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.