He was out of the cavern a moment later, the thunderous sounds of Hephaestus's thrashing thankfully left behind. He reached up into his marvelous hat and brought forth a piece of black cloth in the shape of a small bat. He whispered a few magical words and tossed it into the air. The cloth swatch transformed into a living, breathing creature, a servant of its creator that fluttered back to Jar-laxle's shoulder. The drow whispered some instructions into its ear and tossed it up before him again, and his little scout flew off into the gloom.
"We will take Hephaestus as our own," Rai-guy whispered to the Crystal Shard, the drow considering all the great gains that might be made this day. Logically, the dark elf knew he should be well on his way out of the place, for could Kim-muriel and the others really defeat Jarlaxle and the powerful companions he had brought to the dragon's lair?
Rai-guy smiled, hardly afraid, for how could he be fearful with Crenshinibon in his possession? Soon, very soon, he knew, he would be allied with a great wyrm. He turned and started down the wide tunnel toward the main chamber of Hephaestus's lair.
He noticed some movement off to the side, in an alcove, and Crenshinibon screamed a warning in his head.
Yharaskrik stepped out, not ten paces away. The tentacles around the illithid's mouth were waving menacingly.
"Kimmuriel's friend, no doubt," the dark elf remarked, "who betrayed Kohrin Soulez."
Betrayal implies alliance, Yharaskrik telepathically answered. There was no betrayal.
"If you were to venture here with us, then why not do so openly?" the drow asked.
I came for you, not with you, the ever-confident illithid answered.
Rai-guy understood well what was going on, for the Crystal Shard was making its abject hatred of the creature quite apparent in his thoughts.
"The drow and your race have been allied many times in the past," Rai-guy remarked, "and rarely have we found reason to do battle. So it should be now."
The wizard wasn't trying to talk the illithid out of any rash actions out of fear-far from it. He was thinking he might have, perhaps, made another powerful connection here, one that could be exploited.
The screaming in his mind, Crenshinibon's absolute hatred of the mind flayer, made that alliance seem less likely.
And even less likely a moment later, when Yharaskrik lit the magical lantern and aimed its glow Crenshinibon's way. The protests in the drow wizard's mind faded far, far away.
The artifact will be brought back before the dragon, came Yharaskrik's telepathic call. It was a psionically enhanced command, and one that had Rai-guy involuntarily taking a step toward the main chamber once more.
The cunning dark elf had survived more than a century in the hostile territory of his own homeland, and he was no novice to any type of battle. He fought back against the compelling suggestion and rooted his feet to the floor, turning back to regard the octopus-headed creature, his red- glowing eyes narrowing threateningly.
"Release the Crystal Shard and perhaps we will let you live," Rai-guy said.
It must be destroyed! Yharaskrik screamed into his mind. It is an item of no gain, of loss to all, even to itself. As the creature finished, it held the lantern up even higher and advanced a step, its tentacles wriggling out, reaching for Rai-guy hungrily though the drow was still too far away for any physical attack, but not out of range for psionic attacks, the drow found out a split second later, even as he began casting his own spell.
A blast of stunning and confusing energy washed over him, reached into him, and scrambled his mind. He felt himself falling over backward, watched almost helplessly as his line of vision rolled up the wall, and to the high ceiling.
He called for Crenshinibon, but it was too far away, lost in the swirl of the magical lantern's glow. He thought of the illithid, of those horrid tentacles burrowing under his skin, reaching for his brain.
Rai-guy steadied himself and fought desperately, finally regaining his balance and glancing back to see Yharaskrik very close-too close, those tentacles almost touching him.
He nearly exploded into the motion of yet another spell- casting, but he recognized that he had to be more subtle here, that he had to make the creature believe he was defeated. That was the secret of battling illithids, as many drow had been trained. Play upon their arrogance. Yharaskrik, like all of its kind, would hardly be able to comprehend that an inferior creature like a drow had somehow resisted its psionic attacks.
Rai-guy worked a simple spell, with subtle movements, and all the while feigning helplessness.
It must be done! the illithid screamed in his thoughts. The tentacles moved toward Rai-guy's face, and Yha-raskrik's hand reached for the Crystal Shard.
Rai-guy released his spell. It was not a devastating blast, not a rumble of some great explosion, not a bolt of lightning nor a gout of fire. A simple gust of wind came from the drow's hand, a sharp and surprising burst that snapped Yha-raskrik's tentacles back across its ugly face, that blew the creature's robes back behind it and forced it to retreat a step.
That blew out the lantern.
Yharaskrik glanced down, thought to summon some psionic energy to relight the lantern, and looked up and thought to strike Rai-guy with another psionic blast of scrambling energy, fearing some second spellcasting.
As quickly as the illithid could begin to do either of those things, a wave of crushing emotions washed over it, a Crenshinibon-imparted flood of despair and hopelessness, and, paradoxically of hope, with subtle promises that all could be put right, with greater glory gained for all.
Yharaskrik's psionic defenses came up almost immediately, dulling the Crystal Shard's demanding call.
A jolt of energy, the shocking grasp of Rai-guy, caught the illithid on the chest, lifted it from the ground, and sent it sprawling backward to the floor.
"Fool!" Rai-guy growled. "Do you think I need Cren- shinibon to destroy the likes of you?"
Indeed, when Yharaskrik looked back at the drow wizard, thinking to attack mentally, he stared at the end of a small black wand. The illithid let go the blast anyway, and indeed it staggered Rai-guy backward, but the drow had already enacted the power of the wand. It was a wand similar to the one Jarlaxle had used to pin down Hephaestus's tail and momentarily clamp the dragon's mouth shut.
It took Rai-guy a long moment to fight through this burst of scrambling energy, but when he did stand straight again, he laughed aloud at the spectacle of the illithid splayed out on the floor, held in place by a viscid green glob.
The mental domination from Crenshinibon began on the creature anew, wearing at its resolve. Rai-guy walked to tower over Yharaskrik, to look the helpless mind flayer in the bulbous eye, letting it know in no uncertain terms that this fight was at its end.
She had no apparent weapon, but Entreri knew better than to ask for her surrender, knew well enough what this skilled warrior was capable of. He had battled fighting monks before, though not often, and had always found them full of surprises. He could see the honed muscles of Danica's legs twitching eagerly, the woman wanting badly to come at him.
"Why do you hate me so?" the assassin asked with a wry grin, halting his advance a mere three strides from Danica. "Or is it, perhaps, that you simply fear me and are afraid to show it? For you should fear me, you understand."
Danica stared at him hard. She did indeed hate this man, and had heard much about him from Drizzt Do'Urden, and even more-and even more damning-testimony from Catti-brie. Everything about him assaulted her sensibilities. To Danica, finding Artemis Entreri in the company of dark elves seemed more an indictment of the dark elves.
"But perhaps we would do better to settle our differences when we are far, far from this place," Entreri offered. "Though our fight is inevitable in your eyes, is it not?"