Extinction - Lisa Smedman [57]
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.
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 climb inside the waterfall, against its pounding force. But when he swam to the surface to take a look, he remembered that the waterfall arced out of the cavern above. For most of the climb, the falling water was a good three or four paces distant from the cliff-too far for him to duck his head into it while still holding on to the rock face.
Disappointed, he allowed himself to sink back under the surface of the lake. There was no way out.
Then he remembered his enchanted backpack.
Shrugging it off his shoulders, he moved it to his chest, putting the shoulder straps on backward and cinching them tight. He opened its main flap. Water rushed into the nondimensional space inside the pack. When it was full-holding the equivalent of perhaps thirty waterskins-he closed the flap. Many of the items the backpack held would be damaged, but that was a sacrifice that mattered little against his survival.
Valas swam directly under the waterfall, fighting the current with powerful strokes of his tail. The water falling from above thundered in his ears and forced him down, but at last he saw a more solid patch of darkness ahead: the base of the cliff. The current slammed him up against the rock before he was ready, but an instant later he found a handhold. To his surprise, he felt claws emerge from the ends of his fingers and thumb that helped him hold on. Muscles straining, he resisted the current that was