Thornhold - Elaine Cunningham [88]
The tunnel ended abruptly, opening into a small cavern glowing with faint, flickering blue light. At the entrance stood two of the largest illithids Ebenezer had ever seen. They were hideous brutes-man-sized, bipedal creatures whose misshapen bodies were not recognizable as either male or female. Large, bald heads of a sickiy lavender hue rose above robes the color of dried blood. Their faces were utterly without expression-at least, none that the dwarf could read. fllithid eyes were large, white, and blank, and the lower half of their face comprised four writhing lavender tentacles. The guards clutched spears in their three-fingered purple hands, but their real weapon lay behind those impassive eyes.
“I need to talk to Istire,” Bronwyn told the guards, jerking her head toward Ebenezer “Got a dwarf for sale.” In response, the guards stepped aside, and a third illithid emerged from the shadows, beckoning them to follow.
Ebenezer threw his friend a derisive glare, which he kept firmly in place as he followed the woman into the cavern. The way he saw it, a scowl would look well matched with the swagger he threw into his walk. Maybe these purple critters could look into his mind and know what he thought of all this, but he’d be damned as a duergar if he’d look scared!
“Not a bad plan, I guess, but you couldn’t have warned me about it ahead of time?” complained Ebenezer in a low whisper as he and Bronwyn fell into step behind their guide.
“Hard to do, considering that I’m making this up as we go,” she countered.
“Hmmph! Just see that you don’t go selling me off to some two-legged squid,” the dwarf returned with more bravado than he felt.
When they emerged into another small cavern, their guide disappeared back into the thick shadows and yet another illithid, this one draped in expensive-looking silks and fine gold jewelry, glided forward. Apparently, the message had been relayed through the mysterious mind-speak the creatures employed. Since there was little point in lying to a creature who could pluck thoughts from another being’s mind, Bronwyn sensibly got right to the point. “Istire,” she said, nodding a greeting. “We’re trying to locate a shipment of dwarf slaves. I want the whole lot of them.”
That is not the message the guard relayed, responded the illithid Istire, its unearthly “voice” sounding in Ebenezer’s mind.
“I want an Arbiter,” Bronwyn said calmly, ignoring her own lie. ‘We are entitled to one, by Skullport’s laws of trade.”
A touch of emotion-irritation, frustration, and perhaps respect-emanated from the illithid. This way, it. said grudgingly.
The creature led them deeper into the cavern. As they went, the bluish glow intensified, until the gleam forced Ebenezer to shade his eyes. He just barely made out the source of the light-and promptly wished he hadn’t bothered.
A strange, malformed illithid sat on a pedestal on a square dais with steps leading up on all sides. Instead of four short tentacles, this one had nine or ten extremely long ones that branched out from all sides of an enormous, glowing head. These tentacles undulated softly through the air like a cave octopus feeling about for prey.
“An Arbiter,” Bronwyn explained softly. “You need to hold the tip of one of those tentacles. As long as you do, we’re all equal. The illithid can’t influence us, any more than we can control it.”
Ebenezer eyed the writhing tentacles with dismay. “When we find the rest of my clan, those dwarves are going to owe me big for this,” he muttered.
Istire took up one of the tentacles, nodding at Bronwyn and Ebenezer to do the same.
The experience was every bit as unpleasant as the dwarf feared. Immediately Ebenezer was enveloped by a cloud of strange sensations. He’d never much thought about evil-other than the natural impulse to pull out his axe and get to work whenever a critter bent on such mischief got in his way-and he’d had no idea that evil had a sound