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“Ah—and there we go,” Gale says, straightening up. He examines the console, rubbing his chin and muttering quietly to himself.
“Move,” Lae’zel says, pushing Gale aside. “This requires a psionic touch.”
They’re in a laboratory in the illithid colony deep under Moonrise Towers. Quiet for now, except the slippery sounds of the walls moving against each other. There’s some kind of illithid machine, which appears to let brains in jars communicate in voice. Tav and Wyll were inclined to pass by, but Gale insisted they examine it. Just for information on the colony, he said, but Tav saw the spark of avarice for knowledge in his eyes. If Lae’zel hadn’t backed him up, Tav would have made them go on.
As it is, here they stand. Gale is carefully inserting a brain jar under Lae’zel’s crisp direction. The slack-skinned elven head attached to the console—through which the brain will speak—stares with blank, sunken eyes.
“I thought Lae’zel would object more to this,” Wyll says in an undertone.
Tav shrugs. “She’s not above using ghaik machines against their masters.”
“Her pragmatism is handy.” Wyll grimaces. “But I’d rather get moving. We haven’t time to waste on this.”
“I’m only letting them examine one brain,” Tav says quietly.
She squeezes Wyll’s shoulder, resting her tail against his back. He’s staying stoic, but the encounter with Mizora shook him badly. With a barely-perceptible sigh, Wyll leans into Tav’s touch.
On the console, the head moves.
The eyes blink. The mouth opens and closes. It turns a little from side to side, what’s left of the neck straining. Its gaze focuses on Lae’zel.
“Cousin,” the head says, the sense of a sneer in its voice. There’s something ragged about the word, as if the throat is beginning to rot.
“I am no cousin to an elf,” Lae’zel says scornfully.
“I am not an elf,” the head says with a distinctly uppity air. “This is merely the vessel through which I must speak. My mind remains my own—that of a githzerai.”
“Don’t!” Gale shouts, seizing Lae’zel’s wrist as she goes for a dagger.
Lae’zel snarls at him and he yanks his hand away. “This creature is a traitor to my people,” she hisses. “I have never before slain one—but now I will.”
“Lae’zel,” Tav says sharply. Lae’zel glares at her. Tav looks back, saying nothing, until Lae’zel spits out a “tsk’va!” and folds her arms.
“How did a githzerai end up here?” Gale asks the head. “One of those hunting parties you put together, perhaps?”
“I was no member of a rrakkma,” the githzerai says. The face is still expressionless but the voice takes on a note of shame. “I was a traitor. The ghaik made promises to me—a reward of immortality, and I was a fool who listened to them. They destroyed the monastery and all my kin. My reward is this: silence and emptiness in a brain which will not die.”
“Damn,” Wyll murmurs. Tav shudders, imagining it for a brief moment and then pushing the thought away.
“Well-deserved punishment for such a betrayal,” Lae’zel says. It occurs to Tav that the movement of Lae’zel’s mouth isn’t quite matching the sound of her words. Are the connected tadpoles translating the language of the gith to something Tav can understand?
“Cousin…I beg your mercy,” the githzerai says. “Use the ghaik tadpole. Purge my mind. Set me free, in the name of Gith.”
“You would dare invoke her name, traitor?” Lae’zel snaps.
“She is the unshackler even of the githzerai.” The head’s eyes are full of tears. “I will share my secrets with you, a mental defense against the ghaik, if you will do this.”
Gale glances back at Tav, clearly unsure of what to do. Tav shrugs: this is far out of her depth. What she knows of the feud of the githyanki and githzerai is vague, clouded by Lae’zel’s fury every time the matter arises. They hate each other, they fight each other, the githzerai slaughter whole crèches and the githyanki devastate whole monasteries. To Tav, it sounds like neither side is blameless—but it’s not really her place to judge. All she knows is that dealing with this githzerai isn’t her job. It’s Lae’zel’s right to handle her own cousin.
“Purge your mind,” Laezel says, thoughtful.
“Yes,” the githzerai pleads.
“I say do it,” Wyll says. “This isn’t a fate anyone deserves.”
“Agreed,” Tav says.
Lae’zel stretches out her hand to touch her fingertips to the githzerai’s forehead. A hum of psionic power sizzles through Tav’s tadpole and she flinches as it squirms in response. Lae’zel’s natural psionic skill makes this easy for her, but the power is overloading into the other tadpoles.
“Yes!” the head cries, and then horror fills its voice. “No! No, please!”
A flare of psionic energy bursts in Tav’s skull. She yells, clutching her head, and hears Wyll and Gale crying out too. Her vision whites out, her ears ring, her skin burns, and then—
Silence.
The head isn't moving anymore.
“What in the Nine Hells was that?” Wyll demands. He’s breathing hard, half bent over with hands on his knees.
Lae’zel turns away from the head and Tav almost takes a step back. The smile slashed across Lae’zel’s face is vicious. Malevolent.
“I gave my cousin what it desired,” she says. “Oblivion.”
“You didn’t purge its mind, you ate it!” Gale is leaning on his staff, knuckles white. “I thought you’d be above that!”
“It was efficient,” Lae’zel says. Her eyes have a horrible, satisfied gleam in the sickly light. “A most suitable end for a creature who betrayed its own kin to the ghaik.”
Tav stares at Lae’zel. Seeing the look on her face—words Tav forgot surface in her mind. Torn flesh from monsters and men and laughed as they suffered. Slice your skin from your meat. Mercy is death. Death is mercy. This is Vlaakith's will.
“An ugly thing, but pragmatic, I’ll grant you that.” Gale straightens and squares his shoulders. “I think I’ve had quite enough of brains in jars.”
“Let’s move on, then,” Wyll says, turning for the door. “Thorm can’t be much further.”
Tav feels as if her feet have been nailed to the fleshy ground. Her oath demands that she slay those who would visit evil upon the world. This…
“Come, zhak vo’n’ash duj,” Lae’zel says, striding past Tav. There’s a proud set to her head, a lightness to her steps. “Our foes will not wait long.”
Tav knows Lae’zel won’t listen, won’t care, but the words come out anyway. “That went too far.”
Lae’zel looks up at Tav. “I thought you would be pleased to see justice done,” she says, visibly surprised. “A creature like this deserved a worse fate. I was merciful. As you wish me to be.”
She’s so earnest. Eyes wide, confused that Tav’s not pleased. Tav can’t bring herself to argue. What could she even say that Lae’zel would hear? Would understand? She just nods, clapping Lae’zel on the shoulder, and turns for the door.
The eyes of the slack-skinned head burn into Tav’s back.