Sheathing his sword, Darius began, “We’ve only just arrived in Vingaard Keep, friend, and we-”
The other knight leaned forward, as if seeing his counterpart’s companions for the first time. “Demonspawn!”
Without explanation, Darius suddenly found himself backing up before a sword strike intended to lop his head off. Kaz, seeing that his comrade would not be able to free his sword in time, charged forward, battle-axe thrust out before him. The longsword’s blade bounced off the side of the axe head with a sharp ting! and the attacking knight lost his grip on the weapon. It fell to the ground even as Kaz continued his charge, barreling into his adversary before the man could recover. As the two of them collided, the minotaur was nearly overwhelmed by an odd stench emitted by the knight. The two of them fell to the ground, Kaz on top.
Kaz had always considered his strength far superior to that of most humans. Even among his own kind, Kaz’s strength had won him renown in the arenas where he had vied for rank among his fellows. Now, though, he found himself struggling to maintain his advantage. The knight not only matched his power, but he also began to overcome the minotaur.
“Darius!” he succeeded in grunting. His companion hesitated, caught between loyalty to the order and his growing friendship with the minotaur. At last he moved to aid Kaz.
‘Take… off… his helm!”
The unknown knight struggled in vain as Darius worked the helm off. Darius almost dropped it when he saw the face of the knight.
“Hit him!”
Gritting his teeth and praying to Paladine for forgiveness, Darius struck his brother knight hard across the jaw, and then struck him again when the other did not flinch. This time the man was stunned. The trapped knight continued to struggle mindlessly, however, and Kaz was forced to administer a final punch to the jaw.
‘The first soul we run into in Vingaard, and it turns out to be a berserker,” Kaz muttered, rubbing his own throat. There was some bleeding, he could tell, and no doubt there would be marks of the struggle for the next few days.
Thinking of the cleric, Kaz whirled around, almost expecting to discover that she, like Delbin, had vanished. Instead, he found her watching them with some relief.
“I’m sorry, Kaz, Darius. I tried my best, but he wouldn’t react.”
“React?”
“I was trying to put him to sleep. His resistance was incredible.”
“Not surprising,” Darius replied softly. He was kneeling next to his counterpart, examining his armor and face. “He is a Knight of the Rose. They have some power of their own in matters of faith.”
Kaz stood and sniffed in disgust. “Evidently he does not have much of a sense of cleanliness.”
The minotaur had confronted many knights in his time, and unlike some orders, the Knights of Solamnia believed in the virtues of fastidiousness. Not so, apparently, this knight. His armor was old, dented, and covered with grime. His mustache was unkempt, almost wild, and his hair was a tangle that had not seen a brush or any care in quite some time. He also stank like someone who had not bathed for over a month.
“What do we do with him?” Tesela asked.
“He is a Knight of Solamnia,” Darius reminded them needlessly. He looked up at the others. “As such, he should be treated with respect. If he is ill, then perhaps you could help, Tesela.”
“I’ll try my best.”
The bell sounded again. Darius rose, and all three looked toward the tower.
“Mishakal!”
Kaz and Darius glanced at the cleric, who pointed to where the other knight lay-or, rather, had lain. There was no sign of him, not even the helm that Darius had removed. Kaz sniffed the air. There was a strong odor, but it seemed a general smell and nothing like what he had noticed emanating from the fallen knight.
“I don’t like this.”
The bell had ceased ringing after only one strike, but now another sound replaced it-the sound of great wings beating slowly.
“If only we had a torch,” Darius muttered.
“I can create an aura if you think it would be helpful,” Tesela offered.
The minotaur shook his head. “Right now light would only make us a better target for whatever that is.”
The noise grew. Pieces of roof and clouds of dust descended upon them.
“It’s directly above us!” Darius whispered. Quietly he unsheathed his sword.
‘That won’t do us much good. I chipped my axe on that thing back in the village.”
“What do you suggest, then?”
It was Tesela who supplied an answer. “There!”
The other two turned but saw nothing. Then Kaz caught a glimpse of a familiar, childlike face peering around a corner. It did not strike him as odd that he could see Delbin so clearly in the dark. The kender had a finger to his lips and was smiling broadly. With a wave, he indicated that they should come to him.
“He must have found something,” Tesela suggested.
“A place of safety, I hope.”
With Darius first and Kaz guarding their rear against a creature he already knew to be invulnerable to his axe, they followed the walls to where they had seen Delbin. Around them, they began to hear sounds. They were not the movements of the unknown beast above them, but the sounds one might expect in Vingaard Keep: knights marching closer and closer, the cries of warhorses as their riders brought them to rein, the ring of steel against steel.
The unnerving part was that there was still no one to be seen in the deserted keep.
“Vingaard is cursed!” Darius muttered bleakly. “The specters of the dead have risen!”
“If noise is all they can make, we’ve little to worry about. If they become solid, like that one back there, then we have a problem.” Kaz wished his voice carried more confidence.
“Where’s Delbin?” Tesela asked abruptly.
“Sargas-no! If we’ve been following another spook…” He cut off as Delbin reappeared.
“He says you have to hurry!” the kender whispered as loudly as he thought safe. Delbin no longer seemed interested in exploring the citadel.
“Who is he?” asked Kaz as they reached the kender.
“No time for that now, because there’re knights here, not to mention other things that he said we’d be better off not running into because the whole place has gone mad, and unless we get to the library-”
At least some things stay the same, the minotaur thought sarcastically. “Take a breath, Delbin.”
The bell rang again. Only once.
Darius bent down by the kender. “Delbin, are there actually knights at the bell tower? Do you know where the Grand Master is? Is he-”
“He’s waiting!” Delbin scurried a few paces. “He said it would really be bad to be caught out here. The knights are likely to kill anything that moves. He says they can’t help themselves.”
Kaz grunted. “If someone has answers, I’m all for meeting him.”
“It could be a trap,” Darius countered.
“Then we’ll have to break out of it.” The minotaur hefted the massive battle-axe.
In retrospect, Kaz would come to realize that Vingaard Keep was not half the maze it seemed. There were not even many separate buildings. Tonight, though, it was different, as if not all of the keep existed in the same confusing world. He was certain at one point that Delbin was leading them in circles, until it became obvious that the route was chosen to avoid certain “other things” wandering Vingaard.
Now and then they spotted ghostly armored figures moving through the center region of the keep, where the Grand Master’s quarters were situated. Each carried a torch and moved at a slow pace. Not once did the unknown others, who were possibly Knights of Solamnia, seem to notice them. Still, the kender never led them too close to those dark forms.
Delbin came to a dead stop. “There it is,” he whispered. “He’s in the library. Follow me!”
The library stood out from the rest of the keep by being the only building in this area lit
by torchlight. A massive set of steps led up to a tall, wooden door. On each side of the steps was a pedestal, on which sat a huge bird of some sort. Kaz finally identified it as a kingfisher, which was only logical. Undoubtedly a closer examination would reveal that it not only wore a crown, but also held a sword and rose in its talons.
Dawdle awhile, minotaur. Come and speak with me. It has been soooo long.
The hair rose along Kaz’s backside. His blood grew cold, and his knuckles whitened as he tried to grip the dwarven battle-axe even harder. What was he hearing?
What do you know, minotaur? What secrets do you know?
Tesela was the first to notice his strange behavior. She touched him lightly on one arm. “Do you see something? Is something wrong?”
It was as if some great compulsion were upon him, and the only way to free himself was to follow it through to the end. Slowly, his head turned and his eyes sought out-what? — in the darkness.
Shall we let the chase go on a little longer?
A blurry patch of white coalesced into a partially distinct form with four legs and a long, narrow muzzle. Kaz knew that if he could see it up close, it would have eyes of a killing shade of red and that there would not be one patch of fur on its pale, cold body.
“Dreadwolf!” Kaz spat the word out.
“A what?”
“There…” The minotaur blinked as he found himself pointing toward nothing. The murky form had vanished. If it had ever been there…
The bell tolled again. Only once.
“Paladine preserve us, may they cease doing that!” The bell had a mournful sound to it, and lacking any purpose that they knew of, the tolling of the bell disturbed them more each time.
Delbin finally seemed to have lost his patience, an unusual thing for a kender, but then Delbin was proving most unusual for one of his kind. He grabbed Tesela by the hand and started pulling her out into the open. Darius started to reach for the cleric, but she shook her head and began running with the kender. The knight, not wanting Tesela to move without some sort of protection, went charging after them.
Only Kaz hesitated, not because of any fear, but because he still heard the voice of the dreadwolf.
I am wherever you go, minotaur!
“You’re dead,” Kaz grumbled unconvincingly. “You’re dead!”
Kaz was alone. Whatever it was-ghost, illusion, a phantasm of his own mind-it was gone. Kaz turned toward the library. The others stood near the door, anxiously awaiting him. Gritting his teeth and holding his battle-axe ready, the minotaur raced across the open area.
No storm of arrows came streaming down on him, no horde of mad knights charged him. Despite the light of the torches and the relative quiet that made each of his steps sound like thunder, he went unhindered. He nearly slipped in his haste to be up the steps. Darius covered his back as he completed the last few yards of his run.
Kaz huffed and snorted. “Well? Where is this all-knowing benefactor that you’ve supposedly led us to- or are we supposed to wait out here all night?”
“I am standing in the doorway, minotaur, and I would suggest that you and your companions enter immediately. The night is young, and you have seen only the first signs of the madness.”
The voice was very calm, almost matter-of-fact in its tone. How he had come to open the door and be there, none of them could say. In the glare of torchlight, their benefactor looked like little more than dark, swirling cloth and a long head of hair. There was something else in his voice that Kaz felt he should recognize, but what it was he could not say.
Delbin obeyed the suggestion almost instantly. Not to be outdone by a kender, Darius followed, one arm protectively guarding Tesela. Kaz reluctantly followed, pausing only when he thought he heard laughter coming from the darkness out beyond the library. When it did not recur, he tried to convince himself that it was just the wind.
The door was bolted behind them, and they got their first good look at Delbin’s friend and their rescuer. He was tall, almost as tall as Kaz, and he wore robes of silver and gray. Strangely, his hair, stretching long past his shoulders, was silver, with a patch of gray in the center, as if the clothing had been designed to match. The face was inhumanly handsome, with slightly delicate features. It was a young face, until one studied the eyes, green eyes that burned with an age almost unbelievable. Then one realized that this was no human, but an elf.
The elf folded his hands, almost as a cleric would do. His expression held only a hint of emotion, a slight, upward curling of the mouth, which Kaz gathered must indicate a smile.
“Welcome, my friends, to a haven in the midst of insanity. My name is-”
“Argaen Ravenshadow!” the minotaur finished abruptly.
Looking a bit amused, the elf nodded and said, “I think I would recall meeting a minotaur. We have not met before.”
“No, but I did meet one of your kind who knew you well. His name’s Sardal Crystal thorn.”
A stream of emotions flashed quickly across the elf’s visage. “Sardal. How odd to hear his name-to hear any name-after these past three years here.”
“What is going on here?” Kaz almost bellowed. “What’s happened to Vingaard Keep and the Knights of Solamnia?”
Argaen’s face was once more an emotionless mask, but his tone hinted of dark things. “Minotaur, you cannot imagine what you and your companions have walked into, and the odds are against you ever walking out again-at least sane.”
Chapter Eleven
Once it appeared, this room had been a place where knights could come and pore over the records of their own past. There was still a wall of shelves containing specially preserved scrolls. The rest of the room, though, had been taken over by the elf and his work.
“There. Do you see it?”
Kaz followed Argaen Ravenshadow’s gaze. They stood on the upper floor of the library at a window that faced into the center of Vingaard.
“I see it. That’s where the Grand Master lives and commands from, isn’t it?” Over five years might have gone by, but Kaz doubted his memory was that hazy.
“It is where he now sits in a world of distorted visions, commanding an ever-decreasing band of men, each as mad as himself, and unconsciously protecting what I suspect is responsible for the insanity and the sorcery you have witnessed so far.”
The elf stepped abruptly away from the window. Kaz remained for the moment, staring out at the circle of torches now surrounding the sanctum of the Grand Master. Darius, who, along with Tesela, had been watching from another window, followed the elf. “What is it? What has the power to turn the Grand Master himself from the path of Paladine?”
Argaen walked over to the single table in the room, where a number of unusual and malevolent objects rested. He picked up the most ordinary, a stick that curled inward at the end, and seemed to contemplate it. He seemed to have forgotten the knight’s question. “Did Sardal mention why I was here, minotaur?”
“With all that’s happened, I can’t really say. I don’t think so.” Kaz looked at the objects on the table. “I’m not sure I want to know.”
“You may not want to, but you have to now that you are here.” The elf held up the stick, still examining it. “Harmless-looking?”
“Since you ask, I doubt it.”
“You would be correct. I will not go into detail, but I can tell you that this tiny item was used by some to distort the weather during the war.”
‘That thing?” Kaz recalled the unpredictable weather during his early days in the war and the terrible storm traps created by the dark mages in the final months. He recalled the one great storm that had preceded the darkness, in which the dragons of Takhisis and the monsters of Galan Dracos had passed the tattered remains of a vast Solamnic campsite. The knights themselves had been in full retreat, in what some termed the worst disaster in the history of the orders.
“Galan Dracos either created or stole the spell to make this. It is far stronger than any I have heard of. Fortunately-or perhaps unfortu
nately-the only one in existence-this one-was sealed inside one of three vaults.”
The elf was playing games, Kaz knew. It was a trait of the elder race.
“Tell us of these vaults, Argaen Ravenshadow, and what they have to do with Galan Dracos.”
The bell tolled again, but the elf ignored it. “The citadel of Galan Dracos, the master renegade who planned to turn even those sorcerers who followed the dark path into slaves of his ambition, was originally situated on the side of a peak in the mountains between Hylo and Solamnia.”
“Really?” Delbin, who had remained unusually silent, perked up. “There’re ruins of a sorcerer’s castle in Hylo? Can we go there sometime? I wonder if any of my family’s been there. I should write this down!” The kender reached into his pouch for his book and instead pulled out a tiny figurine. “Where do you suppose this came from? Isn’t it neat?”
“Give me that!” With a ferocity that stunned Delbin into silence and made the others stare wide-eyed, Argaen stalked over to the kender and tore the figurine from his hand. While the party continued to look on in shock, the elf thrust the tiny item into a pocket of his robe and glared down at Delbin. “Never touch another thing in this room! You have no idea what you might accidentally unleash! I promise you, even a kender would regret it!”
Delbin seemed to shrivel up before Argaen’s burning eyes. Argaen took a deep breath, and for the first time, he seemed to notice the effect his tirade had had on the others. The elf put a hand to his head and frowned.
“My… apologies to all of you! For over three years have I labored here, and while three years is not much in the physical life of an elf, it can be an eternity in other ways. Over three years of struggling to maintain sanity while those around me, already mad, have sunk ever deeper. Over three years of knowing how close the possible solution lay but being unable to do anything about it. Each day I wait for the madness to overwhelm me while I seek in vain for some way to reach the vaults and solve the secrets of the locks. Each day…” Ravenshadow closed his eyes.
“I was telling you of the citadel of Calan Dracos,” he suddenly commented. His eyes opened, and the pain that had racked his visage was no more. The mask was back in place.
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