meaning. He round himself staring into the eyesor an enor-mous brown rat twice the size of the sphere, its face distorted by the curvature of the glass. Pink paws rested lightly on the top of the sphere, and whiskers twitched as the rat sniffed the cold glass.
After a sluggish moment, Gromph realized his error in percep-tion. The rat wasn't enormous, the sphere was tiny. The spell had shrunk him to less than rat size. His thoughts still sluggish, he at last noticed the kink at the end of the rat's hairless tail.
Kyorli! Help me. Take me home.
Go?the rat replied, more of a feeling than a word.
Yes, go. To the city. Go.
The world spun crazily by. Gromph could see stone walls spin-ning past, could see them bump crazily up and down as the sphere, propelled by Kyorli's nose and paws, rolled along the uneven floor of the tunnel.
No, not a tunnel but a tiny fissure in the rock. No more than a rat-sized crack.
The walls continued to spin past. For a moment, the world opened up into looming darkness as Kyorli rolled the sphere across the floor of an enormous cavern. In the distance, Gromph saw a flash of lavender light: the visible spectrum of afaerzress. Then the patch of magical radiation was behind them, swallowed by darkness.
The sphere rattled on, Gromph suspended unmoving at its cen-ter, enclosed in absolute silence.
A short time later, the sphere bounced to a stop against a wall.
What's wrong?Gromph asked.
Kyorli's paws scrabbledagainst the sphere, turning it. Gromph found himself looking up at the wall of the cavern, where - several paces overhead - the tunnel continued through a wide crack.
Up! Kyorli"said."City.
The rat scurried up the wall, then down it again. Gromph's world tilted wildly as paws scrabbled uselessly against the outside of the sphere, spinning it around. After a moment, Kyorli scrambled back up the wall, entering the tunnel briefly, then came down again.
Gromph realized he'd been overestimating his familiar. Kyorli was only a rat - with no more than a rat's intelligence.
Try a different way,he suggested.
Kyorli stared at him, whiskers twitching. Then, bobbing her head in a rat's equivalent of a nod, she began moving the sphere again. Gromph found himself rolled back down the tunnel they'd just come along, across the cavern with the glowingfaerzress,and down another tunnel.
When the sphere stopped rolling again, Gromph found him-self staring at a river. Only a dozen paces wide but swiftly flowing. Gromph's hopes rose as he recognized it. He'd traveled through that tunnel once before, years past. The waterway was one of the subter-ranean tributaries of the River Surbrin. It eventually flowed into Donigarten, the lake that was Menzoberranzan's water supply.
But it flowed through an airless tunnel. If Kyorli tried to fol-low the sphere, she would drown. She could roll the sphere into the river and let the water carry Gromph to the city, but by the time she found her own way back to Menzoberranzan, the sphere might have been carried out of the lake again, down into the river's lower reaches. Gromph might wind up in an even worse position than before.
He considered the problem, though slowly. His thoughts were still a near-stagnant puddle. After several long moments, during which Kyorli disappeared from sight and reappeared again half a dozen times, a thought came to him.
Thefaerzress. The magical energies emitted by afaerzress were unstable, unpredictable in their effect. They might do strange things to Gromph, even kill him. But perhaps, if luck was with him, they might first mutate the effects of the spell that bound him.
Take me back to the cavern. The one with the glow.
The world spun around him as Kyorli complied. The glow reap-peared, and the sphere rolled to a stop.
Closer.
The lavender glow grew larger, brighter.
Closer.
The glow expanded until it filled Gromph's peripheral vision.
Closer.
Kyorli hesitated, nose twitching.
Danger,she sent.Too bright. Hurts.
Yes,Gromph answered.Iknow. Then, giving his thought all of the authority of his will, he added one word more:Closer.
Kyorli gave the sphere a final shove, then scampered away, terrified.
As the sphere rolled and bumped along the uneven cavern floor, the glow spun closer. When the sphere came to rest, the glow sur-rounded it on every side. Still rigid, Gromph basked in the wash of magical radiation. Thefaerzress would either kill him or ...
His muscles exploded with agony as sensation and movement returned. Chuckling with delight, he rose to his feet. The sphere rocked beneath him, forcing him to catch his balance. He reached into the pocket of hispiwafwiand pulled out a small chip of