissues. He would massage more forcefully, easing his beloved master back to serenity.

When the brain was pleased, Drizzt was pleased. Nothing else in all the world mattered; the renegade drow had found his purpose in life. Drizzt Do’Urden had come home.

“A most profitable capture, that one.” said the mind flayer in its watery, otherworldly voice. The creature held up the potions it had won in the arena.

The other two illithids wiggled their four-fingered hands, indicating their agreement. Arena champion, one of them remarked telepathically.

“And tooled to dig.” the third added aloud. A notion entered its mind and, thus, the minds of the others. Perhaps to carve? The three illithids looked over to the far side of the chamber, where the work had begun on a new cubby area. The first illithid wiggled its fingers and gurgled, “In time the svirfneblin will be put to such menial tasks. Now he must win for me more potions, more gold. A most profitable capture!”

“As were all taken in the ambush,” said the second.

“The hook horror tends the herd,” explained the third.

“And the drow tends the brain,” gurgled the first. “I noticed him as I ascended to our chamber. That one will prove a proficient masseuse, to the pleasure of the brain and to the benefit of us all.”

“And there is this,” said the second, one of its tentacles snapping out to nudge the third. The third illithid held up an onyx figurine.

Magic? wondered the first.

Indeed, the second mentally responded. Linked to the Astral Plane. An entity stone, I believe.

“Have you called to it?” the first asked aloud.

Together, the other illithids clenched their hands, the mind flayer signal for no. “A dangerous foe, mayhaps,” explained the third. “We thought it prudent to observe the beast on its own plane before summoning it.”

“A wise choice,” agreed the first. “When will you be going?”

“At once,” said the second. “And will you accompany us?”

The first illithid clenched its fists, then held out the potion bottle. “Profits to be won,” it explained.

The other two wiggled their fingers excitedly. Then, as their companion retired to another room to count its winnings, they sat down in comfortable, overstuffed chairs and prepared themselves for their journey.

They floated together, leaving their corporeal bodies at rest on the chairs. They ascended beside the figurine’s link to the Astral Plane, visible to them in their astral state as a thin silvery cord. They were beyond their companions’ cavern now, beyond the stones and noises of the Material Plane, floating into the vast serenity of the astral world. Here, there were few sounds other than the continuous chanting of the astral wind. Here, too, there was no solid structure―none in terms of the material world―with matter being defined in gradations of light.

The illithids veered away from the figurine’s silver cord as they neared the completion of their astral ascent. They would come into the plane near to the entity of the great panther, but not so close as to make it aware of their presence. Illithids were not normally welcome guests, being despised by nearly every creature on every plane they traveled.

They came fully into their astral state without incident and had little trouble locating the entity represented by the figurine.

Guenhwyvar romped through a forest of starlight in pursuit of the entity of the elk, continuing the endless cycle. The elk, no less magnificent than the panther, leaped and sprang in perfect balance and unmistakable grace. The elk and Guenhwyvar had played out this scenario a million times and would play it out a million, million more. This was the order and harmony that ruled the panther’s existence, that ultimately ruled the planes of all the universe.

Some creatures, though, like the denizens of the lower planes, and like the mind flayers that now observed the panther from afar, could not accept the simple perfection of this harmony and could not recognize the beauty of this eternal hunt. As they watched the wondrous panther in its life’s play, the illithids’ only thoughts centered on how they might use the cat to their best advantage.

Chapter 17. A Delicate Balance

Belwar studied his latest foe carefully, sensing some familiarity with the armored beast’s appearance. Had he befriended such a creature before? he wondered. Whatever doubts the svirfneblin gladiator might have had, though, could not break into the deep gnome’s consciousness, for Belwar’s illithid master continued its insidious stream of telepathic deceptions.

Kill it my brave champion, the illithid pleaded from its perch in the stands. It is your enemy; most assuredly; and it shall bring harm to me if you do not kill it!

The hook horror, much larger than Belwar’s lost friend, charged the svirfneblin, having no reservations about making a meal of the deep gnome.

Belwar coiled his stubby legs under him and waited for the precise moment. As the hook horror bore down on him, its clawed hands wide to prevent him from dodging to the side, Belwar sprang straight ahead, his hammer-hand leading the way right up into the monster’s chest. Cracks ran all through the hook horror’s exoskeleton from the sheer force of the blow, and the monster swooned as it continued forward.

Belwar’s flight made a quick reversal, for the hook horror’s weight and momentum was much greater than the svirfneblin’s. He felt his shoulder snap out of joint, and he, too, nearly fainted from the sudden agony. Again the callings of Belwar’s illithid master overruled his thoughts, and even the pain.

The gladiators crashed together in a heap, Belwar buried beneath the monster’s bulk. The hook horror’s encumbering size prevented it from getting its arms at the burrow-warden, but it had other weapons. A wicked beak dived at Belwar. The deep gnome managed to get his pickaxe-hand in, its path, but still the hook horror’s giant head pushed on, twisting Belwar’s arm backward. The hungry beak snapper and twisted barely an inch from the burrow-warden’s face.

Throughout the stands of the large arena, illithids jumped about and chatted excitedly, both in their telepathic mode and in their gurgling, watery voices. Fingers wiggled in opposition to clenched fists as the mind flayers prematurely tried to collect on bets.

Belwar’s master, fearing the loss of its champion, called out to the hook horror’s master. Do you yield? it asked, trying to make the thoughts appear confident.

The other illithid turned away smugly and shut down its telepathic receptacles. Belwar’s master could only watch.

The hook horror could not drive any closer; the svirfneblin’s arm was locked against the stone at the elbow the mithril pickaxe firmly holding back the monster’s deadly beak. The hook horror reverted to a different tactic, raising its head free of Belwar’s hand in a sudden jerking movement.

Belwar’s warrior intuition saved him at that moment, for the hook horror reversed suddenly and the deadly beak dived back in. The normal reaction and expected defense would have been to swipe the monster’s head to the side with the pickaxe-hand. The hook horror anticipated such a counter, and Belwar anticipated that it would.

Belwar threw his arm across in front of him, but shortened his reach so that the pickaxe passed well below the hook horror’s plunging beak. The monster, meanwhile, believing that Belwar was attempting to strike a blow, stopped its dive exactly as it had planned.

But the mithril pickaxe reversed its direction much quicker than the monster anticipated. Belwar’s backhand caught the hook horror right behind the beak and snapped its head to the side. Then, ignoring the searing pain from his injured shoulder, Belwar curled his other arm at the elbow and punched out. There was no strength behind the blow, but at that moment, the hook horror came back around the pickaxe and opened its beak for a bite at the deep gnome’s exposed face.

Just in time to catch a mithril hammer instead.

Belwar’s hand wedged far back in the hook horror’s mouth, opening the beak more than it was designed to open. The monster jerked wildly, trying to free itself, each sudden twist sending waves of pain down the burrow-warden’s wounded arm.

Belwar responded with equal fury, whacking again and again at the side of the hook horror’s head with his free hand. Blood oozed down the giant beak as the pickaxe dug in.

“Do you yield?” Belwar’s master now shouted in its watery voice at the hook horror’s master.

The question was premature again, however, for down in the arena, the armored hook horror was far from defeated. It used another weapon: its sheer weight. The monster ground its chest into the lying deep gnome, trying simply to crush the life out of him.

“Do you yield?” the hook horror’s master retorted, seeing the unexpected turn of events.

Belwar’s pickaxe caught the hook horror’s eye, and the monster howled in agony. Illithids jumped and pointed, wiggling their fingers and clenching and unclenching their fists.

Both masters of the gladiators understood how much they had to lose. Would either participant ever be fit to fight again if the battle was allowed to continue?

Mayhaps we should consider a draw? Belwar’s master offered telepathically. The other illithid readily agreed. Both masters sent messages down to their champions. It took several brutal moments to calm the fires of rage and end the contest, but, eventually, the illithid suggestions overruled the gladiators’ savage instincts of survival. Suddenly, both the deep gnome and the hook horror felt an affinity for each other, and when the hook horror rose, it lent a claw to the svirfneblin to help him to his feet.

A short while later, Belwar sat on the single stone bench in his tiny, unadorned cell, just inside the tunnel to the circular arena. The burrow-warden’s hammer-wielding arm had gone completely numb and a gruesome purplish blue bruise covered his entire shoulder. Many days would pass before Belwar would be able to compete in the arena again, and it troubled him deeply that he would not soon please his master.

The illithid came to him to inspect the damage. It had potions that could help heal the wound, but even with the magical aid, Belwar obviously needed time to rest. The mind flayer had other uses for the svirfneblin, though. A cubby in its private quarters needed completing.

Come, the illithid bade Belwar, and the burrow-warden jumped to his feet and rushed out, respectfully remaining a stride behind his master.

A kneeling drow caught Belwar’s attention as the mind flayer led him through the bottom level of the central tower. How fortunate the dark elf was to be able to touch and bring pleasure to the central brain of the community! Belwar then thought no more of it, though, as he made the ascent to the structure’s third level and to the suite of rooms that his three masters shared.

The other two illithids sat in their chairs, motionless and apparently lifeless. Belwar’s master paid little heed to the spectacle; it knew that its companions were far away in their astral travels and that their corporeal bodies were quite safe. The mind flayer did pause to wonder, for just a moment, how its companions fared in that distant plane. Like all illithids, Belwar’s master enjoyed astral travel, but pragmatism, a definite illithid trait, kept the creature’s thoughts on the business at hand. It had made a large investment in buying Belwar, an investment it was not willing to lose.

The mind flayer led Belwar into a back room and sat him down on an unremarkable stone table. Then, suddenly, the illithid bombarded Belwar with telepathic suggestions and questions, probing as it roughly set the injured shoulder and applied wrappings. Mind flayers could invade a creature’s thoughts on first contact, either with their stunning blow or with telepathic communications, but it could take weeks, even months, for an illithid to fully dominate its slave. Each encounter broke down more of the slave’s natural resistance to the illithid’s mental insinuations, revealed more of the slave’s memories and emotions.

Belwar’s master was determined to know everything about this curious svirfneblin, about his strange, crafted hands and about the unusual company he chose to keep. This time during the telepathic exchange, the illithid focused on the mithril hands, for it sensed that Belwar was not performing up to his capabilities.

The illithid’s thoughts probed and prodded, and sometime later fell into a deep corner of Belwar’s mind and learned a curious chant.

Bivrip? it questioned Belwar. Simply on reflex, the burrow-warden banged his hands together, then winced in pain from the shock of the blow.

The illithid’s fingers and tentacles wiggled eagerly. It had touched upon something important, it knew, something that could make its champion stronger. If the mind flayer allowed Belwar the memory of the chant, however, it would give back to the svirfneblin a part of himself, a conscious memory of his days before slavery.

The illithid handed Belwar still another healing potion, then glanced around to inspect its wares. If Belwar was to continue as a gladiator, he would have to face the hook horror again in the arena; by illithid rules, a rematch was required after a draw. Belwar’s master doubted that the svirfneblin would survive another battle against that armored champion.

Unless…

Dinin Do’Urden paced his lizard mount through the region of Menzoberranzan’s lesser houses, the most congested section of the city. He kept the cowl of his piwafwi pulled low about his face and bore no insignia revealing him as a noble of a ruling house. Secrecy was Dinin’s ally, both from the watching eyes of this dangerous section of the city, and from the disapproving glares of his mother and sister. Dinin had survived long enough to understand the dangers of complacency. He lived in a state that bordered on paranoia; he never knew when Malice and Briza might be watching.

A group of bugbears sauntered out of the walking lizard’s way. Fury swept through the proud elderboy of House Do’Urden at the slaves’ casual manner. Dinin’s hand went instinctively to the whip on his belt.

Dinin wisely checked his rage, though, reminding himself of the possible consequences of being revealed. He turned another of the many sharp corners and moved down through a row of connected stalagmite mounds.

“So you have found me,” came a familiar voice from behind and to the side. Surprised and afraid, Dinin stopped his mount and froze in his saddle. He knew that a dozen tiny crossbows―at least―were trained on him.

Slowly, Dinin turned his head to watch Jarlaxle’s approach. Out here in the shadows, the mercenary seemed much different from the overly polite and compliant drow Dinin had known in House Do’Urden. Or perhaps it was just the specter of the two sword-wielding drow guards standing by Jarlaxle’s sides and Dinin’s own realization that he didn’t have Matron Malice around to protect him.

“One should ask permission before entering another’s house.” Jarlaxle said calmly but with definite threatening undertones. “Common courtesy.”

“I am out in the open streets.” Dinin reminded him.

Jarlaxle’s smile denied the logic. “My house.”

Dinin remembered his station, and the thoughts inspired some courage. “Should a noble of a ruling house, then, ask Jarlaxle’s permission before leaving his front gate?” the elderboy growled. “And what of Matron Baenre, who would not enter the least of Menzoberranzan’s houses without seeking permission from the appropriate matron mother? Should Matron Baenre, too, ask permission of Jarlaxle, the houseless rogue?” Dinin realized that he might be carrying the insult a bit too far, but his pride demanded the words.

Jarlaxle relaxed visibly and the smile that came to his face almost appeared sincere. “So you have found me,” he said again, this time dipping into his customary bow. “State your purpose and be done with it.”

Dinin crossed his arms over his chest belligerently, gaining confidence at the mercenary’s apparent concessions.

“Are you so certain that I was looking for you?”

Jarlaxle exchanged grins with his two guards. Snickers from unseen soldiers in the shadows of the lane stole a good measure of Dinin’s budding confidence.

“State your business, Elderboy,” Jarlaxle said more pointedly, “and be done with it.”

Dinin was more than willing to complete this encounter as quickly as possible. “I require information concerning Zin-carla,” he said bluntly. “The spirit-wraith of Zaknafein has walked the Underdark for many days. Too many, perhaps?”

Jarlaxle’s eyes narrowed as he followed the elderboy’s reasoning. “Matron Malice sent you to me?” he stated as much as asked.

Dinin shook his head and Jarlaxle did not doubt his sincerity. “You are as wise as you are skilled in the blade,” the mercenary offered graciously, slipping into a second bow, one that seemed somehow ambiguous out here in Jarlaxle’s dark world.

“I have come of my own initiative,” Dinin said firmly. “I must find some answers.”

“Are you afraid, Elderboy?”

“Concerned,” Dinin replied sincerely, ignoring the mercenary’s taunting tone. “I never make the error of underestimating my enemies, or my allies.”

Jarlaxle cast him a confused glance.

“I know what my brother has become,” Dinin explained. “And I know who Zaknafein once was.”

“Zaknafein is a spirit-wraith now,” Jarlaxle replied, “under the control of Matron Malice.”

“Many days,” Dinin said quietly, believing the implications of his words spoke loudly enough.

“Your mother asked for Zin-carla,” Jarlaxle retorted, a bit sharply. “It is Lloth’s greatest gift, given only so that the Spider Queen is pleased in return. Matron Malice knew the risk when she requested Zin-carla. Surely you understand, Elderboy, that spirit-wraiths are given for the completion of a specific task.”

“And what are the consequences of failure?” Dinin asked bluntly, matching Jarlaxle’s perturbed attitude.

The mercenary’s incredulous stare was all the answer Dinin needed. “How long does Zaknafein have?” Dinin asked.

Jarlaxle shrugged noncommittally and answered with a question of his own. “Who can guess at Lloth’s plans?” he asked. “The Spider Queen can be a patient one―if the gain is great enough to justify the wait. Is Drizzt’s value such?” Again the mercenary shrugged. “That is for Lloth, and for Lloth alone, to decide.”

Dinin studied Jarlaxle for a long moment, until he was certain that the mercenary had nothing left to offer him. Then he turned back to his lizard mount and pulled the cowl of his piwafwi low. When he regained his saddle, Dinin spun about, thinking to issue one final comment, but the mercenary and his guards were nowhere to be found.

“Bivrip!” Belwar cried, completing the spell. The burrow-warden banged his hands together again, and this time did not wince, for the pain was not so intense. Sparks flew when the mithril hands crashed together, and Belwar’s master clapped its four-fingered hands in absolute glee. The illithid simply had to see its gladiator in action now. It looked about for a target and spotted the partially cut cubby. A whole set of telepathic instructions roared into the burrow-warden’s mind as the illithid imparted mental images of the design and depth it wanted for the cubby.

Belwar moved right in. Unsure of the strength in his wounded shoulder, the one guiding the hammer-hand, he led with the pickaxe. The stone exploded into dust under the enchanted hand’s blow, and the illithid sent a clear message of its pleasure flooding into Belwar’s thoughts. Even the armor of a hook horror would not stand against such a blow!

Belwar’s master reinforced the instructions it had given to the deep gnome, then moved into an adjoining chamber to study. Left alone to his work, so very similar to the tasks he had worked at for all of his century of life, Belwar found himself wondering.

Nothing in particular crossed the burrow-warden’s few coherent thoughts; the need to please his illithid master remained the foremost guidance of his movements. For the first time since his capture, though, Belwar wondered.

Identity? Purpose?

The enchanting spell-song of his mithril hands ran through his mind again, became a focus of his unconscious determination to sort through the blur of his captors’ insinuations.

“Bivrip?” he muttered again, and the word triggered a more recent memory, an image of a drow elf, kneeling and massaging the god-thing of the illithid community.

“Drizzt?” Belwar muttered under his breath, but the name was forgotten in the next bang of his pick-hand, obliterated by the svirfneblin’s continuing desire to please his illithid master.

The cubby had to be perfect.

A lump of flesh rippled under an ebony-skinned hand and a wave of anxiety flooded through Drizzt, imparted by the central brain of the mind flayer community. The drow’s only emotional response was sadness, for he could not bear to see the brain in distress. Slender fingers kneaded and rubbed; Drizzt lifted a bowl of warm water and poured it slowly over the flesh. Then Drizzt was happy, for the flesh smoothed out under his skilled touch, and the brain’s anxious emotions soon were replaced by a teasing hint of gratitude.

Behind the kneeling drow, across the wide walkway, two illithids watched it all and nodded approvingly. Drow elves always had proved skilled at this task, and this latest captive was one of the finest so far.

The illithids wiggled their fingers eagerly at the implications of that shared thought. The central brain had detected another drow intruder in the illithid webs that were the tunnels beyond the long and narrow cavern―another slave to massage and sooth.

So the central brain believed.

Four illithids moved out from the cavern, guided by the images imparted by the central brain. A single drow had entered their domain, an easy capture for four illithids.

So the mind flayers believed.

Chapter 18. The Element of Surprise

The spirit-wraith picked his silent way through the broken and twisting corridors, traveling with the light and practiced steps of a veteran drow warrior. But the mind flayers, guided by their central brain, anticipated Zaknafein’s course perfectly and were waiting for him.

As Zaknafein came beside the same stone ridge where Belwar and Clacker had fallen, an illithid jumped out at him and―fwoop!―blasted its stunning energy.

At that close range, few creatures could have resisted such a powerful blow, but Zaknafein was an undead thing, a being not of this world. The proximity of Zaknafein’s mind, linked to another plane of existence, could not be measured in steps. Impervious to such mental attacks, the spirit-wraith’s swords dived straight in, each taking the startled illithid in one of its milky, pupil-less eyes.

The three other mind flayers floated down from the ceiling, loosing their stunning blasts as they came. Swords in hand, Zaknafein waited confidently for them, but the mind flayers continued their descent. Never before had their mental attacks failed them; they could not believe that the incapacitating cones of energy would prove futile now. Fwoop! A dozen times the illithids fired, but the spirit-wraith seemed not to notice. The illithids, beginning to worry, tried to reach inside Zaknafein’s thoughts to understand how he had possibly avoided the effects. What they found was a barrier beyond their penetrating capabilities, a barrier that transcended their present plane of existence.

They had witnessed Zaknafein’s swordplay against their unfortunate companion and had no intention of engaging this skilled drow in melee combat. Telepathically, they promptly agreed to reverse their direction.

But they had descended too far.

Zaknafein cared nothing for the illithids and would have walked contentedly off on his way. The illithid’s misfortune, though, the spirit-wraith’s instincts, and Zaknafein’s past-life knowledge of mind flayers, led him to a simple conclusion: If Drizzt had traveled this way―and Zaknafein knew that he had―he most likely had encountered the mind flayers. An undead being could defeat them, but a mortal drow, even Drizzt, would find himself at a sorry disadvantage.

Zaknafein sheathed one sword and sprang up to the ridge of stone. In the blur of a second fast leap, the spirit-wraith caught one of the rising illithids by the ankle.

Fwoop! The creature blasted again, but it was a doomed thing with little defense against Zaknafein’s slashing sword. With incredible strength, the spirit-wraith heaved himself straight up, his sword leading the way. The illithid slapped down at the blade vainly, but its empty hands could not defeat the spirit-wraith’s aim. Zaknafein’s sword sliced up through the mind flayer’s belly and into its heart and lungs.

Gasping and clutching at the huge wound, the illithid could only watch helplessly as Zaknafein found his footing and kicked off the mind flayer’s chest. The dying illithid tumbled away, head over heels, and slammed into the wall, then hung grotesquely in midair even after death, its blood spattering the floor below.

Zaknafein’s leap sent him crashing into the next floating illithid, and the momentum took both of them into the last of the group. Arms flailed and tentacles waved wildly, seeking some hold on the drow warrior’s flesh. More deadly, though, was the blade, and a moment later, the spirit-wraith pulled free of his latest two victims, enacted a levitation spell of his own, and floated gently back to the stone floor. Zaknafein walked calmly away, leaving three illithids hanging dead in the air for the duration of their levitation spells, and a fourth dead on the floor.

The spirit-wraith did not bother to wipe the blood from his swords; he realized that very soon there would be more killing.

The two mind flayers continued observing the panther’s entity. They did not know it, but Guenhwyvar was aware of their presence. In the Astral Plane, where material senses such as smell and taste had no meaning, the panther substituted other subtle senses. Here, Guenhwyvar hunted through a sense that translated the emanations of energy into clear mental images, and the panther could readily distinguish between the aura of an elk and a rabbit without ever seeing the particular creature. Illithids were not so uncommon on the Astral Plane, and Guenhwyvar recognized their emanations.

The panther had not yet decided whether their presence was mere coincidence or was in some way connected to the fact that Drizzt had not called in many days. The apparent interest the mind flayers showed in Guenhwyvar suggested the latter, a most disturbing notion to the panther. Still, Guenhwyvar did not want to make the first move against so dangerous an enemy. The panther continued its daily routines, keeping a wary eye on the unwanted audience.

Guenhwyvar noticed the shift in the mind flayers’ emanations as the creatures began a rapid descent back to the Material Plane. The panther could wait no longer.

Springing through the stars, Guenhwyvar charged upon the mind flayers. Occupied in their efforts to begin their return journey, the illithids did not react until it was too late.

The panther dived in below one, catching its silvery cord in fangs of sharp light. Guenhwyvar’s neck flexed and twisted, and the silvery cord snapped. The helpless illithid drifted away, a castaway on the Astral Plane.

The other mind flayer, more concerned with saving itself, ignored its companion’s frenzied pleas and continued descent toward the planar tunnel that would return it to its corporeal body. The illithid almost slipped beyond Guenhwyvar’s reach, but the panther’s claws latched on firmly just as it entered the planar tunnel.

Guenhwyvar rode along.

From his little stone island, Clacker saw the commotion growing all through the long and narrow cavern. Illithids rushed all about, telepathically commanding slaves into defensive formations. Lookouts disappeared through every exit, while other mind flayers floated up into the air to keep a general watch on the situation.

Clacker recognized that some crisis had come upon the community, and a single logical thought forced its way through the hook horror’s base thinking: If the mind flayers became preoccupied with some new enemy, this might be his chance to escape. With a new focus to his thinking, Clacker’s pech side found a firm footing. His largest problem could be the chasm, for he certainly could not leap across it. He figured that he could toss a gray dwarf or a rothe the distance, but that would hardly aid his own escape. Clacker’s gaze fell on the lever of the bridge, then back to his companions on the stone island. The bridge was retracted; the high lever leaned toward the island. A well-aimed projectile might push it back. Clacker banged his huge claws together―an action that reminded him of Belwar―and hoisted a gray dwarf high into the air. The unfortunate creature soared toward the lever but came up short, instead slamming into the chasm wall and plummeting to its death.

Clacker stamped an angry foot and turned to find another missile. He had no idea of how he would get to Drizzt and Belwar, and at that moment, he didn’t pause to worry about them. Clacker’s problem right now was getting off his prison island.

This time a young rothe went high into the air.

There was no subtlety, no secrecy, to Zaknafein’s entrance. Having no fear of the mind flayers’ primary attack methods, the spirit-wraith walked straight into the long and narrow cavern, right out into the open. A group of three illithids descended on him immediately, loosing their stunning blasts.

Again the spirit-wraith walked through the mental energy without a flinch, and the three illithids found the same fate as the four that had stood against Zaknafein out in the tunnels.

Then came the slaves. Desiring only to please their masters, goblins, gray dwarves, orcs, and even a few ogres, charged at the drow invader. Some brandished weapons, but most had only their hands and teeth, thinking to bury the lone drow under their sheer numbers.

Zaknafein’s swords and feet were too quick for such straightforward tactics. The spirit-wraith danced and slashed, darting in one direction then reversing his motion suddenly and hacking down his closest pursuers.

Behind the action, the illithids formed their own defensive lines, reconsidering the wisdom of their tactics. Their tentacles wiggled wildly as their mental communications flooded forth, trying to make some sense of this unexpected turn. They had not trusted enough in their slaves to hand them all weapons, but as slave after slave fell to the stone, clawing at mortal wounds, the mind flayers came to regret their mounting losses. Still, the illithids believed they would win out. Behind them, more groups of slaves were being herded down to join the fray. The lone invader would tire, his steps would slow, and their horde would crush him.

The mind flayers could not know the truth of Zaknafein. They could not know that he was an undead thing, a magically animated thing that would not tire and would not slow. Belwar and his master watched the spasmodic jerking of one of the illithid bodies, a telltale sign that the host spirit was returning from its astral journey. Belwar did not understand the implications of the convulsive movements, but he sensed that his master was glad, and that, in turn, pleased him.

But Belwar’s master was also a bit concerned that only one of its companions was returning, for the central brain’s summons took the highest priority and could not be ignored. The mind flayer watched as its companion’s spasms settled into a pattern, and then was even more confused, for a dark mist appeared around the body.

At the same instant the illithid returned to the Material Plane, Belwar’s master telepathically shared in its pain and terror. Before Belwar’s master could begin to react, though, Guenhwyvar materialized atop the seated illithid, tearing and slashing at the body.

Belwar froze as a flicker of recognition coursed through him. “Bivrip?” he whispered under his breath, and then, “Drizzt?” and the image of the kneeling drow came clearly into his mind.

Kill it, my brave champion! Do kill it! Belwar’s master implored, but it was already too late for the illithid’s unfortunate companion. The seated mind flayer flailed away frantically; its tentacles wiggled and latched onto the cat in an attempt to get at Guenhwyvar’s brain. Guenhwyvar swiped across with a mighty claw, a single blow that tore the illithid’s octopus head from its shoulders.

Belwar, his hands still enchanted from his work on the cubby, advanced slowly toward the panther, his steps bound not by fear, but by confusion. The burrow-warden turned to his master and asked, “Guenhwyvar?”

The mind flayer knew that it had given too much back to the svirfneblin. The recall of the enchanting spell had inspired other, dangerous memories in this slave. No longer could Belwar be relied upon.

Guenhwyvar sensed the illithid’s intent and sprang out from the dead mind flayer only an instant before the remaining creature blasted at Belwar. Guenhwyvar hit the burrow-warden squarely, sending him sprawling to the floor. Feline muscles flexed and strained as the cat landed, turning Guenhwyvar on the spot at an angle for the room’s exit.

Fwoop! The mind flayer’s assault clipped Belwar as he tumbled, but the deep gnome’s confusion and his mounting rage held off the insidious attack. For that one moment, Belwar was free, and he rolled to his feet, viewing the illithid as the wretched and evil thing that it was.

“Go, Guenhwyvar!” the burrow-warden cried, and the cat needed no prodding. As an astral being, Guenhwyvar understood much about illithid society and knew the key to any battle against a lair of such creatures. The panther flew against the door with all its weight, bursting out onto the balcony high above the chamber that held the central brain.

Belwar’s master, fearing for its god-thing, tried to follow, but the deep gnome’s strength had returned tenfold with his anger, and his wounded arm felt no pain as he smashed his enchanted hammer-hand into the squishy flesh of the illithid’s head. Sparks flew and scorched the illithid’s face, and the creature slammed back into the wall, its milky, pupil-less eyes staring at Belwar in disbelief.

Then it slid, ever so slowly, to the floor, down into the darkness of death.

Forty feet below the room, the kneeling drow sensed his revered master’s fear and outrage and looked up just as the black panther sprang out into the air. Fully entranced by the central brain, Drizzt did not recognize Guenhwyvar as his former companion and dearest friend; he saw at that moment only a threat to the being he most loved. But Drizzt and the other massaging slaves could only watch helplessly as the mighty panther, teeth bared and paws wide, plummeted down onto the middle of the bulbous mass of veined flesh that ruled the illithid community.

Chapter 19. Headaches

Approximately one hundred twenty illithids resided in and around the stone castle in the long and narrow cavern, and everyone of them felt the same searing headache when Guenhwyvar dived into the community’s central brain.

Guenhwyvar plowed through the mass of defenseless flesh, the cat’s great claws tearing and slashing a path through the gore. The central brain imparted emotions of absolute terror, trying to inspire its servants. Understanding that help would not soon arrive, the thing reverted to pleading with the panther.

Guenhwyvar’s primal ferocity, however, allowed for no mental intrusions. The panther dug on savagely and was buried in the spurting slime.

Drizzt shouted in outrage and ran all about the walkway, trying to find some way to get at the intruding panther. Drizzt felt his beloved master’s anguish keenly and pleaded for somebody―anybody―to do something. Other slaves jumped and cried, and mind flayers ran about in a frenzy, but Guenhwyvar was out in the center of the huge mass, beyond the reach of any weapons the mind flayers could use.

A few moments later, Drizzt stopped his jumping and shouting. He wondered where and who he was, and what in the Nine Hells this great disgusting lump in front of him possibly could be. He looked around the walkway and caught similar confused expressions on the faces of several duergar dwarves, another dark elf, two goblins, and a tall and wickedly scarred bugbear. The mind flayers still rushed about, looking for some attack angle on the panther, the primary threat, and paid no heed to the confused slaves. Guenhwyvar made a sudden appearance from behind the folds of brain. The cat came up over a fleshy ridge for just a moment, then disappeared back into the gore. Several mind flayers fired their mind blasts at the fleeting target, but Guenhwyvar was out of sight too quickly for their energy cones to strike―but not too quickly for Drizzt to catch a glimpse.

“Guenhwyvar?” the drow cried as a multitude of thoughts rushed back into his mind. The last thing he remembered was floating up among the stalactites in a broken corridor, up to where other sinister shapes lurked.

An illithid moved right beside the drow, too intent on the action within the brain to realize that Drizzt was a slave no longer. Drizzt had no weapons other than his own body, but he hardly cared in that moment of sheer anger. He leaped high into the air behind the unsuspecting monster and kicked his foot into the back of the thing’s octopus head. The illithid tumbled forward onto the central brain and bounced along the rubbery folds several times before it could find any hold.

All about the walkway, the slaves realized their freedom. The gray dwarves banded together immediately and took down two illithids in a wild rush, pummeling the creatures and stomping on them with their heavy boots.

Fwoop! A blast came from the side, and Drizzt turned to see the other dark elf reeling from the stunning blow. A mind flayer rushed in on the drow and grabbed him in a tight hug. Four tentacles latched on to the doomed dark elf’s face, clamping on, then digging in toward his brain.

Drizzt wanted to go to the drow’s aid, but a second illithid moved between them and took aim. Drizzt dived to the side as another attack sounded. Fwoop! He came up running, desperately trying to put more ground between himself and the illithid. The other drow’s scream held Drizzt for a moment, though, and he glanced back over his shoulder.

Grotesque, bulging lines crossed up the drow’s face, a visage contorted by more anguish than Drizzt had ever before witnessed. Drizzt saw the illithid’s head jerk, and the tentacles, buried beneath the drow’s skin and reaching and sucking at his brain, pulsed and bulged. The doomed drow screamed again, one final time, then he fell limp in the illithid’s arms and the creature finished its gruesome feast.

The scarred bugbear unwittingly saved Drizzt from a similar fate. In its flight, the seven foot-tall creature crossed right between Drizzt and the pursuing mind flayer just as the illithid fired again. The blow stunned the bugbear for the moment it took the illithid to close in. As the mind flayer reached for its supposedly helpless victim, the bugbear swung a huge arm and knocked the pursuer to the stone.

More mind flayers rushed out onto the balconies overlooking the circular chamber. Drizzt had no idea where his friends might be, or how he might escape, but the single door he spotted beside the walkway seemed his only chance. He charged straight at it, but it burst open just before he arrived.

Drizzt crashed into the waiting arms of yet another illithid.

If the inside of the stone castle was a tumult of confusion, the outside was chaos. No slaves charged at Zaknafein now. The wounding of the central brain had freed them from the mind flayers’ suggestions, and now the goblins, gray dwarves, and all the others were more concerned with their own escape. Those closest to the cavern exits rushed out; others ran about wildly, trying to keep out of range of the continuing illithid mind blasts.

Hardly giving his actions a thought, Zaknafein whipped across with a sword, taking out a goblin as it ran screaming past. Then the spirit-wraith closed in on the creature that had been pursuing the goblin. Walking through yet another stunning blast, Zaknafein chopped the mind flayer down.

In the stone castle, Drizzt had regained his identity, and the magical spells imbued upon the spirit-wraith honed in on the target’s thought patterns. With a guttural growl, Zaknafein made a straight course toward the castle, leaving a host of dead and wounded, slave and illithid alike, in his wake.

Another rothe bleated out in surprise as it soared through the air. Three of the beasts limped about across the way; a fourth had followed the duergar to the bottom of the chasm. This time, though, Clacker’s aim was true, and the small cowlike creature slammed into the lever, throwing it back. At once, the enchanted bridge rolled out and secured itself at Clacker’s feet. The hook horror scooped up another gray dwarf, just for luck, and started out across the bridge.

He was nearly halfway across when the first mind flayer appeared, rushing toward the lever. Clacker knew that he couldn’t possibly get all the way across before the illithid disengaged the bridge.

He had only one shot.

The gray dwarf, oblivious to its surroundings, went high into the air above the hook horror’s head. Clacker held his throw and continued across, letting the illithid close in as much as possible. As the mind flayer reached a four-fingered hand toward the lever, the duergar missile crashed into its chest, throwing it to the stone.

Clacker ran for his life. The illithid recovered and pushed the lever forward. The bridge snapped back, opening the deep chasm.

A final leap just as the metal-and-stone bridge zipped out from under his feet sent Clacker crashing into the side of the chasm. He got his arms and shoulders over the lip of the gorge and kept enough wits about him to quickly scramble over to the side.

The illithid pulled back on the lever, and the bridge shot out again, clipping Clacker. The hook horror had moved far enough to the side, though, and Clacker’s grip was strong enough to hold against the force as the rushing bridge scraped across his armored chest.

The illithid cursed and pulled the lever back, then rushed to meet the hook horror. Weary and wounded, Clacker had not yet begun to pull himself up when the illithid arrived. Waves of stunning energy rolled over him. His head drooped and he slid back several inches before his claws found another hold.

The mind flayer’s greed cost it dearly. Instead of simply blasting and kicking Clacker from the ledge, it thought it could make a quick meal of the helpless hook horror’s brain. It knelt before Clacker, four tentacles diving in eagerly to find an opening in his facial armor.

Clacker’s dual entities had resisted the illithid blasts out in the tunnels, and now, too, the stunning mental energy had only a minimal effect. When the illithid’s octopus head appeared right in front of his face, it shocked Clacker back to awareness.

A snap of a beak removed two of the probing tentacles, then a desperate lunge of a claw caught the illithid’s knee. Bones crushed into dust under the mighty grip, and the illithid cried in agony, both telepathically and in its watery, otherworldly voice.

A moment later, its cries faded as it plummeted down the deep chasm. A levitation spell might have saved the falling illithid, but such spellcasting required concentration and the pain of a torn face and crushed knee delayed such actions. The illithid thought of levitating at the same moment that the point of a stalagmite drove through its backbone.

The hammer-hand crashed through the door of another stone chest. “Damn!” Belwar spat, seeing that this one, too, contained nothing more than illithid clothing. The burrow-warden was certain that his equipment would be nearby, but already half of his former masters’ rooms lay in ruin with nothing to show for the effort. Belwar moved back into the main chamber and over to the stone seats. Between the two chairs, he spotted the figurine of the panther. He scooped it into a pouch, then squashed the head of the remaining illithid, the astral castaway, with his pickaxe-hand almost as an afterthought; in the confusion, the svirfneblin had nearly forgotten that one monster remained. Belwar heaved the body away, sending it down in a heap on the floor.

“Magga cammara,” the svirfneblin muttered when he looked back to the stone chair and saw the outline of a trap door where the creature had been sitting. Never putting finesse above efficiency, Belwar’s hammer-hand quickly reduced the door to rubble, and the burrow-warden looked upon the welcome sight of familiar backpacks.

Belwar shrugged and followed the course of the logic, swiping across at the other illithid, the one Guenhwyvar had decapitated. The headless monster fell away, revealing another trap door.

“The drow shall find need of these,” Belwar remarked when he cleared away the chunks of broken stone and lifted out a belt that held two sheathed scimitars. He darted for the exit and met an illithid right in the doorway.

More particularly, Belwar’s humming hammer-hand met the illithid’s chest. The monster flew backward, spinning over the balcony’s metal railing.

Belwar rushed out and charged to the side, having no time to check if the illithid had somehow caught a handhold and having no time to stay and play in any case. He could hear the commotion below, the mental attacks and the screams, and the continuing growls of a panther that sounded like music in the burrow-warden’s ears.

His arms pinned to his sides by the illithid’s unexpectedly powerful hug, Drizzt could only twist and jerk his head about to slow the tentacles’ progress. One found a hold, then another, and began burrowing under the drow’s ebony skin. Drizzt knew little of mind flayer anatomy, but it was a bipedal creature and he allowed himself some assumptions.

Wiggling a bit to the side, so that he was not directly facing the horrid thing, he brought a knee slamming up into the creature’s groin. By the sudden loosening of the illithid’s grip, and by the way its milky eyes seemed to widen, Drizzt guessed that his assumptions had been correct. His knee slammed up again, then a third time.

Drizzt heaved with all his strength and broke free of the weakened illithid’s hug. The stubborn tentacles continued their climb up the sides of Drizzt’s face, though, reaching for his brain. Explosions of burning pain racked Drizzt and he nearly fainted, his head drooping forward limply. But the hunter would not surrender.

When Drizzt looked up again, the lire in his lavender eyes fell upon the illithid like a damning curse. The hunter grasped the tentacles and tore them out savagely, pulling them straight down to bow the illithid’s head.

The monster fired its mind blast, but the angle was wrong and the energy did nothing to slow the hunter. One hand held tightly to the tentacles while the other slammed in with the frenzy of a dwarven hammer at a mithril strike on the monster’s soft head.

Blue-black bruises welled in the fleshy skin; one pupil-less eye swelled and closed. A tentacle dug into the drow’s wrist; the frantic illithid raked and punched with its arms, but the hunter didn’t notice. He pounded away at the head, pounded the creature down to the stone floor. Drizzt tore his arm away from the tentacle’s grasp, then both fists flailed away until the illithid’s eyes closed forever.

The ring of metal spun the drow about. Lying on the floor just a few feet away was a familiar and welcome sight.

Satisfied that the scimitars had landed near his friend, Belwar charged down a stone stairway at the nearest illithid. The monster turned and loosed its blast. Belwar answered with a scream of sheer rage―a scream that partially blocked the stunning effect―and he hurled himself through the air, meeting the waves of energy head on. Though dazed from the mental assault, the deep gnome crashed into the illithid and they fell over into a second monster that had been rushing up to help. Belwar could hardly find his bearings, but he clearly understood that the jumble of arms and legs all about him were not the limbs of friend. The burrow-warden’s mithril hands slashed and punched, and he scrambled away along the second balcony in search of another stair. By the time the two wounded illithids recovered enough to respond, the wild svirfneblin was long gone.

Belwar caught another illithid by surprise, splatting its fleshy head flat against the wall as he came down onto the next level. A dozen other mind flayers roamed all about this balcony, though, most of them guarding the two stairways down to the tower’s bottom chamber. Belwar took a quick detour by springing up to the top of the metal railing, then dropping the fifteen feet to the floor.

A blast of stunning energy rolled over Drizzt as he reached for his weapons. The hunter resisted, though, his thoughts simply too primitive for such a sophisticated attack form. In a single movement too quick for his latest adversary to respond to, he snapped one scimitar from its sheath and spun about, slicing the blade at an upward angle. The scimitar buried itself halfway through the pursuing mind flayer’s head.

The hunter knew that the monster was already dead, but he tore out the scimitar and whacked the illithid one more time as it fell, for no particular reason at all.

Then the drow was up and running, both blades drawn, one dripping illithid blood and the other hungry for more. Drizzt should have been looking for an escape route―that part that was Drizzt Do’Urden would have looked―but the hunter wanted more. His hunter-self demanded revenge on the brain mass that had enslaved him.

A single cry saved the drow then, brought him back from the spiraling depths of his blind, instinctive rage.

“Drizzt!” Belwar shouted, limping over to his friend. “Help me, dark elf! My ankle twisted in the fall!” All thoughts of revenge suddenly thrown away, Drizzt Do’Urden rushed to his svirfneblin companion’s side.

Arm in arm, the two friends left the circular chamber. A moment later, Guenhwyvar, sleek from the blood and gore of the central brain, bounded up to join them.

“Lead us out,” Drizzt begged the panther, and Guenhwyvar willingly took up a point position.

They ran down winding, rough-hewn corridors. “Not made by any svirfneblin,” Belwar was quick to point out, throwing his friend a wink.

“I believe they were,” Drizzt retorted easily, returning the wink. “Under the charms of a mind flayer, I mean,” he quickly added.

“Never!” Belwar insisted. “Never the work of a svirfneblin is this, not even if his mind had been melted away!” In spite of their dire peril, the deep gnome managed a belly laugh, and Drizzt joined him.

Sounds of battle sounded from the side passages of every intersection they crossed. Guenhwyvar’s keen senses kept them along the clearest route, though the panther had no way of knowing which way was out. Still, whatever lay in any direction could only be an improvement over the horrors they had left.

A mind flayer jumped out into their corridor just after Guenhwyvar crossed an intersection. The creature hadn’t seen the panther and faced Drizzt and Belwar fully. Drizzt threw the svirfneblin down and dived into a headlong roll toward his adversary, expecting to be blasted before he ever got close.

But when the drow came out of the roll and looked up, his breath came back in a profound sigh of relief. The mind flayer lay face down on the stone, Guenhwyvar comfortably perched atop its back.

Drizzt moved to his feline companion as Guenhwyvar casually finished the grim business, and Belwar soon joined them.

“Anger, dark elf,” the svirfneblin remarked. Drizzt looked at him curiously.

“I believe anger can fight back against their blasts,” Belwar explained. “One got me up on the stairs, but I was so mad, I hardly noticed. Perhaps I am mistaken, but―”

“No,” Drizzt interrupted, remembering how little he had been affected, even at close range, when he had gone to retrieve his scimitars. He had been in the thralls of his alter ego then, that darker, maniacal side he so desperately had tried to leave behind. The illithid’s mental assault had been all but useless against the hunter. “You are not mistaken,” Drizzt assured his friend. “Anger can beat them, or at least slow the effects of their mind assaults.”

“Then get mad!” Belwar growled as he signaled Guenhwyvar ahead. Drizzt threw his supporting arm back under the burrow-warden’s shoulder and nodded his agreement with Belwar’s suggestion. The drow realized, though, that blind rage such as Belwar was speaking of could not be consciously created. Instinctive fear and anger might defeat the illithids, but Drizzt, from his experiences with his alter ego, knew those were emotions brought on by nothing short of desperation and panic.

The small party crossed through several more corridors, through a large, empty room, and down yet another passage. Slowed by the limping svirfneblin, they soon heard heavy footsteps closing in from behind.

“Too heavy for illithids,” Drizzt remarked, looking back over his shoulder.

“Slaves,” Belwar reasoned.

Fwoop! An attack sounded behind them. Fwoop! Fwoop! The sounds came to them, followed by several thuds and groans.

“Slaves once again,” Drizzt said grimly. The pursuing foot steps came on again, this time sounding more like a light shuffle.

“Faster!” Drizzt cried, and Belwar needed no prompting. They ran on, thankful for every turn in the passage, for they feared that the illithids were only steps behind.

They then came into a large and high hall. Several possible exits came into view, but one, a set of large iron doors, held their attention keenly. Between them and the doors was a spiraling iron stairway, and on a balcony not so far above loomed a mind flayer.

“He’ll cut us off,” Belwar reasoned. The footsteps came louder from behind. Belwar looked back toward the waiting illithid curiously when he saw a wide smile cross the drow’s face. The deep gnome, too, grinned widely.

Guenhwyvar took the spiraling stairs in three mighty bounds. The illithid wisely fled along the balcony and off into the shadows of adjoining corridors. The panther did not pursue, but held a high, guarding position above Drizzt and Belwar.

Both the drow and the svirfneblin called their thanks as they passed, but their elation turned sour when they arrived at the doors. Drizzt pushed hard, but the portals would not budge.

“Locked!” he cried.

“Not for long!” growled Belwar. The enchantment had expired in the deep gnome’s mithril hands, but he charged ahead anyway, pounding his hammer-hand against the metal.

Drizzt moved behind the deep gnome, keeping a rear guard and expecting the illithids to enter the hall at any moment. “Hurry, Belwar.” he begged.

Both mithril hands worked furiously on the doors. Gradually, the lock began to loosen and the doors opened just an inch. “Magga cammara, dark elf!” the burrow-warden cried. “A bar it is that holds them! On the other side!”

“Damn!” Drizzt spat, and across the way, a group of several mind flayers entered the hall.

Belwar didn’t relent. His hammer-hand smashed at the door again and again.

The illithids crossed the stairway and Guenhwyvar sprang into their midst, bringing the whole group tumbling down. At that horrible moment, Drizzt realized that he did not have the onyx figurine.

The hammer-hand banged the metal in rapid succession, widening the gap between the doors. Belwar pushed his pickaxe-hand through in an uppercut motion and lifted the bar from its locking clasps. The doors swung wide.

“Come quickly!” the deep gnome yelled to Drizzt. He hooked his pickaxe-hand under the drow’s shoulder to pull him along, but Drizzt shrugged away the hold.

“Guenhwyvar!” Drizzt cried.

Fwoop! The evil sound came repeatedly from the pile of bodies. Guenhwyvar’s reply came as more of a helpless wail than a growl.

Drizzt’s lavender eyes burned with rage. He took a single stride back toward the stairway before Belwar figured out a solution.

“Wait.” the svirfneblin called, and he was truly relieved when Drizzt turned about to hear him. Belwar thrust his hip toward the drow and tore open his belt pouch. “Use this!”

Drizzt pulled out the onyx figurine and dropped it at his feet. “Be gone, Guenhwyvar!” he shouted. “Go back to the safety of your home!”

Drizzt and Belwar couldn’t even see the panther amid the throng of illithids, but they sensed the mind flayers’ sudden distress even before the telltale black mist appeared around the onyx figurine.

As a group, the illithids spun toward them and charged.

“Get the other door!” Belwar cried. Drizzt had grabbed the figurine and was already moving in that direction. The iron portals slammed shut and Drizzt worked to replace the locking bar. Several clasps on the outside of the door had been broken under the burrow-warden’s ferocious assault, and the bar was bent, but Drizzt managed to set it in place securely enough to at least slow the illithids.

“The other slaves are trapped,” Drizzt remarked.

“Goblins and gray dwarves mostly,” Belwar replied.

“And Clacker?”

Belwar threw his arms out helplessly.

“I pity them all,” groaned Drizzt, sincerely horrified at the prospect. “Nothing in all the world can torture more than the mental clutches of mind flayers.”

“Aye, dark elf.” whispered Belwar.

The illithids slammed into the doors, and Drizzt pushed back, further securing the lock.

“Where do we go?” Belwar asked behind him, and when Drizzt turned and surveyed the long and narrow cavern, he certainly understood the burrow-warden’s confusion. They spotted at least a dozen exits, but between them and every one rushed a crowd of terrified slaves or a group of illithids. Behind them came another heavy thud, and the doors creaked open several inches.

“Just go!” Drizzt shouted, pushing Belwar along. They charged down a wide stairway, then out across the broken floor, picking a route that would get them as far from the stone castle as possible.

“‘Ware danger on all sides!” Belwar cried. “Slave and flayer alike!”

“Let them beware!” Drizzt retorted, his scimitars leading the way. He slammed a goblin down with the hilt of one blade as it stumbled into his way, and a moment later, sliced the tentacles from the face of an illithid as it began to suck the brain from a recaptured duergar.

Then another former slave, a bigger one, jumped in front of Drizzt. The drow rushed it headlong, but this time he stayed his scimitars.

“Clacker!” Belwar yelled behind Drizzt.

“B-b-back of… the…cavern,” the hook horror panted, its grumbled words barely decipherable. “The b-b-best exit.”

“Lead on,” Belwar replied excitedly, his hopes returning. Nothing would stand against the three of them united. When the burrow-warden started after his giant hook horror friend, however, he noticed that Drizzt wasn’t following. At first Belwar feared that a mind blast had caught the drow, but when he returned to Drizzt’s side, he realized otherwise.

Atop another of the many wide stairways that ran through the many-tiered cavern, a single slender figure moved through a group of slaves and illithids alike.

“By the gods,” Belwar muttered in disbelief, for the devastating movements of this single figure truly frightened the deep gnome.

The precise cuts and deft twists of the twin swords were not at all frightening to Drizzt Do’Urden. Indeed, to the young dark elf, they rang with a familiarity that brought an old ache to his heart. He looked at Belwar blankly and spoke the name of the single warrior who could fit those maneuvers, the only name that could accompany such magnificent swordplay.

“Zaknafein.”

Chapter 20. Father, My Father

How many lies had Matron Malice told him? What truth could Drizzt ever find in the web of deceptions that marked drow society? His father had not been sacrificed to the Spider Queen! Zaknafein was here, fighting before him, wielding his swords as finely as Drizzt had ever seen.

“What is it?” Belwar demanded.

“The drow warrior,” Drizzt was barely able to whisper.

“From your city, dark elf?” Belwar asked. “Sent after you?”

“From Menzoberranzan,” Drizzt replied. Belwar waited for more information, but Drizzt was too enthralled by Zak’s appearance to go into much detail.

“We must go,” the burrow-warden said at length.

“Quickly,” agreed Clacker, returning to his friends. The hook horror’s voice sounded more controlled now, as though the mere appearance of Clacker’s friends had aided his pech side in its continuing internal struggle. “The mind flayers are organizing defenses. Many slaves are down.”

Drizzt spun out of the reach of Belwar’s pick-hand. “No,” he said firmly. “I’ll not leave him!”

“Magga cammara, dark elf!” Belwar shouted at him. “Who is it?”

“Zaknafein Do’Urden,” Drizzt yelled back, more than matching the burrow-warden’s rising ire. Drizzt’s volume dropped considerably as he finished the thought, though, and he nearly choked on the words, “My father.”

By the time Belwar and Clacker exchanged disbelieving stares, Drizzt was gone, running to and then up the wide stairway. Atop it, the spirit-wraith stood among a mound of victims, mind flayers and slaves alike, who had found the great misfortune of getting in his way. Farther along the higher tier, several illithids had taken flight from the undead monster.

Zaknafein started to pursue them, for they were running toward the stone castle, following the course the spirit-wraith had determined from the beginning. A thousand magical alarms sounded within the spirit-wraith, though, and abruptly turned him back to the stair.

Drizzt was coming. Zin-carla’s moment of fulfillment, the purpose of Zaknafein’s animation, at last had arrived!

“Weapon master!” Drizzt cried, springing up lightly to stand by his father’s side. The younger drow bubbled with elation, not realizing the truth of the monster standing before him. When Drizzt got near Zak, though, he sensed that something was wrong. Perhaps it was the strange light in the spirit-wraith’s eyes that slowed Drizzt’s rush. Perhaps it was the fact that Zaknafein did not return his joyful call.

A moment later, it was the downward slice of a sword.

Drizzt somehow managed to get a blocking scimitar up in time. Confused, he still believed that Zaknafein simply had not recognized him.

“Father!” he shouted. “I am Drizzt!”

One sword dived ahead, while the second started in a wide slice, then rushed suddenly toward Drizzt’s side. Matching the spirit-wraith’s speed, Drizzt came down with one scimitar to parry the first attack and sliced across with the other to foil the second.

“Who are you?” Drizzt demanded desperately, furiously.

A flurry of blows came straight in. Drizzt worked frantically to keep them at bay, but then Zaknafein came across with a backhand and managed to sweep both of Drizzt’s blades out to the same side. The spirit-wraith’s second sword followed closely, a cut aimed straight at Drizzt’s heart, one that Drizzt could not possibly block.

Back down at the bottom of the stairway, Belwar and Clacker cried out, thinking their friend doomed.

Zaknafein’s moment of victory was stolen from him, though, by the instincts of the hunter. Drizzt sprang to the side ahead of the plunging blade, then twisted and ducked under Zaknafein’s deadly cut. The sword nicked him under his jawbone, leaving a painful gash. When Drizzt completed his roll and found his footing despite the angles of the stair, he showed no sign of acknowledging the injury. When Drizzt again faced his father’s imposter, simmering fires burned in his lavender eyes.

Drizzt’s agility amazed even his friends, who had seen him before in battle. Zaknafein rushed out immediately after completing his swing, but Drizzt was up and ready before the spirit-wraith caught up to him.

“Who are you?” Drizzt demanded again. This time his voice was deathly calm. “What are you?”

The spirit-wraith snarled and charged recklessly. Believing beyond any doubt that this was not Zaknafein, Drizzt did not miss the opening. He rushed back toward his original position, knocked a sword aside, and slipped a scimitar through as he passed his charging adversary. Drizzt’s blade cut through the fine mesh armor and dug deeply into Zaknafein’s lung, a wound that would have stopped any mortal opponent.

But Zaknafein did not stop. The spirit-wraith did not draw breath and did not feel pain. Zak turned back on Drizzt and flashed a smile so evil that it would have made Matron Malice stand up and applaud.

Back now on the top step of the stairway, Drizzt stood wide-eyed in amazement. He saw the gruesome wound and saw, against all possibility, Zaknafein steadily advancing, not even flinching.

“Get away,” Belwar cried from the bottom of the stairs. An ogre rushed at the deep gnome, but Clacker intercepted and immediately crushed the thing’s head in a claw.

“We must leave,” Clacker said to Belwar, the clarity of his voice turning the burrow-warden on his heel.

Belwar could see it clearly in the hook horror’s eyes; in that critical moment, Clacker was more a pech than he had been since before the wizard’s polymorph spell. “The stones tell me of illithids gathering within the castle,” Clacker explained, and the deep gnome was not surprised that Clacker had heard the voices of the stones. “The illithids will rush out soon,” Clacker continued, “to the certain demise of every slave left in the cavern!”

Belwar did not doubt a word of it, but to the svirfneblin, loyalty far outweighed personal safety. “We cannot leave the drow,” he replied through clenched teeth.

Clacker nodded in full agreement and charged out to chase away a group of gray dwarves that had come too close.

“Run, dark elf!” Belwar cried. “We have no time!” Drizzt didn’t hear his svirfneblin friend. He focused on the approaching weapon master, the monster impersonating his father, even as Zaknafein focused on him. Of all the many evils perpetrated by Matron Malice, none, by Drizzt’s estimation, were greater than this abomination. Malice somehow had perverted the one thing in Drizzt’s world that had given him pleasure. Drizzt had believed Zaknafein dead, and that thought was painful enough.

But now this.

It was more than the young drow could bear. He wanted to fight this monster with all his heart and soul, and the spirit-wraith, created for no other reason than this very battle, wholly concurred.

Neither noticed the illithid descending from the darkness above, farther back on the platform, behind Zaknafein.

“Come, monster of Matron Malice,” Drizzt growled, sliding his weapons together. “Come and feel my blades.”

Zaknafein paused only a few steps away and flashed his wicked smile again. The swords came up and the spirit-wraith took another step.

Fwoop!

The illithid’s blast rolled over both of them. Zaknafein remained unaffected, but Drizzt caught the force fully. Darkness rolled over him, his eyelids drooped with undeniable weight. He heard his scimitars fall to the stone, but he was beyond any other comprehension. Zaknafein snarled in gleeful victory, banged his swords together, and stepped toward the falling drow.

Belwar screamed, but it was Clacker’s monstrous cry of protest that sounded loudest, rising above the din of the battle-filled cavern. Everything Clacker had ever known as a pech rushed back to him when he saw the drow who had befriended him fall, doomed. That pech identity surged back more keenly, perhaps, than Clacker had even known in his former life.

Zaknafein lunged, seeing his helpless victim in range, but then smashed headfirst into a stone wall that had appeared from nothingness. The spirit-wraith bounced back, his eyes wide in frustration. He clawed at the wall and pounded on it, but it was quite real and sturdy. The stone blocked Zaknafein fully from the stairway and his intended prey.

Back down the stairway, Belwar turned his stunned gaze on Clacker. The svirfneblin had heard that some pech could conjure such stone walls. “Did you…?” the burrow-warden gasped.

The pech in a hook horror’s body did not pause long enough to answer. Clacker leaped the stairs four at a stride and gently hoisted Drizzt in his huge arms. He even thought to retrieve the drow’s scimitars, then came pounding back down the flight.

“Run.” Clacker commanded the burrow-warden. “For all of your life, run, Belwar Dissengulp!”

The deep gnome, scratching his head with his pickaxe-hand, did indeed run. Clacker cleared a wide path to the cavern’s rear exit―none dared stand before his enraged charge―and the burrow-warden, with his short svirfneblin legs, one of which was sprained, had a difficult time keeping up.

Back up the stairs, behind the wall, Zaknafein could only assume that the floating illithid, the same one that had blasted Drizzt, had blocked his charge. Zaknafein whirled about on the monster and screamed in sheer hatred.

Fwoop! Another blast came.

Zaknafein leaped up and sliced off both of the illithid’s feet with a single stroke. The illithid levitated higher, sending mental cries of anguish and distress to its companions.

Zaknafein couldn’t reach the thing, and with other illithids rushing in from every angle, the spirit-wraith didn’t have time to enact his own levitation spell. Zaknafein blamed this illithid for his failure; he would not let it escape. He hurled a sword as precisely as any spear.

The illithid looked down at Zaknafein in disbelief, then to the blade buried half to the hilt in its chest and knew that its life was at an end.

Mind flayers rushed toward Zaknafein, firing their stunning blasts as they came. The spirit-wraith had only one sword remaining, but he smashed his opponents down anyway, venting his frustrations on their ugly octopus heads.

Drizzt had escaped… for now.

Chapter 21. Lost and Found

“Praise Lloth,” Matron Malice stammered, sensing the distant elation of her spirit-wraith. “He has Drizzt!” The matron mother snapped her gaze to one side, then the other, and her three daughters backed away at the sheer power of the emotions contorting her visage.

“Zaknafein has found your brother!”

Maya and Vierna smiled at each other, glad that this whole ordeal might finally be coming to a conclusion. Since the enactment of Zin-carla, the normal and necessary routines of House Do’Urden had virtually ceased, and every day their nervous mother had turned further and further inward, absorbed by the spirit-wraith’s hunt.

Across the anteroom, Briza’s smile would have shown a different light to any who took the time to notice, an almost disappointed light.

Fortunately for the first-born daughter, Matron Malice was too absorbed by distant events to take note. The matron mother fell deeper into her meditative trance, savoring every morsel of rage the spirit-wraith threw out, in the knowledge that her blasphemous son was on the receiving end of that anger. Malice’s breathing came in excited gasps as Zaknafein and Drizzt played through their sword fight, then the matron mother nearly lost her breath altogether.

Something had stopped Zaknafein.

“No!” Malice screamed, leaping out of her decorated throne. She glanced around, looking for someone to strike or something to throw. “No!” she cried again. “It cannot be!”

“Drizzt has escaped?” Briza asked, trying to keep the smugness out of her voice. Malice’s subsequent glare told Briza that her tone might have revealed too much of her thoughts.

“Is the spirit-wraith destroyed?” Maya cried in sincere distress.

“Not destroyed,” Malice replied, an obvious tremor in her usually firm voice. “But once more, your brother runs free!”

“Zin-carla has not yet failed,” Vierna reasoned, trying to console her excited mother.

“The spirit-wraith is very close,” Maya added, picking up Vierna’s cue.

Malice dropped back into her seat and wiped the sweat out of her eyes. “Leave me,” she commanded her daughters, not wanting them to observe her in such a sorry state. Zin-carla was stealing her life away, Malice knew, for every thought, every hope, of her existence hinged on the spirit-wraith’s success.

When the others had gone, Malice lit a candle and took out a tiny, precious mirror. What a wretched thing she had become in the last few weeks. She had hardly eaten, and deep lines of worry creased her formerly glass-smooth, ebony skin. By appearances, Matron Malice had aged more in the last few weeks than in the century before that.

“I will become as Matron Baenre,” she whispered in disgust, “withered and ugly.” For perhaps the very first time in her long life, Malice began to wonder of the value of her continual quest for power and the merciless Spider Queen’s favor. The thoughts disappeared as quickly as they had come, though. Matron Malice had gone too far for such silly regrets. By her strength and devotion, Malice had taken her house to the status of a ruling family and had secured a seat for herself on the prestigious ruling council.

She remained on the verge of despair, though, nearly broken by the strains of the last years. Again she wiped the sweat from her eyes and looked into the little mirror.

What a wretched thing she had become.

Drizzt had done this to her, she reminded herself. Her youngest son’s actions had angered the Spider Queen; his sacrilege had put Malice on the edge of doom.

“Get him, my spirit-wraith,” Malice whispered with a sneer. At that moment of anger, she hardly cared what future the Spider Queen would layout for her.

More than anything else in all the world, Matron Malice Do’Urden wanted Drizzt dead.

They ran through the winding tunnels blindly, hoping that no monsters would rear up suddenly before them. With the danger so very real at their backs, the three companions could not afford the usual caution.

Hours passed and still they ran. Belwar, older than his friends and with little legs working two strides for every one of Drizzt’s and three strides for each of Clacker’s, tired first, but that didn’t slow the group. Clacker hoisted the burrow-warden onto a shoulder and ran on.

How many miles they had covered they could not know when they at last broke for their first rest. Drizzt, silent and melancholy through all the trek, took up a guard position at the entrance to the small alcove they had chosen as a temporary camp. Recognizing his drow friend’s deep pain, Belwar moved over to offer comfort.

“Not what you expected, dark elf?” the burrow-warden asked softly. With no answer forthcoming, but with Drizzt obviously needing to talk, Belwar pressed on. “The drow in the cavern you knew. Did you claim that he was your father?”

Drizzt snapped an angry glare on the svirfneblin, but his visage softened considerably when he took the moment to realize Belwar’s concern.

“Zaknafein,” Drizzt explained. “Zaknafein Do’Urden, my father and mentor. It was he who trained me with the blade and who instructed me in all my life. Zaknafein was my only friend in Menzoberranzan, the only drow I have ever known who shared my beliefs.”

“He meant to kill you,” Belwar stated flatly. Drizzt winced, and the burrow-warden quickly tried to offer him some hope. “Did he not recognize you, perhaps?”

“He was my father,” Drizzt said again, “my closest companion for two decades.”

“Then why, dark elf?”

“That was not Zaknafein,” replied Drizzt. “Zaknafein is dead, sacrificed by my mother to the Spider Queen.”

“Magga cammara,” Belwar whispered, horrified at the revelation concerning Drizzt’s parents. The straightforwardness with which Drizzt explained the heinous deed led the burrow-warden to believe that Malice’s sacrifice was not so very unusual in the drow city. A shudder coursed through Belwar’s spine, but he sublimated his revulsion for the sake of his tormented friend.

“I do not yet know what monster Matron Malice has put in Zaknafein’s guise,” Drizzt went on, not even noticing Belwar’s discomfort.

“A formidable foe, whatever it may be,” the deep gnome remarked.

That was exactly what troubled Drizzt. The drow warrior he had battled in the illithid cavern moved with the precision and unmistakable style of Zaknafein Do’Urden. Drizzt’s rationale could deny that Zaknafein would turn against him, but his heart told him that the monster he had crossed swords with was indeed his father.

“How did it end?” Drizzt asked after a long pause.

Belwar looked at him curiously.

“The fight,” Drizzt explained. “I remember the illithid but nothing more.”

Belwar shrugged and looked to Clacker. “Ask him,” the burrow-warden replied. “A stone wall appeared between you and your enemies, but how it got there I can only guess.”

Clacker heard the conversation and moved over to his friends. “I put it there,” he said, his voice still perfectly clear.

“Powers of a pech?” Belwar asked. The deep gnome knew the reputation of pech powers with the stone, but not in enough detail to fully understand what Clacker had done.

“We are a peaceful race,” Clacker began, realizing that this might be his only chance to tell his friends of his people. He remained more pechlike than he had since the polymorph, but already he felt the base urges of a hook horror creeping back in. “We desire only to work the stone. It is our calling and our love. And with this symbiosis with the earth comes a measure of power. The stones speak to us and aid us in our toils.”

Drizzt looked wryly at Belwar. “Like the earth elemental you once raised against me.”

Belwar snorted an embarrassed laugh.

“No,” Clacker said soberly, determined not to get sidetracked. “Deep gnomes, too, can call upon the powers of the earth, but theirs is a different relationship. The svirfnebli’s love of the earth is only one of their varied definitions of happiness.” Clacker looked away from his companions, to the rock wall. “Pech are brothers with the earth. It aids us as we aid it, out of affection.”

“You speak of the earth as though it is some sentient being,” Drizzt remarked, not sarcastically, just out of curiosity.

“It is, dark elf,” replied Belwar, imagining Clacker as he must have appeared before his encounter with the wizard, “for those who can hear it.”

Clacker’s huge beaked head nodded in accord.

“Svirfnebli can hear the earth’s distant song,” he said. “Pech can speak to it directly.”

This was all quite beyond Drizzt’s understanding. He knew the sincerity in his companions’ words, but drow elves were not nearly as connected to the rocks of the Underdark as the svirfnebli and the pech. Still, if Drizzt needed any proof of what Belwar and Clacker were hinting at, he had only to recall his battle against Belwar’s earth elemental that decade ago, or imagine the wall that had somehow appeared out of nowhere to block his enemies in the illithid cavern.

“What do the stones tell you now?” Drizzt asked Clacker. “Have we outdistanced our enemies?”

Clacker moved over and put his ear to the wall. “The words are vague now,” he said with obvious lament in his voice. His companions understood the connotation of his tone. The earth was speaking no less clearly; it was Clacker’s hearing, impeded by the impending return of the hook horror, that had begun to fade.

“I hear no others in pursuit,” Clacker went on, “but I am not so sure as to trust my ears.” He snarled suddenly, spun away, and walked back to the far side of the alcove.

Drizzt and Belwar exchanged concerned looks, then moved to follow.

“What is it?” the burrow-warden dared to ask the hook horror, though he could guess readily enough.

“I am falling,” Clacker replied, and the grating that had returned to his voice only emphasized the point. “In the illithid cavern, I was pech―more pech than ever before. I was pech in narrow focus. I was the earth.” Belwar and Drizzt seemed not to understand.

“The wow-wall,” Clacker tried to explain. “Bringing up such a wall is a task that only a g-g-group of pech elders could accomplish, working together through painstaking rituals.” Clacker paused and shook his head violently, as though he was trying to throw out the hook horror side. He slammed a heavy claw into the wall and forced himself to continue. “Yet I did it. I became the stone and merely lifted my hand to block Drizzt’s enemies!”

“And now it is leaving,” Drizzt said softly. “The pech is falling away from your grasp once again, buried under the instincts of a hook horror.”

Clacker looked away and again banged a hook against the wall in reply. Something in the motion brought him comfort, and he repeated it, over and over, rhythmically tapping as if trying to hold on to a piece of his former self.

Drizzt and Belwar walked out of the alcove and back into the corridor to give their giant friend his privacy. A short time later, they noticed that the tapping had ceased, and Clacker stuck his head out, his huge, birdlike eyes filled with sorrow. His stuttered words sent shivers through the spines of his friends, for they found that they could not deny his logic or his desire.

“P-please k-k-kill me!”