The Companions

by Tina Daniel

  Two other members of the Supreme Circle had unquestioned loyalty to the king and backed his policies despite personal qualms about allegiances with the ogres and orughi. Victri, chosen leader of the rural minotaurs, would gladly fight in any war decreed by the king, yet he nurtured misgivings about this one and secretly hoped the Nightmaster would fail. The great scholar and historian, Juvabit, also voted with the king, whom he had known through family ties dating back to his youth. But the rational Juvabit distrusted the mystical Nightmaster and his obsessive cult. So Juvabit, too, privately wished the Nightmaster would be unsuccessful.

  Groppis, keeper of the treasury, held no opinion other than that he wished the whole thing hadn’t cost so much money to this point—almost as much as he wished the mapped-out campaign for the future conquest of Ansalon was budgeted at less.

  That left the sole female, Kharis-O, leader of the nomadic minotaurs, and Bartill, head of the architectural and construction guilds.

  There was nothing duplicitous about their expressed views. Both were on record against the alliance, the planned war, and the grandiose schemes of the Nightmaster: Bartill, because he was always preoccupied with his own projects and need for money; Kharis-O, because she represented separatist clans and was herself exceedingly contrary. Regularly she voted against the majority, and regularly she lost.

  However, like Bartill, Kharis-O was fully prepared to go to war. A minotaur was loyal unto death, and honor required that both act in accordance with all the decisions of the Supreme Circle.

  The eight members of the Supreme Circle had been summoned by the king to await the coming of Sargonnas.

  The eight waited in the main hall of the palace. Some drummed fingers on the large oaken table. Some paced the room, snorting with irritation when they brushed shoulders with each other. Some lay their horned bull heads down on the oaken table, snoring gutturally.

  Tomorrow night would be the time.

  The sanctum of the Nightmaster was perfectly fascinating, Tasslehoff Burrfoot had to admit.

  Crumbling walls dotted the dry, broken land. Here and there a few columns, all that was left of the temples of the fabled city, slanted toward the sky. Tumbled masonry lay everywhere. A broken statuette or two stood among the rubble.

  Fissures, the result of earthquakes that had rocked the once-great city, zigzagged across the ground, contributing to the eerie landscape. Gray and black ash, some hardened into a brittle crust, blanketed everything.

  The Nightmaster watched Tasslehoff as the kender picked his way across part of the dead city, plucking up an occasional ash-covered object and stuffing it in his backpack. Tas turned, saw the Nightmaster observing him, and waved, bounding back in his direction.

  “Isn’t the kender … interesting?” asked Fesz, for lack of a better word. The shaman was standing at the Nightmaster’s elbow. “I trust you agree that it was a good idea to bring him here. Tasslehoff has been very helpful with information about all of his former friends, and he begged to accompany me.”

  “You’re certain that he is evil?” rumbled the Nightmaster, tilting his head to peer at the approaching kender with his big bull eyes.

  “He drinks a double dose of the potion every day. And he has given me no cause to doubt him.”

  “What is that strange wooden stick across his back?”

  “It is called a hoopak, my lord,” replied Fesz. “The kender says it is an invincible weapon.” The shaman minotaur cracked a jagged smile. “I don’t see any harm in indulging his childishness.”

  The Nightmaster cast a sideways glance at his disciple. Fesz was in line to succeed him. In some ways, he was the Nightmaster’s most shrewd and trusted disciple, but in other ways, the Nightmaster knew, Fesz was the most guileless, the most trusting of minotaurs.

  “What about the human, Sturm?”

  “An incident that does dishonor to all minotaurs,” agreed Fesz, “but Tasslehoff cannot be suspected. Sturm was within moments of losing the duel, and Tas was cheering as loudly as the rest of us. No minotaur was more upset and angry at the rescue than Tasslehoff himself. He insisted that several of the guards be put to death as punishment for allowing the Solamnic to escape! Why, he asked to execute one himself. Of course, we couldn’t allow that because of the High Laws, but the fact remains, he asked.”

  The Nightmaster seemed to ponder this information. Then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he turned back to his room without walls that had once been the entrance to the great library. As he moved with animal grace, feathers rustled in the wind and the bells draping his immense shoulders and horns jingled.

  “Hullo, Nightmaster!” Tasslehoff chirped after him.

  The Nightmaster didn’t turn around to acknowledge the kender’s greeting. The high shaman sat heavily at his long table, while the other two members of the High Three hastened to bring him spellbooks and components. These he arranged in front of him, inspecting and comparing them, while making notes with a quill pen.

  “Kind of standoffish, isn’t he?” asked Tas.

  “The time is near,” rumbled Fesz solemnly. “The Nightmaster is concentrating all of his attention on the task at hand. I must go to him, Tasslehoff, and help him with the preparations.”

  Fesz turned and crossed over to the long table, where he took his place with the other two high acolytes of the Nightmaster. As the Nightmaster bent to his calculations, the High Three stood behind him, careful not to interrupt but quick to do his bidding each time he growled an instruction.

  Tas shrugged and skipped over to where Kitiara was imprisoned in her wood-slatted cage. She looked a tad gaunt and unbathed, he thought to himself. He noticed that Dogz, sprawled on a blanket nearby, was watching him intently.

  “So, Kit,” said Tasslehoff, nonchalantly, “how’d you get to Karthay so quick? I’m impressed. I bet it was something magical, wasn’t it?”

  Kitiara looked at him stonily.

  “Well, tell me this, then. How’d you get captured so easily? I thought Caramon was the only stupid Majere.”

  She glared at him and bit off the words. “How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not a Majere!”

  Tas shrugged. “Well, half a Majere, then. Probably the half that got captured.” He chuckled at his own jest.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, this place is crawling with minotaurs. How was I supposed to know that?”

  Tas cut her off. “Hey, I hear you’re going to be sacrificed when the time comes—tomorrow night, Fesz tells me—so if you have any messages you want me to give to Raistlin if I ever see him again, you might want to tell me now.”

  With all the strength she had left, Kit hurled herself futilely against the side of the cage. The slats shuddered, and the kender backed up a safe distance. Kit pressed her face against the slats and snarled in Tasslehoff’s face.

  “I don’t know what mischief you’re brewing, Tasslehoff,” hissed Kit, “but if I ever get out of here, I’ll wrap my hands around your treacherous little neck and squeeze the life out of you!”

  “Well, I’m sorry that you’re taking that attitude,” said Tas in a hurt tone, “because we are such old and dear friends. Besides,” he added mischievously, “I wonder if you’re not just a little bit jealous. Admit it, you wouldn’t mind being evil for a while yourself.…”

  Kit stared daggers at him.

  Tasslehoff backstepped toward Dogz, grinning. The kender turned and looked at the minotaur, who eyed him ruefully.

  “Now what’s the matter with you?” asked Tas, plopping himself down on the ground next to the minotaur who was supposed to be guarding him.

  “Nothing, friend Tas,” said Dogz, picking up some dry ash and letting it sift through his fingers. He avoided Tas’s eyes.

  “Nothing, friend Tas,” mimicked Tas in a singsong voice. He glanced around, estimating there were about a dozen minotaurs surrounding the perimeter of the Nightmaster’s encampment. They carried all manner of weapons—double-edged axes, studded clubs, throwing spears, and barbed wh
ips. Dozens more roamed farther out.

  By contrast, none of the High Three were armed, nor was the Nightmaster. Only Dogz carried a broadsword, katar, and chain flail.

  Dogz lowered his voice to a soft growl. “Sometimes I wonder about you, friend Tas,” said the minotaur.

  “Wonder what?”

  “If you are really a friend to all these people—first, Sturm. And now this female, Kitiara. The way you treat them.”

  Tas patted Dogz on the shoulder. “Well, I got turned into an evil kender, right?” Tas reminded Dogz. “I’m just doing my best to act like one. Sure, they used to be my friends. But that was when I was good —well, pretty good—most of the time, anyway. Now I’m evil. And if I betray them, I’m just doing my job in the evil category. You ought to be proud of me.”

  “Yes,” said Dogz hestitantly.

  “The way I look at it,” Tas expanded, lying back on the ash-covered ground, clasping his hands behind his head, “I’m a kind of honorary minotaur nowadays. Didn’t you tell me once that might makes right and the minotaur race was going to conquer the world someday, and all that stuff?”

  “Yes,” replied Dogz once again.

  “Well, I’m just proving my loyalty to the minotaur nation. If you had a choice between betraying your nation or betraying your friends—oops, I mean used-to-be friends—which would you do?”

  The minotaur dipped his huge horns, and when he looked up, his eyes were huge and sad. His fetid breath nearly overwhelmed Tas. “I don’t know. Betray my friends, I suppose,” he added slowly, obviously confused.

  “Aren’t you looking forward to the time when Sargonnas comes into the world?”

  Dogz looked over to where the Nightmaster sat reading his spellbooks. Behind him, the High Three stood purposefully.

  “Yes,” said Dogz.

  “Well, see? So am I,” said Tas triumphantly. He patted Dogz’s shoulder. “Don’t worry so much, Dogz,” added the kender. “It’ll put wrinkles on your snout.” Tas yawned exaggeratedly. “Now I’m going to catch some much-needed rest.”

  The kender closed his eyes. A moment later, he opened one to monitor Dogz’s reaction.

  Dogz had sat up and was cleaning and polishing his weapons with a faraway look. Like Tasslehoff, the minotaur used to have clearly defined friends and enemies—take kender, for instance. Dogz used to loathe kender, even though he had never met or seen one. When he had first encountered Tasslehoff aboard the Venora, he didn’t even want to touch him. He regarded Tas as worse than an enemy, as one of the lowest beings on the scale of creation.

  But after taking Tas prisoner and spending a good deal of time with him, Dogz had grown fond of the quirky little kender. He admired his pluck and bravery under torture, his sense of humor in dire situations. From conversations with Tas, he had learned a lot about Solace and the kender’s friends—especially the gruff dwarf Flint Fireforge and Tas’s Uncle Trapspringer—and he had come to think of them as his friends, too.

  Dogz had plenty of relatives, but he didn’t have that many friends. Friendship was an entirely new concept to him, and Tas was responsible for teaching it to him.

  Then Tasslehoff had been turned evil by Fesz, and he had changed. He became demanding, less fun to be around. Maybe the evil Tas would help bring Sargonnas into the world, but Dogz wasn’t sure that he didn’t like the old version of the kender better.

  Dogz sighed. He bent to scrape some dirt off his katar, a long blade on an H-shaped hilt, oiling and polishing the unusual dagger as he thought long and hard about the subject of friendship.

  Twenty yards away, in her wooden cage, Kitiara paced restlessly. Her watchful eyes missed nothing. She strained her ears to pick up scraps of conversations around her as the words drifted to her across the broken ground. Kit wasn’t the world’s greatest fan of kender, but she definitely liked Tasslehoff better the way he had been before.

  The Nightmaster had mentioned Sturm, so apparently the Solamnic was still alive. And the other day, Kit had heard him speak of Caramon and Raistlin, too. It was clear they were all somewhere in this vicinity and that the Nightmaster feared their intrusion.

  That thought brought a lopsided smile to Kit’s face.

  The sun had reached its highest point. The land baked and cracked under its intensity. The thick-skinned minotaurs seemed oblivious to the conditions. Dogz methodically cleaned and oiled his weapons. The minotaur guards on the perimeter passed in and out of Kit’s sight on their appointed rounds.

  The Nightmaster continued to sit at his long table, sorting and sifting ingredients for the monumental spell he would cast tomorrow night.

  One of the few benefits of Kit’s cramped cage was that the wooden slats over her head kept out the worst of the sunlight. Her gaze flicked over to the traitorous kender. His eyes were closed. Tasslehoff Burrfoot appeared to be sleeping peacefully.

  As the Nightmaster labored over his spell, he thought back to his moment of ephiphany five days before—one day before the human female was captured—when at last the timing of the spell had been confirmed and Sargonnas had revealed himself to the minotaur.

  He had been up on the mountain plateau, at noonday, with the colored glass prisms, crystals, and silver shards of mirror scattered around him. In them he was reading the movement of the stars and the sun, reckoning their positions in the heavens in relation to the two moons, and coming to the conclusion that all the externals were right.

  Suddenly he spied a ripple in one of the reflective surfaces. Glancing around rapidly, he saw flickers and ripples in the pieces of shiny cut glass. As the Nightmaster watched in wonderment, the flickering and rippling took shape, so that each fragment of glass held a piece of the face of the God of Dark Vengeance.

  A terrible, fearsome, obscure face, misted with red, stared at the Nightmaster through brooding black eyes.

  Then all of a sudden, flickering in the pieces of glass, the image of Sargonnas vanished.

  His eyes drawn skyward, the Nightmaster beheld a great red condor with black plumage, a wingspan that seemed to blanket the sky, and a curiously small, naked head. Fire licked at the tips of its wings.

  Greetings, Nightmaster, servant of evil.

  The red condor had seemed to speak inside the Nightmaster’s head with a silky, enticing voice. Tongues of flame darted from the corners of its beak.

  Greetings, Sargonnas, God of Dark Vengeance, ally of Takhisis.

  The Nightmaster had never felt so powerful—nor so humbled—as then, when Sargonnas had first spoken to him.

  Your plan is known to me. For centuries, I have waited for someone with your audacity and courage. For centuries, I have plotted to enter the material world and wreak havoc with my powers. For centuries, I have been foiled. Have you taken every precaution with the spell? Are you ready for the time?

  Yes, Lord.

  Are you watchful of deceit? Treachery?

  Yes, Lord.

  Are you worthy?

  I trust, Lord.

  Do not fail me. Do not dare to fail me, or you will learn that my vengeance reaches everywhere.

  With that, the red condor had shimmered in the sun, then evaporated as if it had never been there.

  The Nightmaster sank to his knees, turning his head, dazed. The conversation with Sargonnas had taken place entirely in his mind. Looking around, he could see the minotaur guards standing idly at their positions. They had neither heard nor seen Sargonnas.

  The same was true of the two members of the High Three, who hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary—until now.

  One of them had come running up to the Nightmaster. “Are you all right, Excellency?” the young, bulging bull-man asked solicitously.

  The Nightmaster hadn’t answered immediately. The young shaman had struggled to help the Nightmaster to his feet.

  “Are you all right, Excellency?”

  The voice this time belonged to Fesz. Standing behind the Nightmaster, the shaman had stepped forward and tapped him on the shoulder.

>   Jolted back to the present, the Nightmaster was confronted by one of the officers of the minotaur troops. He stood in front of the Nightmaster, who had been lost in thought at his long table in the middle of the dead city. The Nightmaster blinked, eyeing the horned soldier in front of him, and growled a reply to Fesz.

  “Yes, of course I’m all right.”

  “I bear news,” said the minotaur soldier. “The companions who landed on the south shore of the island have been joined by a host of kyrie.”

  “Kyrie,” grunted the Nightmaster. “How many?”

  “At least six, maybe as many as fifteen,” replied the soldier, adding smugly, “probably all members of the Warrior Society. But we can handle that number easily. We could handle ten times that number.”

  “Yes.”

  The minotaur soldier hesitated.

  “Yes?”

  “They are marching in this direction. They seem to know precisely where they are headed.”

  “Why do they march? Why do the kyrie not fly them here?”

  “We are puzzled by that, too, Excellency,” replied the soldier. “It may be that there are too many of them to be carried by the kyrie, or that they must rest up after coming from the mountains of Mithas.”

  “Pah!” snorted the Nightmaster so vehemently that the minotaur soldier drew back a step. “The kyrie do not tire so easily. There must be another reason, which we will soon learn.”

  The minotaur soldier sounded less complacent. “Yes,” replied the soldier in a chastened rumble. “We estimate they will be here by midday tomorrow.”

  “Good.”

  To the surprise of the minotaur soldier, the Nightmaster didn’t seem the least bit annoyed by this intelligence. Indeed he seemed refreshed and returned to his work, writing vigorously in the margins of the book he had been studying.

  The Nightmaster looked up. This time he did sound irritated. “Yes? Is there something else?”

  “N-No, Excellency,” stammered the soldier, then turned to go.