The Companions tms-6

by Tina Daniell

  "I have not taken the Test," said Raistlin, "and I have not yet chosen the color of the robes that I will one day wear."

  "If you were a black robe," mused the Nightmaster, "we would be on the same side. You would worship Sargonnas as I do."

  "I know very little about Sargonnas. That is one of the reasons why I came."

  "You came to rescue your brother," the Nightmaster said with a sneer.

  "Partly," answered Raistlin, "and partly because I am interested in all the orders of magic-black, white, and neutral."

  "Really?"

  The High Three had finished their preliminary work. Dogz was standing back, arms folded, in the shadows. Fesz came over and interrupted.

  "Pardon, Excellency," said Fesz, "but we are ready."

  The high shaman gave him a nod. Fesz turned away.

  The Nightmaster leaned over Raistlin, his fetid breath hot on the mage's face. The high shaman examined the young mage from Solace with fresh interest. Raistlin didn't flinch under his gaze.

  "So," rumbled the Nightmaster, "that is why you volunteered to take your sister's place… because you wanted to observe the spell and to encounter Sargonnas himself-as you surely will, since you will be the victim who makes possible his entry into this world!"

  Raistlin waited a long time before replying. "Partly," is all he said.

  The Nightmaster reared back and struck Raistlin across the face, bowling him off the rock that served as his chair. Blood streaked down Raistlin's face. For good measure, the Nightmaster kicked the young mage hard in the side as he lay on the ground. Still Raistlin did not cry out.

  Dogz watched, his arms folded, his face impassive.

  "Guards!" called the Nightmaster. Two armed minotaurs broke rank with the others on the perimeter of the area and came running over. "Bring this pathetic human over to the crater and hold him until I am ready for him!"

  The soldiers picked Raistlin up and dragged him over to the crater's edge, so near to the mouth that the heat from below blasted him.

  The High Three lined up across the crater at an angle from Raistlin.

  The Nightmaster donned a crimson cloak and marched up the dozen steps to the top of the scaffold. There a stand held a massive tome.

  Raistlin shook his head to clear it from the blow by the Nightmaster. He was only slightly dazed. Although he was held tightly by the soldiers, the young mage could twist around and glimpse Tasslehoff behind the High Three, still slumped on his chair.

  Atop the scaffold, the Nightmaster lifted his horned head, took a deep breath, and gazed skyward.

  Cold gripped the summit, though no wind stirred. The clouds that blotted out the sky on previous nights had disappeared. The stars shone like beacons.

  Not only could Raistlin feel the intense heat of the volcano, but now he also could clearly hear the bubbling of the fiery orange liquid as it gradually welled to the surface.

  The Nightmaster began to read from the tome in an ancient minotaur dialect, his guttural voice rising steadily in volume.

  The High Three started to murmur in the background.

  Raistlin could make out almost none of the words, only an occasional invocation to Sargonnas.

  As he chanted the spell, the Nightmaster moved his powerful arms in a strange, graceful manner, weaving intricate hand language in the air. His cloak swished behind him. The small bells draping his sharp, curved horns jingled a musical accompaniment to his every movement. His deep bull voice, growling out mysterious phrases, contrasted eerily with his balletlike motions.

  Thunk! Flying out of nowhere, an object struck the throat of one of the minotaur guards, hitting him with such force that he immediately let loose his grip on Raistlin, clutched at his throat, and fell to the ground, dead.

  Before anybody could react, another object flew in from the periphery of Raistlin's vision, this one even bigger. It was Tasslehoff Burrfoot.

  Tas leaped from the shadows onto the back of the other minotaur holding Raistlin. He was doing his best to choke and pummel a creature who was three times his size and six times the weight of the kender. He was doing a pretty good job of it, however, because the kender had landed so high on the minotaur's back that the creature couldn't reach far enough behind to get his hands on Tas.

  But it was only a couple of seconds before Fesz sprinted over and jerked Tas to the ground. Although Tas got right up, he was moving groggily. Fesz easily latched on to his collar and lifted the squirming kender several feet into the air.

  "You shame me, kender!" boomed Fesz, shaking Tas so violently that the kender started to hiccup. "You, whom I believed and trusted-you, whom I turned evil-you, whom I honored with the great privilege of attending the coming of Sargonnas-you-you-"

  The shaman minotaur was livid with anger and disappointment.

  Meanwhile, the minotaur soldier recovered his balance. Indeed he had never lost his hold on Raistlin.

  The young mage could think of no spell which he could unleash without the use of his hands. Still bound and tied, Raistlin could do little but intently watch the scene unfold.

  "Great privilege"-hiccup-"pfooey!" Tasslehoff spat into the smelly bull face of Fesz. "You cowheads wouldn't know honor from"-hiccup-"cow dung. I've had it with your cave breath, your exalted horns that any dumb ox could grow"-hiccup-"your smelly wardrobe, your barnyard manners"-hiccup, hiccup…

  Tas was practically purple from being shaken so violently.

  Suddenly a thunderous roar stilled both of them. Everyone looked up to the top of the scaffold, where the Nightmaster, who had been momentarily forgotten in the melee. With his fists clenched and his jagged teeth bared in a snarl, the Nightmaster personified rage.

  "Silence!" screamed down the Nightmaster. "You are interrupting the spell!"

  "But-" rumbled Fesz plaintively, "but the kender-"

  "Be done with him," commanded the Nightmaster. "Throw him into the crater!"

  "Yes," said Fesz meekly.

  "No!" roared a different voice.

  Raistlin, who had been looking up at the Nightmaster, turned his head just in time to see Fesz clutch at his throat. Embedded there, so deeply that the shaman couldn't budge it, was a dagger with an H-shaped hilt, Dogz's well-polished katar. Fesz dropped Tasslehoff, who landed with a thud. Then the shaman minotaur unceremoniously keeled over, quite dead.

  From the scaffolding, the Nightmaster shouted, "Seize him!"

  Dogz didn't even try to run away, nor did he resist when several soldiers surrounded him, pointing their spears and swords threateningly. In truth, the minotaur couldn't have said why he did what he had done-the unthinkable, treason-except that he liked the kender, Tasslehoff Burrfoot. Especially now that Tas seemed to be back to his old self. Dogz had reacted out of an instinct that he didn't know he possessed-the instinct of friendship.

  Dogz sank to his knees.

  The kender got up from his.

  Hiccup.

  Thoroughly pinioned by the remaining minotaur guard, Raistlin was trying to think of a spell he could manage in this desperate situation when Tasslehoff's hiccup suggested one: the invisibility spell that Raistlin had used to get past the minotaur guards earlier that day. It wouldn't do Raistlin much good now, but if he could pass it on to someone else… It wouldn't last for long, but long enough for Tas to get away. The young mage concentrated. Behind his back, he moved his fingers underneath their bonds.

  Raistlin murmured the words to the spell, substituting Tasslehoff's name and throwing all of his focus and energy in Tas's direction.

  With a soft popping sound, the kender vanished.

  The Nightmaster, who had been preparing to cast a bolt of lightning at Tasslehoff, cursed himself. "Fool! I'm a fool!" he raged. "I should have thought of that." The high shaman leaned over the scaffold railing and shouted to the soldier who was holding Raistlin. "Put a gag around his mouth and make sure the mage can't speak. Then bring him up the steps and give him to me."

  The guard hurled Raistlin down on the ground and b
ound his mouth roughly with a dirty strip of cloth. Then he began to drag Raistlin toward the scaffold steps.

  The Nightmaster leaned over the railing in the opposite direction and yelled at several of his disciples who stood outside the line of minotaur soldiers. "The kender is invisible! Find him and kill him!"

  Four of the minotaurs burst into the staging area, then stopped, confused. After a moment, they began stalking around, bending and peering suspiciously at thin air.

  Hiccup.

  Every time the soldiers heard a hiccup, they whirled and raced to another spot, lunging for something that wasn't there, colliding with each other.

  The Nightmaster leaned over the railing toward the High Three, who had been reduced to the High Two with Fesz's death, and shouted, "Continue! The spell is almost completed!"

  The two shaman minotaurs, taken aback by the unexpected death of Fesz, successor to the Nightmaster, had stopped their chanting. They appeared to be confused. But the murderous look the Nightmaster wore was enough to galvanize them into action. Once again they took up their supportive roles in the spell, intoning the required phrases.

  the Nightmaster returned his attention to Raistlin, who was just then being yanked to the top of the steps by the armed minotaur. The high shaman grasped the young mage's arm, ordering the soldier to rejoin the forces below. The minotaur soldier gladly did so.

  Raistlin couldn't move his arms or legs. His mouth was sealed so tightly he could barely breathe. The Nightmaster brought him to the edge of the scaffold, dangling him over the edge.

  From this vantage, the volcanic pit seemed about to overflow with liquid fire. The heat seared the young mage's face.

  "Mark it well, mage," hissed the Nightmaster, "for soon you will be swallowed up by the Lord of Volcanoes!"

  With a muscular spin, the Nightmaster hurled Raistlin into one corner of the scaffold. The high shaman turned back to the massive magic tome and picked up where he had been forced to break off.

  Hiccup.

  Down below, the Nightmaster's acolytes scurried to track the hiccupping and catch the invisible kender. They missed again and again.

  The Nightmaster blocked out the sounds. Nothing could stop him now that he was so close. Again he began to rumble in an ancient dialect. Again he moved his arms, weaving the powerful spell.

  Crumpled in the corner of the platform, Raistlin felt defeated. With his sensitive hearing, he could hear the hiccupping below. The young mage wished that Tas would go for help, or escape, or at the very least stop hiccupping.

  The Nightmaster turned a page.

  Hiccup.

  The hiccups were fewer and farther between now, like thunder after a storm has passed. The minions of the Nightmaster had given up. They had no idea how to catch an invisible kender. Those who were searching for Tas grouped together off to one side, distracted by the sight of the Nightmaster above on the scaffold, resuming his display of spellcasting.

  Hiccup.

  A minotaur soldier felt his sword being pulled from its sheath. He grabbed at the hilt just in time and wrested it back after a tug-of-war with something invisible. The minotaur swatted at the something and missed. One by one, each of the soldiers around him swatted and missed. Then a soldier unsheathed his sword and swung wildly, cutting off the ear of the minotaur standing next to him.

  Hiccup.

  The noise sounded close to where Dogz knelt on both knees, guarded by a knot of minotaur soldiers. The soldiers started at the hiccup, but couldn't tell precisely where it had come from. A couple of them moved away from Dogz, gripping their weapons and sniffing suspiciously. That left three watching the turncoat.

  On the scaffold, the Nightmaster turned another page, continuing to read aloud the mysterious phrases of long-ago magic in his deep voice.

  "Psst, Dogz! It's me, Tas!"

  Dogz's mournful eyes widened, more concerned for the kender's sake than he was for himself. The three guards stood a couple of feet away, their backs to him, watching the Nightmaster. They hadn't heard Tasslehoff.

  With his eyes, Dogz showed that he had heard.

  "Hey, I want to thank you for killing Fesz! That was a swell thing to do. What a friend you are! Of course, I would have done it myself long ago if only-"

  With his eyes, Dogz tried to tell the kender that he ought to get away from him-far away from him-before the armed guards turned around.

  "Say, Dogz, you wouldn't happen to have a small dagger or anything-"

  "Fesz," rumbled Dogz as softly as he could.

  One of the guards heard him. He turned and stared suspiciously at Dogz, who shrugged. The guard came over and poked around in the air with his spear, hitting nothing.

  Hiccup.

  The minotaur guard rammed the butt end of the spear into Dogz's gut. Dogz doubled over, gasping for breath.

  Atop the scaffold, the Nightmaster turned the final page. He took a moment, breathed deeply, and pulled some dried leaves and other ingredients from small pouches he carried, flinging them out over the volcano.

  A mist of particles rose from the crater, spreading out and filling the air above it, tinting everything orange-red. The mist was dry and hot.

  "The jalopwort," the Nightmaster growled, nodding in Raistlin's direction, "and the last of the other ingredients called for by the spell."

  Raistlin, backed up against one of the corner posts, stared straight ahead, impassive. The moment the Nightmaster turned back to the tome of spells, he resumed his desperate effort to saw through the rope by rubbing it against the wooden corner of the scaffold.

  Hiccup.

  On the ground, something invisible was trying to pull the katar out of Fesz's neck. Nobody was paying the slightest attention to the dead shaman, so Tas was able to put his foot on Fesz's head and pull with both hands. Nobody noticed when the katar slid out of the minotaur's body and disappeared under Tasslehoff's tunic.

  Fortunately Tasslehoff had finally gotten over the hiccups.

  Unfortunately he had only a few minutes of invisibility left.

  As carefully and quietly as he could, the invisible Tas crawled past the minotaur guard stationed at the foot of the scaffold. Up the steps, one by one, on his hands and knees, he crept toward Raistlin.

  The mage heard the odd scraping and rustling sounds on the steps behind him and froze. Even as he did so, he felt the sharp edge of a blade begin to saw through the ropes that tied his hands.

  Glancing over his shoulder, Raistlin saw Tasslehoff, one step from the top, gradually turning visible. He shook his head violently to warn the kender, but, intent on his task, Tas wasn't looking at Raistlin's face. Even if he had been looking, the kender wouldn't have had the slightest idea what the mage was trying to communicate.

  The Nightmaster heard a noise at his feet.

  Looking up, Tas saw the Nightmaster reaching down for him.

  Faster than a dart eel, Tas withdrew the katar and rolled to his left. He came up on the floor of the scaffold, stabbing forward and down. The katar sank into the Nightmaster's cleft right hoof.

  The high shaman of the minotaurs howled with pain and yanked out the katar, dropping it over the side of the scaffold. Bellowing with fury, the Nightmaster ripped a strip of cloth from his cloak and wrapped it around his foot, which was streaming blood. Then he jerked his head up, nostrils flaring, looking for Tas.

  As close to panic as a kender gets, Tasslehoff had frozen, trying to decide whether to stay or run, when he saw the bulging eyes of the Nightmaster fasten on him. "Uh-oh," he murmured and instantly made the decision to run.

  But it was too late. The Nightmaster covered the short distance between them in an eyeblink, snatching the kender up in one huge hand. With a deafening roar, the high shaman whirled and hurled Tas far out over the mouth of the volcano.

  Down, down Tas fell, toward the liquid furnace…

  … only to be caught up by something that swooped beneath him.

  The Nightmaster gaped in astonishment as a kyrie warrior plucked the
kender from the air with its talons. The kyrie soared up and past the shaman, then back down to the ground, where he deposited an equally astonished Tasslehoff Burrfoot a short distance away.

  Running from one side of the scaffold to the other, looking down, the Nightmaster saw that a small group of kyrie and humans had engaged his minotaur force in battle. Several of the minotaurs were lying on the ground, dead or wounded, while others had retreated, bunching together behind mounds of dead lava, lobbing spears and arrows at the intruders.

  The Nightmaster could pick out the human female, Kitiara, among the attackers, but he looked in vain for his two shamans, who had left their posts and vanished in the confusion.

  At the foot of the scaffold, the Nightmaster saw a muscular, brown-haired human challenging the sole guard, swinging a sword against the polearm wielded by the minotaur. Although sorely pressed, the guard was doing a good job of protecting his position, using his superior bulk to ward off blows and deny the human access to the scaffold.

  Momentarily stunned by what he saw, the Nightmaster stumbled backward on his hobbled foot. All of his careful planning, spoiled by a kender, some kyrie, and a handful of pitiable humans! That thought fueled his insane rage.

  The high shaman stepped forward and raised both arms to the skies. He shouted out a magical command. His right arm swept downward.

  A dozen brilliant balls of fire exploded on the ground near the group of humans and kyrie. Tongues of red flame briefly lit the scene.

  Two minotaur soldiers who had been fighting the invaders were instantly incinerated. One of the kyrie, the Nightmaster noted with satisfaction, twisted on the ground, its wings aflame. Another kyrie bent over his unfortunate comrade, trying to smother the flames.

  Chuckling at their futility, the Nightmaster prepared to launch another spell.

  Then a noise behind him reminded him of Raistlin Majere.

  Down on the ground, Tasslehoff hopped and leaped to avoid the balls of fire that sprang up all around him. He wondered about the unusual bird creatures that seemed to be fighting on the side of Caramon and, he was pleased to note, Tanis and Kitiara.