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 frus-tration. He had been carefulnotto think about the sigils on the walls. The first one was meant to give Sluuguth a false sense of se-curity 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 innot 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 thesava 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.
Chapter Fifteen
Valas sculled just outside the turbulent swirl of water at the base of the waterfall, wondering how he was going to contact the others. Fully transformed, he was no longer capable of breathing air. His hands and feet had turned into webbed paws, and his tailbone had elongated into a fluked tail. After the last of his hair had fallen out, a grayish-green membrane had grown over his skin, which secreted a slimy coating that kept out the water's chill. Valas was trapped underwater, unable to climb back up to the tunnel where his companions waited.
At least he still had all of his equipment. He touched the thick leather belt around his waist, with its steel buckle shaped in the form of a rothe's head. Perhaps, with the aid of the magical strength it lent him, together with the increased nimbleness afforded by his enchanted chain mail, he could climbinside the waterfall, against its pounding force.