[Meetings 06] - The Companions Read online

  As he smacked the water, Caramon struggled to react. His arms seemed all tangled up with the wooden mast, and his hands were tied tight. Even without these disadvantages, swimming wasn't Caramon's strong point. He would have drowned in Crystalmir Lake some months ago if Sturm hadn't rescued him. He had made some modest strides since that day, but now he kicked for all he was worth.

  Because of the way in which they had hit the water, Sturm was briefly pinned under the mast and took a few seconds to surface. Gasping for air, Sturm struggled to free his arms, but like Caramon, he couldn't. He scissored his legs, kicking strongly. Fortunately for the two of them, the wooden mast section helped keep" them afloat.

  "Don't kick so hard!" Sturm managed to wheeze at Caramon. "You'll use up all your strength. Take it easy for now."

  The water was strangely warm and murky, brown rather than blue-green and swirling with sediment. Their kicking churned up bubbles and slimy, clinging vegetation. The water had a decidedly stagnant smell.

  Suddenly a tremendous explosion rocked their ears. Both men twisted their necks around in time to see, through the mist, the Venora explode in a great plume of smoke and fire. The current had already carried the ship several thousand yards off. The other ship, the one Caramon had barely glimpsed, had vanished into the haze.

  Caramon and Sturm watched for several minutes as remnants of the ship burned and sank into the waves. Almost as if by signal, then, the warm fog descended heavily, obscuring everything but the rolling infinity of the ocean.

  As they struggled to keep afloat, both Caramon and Sturm had the same unspoken thoughts.

  Where were they? Why had this happened to them? How in blazes would they ever find and rescue Tasslehoff? Or save themselves?

  * * * * *

  Although he certainly missed his good friends Caramon and Sturm, and although he certainly needed rescuing, Tasslehoff Burrfoot was having a pretty good time.

  It was true that he was stuck in a small iron-barred brig in the lower deck of the minotaur ship, which stank worse than a mountain of dead skunks. It was also true that he was a prisoner of the minotaurs, the webbed ogres—which he had learned were called orughi—and human seafaring rabble who might at any moment put him to death.

  But so far he had been treated rather well, all things considered. Sarkis had given him back his packs and pouches. Indeed, the commander of the ship acted as though the kender's possessions were sacrosanct and would be safer under the protection of Tas. Tas could spend hours poring through his various belongings, and now he had no shortage of hours to kill. He wished he hadn't sent the magic message bottle to Raistlin, since this would be an even better time to use it.

  Tas got plenty of sleep. And his captors fed him reasonably well under the circumstances, mostly a greasy, lumpy meat stew that once you got used to it tasted just fine. The bowls of stew were sometimes brought to him by monkeys, who were on the ship in droves and acted as the cook's helpers. One of them in particular, a pear-shaped woolly monkey, Tas got to know rather well. He dubbed him "Oh-Tick," after a certain innkeeper he remembered fondly, and when he conversed with Oh-Tick, Tas felt the monkey, tilting his head in a listening kind of way, almost understood him.

  Tas had plenty of interesting visitors. Very few of the ship's denizens had ever met or even seen a kender before. So they trooped down, by ones and twos, to gawk at him, in some cases to taunt him, and in a couple of instances to throw fruit cores and dirt clods at him.

  Tas threw the fruit cores and dirt clods right back, but he liked it best when they came to taunt him. The human rabble really knew some good insults, and this in turn stimulated Tas's imagination. He came right back at them with some of the most totally offensive things he had ever thought of. It made several of his visitors so angry that their faces got all purple before they stomped away.

  The minotaurs had more dignity, even if they smelled worse. They would approach almost respectfully and gaze at him in his solitary cell. Tas only saw Sarkis once again, when the leader came down all alone and spent several minutes standing impassively, watching Tas, his eyes taking note of every detail of the kender from topknot to soft leather boots. Tas couldn't manage to get a word out of the huge, ugly beast.

  Dogz was different. Scornful and arrogant, he, too, came to take a leisurely look at Tasslehoff. After their first encounter, which was marked by a nasty exchange of barbed comments, Dogz returned again and again. Tas began to have stilted but edifying conversations with the huge beast, who seemed in some ways to be as curious about him as Tas was about everything, and indeed more fearful of Tas than the other way around. Gradually the two developed an awkward, almost friendly relationship.

  Dogz was Sarkis's cousin, as it turned out, and utterly in awe of and loyal to his higher-ranking relative. Sarkis regarded Dogz's friendship with the kender to be another sign of a pathetic weakness, so Dogz had to steal his opportunities to see the kender.

  "So you really like being a minotaur, huh?" asked Tas, amazed at the fierce pride exhibited by the strutting bull creature. Tas found Dogz fascinating, but the kender couldn't help but know, even if Dogz seemed oblivious to it, that minotaurs were a race widely scorned on Krynn.

  "It is . . . a great honor to be a minotaur," rumbled Dogz uncertainly.

  "What's the good part?" asked Tas, intrigued. "I mean, when you're a kender, the whole world's your oyster. You've got friends and relatives everywhere, except maybe in Thorbardin among the Theiwar, although I'm sure even they would warm up to me eventually. You know how to make the very best maps, and if you're lucky, you've got a handsome topknot. . . ."

  Tas paused, realizing that this minotaur wasn't going to interrupt or answer until Tas shut up. So Tas did something he rarely did. He shut up, giving Dogz the cue to speak.

  "We fight to live, live to fight," said Dogz after a long pause. He spoke haltingly but impressively. His wide-set eyes, Tas thought, looked almost mournful. "We bow down to no one. Our destiny is to rule."

  "Pretty heavy burden," said Tas thoughtfully. He was tempted to add "even for a beast of burden," but he thought perhaps he'd better not say that.

  "Yes," said Dogz, raising his eyes to meet Tas's gaze.

  After about a week, Tas realized that he hadn't seen his favorite monkey, Oh-Tick, for several days, and he asked his regular visitor about it.

  "Monkey stew," said Dogz, pointing to the bowl of stew in Tas's hands. "That is why the disgusting creatures are on board. Did you think they were pets?" Dogz gave a snort of laughter.

  Oh-Tick's demise made Tas feel lowly and ashamed. Suddenly he lost his appetite for the stew. Dogz noticed that he had stopped eating and said, rather gently considering his rumbling tone, "Kender don't usually eat monkey?"

  "Not usually," Tas replied disconsolately.

  "What do kender eat?" asked Dogz thoughtfully.

  "Almost anything," said Tas, "except monkey. Especially a monkey friend," he added diplomatically.

  "We always eat monkey stew," said Dogz. "They are silly animals." Then, more sympathetically, "I'm sorry."

  "Me, too." Tas shoved his face between the bars to peer at Dogz. "I suppose I could pretend it was bran meal or something. I love plain old bran meal. I dream of hot bran meal with currants and honey! You wouldn't happen to have any plain old bran meal on this ship, would you?"

  Dogz shook his head. Tas sighed and pushed away his bowl. Several minutes passed in silence before Dogz asked tentatively, "If you aren't going to eat your monkey stew, would you mind if I ate it?"

  Tas pushed the bowl between the bars.

  When Dogz's shipmates came down to observe Tas, he got a chance to observe them, too. The kender was thrilled by the close-up view of minotaurs, and especially the webbed ogres, who waddled up to spy on him. Short, fat, and dull-witted, they shouted their insults at him in orughi, so Tas could only do his best to match their tone and decibel level in Common.

  Tas had to look quick at some of the orughi, who after clucking their insults
would scoot away before the kender could respond. Tas liked it when they stayed around awhile so he could study the ancestral weapon many of them carried over their shoulder, an iron boomerang with a long metallic cord, which Dogz told him was called a tonkk. It was used to hunt flying creatures. Tas would have liked to try using a tonkk, which reminded him of his own favorite weapon, the hoopak.

  Tasslehoff still had his own hoopak, which had been strapped across his back when he was taken off the Venora. Sarkis hadn't shown any interest in taking it away, and besides, it was no help to Tas in his cramped prison quarters.

  One afternoon, after about a week, Tas felt the ship slowing down. There was a good deal of commotion on deck above as the ship shuddered to a halt. Tas heard the sounds of cargo being unloaded, and then the muffled tramping of the crew disembarking. For several hours, Tas heard sounds of activity above, but during the entire time, no one came to check on him.

  The kender was beginning to think they had forgotten all about him when at last Dogz and Sarkis came below, speaking to each other in their low, guttural voices. They carried a small wooden cage that smelled of monkeys and made Tas think forlornly of Oh-Tick.

  They entered Tas's cell, squeezed the kender inside the cage, and then slid the cage onto two poles, which they hefted and balanced on their shoulders. Then the two minotaurs carried Tas up on deck and down the gangway, where the kender got his first glimpse of the fabled minotaur island of Mithas.

  With the cage bobbing on their shoulders, Dogz and Sarkis paraded Tas through the streets of the minotaur city of Lacynos. What an amazing place, Tas thought. He could hardly wait to tell all his friends about it . . . if he was lucky enough to live through the experience!

  The harbor was crowded with war galleys, cargo ships, and fishing boats. A system of ropes and pulleys unloaded huge bundles of lumber and other vital goods from cargo ships. Human slaves supplied the power, overseen by whip-wielding minotaurs. Fierce-looking merchants and human pirates argued with each other on the docks. The water was thick with floating seaweed and garbage.

  The city proper began where the wharf ended. Lacynos's rutted lanes, filthy alleys, and busy streets were paved with dirt that, as a result of rain and heavy traffic, had been churned into thick, gooey mud. Crude wooden buildings, larger than any Tas had seen in all of Southern Ergoth, were organized into block patterns. Outside ladders took the place of inside stairways; square holes in the rooftops provided egress.

  Tas had to twist around repeatedly to glimpse all the strange, marvelous activity. There were plenty of humans, who seemed to have a monopoly on the corner taverns. Many of them looked like armed brigands, flaunting their plundered gems and rings. They carried wicked, curved swords and hooked weapons. The outnumbered humans mixed with the minotaurs, but Tas noticed that occasionally loud arguments took place between members of the two races and fights broke out.

  So frenetic was the atmosphere that not everyone noticed Dogz and Sarkis carrying the caged kender, but others did.

  The human ruffians pointed and guffawed. The minotaurs peered curiously and growled with contempt. Tas pointed and guffawed and growled right back, trailing laughter in his wake.

  They turned down a wider street, carrying Tas toward a bustling square of stalls, tents, and booths where the smell of fish and sweat was overpowering. The sounds of loud haggling drowned out other noises.

  "Our marketplace," Dogz boasted, inclining his head toward Tas. "Here you can buy the finest silver pieces in all the minotaur isles. But you have to be careful. There is also an abundance of worthless items."

  Sarkis barked a command at Dogz. "Stop talking to the kender!" he ordered. "It is a sign of weakness."

  Bouncing around in the cage, Tas decided to say nothing, sorely tempted though he was.

  Here in the market square, with only a few more hours of daylight remaining, business was conducted in a colorful and chaotic manner. Few noticed Dogz and Sarkis as they shoved and elbowed their way through the crowd. Tas spotted exotic jewelry and weapons for sale, wool and clothing, and every variety of fish in the sea, smoked, canned, fresh, and not so fresh.

  Up another, more deserted street they turned toward the most impressive building in the city of Lacynos, the seasonal residence of the king of the minotaurs. This was an elaborate, marble-columned mansion with spacious gardens and adjoining buildings set on high ground overlooking the teeming minotaur metropolis.

  They passed a contingent of human slaves, disfigured with cuts and dried blood, digging ditches for runoff under the supervision of whip-wielding minotaur guards. These humans, in many cases gaunt and jaundiced-looking, were objects of pity in Tas's eyes. They slaved under the lash and didn't even dare to glance up at the kender as Tas passed.

  When they arrived at the front gate of the palace's outer wall, Tas saw well-ordered formations of minotaur soldiers drilling outside the grounds. Sentries were posted at intervals along the wall, and everyone seemed to know Dogz and Sarkis. The guards quickly hailed and admitted them.

  To tell the truth, Tas was getting a little tired of his cramped sightseeing trip and more than a little curious about where he was going. Consequently, the kender was perfectly happy when, after descending a long flight of steps to a lower level of one of the buildings, the minotaurs finally stopped. Sarkis unlatched the cage and Tas tumbled out. He barely had time for a good stretch before Sarkis pushed him into a dim and dank, if much roomier, jail cell.

  Without further comment, Sarkis gave a snort, turned, and climbed back up the stairs. Dogz stalled, glancing at Sarkis's retreating form before turning back to Tas. "Goodbye, friend Tas," the minotaur said sadly and turned to leave.

  "Wait! What's going to happen now?" Tas shouted, but it was too late, for Dogz had hurried back up the stairs.

  An hour or two went by. It was hard to keep track of time in the boring cell. It wasn't that it was so dirty, although it was dirty enough, or that it was so smelly, considering that Tas was almost getting used to the stench of minotaurs. It was just that the complete furnishings consisted of a bunk and a bucket, with nothing else to see or do, and Tas was so uncharacteristically dispirited that he didn't even feel like rummaging through his pouches. By comparison, the minotaur ship had been a carnival of entertainment.

  Things began to look up when footsteps sounded and two minotaurs he hadn't seen before came down the stairs with Sarkis, who carried a flail. One of the minotaurs wore a crimson cape and a thin gold band around his forehead. Tas wondered if it was truly gold and wished he could hold it in his hands for just a minute to see. The other minotaur was ugly and horned like most of them, but wore a kilt and didn't bear any weapons.

  The one with the gold band bore an air of authority. He stepped in front of the others and looked at Tas. The expression on his snout face was blank. His foul breath made Tas retreat to the back of the cell. His yellow teeth glistened.

  "So this is the kender mage,” said the caped minotaur.

  "Yes, King," answered Sarkis.

  Kender mage? Tas thought. What in blazes were these dumb bullheads talking about?

  "The Nightmaster will be very pleased," the king said, then spun on his cloven heels and started up the steps.

  So astonished was Tas by the brief exchange that he barely had time to say anything. "Nightmaster who?" he shouted after the retreating figure. "King who? If you're the bull in charge, then you'd better let me out of here before my friends find out where I am! And I've got plenty of friends—numerous—lots! If they chose you for king, it must be because you have the worst breath in all of Lacynos—no, make that all of Mithas. Make that all of Ansalon, you overdressed, forked-tailed, bulging-eyed lardhead!"

  If only he had room to toss his hoopak. If only iron bars didn't stand between him and the minotaurs. Tas grabbed his hoopak and waved it threateningly.

  Sarkis and the other minotaur, the one who wore the kilt, stood there, watching Tas indifferently, waiting for him to shut up. Eventually he did.


  "I have never seen a kender before," rumbled the kilted minotaur in a surprisingly civilized tone. "And I have certainly never seen a kender mage."

  "Yes, Cleef-Eth," said Sarkis. "As ordered, I have delivered him to your keeping."

  Tas waited to hear what Cleef-Eth was going to say next. Sarkis deferred to him, that was plain. And Cleef-Eth appeared to be a minotaur of some intelligence and standing.

  "Torture him until he reveals to us his secrets," said Cleef-Eth, leveling his big, round bullish orbs at Tasslehoff.

  "Don't kill him, though . . . not right away, at least. But hurt him so he knows that we mean business."

  Sarkis snapped his flail against his palm. "It will be my pleasure, Cleef-Eth," he said with relish.

  Chapter 5

  The Oracle and the Portal

  Fallen tree limbs overgrown with twisted pines and a sponge-like, mossy vegetation crosshatched the dense forest, making the going difficult. Sudden torrents of water, evidence of some vast underground river, surfaced, rushed by, then vanished back beneath the wooded maze.

  The land sloped gradually upward. Peaks ringed the forest where the terrain broke into abrupt escarpments and promontories. Here and there, shafts of pale sunlight pierced the greenish-blue atmosphere that enveloped the woods.

  Slowly the three friends made their way through the junglelike forest. With blunt swings, Flint and Tanis hacked away at the lush greenery, clearing a path. Tanis grumbled at having to use his sword for such activity, while Flint, who had been the grumbler for most of the morning, could find some pleasure in wielding the sharp-edged shortaxe he usually kept slung at his side. Behind them, Raistlin waited wordlessly each time they halted, leaning on the stout cedar walking stick that had been carved for him by Flint some months ago. His pale face was lined with tension, but he was more patient with delay than either of his two companions.

  The Master Mage's directions had been very precise. Although well-concealed, its whereabouts known only to a small, privileged number of magic practitioners, the cave of the Oracle lay only slightly more than half a day's trek from Solace. Morath had warned Raistlin to beware. In spite of deceptive appearances, the Oracle had fantastic powers and did not welcome uninvited strangers.