[Meetings 06] - The Companions

by Tina Daniell - (ebook by Undead)

  From what Fesz had told Tas, the spell was scheduled to be cast when the sun, moon, and stars formed a special configuration in the skies.

  "Very soon," Fesz had hinted. "Very, very soon."

  Naturally Tas, being evil himself, was excited about the coming of an evil god and was hoping to make the acquaintance of Sargonnas. That was one of the reasons why the kender was working so hard developing his friendship with Fesz.

  "Are you sure the minotaurs can take over the whole world without any help?" asked Tas innocently, a concerned and thoughtful look on his face. He looked around the shipyard with all its war galleys nearing completion. They were pretty impressive, but there were a great many humans and dwarves and elves and kender and gnomes and sundry other races over on the mainland. Maybe the minotaurs had been stuck on these remote isles for so long they didn't have any idea of the enormous opposition they would face.

  "Very sensible of you, Tas," said Fesz, lowering his voice to a soft rumble and looking over his shoulder cautiously. "No. Although we are a mighty race, we need and seek allies. We have made tentative pacts with the ogres and with their aquatic cousins, the orughi. We have made diplomatic approaches to the trolls, although they are such a disorganized race, and to certain tribes of barbarians. There are also certain other, uh, elements that you would not be familiar with—I am not at liberty to discuss them, but they will be very important to our combined force as the invasion plans unfold."

  "What about kender?" asked Tas, a trifle put out. "Don't you think kender might be able to contribute something?"

  "Why, of course," said Fesz, somewhat disconcerted. "I don't know why I left out kender. Kender might be very helpful, if they are all more or less like you. We know very little about kender, you see, and up until now, we hadn't considered them in our thinking."

  Tas puffed himself up. "I may be able to intercede with the kender race," he said, "After all, I am a figure of some renown in Kendermore. Or at least I was a figure of some renown last time I was there, which was, oh, ten or twenty or thirty years ago, before my period of wanderlust. My Uncle Trapspringer is a figure of much, much greater renown, it goes without saying." Tas frowned as something occurred to him. "Although I'm not sure that Uncle Trapspringer will want to throw in with us, because he's rather crotchety about his friends. He's not too friendly with his enemies either." The kender thought a moment, then brightened. "But since I haven't been back there in quite some time, it's more than possible that Uncle Trapspringer isn't living in Kendermore anymore and won't pose the least problem!"

  "Well," rumbled Fesz considerately, "I'll be sure to let the Nightmaster know all about the kender race and their, uh, potential."

  "Tell him it was my idea," said Tas, beaming.

  Fesz nodded and wrote it down.

  When they got back from the shipyard, Dogz was waiting for them with a communication from the king. Dogz handed the message to Fesz, but he wouldn't even look at Tasslehoff. The minotaur averted his eyes, as if he were ashamed of his kender friend. Over Fesz's shoulder, Tas read the message:

  Two humans captured near Atossa. One of them escaped by inexplicable, perhaps magical means. Might he be this Raistlin you are seeking? Report immediately to the Supreme Circle.

  The King

  Fesz looked questioningly at Tasslehoff.

  "Well," said the kender, "I don't know. I don't think it could be Raistlin. The note says two humans. Raistlin's only one human, not to mention Flint's a dwarf and Tanis is an elf—well actually a half-elf, but he doesn't like to be reminded of his human heritage. So I don't think it could be Raistlin."

  Fesz knitted his bullish brow.

  "Hey, wait a minute!" added Tas excitedly. "Maybe it's Sturm and Caramon. They're two humans. They're supposed to be dead, and I don't think they know any magic, but maybe Raistlin taught Caramon some tricks when they were kids together or something. I bet that's who it is. Oh, boy! Sturm and Caramon are alive. I wonder which one escaped?"

  "Sturm and Caramon," rumbled Fesz. "Those were the two humans who were thrown into the Blood Sea."

  'That's right."

  "Supposing they were still alive," wondered the shaman minotaur. "Why would Raistlin have taught Caramon magic when they both were children?"

  "I don't know," responded the kender. "Except maybe because they're twin brothers."

  "They're brothers!" Fesz practically shouted. Even Dogz gave a start. Fesz had to lower his voice and struggle to maintain a calm tone. "You never told me that Raistlin has a brother!"

  The kender shrugged. "You never asked me. Besides, I thought Caramon was dead, didn't you? Does it matter if Raistlin has a brother? I told you he has a sister, didn't I? Well, actually a half-sister, if you want to get—"

  "Wait!" Fesz put up a hand, then, with a great weary sigh, took out his quill pen and began to scribble something on a scrap of parchment. He paused, thought of something, and looked down at Tas. "Before we go on," he said with an extraordinary effort at patience, "does Raistlin have any more sisters or brothers whom we haven't talked about so far?"

  "No," Tas said petulantly, confused as to why Fesz seemed so upset. "At least not any that I've heard about."

  "Only Kitiara and Caramon."

  "Yup."

  Fesz wrote something else down hurriedly, then stuck the note in a pocket.

  "I wonder which it was, Sturm or Caramon . . ." murmured Tasslehoff.

  "We must go to Atossa and find out," declared Fesz.

  Tas broke out into a huge, happy grin.

  "After I make an appearance before the Supreme Circle," added the shaman minotaur hastily.

  "The Supreme Circle . . . wow!" exclaimed Tasslehoff. "I've never met a whole circle of supreme anything before. I can hardly wait!"

  From behind him, Dogz clamped a huge, heavy hand on the kender's shoulder.

  "I am truly sorry, friend Tas," said Fesz with obvious sincerity, "but I must go alone. The Supreme Circle would not be pleased if I brought a kender."

  * * * * *

  Around the large, round oaken table in the palace's main hall sat eight grim-faced, bull-horned minotaurs—nine, if you included the king, who had journeyed from his main residence in the southern city of Nethosak for this emergency conclave. While the others merely looked displeased, the king's bestial countenance bristled with murderous anger, which he was barely able to keep in check. The king had other important things to do and didn't appreciate this interruption in his schedule.

  Clockwise from the left of the king, the eight members of the Supreme Circle included Inultus, who commanded the minotaur military and civil police. He was swathed in emblems and badges proclaiming his rank. Next to him sat Akz, whose nickname was Attacca, but no one dared utter it to his face. He was the leader of the minotaur navy. Akz detested Inultus, and vice versa. They were known enemies but were forced to cooperate on policy matters for the greater good of the kingdom. Akz wore nothing across his broad muscular chest. His only garb was a jeweled leather strap girding his powerful loins.

  Next to Akz sat the oldest among them, a furrowed minotaur with tufts of gray-white hair called Victri, the representative of the rural minotaurs who tilled the land and maintained isolated government farms throughout the few fertile sections of the isles. Although most self-respecting warriors held the agricultural minotaurs in contempt, they were vital to the economy and stability of the isles. Furthermore, Victri had served on the Supreme Circle the longest. Everyone knew his reputation for honor and wisdom. Quite apart from that, Victri was a ferocious fighter who had distinguished himself in battle. Dressed like a tiller of the land, Victri wore more clothing than any other member of the Supreme Circle, including a heavy shawl that draped his brutish shoulders.

  Next to Victri sat Juvabit, a historian and scholar in a society that did not much value scholarly pursuit. Although he was an intellectual by minotaur standards, Juvabit looked indistinguishable from the rest, with his ugly snout, curved horns, and cloven hooves. The only th
ing that hinted at his stature was a tassel, woven from thin gold strands, which he wore dangling from one shoulder. It signified the Order of the King, the nation's highest accolade, and Juvabit was the only one in the room to have earned it. If anything, that made Juvabit even more insolent than the others, confident in his belief that his fellow members of the Supreme Circle were dullards and that not only was he smarter than any of the others, but he could hold his own against any one of them in hand-to-hand combat.

  Next to Juvabit sprawled Atra Cura, his bulky form spilling out of the big wooden chair he sat in. Atra Cura's job was to monitor the human and minotaur pirates who roamed the nearby seas, to extract a percentage of their plunder for the king—and a percentage of that percentage for himself—and to keep the rival pirate factions in line. It would not be inaccurate to say that Atra Cura himself was the fiercest, most murderous pirate of them all. Alone among the minotaurs of the Supreme Circle, he was dressed flamboyantly in bright hues decorated with magnificent gems. Atra Cura flaunted conspicuous weapons, with several sabres and knives tucked into his garb.

  The lone female, Kharis-O, was the designated leader of a nomadic band of female minotaurs called the Apart Clan that scorned males and lived outside the cities. The Apart Clan, which had followers in each of the main minotaur isles as well as most of the lesser ones, rarely interacted with the more organized sectors of the society, yet nobody doubted their loyalty to the minotaur race. They could be counted on in times of war, and their fierce battle prowess was every bit the equal of the male warriors. Nothing in Kharis-O's exceptionally ugly face hinted at femininity. Indeed, she offered no concession to her gender in her clothing. She wore tight leather leggings beneath a short leather skirt, and thick, hobnailed sandals. She sat glowering at everyone around the table but said nothing.

  The last two members of the Supreme Circle were Bartill and Groppis. Bartill was the head of the architectural and construction guilds, and therefore one of the most powerful minotaurs in the realm. Everyone had to be careful to curry favor with him.

  Groppis, inevitably Bartill's ally in a debate, was the keeper of the treasury, every bit as vital in the hierarchy as Bartill. It was Groppis who collected taxes, stashed plunder, and kept a strict accounting of the government wealth, doling out stipends according to autocratic decisions.

  The ninth was the king himself, in his fourteenth year of rule. The king exhibited the arrogance of his office and the physical superiority to match. In order to retain his rank, the king met his strongest challenger annually in one-on-one combat in the coliseum arena. For fourteen years, the present king had maintained an adamant grip on his position, ramming, stabbing, piercing, or strangling to death with his bare hands any and all comers. The thin silver band set with small diamonds that he wore around his forehead as a symbol of his reign would be passed on to the next king only if and when he was ever bested.

  The king and the eight other members of the Supreme Circle glared at Fesz, demanding to know how the Nightmaster's plans were progressing and whether the unusual news from Atossa meant any kind of setback.

  "I will go to Atossa myself in the morning," replied Fesz firmly, "and from there to Karthay to assist the Nightmaster in the final preparations."

  "Is this human who escaped the mysterious mage you have been seeking?" asked Akz, the leader of the navy. "I do not intend to mobilize my fleet unless I have absolute assurances that nothing has interfered with the Nightmaster's plans to bring Sargonnas into this world."

  "We have lavished great resources on the Nightmaster and his effort," noted the keeper of the treasury, Groppis.

  "As for me," put in Atra Cura, the pirate representative, "of course I believe and trust in the Nightmaster, but some of my loose federation of followers are independent-minded, and will require more than my word to go on."

  The others nodded and murmured in agreement.

  Fesz took a long moment to reply, placing his hands on the table and lowering his eyes to gaze at them from beneath hooded lids. His eyes were deep, his expression furious, yet he managed to calm himself and took a deep breath.

  "I am one of the three chosen shamans of the Nightmaster," said Fesz in a low, ominous rumble, "and I do not need to reply to each of your individual craven anxieties. Your petty fears do dishonor to all minotaurs and to your status as members of the Supreme Circle.

  "The Nightmaster has informed you that he will cast a remarkable spell to bring Sargonnas, the Lord of Dark Vengeance, into the world. Much expense and preparation has gone into that spell. And everything will happen according to plan when the heavens are in conjunction four days from now, in early nighttime when the stars are at their zenith."

  There were gasps from several of the members of the Supreme Circle. Until now, the Nightmaster hadn't revealed the precise timetable of the spell. Fesz's mention of the exact date and time had had the intended effect of making all the worry and opposition among the assembled leaders disappear.

  "What about this escaped prisoner?" asked the king.

  "I do not believe he is the human called Raistlin," Fesz answered respectfully, "but I will stop in Atossa on the way to Karthay and make certain."

  "Where is this Raistlin, then?"

  "That I do not know," admitted Fesz. "Perhaps he isn't coming after all. Perhaps we have overestimated him in our minds. In any case, I don't think Raistlin Majere is anything but a minor annoyance, a mosquito on the arse of a woolly mammoth."

  The eight members of the Supreme Circle chuckled at Fesz's use of an old minotaur adage.

  The king looked satisfied. "What about the kender?" he wanted to know. "Is he still under the effects of the evil potion?"

  Fesz nodded. "Most assuredly he is," rumbled Fesz, "and he has proved quite helpful as an ally. I plan to take him with me to Atossa and Karthay. I hope to persuade the Nightmaster that he might play a role in the ritual."

  The king looked skeptical.

  "Do not fear," the shaman minotaur said smoothly. "Before I depart, I will be sure to double the dose of his potion."

  Chapter 11

  The Ancient Kyrie

  Although be bounced and jostled inside the sack, which withstood his repeated efforts to tear a hole in it so that he could see out, Caramon didn't sense he was in any immediate danger.

  The Majere twin guessed he was being transported a great distance away from the minotaur prison, although who his rescuers were and why they had taken him remained a puzzle. As glad as he was to be free of the minotaurs, Caramon fretted about leaving Sturm behind, and he realized that he was someone else's prisoner now. In effect, he had traded one captivity for another.

  His uneasiness wasn't relieved, over the course of the next two hours, by the distinct impression that he was being swept through the air. Caramon could feel no hard surface beneath or on either side of the burlap sack. The only noises that reached his ears sounded like nothing so much as the steady beating of wings and the occasional caw of a giant bird.

  Somewhere in the back of his mind, the young warrior seemed to remember having heard a similar cawing once before.

  Eventually Caramon had the sensation he was descending from a great height, a descent that ended with the burlap sack, with him still curled up inside, bumping and scraping along rocky ground. Moments later, someone tugged the sack open. On wobbly legs, Caramon stepped out.

  A spectacular sight greeted him.

  He stood on a ledge in a high-walled canyon that wound out of sight to his left and right. The sides of the canyon were honeycombed with dozens of caves stretching as far as the eye could see. And perched in front of the caves, as if to greet him, were hundreds of an ancient and wondrous folk whose remote civilization few humans ever had been privileged to glimpse.

  A welcoming committee of these fantastical "bird-people" stood with Caramon on the ledge. They were a mix of hawk and human, walking upright on long, sinewy legs that ended in birdlike talons. Huge feathered wings sprouted from their backs and attached t
o their arms and hands. With growing excitement, Caramon thought, Why, they look just like . . .

  . . . like the broken man back in the prison cell. These were his people! Those terrible wounds on his back and shoulders, Caramon now realized, must have been where the minotaurs had ripped off his wings.

  The bird-man nearest Caramon was the one who had rescued the Majere twin from captivity. He was taller than Caramon, and leaner. His bronzed face, quite human in appearance, was fiercely handsome. Rather than hair, flowing golden feathers grew from his head. Fine brown pinfeathers covered his chest. He wore no clothing other than a waistcloth of leather.

  "Who are you?" Caramon asked his rescuer.

  "In your language," the bird-man said with pride in the common tongue, "I am Cloudreaver."

  Caramon fumbled for the proper words. "What are you?"

  Cloudreaver frowned and stepped aside, gesturing with his wings to one of the bird-people behind him. His pebble-black eyes watched Caramon haughtily.

  Following Cloudreaver's gesture, Caramon saw an elder whom he had not noticed at first. Others grouped protectively around this venerable bird-man who shuffled forward on clawed feet to meet Caramon. In spite of his odd gait, he moved with dignity and grace.

  The elder bird-man's feather hair was silver white and streamed down to his chest. Many year of exposure to the sun and elements had darkened and lined his face. In spite of his apparent age, muscles rippled across his chest and in his sinewy legs.

  Slightly bent over, his head cocked to one side, the elder bird-man approached Caramon with a glimmer of warmth in his clear yellow eyes. "We are the kyrie," explained the elder, his speech clipped but precise. "I am Arikara—in your tongue, Sun Feather, leader of the people who inhabit the skies."