EPISODE 8

                Zojikoe's illithid master stared down at the mage and sighed regretfully.

                "What a waste!" It mourned. "When I bought him I thought he was a gladiator! He looked like a gladiator . . . his robes hid his true physique! It's not fair!" Its friend sighed as well.

                "Well," it said consolingly, "at least yours is a good masseuse." It gestured with a four-fingered hand down to where Zojikoe was lovingly kneading the Central Brain's bulbous exterior. "The only thing mine can do is make potions and salves, and even for that I've got to let her retain a bit of her previous memories to do so." It sighed and mentally called its newest slave over for Zojikoe's master to inspect. It pointed out eh ebony spider bauble tangled in her hair. "She used to be a priestess," her master explained. "Arrogant, egotistical and stubborn, even with me controlling her mind. Her connection to whatever god it is they worship causes a few problems with my control over her if I'm not in almost constant connection to her." Zojikoe's master pointed at her ebony tiara.

                "Maybe if you got rid of the symbols of her previous life," he suggested, "she'd be easier to control." The drowess' master nodded thoughtfully.

                "It's a start," it said, holding out its hand. Rose, it snapped mentally, give me your hairpiece. Rose smiled, happy at the chance to please her master, who always seemed displeased with her for some reason, and tugged the spider out of her hair, setting it in the illithid's hand. Her master threw it disdainfully over his shoulder, where it clattered onto the walkway surrounding the Central brain.

                "Come on," Zojikoe's master said suddenly. "There's a fight on in the arena in fifteen minutes and I don't want to miss it!" He cast one last mournful look down at Zojikoe before moving out of the room, Rose and her master right on his heels.

                Zojikoe stared in puzzlement down at the bauble that had landed by his knees. He frowned and tilted his head as he looked at it. There was something important about that ebony spider. He reached out and picked it up. But what?

                "Rose?" He murmured quietly. An image of the priestess' face flashed through his mind, but a moment later it was shattered as the Central Brain suddenly tensed up and Zojikoe hastily shoved the hairpiece into his robes, upset that he had neglected the Brain. He immediately began working to relax the God-thing of the illithids, the bauble forgotten in his want to please the brain.

***

                Mezzen eagerly hopped from one foot to the other, watching as a few tired slaves filed in through the door from the Central Brain's room. He scanned each of their faces, looking for one in particular, that he had seen just last night. A brand new slave. He'd only been there for a day, which meant he still might have some of his memories, and Mezzen desperately wanted to talk to him. The little boy sighed in disappointment as the last slave filed through the door and no others followed him.

                "I thought for sure our master would have . . ." His voice died off, however as Zojikoe stepped out of the Central Brain's room and started towards the stairs that lead towards the sleeping chambers for the slaves. "Yes!" Mezzen cried, jumping up excitedly. "That's him! That's him!" Casting a furtive glance around to make sure his master was nowhere in sight, he took off at a dead run across the hall and fell into step beside Zojikoe. He reached up and pulled insistently on the mage's sleeve until Zoe looked down at him.

                "Hullo," Mezzen greeted him, noticing with consternation that they were almost at the stairs.

                "Hi," Zoe said, a puzzled expression on his face as he stared down at the boy.

                "I . . . um . . . where ya going?" Mezzen asked, trying to think of a way to distract Zojikoe.

                "To my room," Zoe answered simply. "My master told me to sleep so I'd be able to better help the Central Brain tomorrow." Mezzen's shoulders sagged. If his master had told him to go to sleep, there'd be no stopping the mage. Not if it meant pleasing his master. Unless . . . Mezzen brightened suddenly.

                "I know a short cut!" He burst out suddenly, just as Zojikoe put his foot on the stair. The older drow turned to look back at him in surprise. "To the . . . um . . . to the sleeping chambers that is," Mezzen explained, trying to look innocent, and not look like he was lying. "Just imagine how happy your master will be if you get there faster! He'd be so pleased with you . . ." Zojikoe paused and considered it, then smiled.

                "Okay," he said. "Show me your shortcut!"

                "Great!" Mezzen cried, beaming up at him. He eagerly grabbed the mage's hand and all but pulled him down the hall in the opposite direction, taking him towards some of the back hallways where he could keep him busy for a short while.

                "So," the boy said as they walked. "What's your name?" Zojikoe frowned a bit and his face took on an expression of concentration as he tried to sort through the mental fog in his head.

                "My name?" He asked. "It's . . . um . . . my name is . . ." He furrowed his eyebrows. "Ka!" he cried suddenly. "That's my name!" Mezzen wrinkled his nose.

                "Ka?" He asked. "What kind of name is Ka?"

                "Not mine," Zojikoe agreed seriously. "I don't think that's my name . . ."

                "I hope not," Mezzen said. "So, if that's not, what is?" Zojikoe sighed and struggled to remember. He absently touched the spider hair piece in his pocket.

                "Zojikoe," he said suddenly. "That's my name! Zojikoe! Zoe for short." Mezzen grinned up at him.

                "Can I call you Zoe?" He asked, almost but not quite shyly. Zojikoe grinned.

                "Sure thing, kid," he said. "What's your name?"

                "Mezzen," Mezzen answered. "But I don't have a for short." Zojikoe laughed and a few more memories came floating to him out of the fog in his head.

                "That's all right," he said. "Mezzen is short enough."

                "So . . ." Mezzen said after a minute, "can you remember anything else? About . . . about where you were before you were here?" Zojikoe nodded a bit.

                "I remember . . . a city," he said. "Menzo something or other it was called. And . . . something about candles . . ." He frowned at the half a memory. His hand went again to the bulge in his pocket and Mezzen stared curiously at it.

                "What's that?" He asked, pointing with his free hand. Zojikoe smiled a bit and reached into his pocket, pulling out the spider hair piece.

                "I'm not sure where it came from," he said. "But it seems really familiar and . . . when I look at it, I can picture someone's face. Somebody important to me I think." Mezzen sensed the frustration in Zojikoe's voice.

                "Concentrate," he instructed. "On the face. It might trigger other memories." Zojikoe pulled his eyes from the tiara long enough to stare with slight suspicion at the boy.

                "You seem to know a lot about this for a kid," he said. Mezzen smiled almost sadly.

                "I've been with the illithids since before I can remember," he said. "My whole life probably. You learn a thing or two when you've been with them for that long, and not under their control." Zojikoe stared at him for a moment more, then nodded. He turned back to the ebony spider and focused on the face in his mind.

                "Her name . . . is Rose," he said, struggling to remember. "She was a priestess. From Ched Nasad, I think. Yeah, that's right." He smiled to himself. "She and my sister couldn't seem to figure out if they wanted to get along or not. It kinda depended on how impressed they were with Dil'andau and I. And she and Dil'andau didn't get along at all. Especially where her panther was concerned."

                "What's a panther?" Mezzen asked suddenly. Zojikoe tried to figure out a way to describe it.

                "Well," he said, "it's a surface animal. You don't find them down in the Underdark, but Rose found hers when it was just a kitten or something like that on a raid to the surface. It's a big black beast with claws and teeth, but I guess it's pretty tame. At least where Rose is concerned. Truthfully, it makes me really nervous, but I don't think I'll tell her that."

                "Where did you meet her?" Mezzen asked, curious about a priestess who had a pet from the surface.

                "It was just after I'd teleported out after Ka, my sister," Zojikoe answered. Without fully realizing it, he began to relate the entire tale of his journey with the three other drow to the small boy, as the memories began coming back to him in a rush.

                "And the next thing I know, here I am, talking to you," the mage finished, glancing down at the little boy. His face paled suddenly. "Oh Goddess!" he cried. "Rose must hate me!! She couldn't stand it when Ka messed with her mind, and Ka's just a baby compared to these illithids! She must be going insane!" He groaned and dropped his head into his hands. Mezzen paused in mid step and stared up at Zojikoe, eyes bright with a sudden revelation.

                "Are you and Rose married?" He asked suddenly. Zojikoe stopped and stared at him in surprise. "I mean, you kind of talk about her like you were married," he explained hastily. "You know? Kinda all . . . I dunno, just kinda like you love her or something." Zojikoe's jaw dropped, and a thousand denials suddenly began to form in his brain, but for some reason he couldn't bring himself to say them.

                "I . . . I . . ." He managed. Mezzen nodded sagely and continued walking.

                "Yep," he said, "you're married." Zojikoe shook his head and quickly caught up to the boy.

                "No," he said. "We're not." That, at least, he could deny. He couldn't resist adding, "Not yet, anyway."

                "But you're going to be?" Mezzen asked with a huge grin. Zojikoe sighed suddenly.

                "Not if I don't figure out a way to get us out of here," he responded, looking dismally around at the hallway. "And even then, that's if Rose ever forgives me for getting her into this whole mess. This is all my fault . . ." Mezzen frowned a bit at that last part.

                "Well," he said, "technically it's kinda more Dil'andau's fault than yours," he pointed out. "I mean, he's not very smart right?" Zojikoe rolled his eyes in agreement. "So obviously you couldn't have given him the map . . . he should have known better than to ask for it! So it's his fault that the map got lost!! Not yours at all. Rose will understand that. I know she will!" Zojikoe looked down at the little boy for a minute, then abruptly a grin crossed his face.

                "Kid," he said. "I like you better already!"

***

                Rose watched the black panther pacing back and forth in it's magical cage with an odd fascination. There was something about the cat that seemed familiar, and it bothered her that she couldn't place it. It kept looking at her with such familiarity, not to mention confusion. As though it couldn't understand why she just sat there watching it and not doing anything about its imprisonment. It growled almost affectionately at her and pawed at its cage. She shook her head at the sudden urge to open its door and went back to making potions. The panther sighed and flopped down in its cage.

                As she worked she had a sudden recollection about discussing potion making with someone. Who had that been? She paused again in her work, trying to remember.

                "Zojikoe," she said suddenly. That's who it had been. Zojikoe. She looked back up at the caged panther and had a sudden vision of it rubbing up against Zojikoe's legs. "Slayer?" She asked. The cat's ears instantly pricked up and it looked at her hopefully. "Slayer? Is that you? I . . ." She pressed a hand to her forehead. "What's going on?" She asked out loud. "I . . ." With sudden clarity the events of the past few days (not to mention her whole life) came back to her in a rush. "Slayer!" She cried, dropping the potion she'd been working on and racing over to the cage. The panther growled elatedly and bounced to its feet. Rose pulled with all her strength on the lock, but it was magically sealed. She swore viciously, glancing around her to make sure her illithid master was nowhere in sight. She shuddered at the memory of wanting nothing more than to please it. The past day or two had redefined her personal hell.

                "There's got to be some way to get you out of this," she muttered, trying desperately to break through the block the illithids had put on her arcane knowledge. "If I could just . . ."

                Rose, a watery voice snapped in her mind. What are you doing? Why aren't you working? Rose felt a sudden surge of guilt and shame that she had upset her master, but Slayer brushed his paw pleadingly against her hand and she beat it down, turning to glare defiantly at her illithid master.

                Rose, the voice continued angrily, the force of the illithid's commands weighing down on the priestess's mind, get back to work.

                "I . . . I . . ." Rose struggled against the urge to run back to her station and resume her work. She cast a helpless glance back at the panther, who once again seemed only vaguely familiar.

                That panther is an experiment of mine, her master told her. You are not to go near it. Don't even look at it. I'll have it moved later. Now, go back to work. Rose nodded, suddenly horrified at herself for her behavior. How could she have defied her master like that?! She'd have to work doubly hard to make it up to him . . .

                Slayer watched his mistress go back to her work, leaving him still locked in the cage, and fell back to the floor of his cage in defeat. He narrowed his eyes at the illithid, as it glared at Rose, and growled low in his throat, before giving up and deciding to fall asleep.