by Tina Daniel
“Be careful, you fools!” Cleef-Eth mentioned several times during the torture process. “The Nightmaster has given strict instructions that the kender must be kept alive until he talks!”
That meant they couldn’t cut out his tongue—which was too bad, Tas reflected, because that was quite effective as a torture tool.
After the torture masters had spent a couple of days punching and kicking him without much result, except for the bruises and the blood, the kender tried to help out Cleef-Eth and his lieutenants with more imaginative suggestions.
“Why not hang me up somewhere by my topknot?” advised Tas.
Cleef-Eth thought that was a good idea, so for an entire day and night, during which he didn’t get much sleep, Tas hung off the ground from a hook embedded in the ceiling, dangling from his topknot. His face turned beet red, and he nearly strangled. Tas had to admit that it really hurt. He congratulated Cleef-Eth on his excellent torture, but it didn’t produce what the minotaurs wanted to know.
“Cut off my topknot so that I am shamed,” suggested Tas, improvising. “A kender without long hair is a social leper, sort of like a cowhead without horns.”
Cleef-Eth thought that was worth a try, too, so the minotaur torturers snipped Tas’s topknot right down to his pate. Tasslehoff was extremely ashamed—for about five minutes. After that, he realized the only people who were going to see his shorn topknot anyway were these smelly minotaurs. He also decided the effect was not entirely unhandsome, and perhaps he ought to cut off his topknot more often. All the same, polite to the core, he congratulated the minotaurs on their torturing ability and their willingness to try new techniques.
Of course, Cleef-Eth and the minotaur torturers had some ideas of their own. Tas had to admit that some of them weren’t without their merit.
They tried starving him, although Tas detested their jailhouse gruel anyway. The only torture in not eating was that he didn’t get to see Dogz, whom he had grown rather fond of. But lately when Dogz brought food, he did so under the watchful glare of Cleef-Eth and consequently didn’t risk speaking to Tasslehoff.
The minotaur torturers broke all the fingers of one of Tas’s hands, one by one, using a stone hammer on one, bending another back until it snapped, and so on. That hurt plenty. But a kender’s fingers, long and slender, are like the bones of a human baby’s. They hurt, but they heal quickly. Tasslehoff knew this and did his best to endure the pain honorably, as his friend Sturm probably would have done.
Where were Caramon and Sturm, anyway? Were they dead? During the torture, Tas concentrated on worrying about his two friends. They were probably in need of rescuing. When he got out of his present mess, he would certainly endeavor to find them.
The minotaur torturers tried immersing Tas in freezing ice water. It took three of the horned beasts to hold his bobbing head beneath the surface of a huge tub. They held it under for a long, long time. Tas held his breath for as long as he was able, then couldn’t hold it any longer. He had to admit he almost drowned. That might have been the best torture, if he was ranking them according to effectiveness. But still the kender didn’t tell Cleef-Eth what the minotaur wanted to know.
Cleef-Eth kept repeating the same questions: “Are you a mage? Why were you seeking these spell components? If you are not a mage, in whose behalf are you working?”
Naturally Tas couldn’t answer those questions because it was bound to get Raistlin into a lot of trouble. Poor Raistlin … although perhaps he wasn’t someone you’d want to invite to a party, Tas liked him and knew that the mage wouldn’t fare well in this type of situation.
Then suddenly the torture stopped.
For several days, Tasslehoff was left alone. His only visitor was Dogz. The first day after the minotaurs stopped torturing him, Dogz had come down the steps, bringing the kender the first bowl of gruel he had been offered for quite some time. The minotaur put it down gently outside Tas’s cell and slid it under the bars with his foot.
Because Tas’s right eye was swollen shut and the other one was matted with blood and dirt, and because he didn’t feel much like eating anyway, he didn’t rush up and grab the gruel and gratefully start to eat. He didn’t even look up or say anything to Dogz. So he didn’t see how Dogz looked.
His eyes downcast, Dogz slipped away. It was only after the minotaur was gone, hours later, after the kender had decided to check it out, that Tas realized the bowl didn’t contain the usual gruel. It was bran meal, cold by now but not all that bad, considering it was cooked by minotaurs. That Dogz!
After that, for several days, Dogz brought hot bran meal, and Tasslehoff slowly got better. His cuts and bruises would heal in time, and some fuzz sprouted where his topknot had been.
He and Dogz got to talking again. “Why did they stop the torturing, Dogz?” the kender asked.
Dogz looked over his shoulder at the steps leading upward. “I don’t know if I should be telling you,” rumbled the minotaur.
“Why not?” asked Tasslehoff innocently. “You tell me everything else. I already know about your brother, who got killed in a barroom brawl; and your uncle, who was one of the Supreme Council before he was killed in the gladiatorial arena; and your cousin’s wife, who got into an argument with a metalsmith, who pulled a knife and … Hey, did it ever occur to you that your family might be cursed? Everybody seems to get killed.” Tas paused, happily licking bran meal off the wooden spoon. He knew by now that he had to stop talking in order to coax a reply from Dogz.
“So why did they stop torturing me?”
“It is because the Nightmaster is sending a high emisarry to interrogate you,” rumbled Dogz.
“A what?”
“One of the chief disciples of his cult.”
“Oh. Is that good or bad?”
Dogz’s face creased in thought. “I do not know,” he said honestly, “but it is a great honor for Lacynos to host him. It is rare that the Nightmaster sends one of the High Three all the way from Karthay. I cannot remember the last time.”
“Why doesn’t he come himself?” asked Tasslehoff.
Dogz emitted a long, low chuckle, showing yellowed teeth. “The Nightmaster rarely leaves Karthay,” answered Dogz. “Karthay is his domain.”
“Have you ever seen him?”
“Of course not,” snorted Dogz.
“Then how do you know he exists?”
Dogz scowled. “That is not funny at all, friend Tas. He is the highest priest of our religion. He is a direct link to Sargonnas, the god we worship.”
“Hmm,” said Tas. “Sargonnas, consort of Takhisis …” Tas finished licking the spoon and pushed it and the bowl back under the barred cell.
“Yes,” said Dogz enthusiastically. “Faithful servant of the Queen of Darkness. I did not know you were so knowledgeable about the gods of Krynn.”
“Oh, I dabble in lots of things. I pick up a little information wherever I go—speaking of which, if this Nightmaster lives on the island of Karthay and never leaves, what is he so busy doing there?”
Dogz hesitated, then shook his head.
A shout came from above. Tas recognized the voice of Sarkis, who was never far away, especially when he had a chance to order Dogz around.
Looking flustered, Dogz grabbed the spoon and empty bowl, then hurried back up the stairs.
One day not long afterward, Dogz brought ordinary, disgusting gruel again. Tas guessed it was a sign that the Nightmaster’s high emissary had arrived.
Later that day, a group of minotaurs thundered down the steps to look at Tasslehoff. Apart from a couple of familiar torture masters, they included Sarkis, looking humble and outranked by Cleef-Eth, and a newcomer who was distinct from the others.
Tas studied the newcomer closely. He appeared to be a kind of shaman, young and bulging with muscles, dressed in fur and feathered headgear. His horns were massive, almost brushing the high ceiling.
The others seemed to defer to the shaman, who paced back and forth, cocking his head this way and
that at Tasslehoff.
“Look lively, kender,” growled Sarkis. “You have an important visitor.”
The shaman minotaur looked up, frowning. Cleef-Eth threw Sarkis an annoyed glance.
Always happy for company, Tas did his best to look bright and attractive for the important visitor, which was quite a challenge, considering that he was covered with healing wounds, his clothes were in tatters, and his feet were bare and blistered. He gazed up into the face of the important visitor, who gazed intently back at him.
“We’ve tried everything on the little nuisance, Fesz,” complained Cleef-Eth to the shaman. “He just won’t cooperate. I think it best to kill him and be done with it.”
“You are not paid to think,” rumbled Fesz, almost gently, Tas thought. “If you were, your pay would be very low indeed.”
Cleef-Eth snorted but didn’t say anything. Fesz turned back to the barred cell. As the kender didn’t quite come up to the huge minotaur’s chest, Fesz squatted down on his knees and peered directly into the face of the kender.
Tas smelled the minotaur’s fetid breath, his foul armpits, his rank strips of furred clothing, but he was too well-mannered to mention any of this just now.
“You are such a handsome sprite of a fellow,” purred Fesz, reaching out with his big, sinewy hand to stroke Tas’s cheek.
His voice was lyrical and had a soothing effect on the kender. His hand kind of felt good, Tas had to admit.
“You are not our enemy; you are our friend,” rumbled Fesz. “I can see that. It’s wrong that they have treated you so badly.” His head flicked scoldingly in the direction of Cleef-Eth. “Wrong and cruel. These city dwellers have such crude methods. It makes my heart heavy to see that they have inflicted pain upon you. The Nightmaster himself has sent me. I came on his behalf as soon as I learned of your predicament.”
Tas was listening. Although the breath was still fetid, the words were lulling. And behind the fist-sized eyes of the shaman, he thought he saw a gleam of kindness that gave him hope.
“I have brought you a restorative, Tasslehoff Burrfoot,” rumbled Fesz soothingly. “It will do the job much more considerately than torture. It will make you my friend, and it will make my friends your friends, my enemies your enemies. You have an understandable inclination to act for the cause of good. However, this will put you on my side … the side of evil.”
The huge hands of the minotaur reached a little farther and clutched Tas by the throat, holding him firmly but not too hard; he could still breathe. Tas squirmed uncomfortably as the minotaur pulled him closer. Held not only by the throat but by the shaman’s compelling gaze, Tas saw Fesz gesture with his other hand. One of the minotaur retinue hastened forward, carrying an ornamented drinking goblet. Self-importantly, Cleef-Eth grabbed the goblet from the minotaur and stepped up behind Fesz.
Fesz pried the kender’s jaws open as Cleef-Eth poured a greenish gold liquid from the goblet down Tas’s throat. Not bad-tasting, Tasslehoff thought. As for turning him evil, Tas felt it was an intriguing idea. It was Tas’s last conscious thought.
The kender’s head drooped downward as the potion began to take effect. Fesz let him slump to the floor.
Standing, Fesz looked at Tasslehoff Burrfoot with satisfaction. “Put him in my guest quarters,” commanded the shaman. “I will deal with him myself. From this moment on, he is one of us.”
Cleef-Eth turned to bark orders, but Fesz grabbed him by the shoulder and whirled him around. The shaman struck out at the jailer, hitting him across the face and knocking him down with violent force. Cleef-Eth staggered up from the floor, rubbing his cheek ruefully, but he didn’t dare retaliate. Instead, he made a slight, pathetic bow.
Sarkis and the other minotaurs smirked in the background.
“This kender is no mage!” Fesz growled at Cleef-Eth angrily. “Any fool can see that!”
For hundreds of years, the island of Karthay was thought to be abandoned and desolate. Few travelers journeyed there. Those that did risked being greeted by giant insects, swarms of locusts, lumbering umber hulks, and deadly sand creatures who creeped and crawled among its dunes and rocks. Few could survive the howling wind and stinging sand, let alone the harsh, uncompromising heat of the endless days and the bitter cold of the torturous nights on the island.
Hundreds of years ago—nobody knew exactly when—a great city had existed on this island, a fabled city that was also called Karthay. It was the site of magnificent buildings, clean and ordered streets, and a flourishing civilization. It was said to house a great university of higher learning and a library reknowned for its huge store of books.
Then, hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago, some unknown disaster befell the city of Karthay. Now it lay buried under tons of rock beneath a collapsed cliff face on the south shore of the island. Here and there, broken stone and identifiable pieces of buildings jutted up from the ground. In the collapse of the great city, numerous tunnels and canyons had formed among the rubble, a skein of underground passages, some treacherous with trapped gases, others dotted with sandpits, still others extending safely and uninterrupted for miles.
The inhospitable climate in the haunted ruins made it a congenial setting for the Nightmaster. Although a few unsettling problems had arisen, his plan to summon Sargonnas, to bring the god of vengeance into the world, and to forge alliances with the hostile and evil races of Ansalon was progressing.
The Nightmaster had fashioned his sanctuary in a hollowed-out area of the shattered ruins where once the great library had stood. Of that once great repository of learning, only a few isolated columns and occasional windblown scraps of ancient books remained. Fires ringed the Nightmaster’s camp, which was open to the sky.
Never far from the Nightmaster, serving his every whim and learning from his every word and deed, were the two remaining shaman minotaurs of the High Three. Around the perimeter of the sanctuary, at a respectful distance, camped a group of devoted disciples and a small army of stalwart minotaurs who stayed in Karthay for the Nightmaster to command.
On this night, the camp entertained a rare visitor, one who brought the Nightmaster vital information. A scaly creature with tiny wings and an ugly snout, the visitor sat on a broken wall near the high cleric of the minotaurs, sating its thirst on strong, hot spirits after its long journey. Its actual appearance was known only to the Nightmaster and the High Three. The nearby disciples and armed minotaurs, if they endeavored to peer through the darkness, would have seen only a small figure wrapped in a cape and hood.
“I adopted a clever disguise,” reported the scaly, snouted creature, its voice harsh and piercing, “and asked everyone that I met in this dull and backward place, but nobody knew where they had gone or why.” The creature refilled its stone cup and took a long, satisfying drink.
An acrid, sulfurous smell emanated from the creature and traveled on the wind to the encamped minotaurs. Several of those horned bull-men, notorious for their own stench, exchanged looks.
The Nightmaster, his eyes huge and intelligent, shifted his weight as he listened. Tiny bells jingled whenever he moved. Around his shoulders, he had draped a heavy fur robe. He sighed, waiting for the scaly one to go on.
The wind picked up, shrieking through the ruins, blowing sand and dirt into their faces. The blistering heat of the day had become the harsh cold of night.
“But through my contacts,” the creature hissed, “I discovered that one of them had sent a message to a young female, apparently his sister. And this female is on her way here!”
“Here?”
Looking guardedly over his shoulder, the scaly creature leaned over and whispered to the Nightmaster, telling him how the one called Kitiara had received the message and departed immediately. She could be expected to arrive on the island within days. With a ghastly wink, the scaly one assured the Nightmaster that its sources were impeccable, that this news could be relied upon.
Puffed up with arrogant pride, the visitor took another long drink.
“Yes,” hissed the visitor, “and the young mage has disappeared. He and two friends have left Solace. They, too, may be on their way here.”
Sighing, the Nightmaster raised his huge head, his horns stabbing upward as he cast his eyes toward the dark sky, searching for omens. The Nightmaster wasn’t worried. He, above all, had supreme confidence.
Something was afoot, but it couldn’t be anything serious. These were minor irritants. Fesz had been dispatched to deal with the prisoner in Lacynos. He himself would be prepared to greet the young female. The others, wherever they had disappeared to, would be found. In any case, what danger could they pose to the inevitability of Sargonnas?
“You have done well,” growled the Nightmaster to the scaly creature.
The scaly one gulped more spirits. He would depart before daylight. Nobody could attest to having seen him. Nobody would be able to say who or what had served the Nightmaster.
CHAPTER 7
ESCAPE FROM OGREBOND
———
THUD.
Raistlin, Flint, and Tanis landed in a heap in the middle of the floor of a small rectangular, unassuming room with bleached walls. Although mere seconds had passed since they leaped off the precipice, time had seemed to stop and stretch during their fall. All three found themselves breathless, dazed, and disoriented. Flint was the first of the companions to stumble to his feet, followed by the half-elf and the young mage.
No windows or vents broke the smooth stone walls and ceiling of the room where they found themselves. The only entrance appeared to be a thick oaken door. Stunned by the experience of traveling through the portal, Tanis crawled over and pressed his ear against the door but could hear nothing.
