[Meetings 06] - The Companions Read online

  Sturm leaned away from the mast and was able to snatch some of the seaweed in his mouth.

  "What are you doing?" asked Caramon, aghast.

  "It's quite edible," Sturm said in a bare whisper as he chewed arduously. It was edible, though its raw and gummy texture made it worse than tasteless. "Who knows where our next meal is coming from?"

  Caramon thought about that for a moment, then lunged as best he could for the next patch that floated by, catching some of the purple-brown vegetation, spotted with grime. Trying not to think about it, the twin chewed determinedly, but he couldn't bear it. With a flash of disgust, Caramon spat the mouthful out.

  His brown eyes leveled at Caramon sternly, Sturm chewed on.

  After a moment's consideration, Caramon lunged for the kelp again but missed. The vegetation washed by.

  The groaning and cries intensified, followed by the booming and splitting sounds of . . . what? It sounded like a ship's crash, the noise of wood breaking up, a hull tearing on some unseen reef. The cacophony of sounds rose and fell, echoing spookily.

  The haze mingled with drops of rain and seemed to rub up against their faces. The waves diminished so that the sea was eerily calm. All around them was a ghostly gray-white void.

  "What can you see?" asked Caramon, his voice hoarse and cracked.

  "Nothing," Sturm replied. "And you?"

  "Less than nothing."

  Suddenly a large mass, a great and formidable cluster of shapes, loomed out of the haze. For a moment, Caramon panicked, thinking a gigantic sea monster was descending on them. Then his vision cleared somewhat, and through his exhaustion, he realized the mass was actually a number of ships and scattered remnants of ships, creaking as they glided through the oddly calm waters.

  Sickeningly white, like the bellies of dead fish, the rotting hulks were riddled with gaping holes, their timbers stained with blood, rust, and a yellow-green slime. Strange barnacles and marine life clung to their sides. Tatters of sails hung from the masts. The wind moaned in the rigging. It seemed impossible these ships could float.

  "Look!" cried Caramon.

  A dark shape glided toward them, the biggest ship of the wrecked fleet. A solitary hooded figure stood at the helm. Three skeletons dangled from a high post, swaying gently. As the ship bore closer, coming within a dozen feet of them, the hooded figure turned and inclined its head, appearing to focus on them.

  The hooded figure pointed at Sturm and Caramon. The phantom ship had drawn so close that Caramon could see the figure's eyes, fiery red inside the black holes of its featureless visage. With a bony finger, the hooded ghost—for surely that is what it was, Caramon thought—beckoned.

  The ship pulled so close the two stranded friends could have almost reached out and touched it had their arms been free to do so. Stray, rotting beams jutted out from its side. Caramon had to kick away to avoid being struck by one of them.

  As the ship passed, pieces of it broke and crashed onto the deck or splashed into the sea. The hooded ghost didn't stir, but its eyes followed them. Caramon felt their terrible gaze on him and Sturm.

  Then, as suddenly as it came, the ghost fleet disappeared into the haze. In its wake, the brackish water churned around Sturm and Caramon as the wind picked up and quickly became a howl. A strong current tugged at the warriors' legs. Waves crashed over them, filling their noses and mouths. The strange current sucked them downward.

  With his last reserve of strength, Caramon pumped his legs, straining to keep above water. Gasping for air, he realized his friend was faring worse. Sturm was all pretzeled up, almost on top of him, his lungs at the bursting point. Caramon strove to buoy up Sturm as best he could, struggling against the enormous pull of the sea.

  Sturm's strength was gone, but the knight didn't panic.

  He regretted dying, but the sea had proved a worthy opponent. Death offered a welcome respite. He felt the waves close over his head for what he was certain was the final time, when suddenly the turbulence spent itself and the sea grew calm.

  Sturm and Caramon both broke to the surface, choking. The sea still thundered around them, but it was no longer as threatening. The haze had returned as before. The two companions clung awkwardly to the mast that both imprisoned them and kept them afloat. Half-drowned, Sturm barely clung to consciousness. Caramon, exhausted, fought the urge to fall asleep.

  Somehow they kept going. By the morning of the fifth day, the two young men had begun to despair. Brine parched their lips. Their faces had burned until the skin cracked, oozing a glistening mucous. Dampness clogged their chests, yet their throats were as dry as tinder.

  Still they drifted, clinging together, roped to the mast. The brown waves tumbled over them. In every direction stretched the endless, merciless sea.

  Caramon's legs had thoroughly cramped, so that he could barely move them. Sturm's eyes had shrunk into puffed slits. The endless effort to keep their chins above water, had dazed their minds as well as ravaged their bodies.

  "If . . . if I could only untie these bonds," gasped Caramon, water sloshing into his mouth when he opened it to talk. "You might have a better chance alone."

  "I!" declared Sturm, shocked. "I'd never abandon you! It would be dishonorable."

  "Anyway," acknowledged Caramon, casting a fleeting glance at Sturm, "I can't budge them, so I guess we're stuck with each other."

  A silence grew between them for several minutes. "The mast is a curse," said Sturm at last, his voice grim. "It keeps us afloat, but just barely . . . just enough to torture us. Drowning would be preferable." He paused, glancing away. "There! There they are again!"

  A pair of aquatic predators had been circling them for a day. Four round, blackened eyes set in a massive forehead poked out of the water now and again, when one of the creatures surfaced to gulp some air. The helpless companions could see the creature's thick, knobby hides and webbed claws. They could also glimpse powerful maws lined with rows of triangular teeth. Although the creatures were huge, broad of back, and at least eight feet in length, they had kept a respectful distance for a day now, circling for hours, diving underwater for long intervals and then returning to circle and watch.

  "Vodyanoi . . . cousins of the umber hulk," rasped Caramon. "I've heard tales that they existed in deep waters. Why don't they attack?"

  "Vodyanoi are cunning," said Sturm in a bare whisper, "but they're are also cowardly. This must be a mated pair. You can bet if they were with a pack, we'd be dead by now. But they know that we're tiring. It won't be long now. All they have to do is wait. If s much simpler than fighting."

  Summoning all his strength, Sturm kicked out in the direction of the bulky sea animals. The two vodyanoi opened their huge jaws, let out piercing screeches and dove under the water.

  "Don't worry," murmured Sturm, closing his eyes momentarily. "They'll be back."

  Sturm didn't think he and Caramon would make it through the day. His stomach felt poisoned, on fire. His legs hung lifelessly, mere dead weight. Once or twice he looked over and saw Caramon, almost asleep, his chin balanced precariously on the bobbing mast. Sturm tried to warn his friend to stay alert, but his parched mouth couldn't form the words.

  A shadow flickered across the water in front of Sturm. Looking up, he thought he saw a black dot circling above in the hazy sky, but he couldn't be sure. He thought he had seen that black shape before, too . . . yesterday? What was it? Another predator, like the vodyanoi, he guessed. This one from the heavens, waiting for them to die.

  There it was again, the cawing that he thought he'd heard before. It seemed to come from the black dot. Was it a giant bird, then, taunting him and Caramon?

  Abruptly something plopped in the water almost directly in front of him. It was square, grooved, and several inches thick, a kind of thick, flat bread, floating in the water very near the Solamnic.

  Sturm reached out and caught it in his teeth. It was as hard as wood, but it wasn't wood. It was a thick slab of bread. Hungrily he bit down on it, digging his shoul
der into Caramon.

  The big warrior stirred, easing his eyes open. Sturm let half the bread fall back into the water, nudging it toward Caramon. Caramon had enough wits left to seize it in his teeth, devouring it in several gulps.

  The caw sounded again, more distant this time. Caramon and Sturm looked up into the sky, squinting, barely able to see the black speck as it arced over them and vanished from sight.

  The thick, hard bread was no substitute for Otik's spicy potatoes, but in their present circumstances, it tasted almost as good.

  The warmth of the seawater lulled them. The torpid haze drained their energy. The monotony of the waves drowned their senses.

  Trancelike, they drifted aimlessly.

  Sturm dreamed of his father and wondered what had become of brave, doomed Angriff Brightblade. One day he would find him and know the answer. For now, the clues were few and far between, like stepping-stones scattered across an endless pond. Whenever Sturm began to step on one of the stones, it turned into a lily pad, and he sank to the bottom.

  Caramon dreamed of a warm inn and a comely wench.

  Neither of them noticed that the haze had begun to lift, and that the water was losing its muddy brown color.

  * * * * *

  The kender paced the perimeter of his stone cell in an underground annex of the palace. Tasslehoff Burrfoot seemed to be the only prisoner in this part of the building. Dogz had told him that he was a special prisoner of the minotaur king. This made Tas proud, even if it meant that he was in for some very special torture and inquisition.

  Dogz did not administer the torturing. Once a day, he brought what little gruel the minotaurs permitted Tas to eat. It was disgusting stuff, even to Tas, who like most kender was open-minded about what he ate.

  The one in charge, Cleef-Eth, did not administer the torture, either. It was he who asked the questions between the torturings.

  Cleef-Eth demanded to know why Tasslehoff had bought the crushed jalopwort from the minotaur herbalist, Argotz. Cleef-Eth now possessed the crushed jalopwort, as well as the contents of the rest of Tas's pouches, but it appeared what he really wanted to know was why the kender had sought the rare ingredient in the first place.

  Tas might have answered if he had happened to know the answer, but only Raistlin knew. In general, the kender always tried to be courteous and helpful. But Tas knew that Argotz had been murdered and that after murdering him, the foul-smelling minotaurs had come after him and Caramon and Sturm and somehow conjured up a magic storm—he must remember to ask Raistlin about the mechanics of the magic storm—which had transported them all to the far eastern rim of the Blood Sea.

  So Tas didn't answer the question, and the minotaurs had been torturing him for days now.

  Poor dumb, ugly, squalid cowheads. They needed a lot of help with their torture techniques. From Tas's point of view, the minotaur torture masters were pretty confused about the question of how much to hurt him in order to make him tell them what he knew, without hurting him too much or killing him or incapacitating him. If they killed Tas or incapacitated him without extracting the necessary information, somebody called the Nightmaster would be very upset.

  "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 jail-house 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 emissary 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.