Extinction

Chapter Fourteen

Gromph felt the blood drain from his face as he stared, horrified, at the illithid. Were he not trapped in the gods-cursed sphere, he could have dealt with the creature in a summary fashion, casually flicking a death-dealing spell in its direction, but instead he was at its mercy. Every fleeting thought that passed through Gromph’s mind would be heard by the illithid as if spoken aloud. None of Gromph’s secrets—or the secrets of Sorcere—were safe, unless he could deliberately not think of them. That effort would only cause them to come bubbling to the surface of his mind. The only good thing about his situation was that the mind flayer’s gently waving tentacles were on the other side of the glass. The illithid could no more reach in and attack Gromph than Gromph could send his magic out to blast the illithid.

The mind flayer’s telepathic speech was another matter. It penetrated the sphere with ease.

Sorcere? Which building is it?

A fleeting image formed in Gromph’s mind: Sorcere’s sculpted stalagmite tower, standing proudly beside the other two edifices of the Academy: the pyramid of Melee-Magthere, and the eight-legged temple of Arach-Tinilith.

Gromph cursed, and quickly fixed his mind on something else, but it was too late. The illithid swam up until its head broke the surface of the lake. It glanced to its right, toward the northern end of the city, blank white eyes searching for the raised grotto that opened off the main cavern of Menzoberranzan. Its tentacles lifted slightly, and its mouth began to move.

A bright sparkle of magical energy enveloped the illithid, and the view of the lake and shore disappeared. With a sinking heart, Gromph realized that things were even worse than he’d thought. His captor was no ordinary illithid but one capable of sorcery.

Gromph immediately recognized the spot that the illithid’s spell had carried them to. They were in the wide cavern that led from the Dark Dominions into Tier Breche. Exhausted duergar sprawled on the cavern floor, many of them wounded. Others, carrying enormous axes and battle-chewed shields, hurried through the tunnel, their officers urging them toward Tier Breche, which was filled with the flashes of exploding spells.

Still other gray dwarves busied themselves just inside the mouth of the tunnel, hurriedly assembling siege engines and shelters. The duergar labored without ceasing, even though an occasional ball of fire or ice or crackling electricity arced over and smashed into the ground near the siege walls they had set up just inside Tier Breche. Glowing pits of molten rock or ice-shattered stone attested to the force of those blasts.

Gromph could see everything but could not hear the shouts of the duergar—who nodded to the newly arrived illithid—nor could he smell the sulfurous explosions. The sphere enclosed him in a world filled only with his own breathing—which became rapid as he realized that Gracklstugh’s army had not only reached Menzoberranzan but had established a foothold inside Tier Breche itself. The duergar were attacking the three buildings that were the most heavily fortified in the city, aside from the noble Houses themselves.

Hands pressed to the curved wall of his prison, Gromph strained his eyes, looking for the jade spiders that should have been guarding the tunnel. They were nowhere to be seen.

They serve a different master, now, the illithid said with a smirk. As will the drow, soon enough. The army is already inside Menzoberranzan.

Whose army? Gromph wondered. Not an army of illithids, surely, or the one who carried him would have said “our army.” Had the duergar of Gracklstugh reached Menzoberranzan on their own?

The answer came swiftly.

Yes. And tanarukks march with them. The drow cannot stand against their combined might.

Gromph had no way of knowing whether or not that was true. If only he could get free of the sphere he could use his magic to drive the enemy back. But in order to free himself he needed to find a wizard who knew the precise spell required, And he needed to get inside Sorcere—specifically, to his quarters, where the lichdrow had cast his imprisonment spell. Unfortunately, both those things were on the other side of the duergar siege wall.

Gromph glanced up at the illithid and thought, Or... are they?

Deliberately, Gromph let his mind dwell upon that thought.

The reply was tinged with arrogance.

Of course I know that spell, but why should I use it to set you free? All of your secrets will be mine, in time. I will flay your mind, layer by layer, like the skin of a—

The illithid broke off in mid-sentence, suddenly glancing at someone who was approaching. Long, purple fingers closed tightly around the sphere. The illithid held it in both hands, hiding what it contained. It rubbed its fingers deliberately against the glass, smearing its surface with the slime that coated its palms. Gromph tumbled to his hands and knees as the illithid dropped the hand holding the sphere to its side. He scrambled forward to look out through the only clear spot that remained on the surface of the glass.

One of the duergar stood in front of the illithid, his face level with the sphere. Like the others of his race, the dwarf had pale gray skin, a snub nose that looked as if it had been flattened by a mace, and a bald head. He was dressed in mottled gray-and-black clothing the color of stone but wore a bronze breastplate so untarnished and free of dents that Gromph was willing to bet it was magical. He carried a greataxe whose double-bladed head swirled with ghostly patterns—likely the trapped souls of those it had slain, or so Gromph guessed.

The gray dwarf didn’t have his head tilted up to speak to the illithid but kept his eyes level with the mind flayer’s waist. The gray dwarf’s gaze occasionally creeped down to the sphere, and he gestured repeatedly at Tier Breche.

Glancing up, Gromph could see the illithid’s tentacles ripple as it shook its head. The gray dwarf, who obviously thought he was addressing another duergar, pointed at the sphere.

With a suddenness that surprised Gromph, the illithid bent over the dwarf. Its four tentacles lashed out, wrapping themselves around the duergar’s face. The dwarf flailed with his axe, but the illithid had anticipated that move and countered it with magic. The dwarf’s body went suddenly rigid, the axe poised above his head. Tentacles flexed, and the duergar’s head split open like a ripe fungus ball. One of the tentacles relaxed, and, while the remaining three held the head in a vicelike grip, it began scooping pinkish gobs of brain into the illithid’s mouth. Gromph, sickened by the sight, turned his face away from the glass.

The other duergar turned, shocked looks on their faces. One or two reached for their weapons, took a look at the illithid’s blank white eyes, then all of them suddenly relaxed. Gromph could only imagine how easy it was for the illithid to cloud the simple minds of a gang of duergar soldiers. He wondered what the duergar saw when they looked at the illithid—one of their own, most likely—and they were compelled not to think about their dead officer, his broken skull, or his half-eaten brain. One by one, the magic-addled gray dwarves simply went back to what they had been doing.

Finished with its meal, the illithid plucked the axe from the dwarf’s hand, then let the body drop.

Now, it said, you will tell me how to enter Sorcere.

Gromph eyed the greataxe. It was obvious that the illithid cared less about the war than it did about personal gain.

You want magic, Gromph sent to the illithid.

Yes, the mind flayer replied.

You want to get inside Sorcere before the duergar do.

The illithid’s next thought was more tentative, as if it was admitting a guilty secret.

Yes, it said.

Gromph smiled and replied, You want to know if there’s a back door into Sorcere, but if you try to get that information from me by force, it will take too long. By the time you find it, the duergar will be inside. You’ll be left with whatever scraps they don’t destroy or loot for themselves. But I can offer another alternative. Help me to get free of this sphere, and I’ll reward you well. I’ll willingly give you the magic you crave.

What magic?

In my centuries of experimentation, I have developed powerful spells that other mages and wizards have yet to even imagine.

Gromph felt the tendrils of the illithid’s mind-probing magic root even deeper in his mind.

Those spells are no longer in my memory, he told it. They’re in my private quarters, in Sorcere. In these.

Gromph let his mind dwell on his office, on the enormous desk that dominated the windowless room. Made of polished bone, it had a number of drawers that opened onto extra-dimensional spaces. The front of each drawer was inlaid with a different skull. Gromph pictured himself sitting in his chair behind the desk and reaching down to a certain skull, then placing his fingers in its eye sockets. The drawer slid open, revealing a rack that held two bottles. Each was of cast gold, its sides set with a sigil-shaped “window” of moss-green glass, through which came a glow that originated from inside the bottle. Each of the sigils, in the drow script, represented the same word: “remember.”

What are they? the illithid asked.

I call them “thought bottles,” Gromph said. Each contains a powerful spell—and all of the thoughts that led to its creation. Spells so powerful even I dared not use them, but so unique that, once created, I could not risk losing them, either. In order to avoid temptation, I created these bottles to hold them. Anyone who consumes their contents will gain not only the spell itself but every stage of the process that led to its creation.

Once I am inside Sorcere, I will take them, the illithid said.

Not unless you free me, first, Gromph said. The drawer will only open to my touch.

The archmage let his mind dwell on an experiment he’d conducted back when he’d first constructed and ensorcelled the desk. He’d deliberately left the door to his office lightly warded, then observed with clairvoyant magic as an apprentice forced his way into the office and tried to open the desk. No sooner had the drow placed his fingers inside the eye sockets than he stiffened and tried to scream. No more than a hoarse croak came from his throat, however, before a horrible wilting began. White hair broke off in clumps from his head like dried straw, and his eyes shriveled in upon themselves like heat-cured fungus and fell from their sockets. His skin chafed, then erupted in a series of cracks, from which brown dust—dried blood—trickled. Slowly he crumpled, shrinking in upon himself until all that was left was a pile of dusty clothes where a drow had once stood.

Impressive, the illithid said.

Thank you, Gromph answered.

Yet another fireball arced over the siege wall and landed a short distance away, scattering gobs of molten lava. The liquid rock slid off the illithid like water running down glass. The illithid had obviously cloaked itself in a protective spell.

Do we have a bargain, then? Gromph asked. Will you free me and receive the thought bottles as payment?

You must show me a way into Sorcere, the illithid said. It is protected by wards that prevent magical entry, is it not?

Gromph smiled and sent, A good guess. But there’s a portion of the building that is not protected by these wards, because it exists in its own pseudoplane: a vertical shaft that gives access to my office. If you could gate us into it, I’ll show you how to find the door.

Bring it to your mind, the illithid commanded.

Gromph fought down his irritation at being ordered about.

Of course, he answered. Ah... what is your name, anyway?

Sluuguth.

Assuming the illithid had told the truth, Gromph had a weapon he could use against the creature. Certainly the mind flayer knew that too, which meant that Sluuguth had no intention of letting Gromph live. All that passed through Gromph’s mind in a fleeting thought—hopefully too fleeting for Sluuguth to notice—then Gromph began to concentrate on the access shaft. He could feel Sluuguth mentally looking over his shoulder, studying the spot they were about to gate to with great care.

A circle of purple light shimmered into being next to them. Sluuguth fell into it and an instant later was levitating inside the shaft. It seemed to extend infinitely upward and downward and had walls of utter blackness that had a somehow palpable look to them. Had Gromph not been trapped in the sphere, he knew his nostrils would have been assaulted by the rank, foul odor of the pseudoplane, the stench of the malformed creatures that called it home.

Where is the door? asked Sluuguth.

Gromph indicated a patch of darkness that seemed more solid than the rest and sent, Dispel its magic, then push.

Sluuguth did as instructed. Previously invisible runes sparkled as light burst inside the diamond dust that had been used to inscribe them. When the light vanished, Sluuguth pushed open the door, revealing Gromph’s office.

The chamber was a mess—the aftermath of Gromph’s battle with the lichdrow Dyrr. The enormous desk at the center of the room was gouged in several places by the whirling blades the lichdrow had conjured, and the marble flagstone floor was cracked where Dyrr’s staff had struck it. One of the bookshelves was a smashed ruin, and the scrolls that had tumbled from it had been trampled. As a sign of his disdain for the archmage’s wizardry, the lichdrow had left them where they were after trapping Gromph in the sphere.

The perpetually burning red candles, set into wall sconces made from skeletal fists, still provided illumination, and a plushly upholstered chair behind the desk had survived relatively unscathed. A harder wooden chair on the other side, where a visitor would sit, lay on one side, its legs splintered. Beyond it was a door of black marble, incised with glowing silver runes.

As for the spiderstone golem that had fought in an effort to defend Gromph, the only thing left of it was a severed stone arm, lying forlornly in a corner.

Still hovering in the shaft, Sluuguth pointed and thrust the tip of one finger into the room. Immediately, one of the office walls erupted in a triangle of flame as an invisible sigil released a fire elemental. Sluuguth’s magic, however, was swifter. A bolt of energy leaped from his fingertip and struck the elemental, freezing it. The fire elemental hung, trapped from the waist down in the wall, its arms extended over its head. Only its eyes moved. White-hot flames blazed at Sluuguth as the illithid at last stepped into the room.

You didn’t warn me about that, the illithid said, tentacles waving as it nodded at the frozen elemental.

No need, obviously, Gromph answered. Now let’s get down to business. Free me. Place the sphere on the chair behind the desk.

Tentacles twitching as its face grimaced into what might have been a smile, Sluuguth laid the sphere on the chair cushion. Then, without further ado, it began to cast a spell. Its three-fingered hands began a series of gestures—Gromph thought he recognized a portion of the imprisonment-negating spell, but the somatic component seemed more complicated than it need have been—and sound crashed in on Gromph from all sides as the sphere broke apart.

For an instant he was twisting between dimensions, his body bursting free of the magic that had confined it, his ears ringing as if he were a clapper inside a bell—

—and he was sitting in his chair. Eyes gleaming in triumph, he started to lift a finger in the minute gesture required to activate a second invisible sigil on the wall. Interlocked ellipses would suck Sluuguth into a two-dimensional prison.

Stop.

Gromph’s finger wouldn’t move. Nor could he even imagine moving it any longer. Something had a vicelike grip on his mind and was crushing his will. Gromph could sense Sluuguth’s foul-feeling, tentacled presence.

Heart suddenly beating faster, the archmage realized what must have happened. In casting the spell that gave Gromph his freedom, the illithid had woven in a second spell, one that had slowed Gromph’s body. It had given Sluuguth just enough time to cast the mind-dominating spell that held Gromph in thrall.

Gromph sat motionless in his chair, awaiting the illithid’s next command. Had he been able to, he would have groaned in frustration. He had been careful not to think about the sigils on the walls. The first one was meant to give Sluuguth a false sense of security after the illithid so summarily defeated the fire elemental—as Gromph knew it would. The second was meant to trap the mind flayer after Gromph was free. But the archmage’s careful plan lay in ruins, as broken as the remains of the sphere that littered the floor at his feet.

Sluuguth moved to a position behind Gromph and loomed over his shoulder.

Open the drawer.

Gromph bent, inserted his fingers in the skull’s eye sockets, and pulled. The drawer slid open, revealing the two thought bottles.

Take them out of the drawer, Sluuguth ordered.

Gromph did as he was told, placing both bottles on the desk in front of him. He braced himself. Surely the illithid would either end his life or at the very least imprison him, the desk’s protective magic having been thwarted.

Instead Sluuguth gave him a further command: Choose one.

Gromph’s fingers closed around the bottle closest to him. An instant later, at Sluuguth’s command, they sprang open again, and he picked up the second bottle instead.

Consume it, Sluuguth ordered.

With those words, Gromph knew the second part of his plan—which he had obviously been unsuccessful in not thinking about—had also failed.

Decades past, Gromph had created the thought bottles as a contingency, in case he ever became the captive of a creature who could read his mind. He’d been telling the truth when he said he had no idea what was in the bottles, but he’d left one tiny sliver of information within his own mind: the memory that if such a situation arose, he should offer them to his captor. But the sava board had been turned. Whatever was in the bottle his traitorous hands were even then uncorking was about to be unleashed on Gromph himself.

A part of Gromph’s mind screamed in protest, but the tiny, trapped voice went unheard. Slowly, inexorably, the Archmage of Menzoberranzan raised the bottle to his lips, and drank.