Exile: The Legend of Drizzt (32 page)

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. To 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.

elwar 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 snapped 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 mithral 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 mithral 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 mithral 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.