Extinction - Lisa Smedman [69]
Squeezing his eyes shut against the glare, Gromph spoke a third command word, and the harsh light disappeared. The prism was as it had been before, still cool as stone against Gromph's palm.
"A useful trinket," he said, slipping it into a pocket of his piwafwi. "Handy to read scrolls by, if nothing else."
He almost ended his search there, but when he passed his hands a final time over the illithid's corpse he felt the tingle once more.
Something was tucked deep into the pocket he'd just pulled the prism from. Digging into it, he pulled out a silver chain with a flat oval of green jade hanging from it. He recognized it at once.
"So that's where the jade spiders disappeared to," he muttered, slipping it into his own pocket.
Standing again, Gromph used magic to levitate the illithid's head-no sense touching those limp, foul-smelling tentacles if he didn't have to-and positioned it on the chest of the corpse. Then he pulled a pinch of dust from a pocket of his piwafwi and sprinkled it over Sluuguth's body. He chanted a brief spell and pointed a finger. A harsh sizzling filled the air as a beam of green energy sprang from its tip. It washed over the corpse, illuminating it in a blaze of crackling light. An instant later, all that was left of Sluuguth was a thin smudge of dust on the floor.
Crossing the room, Gromph picked up the empty thought bottle. One of its sides was dented slightly, but the sigil-shaped pane of glass was still intact. It could be reused. He removed the dent with a mending spell, then set it on the table beside the second bottle and cast a minor spell that caused the spray of blood that had landed on the desk to dry to dark brown dust, which he blew away. He placed the unopened bottle carefully in the drawer, then picked up the one that had been uncorked.
He turned to the wall, and, with a wave of his fingers, released the fire elemental that Sluuguth's spell had frozen in place. The elemental rushed out with an angry roar, filling the room with heat.
"Wherrre is he?" it said, flaring as it twisted this way and that, looking for the vanished illithid. "He must burrrn."
"The illithid is gone," Gromph answered.
The elemental flared white-hot with anger.
"You said I had only to burrrn an intruder to be free," it growled. It pointed at the soot-smudged spot on the wall where the magical sigil had been. "Am I then to be put back in bondage?"
Shielding his face from the heat, Gromph said, "No. Your task has been altered, that's all. After you perform it, you are free to go." He showed the elemental the thought bottle. "In a moment, I will use this magical device. When I am done, you will relay the following information to me…"
A few moments later, Gromph found himself seated behind his desk, holding a corked bottle in his hand. A drawer containing a bottle identical to it was open, and a fire elemental hovered on the other side of the desk. Glancing at the wall, Gromph saw that the sigil that had held it had been activated. An intruder must have entered the office-Gromph cast a quick detection spell, but his magic revealed no trace of any creature, living or undead. Whoever the intruder was, he or she had left a gold ring and what looked like a spell tube on Gromph's desk-and an impressive battle-axe, leaning against the side of the desk.
Suddenly worried, Gromph realized that the last thing he could remember was being trapped inside the sphere, floating on the lake. He had obviously made it back to Sorcere somehow, found his way into his study, and escaped the imprisonment spell. But how?
Gromph stared at the golden bottle he held in his hand-one of his thought bottles. The answer must be inside.
"Masterrr," the fire elemental said, drawing his attention.
Gromph looked up.
"The Gracklstugh army, together with an army of tanarukk, arrre attacking Menzoberranzan," the elemental announced, a tongue of bright