“That may be a poor choice of words. What I meant applies to us all, including what happened to you when you first entered Vingaard Keep. You recall the knight you told me of, or the sound of men and animals, yet there were none?”
“The knight was real,” Darius stated flatly.
“Perhaps. Your knight vanished, real or not. This spider of the kender’s imagination did not, however.” Argaen studied Delbin intently in the torchlight. Kaz noticed his companion shiver.
“Let this be a lesson to you, Delbin,” the minotaur chided the kender kindly. “Don’t go running off on any adventures without me.”
“Exactly how did you find the entrance you used, kender?” the elf asked with great interest. “Even I would have trouble finding them without help, and knowing how to open them…”
Delbin grinned. “It’s easy. All you have to do is know where to look, and the locks weren’t really hidden all that great. They were kind of fun, but my uncle Kebble showed me lots of tricks. A lot of the other kender think he’s the greatest, which he is, but-”
“Delbin’s a kender,” Kaz interrupted quickly. “That should be sufficient answer. He could go on for hours. I for one, however, would like to leave this place. This overgrown bug-eater stinks to high heaven, and I’ve seen less dust in a desert.”
The elf nodded rather absently. “Surely. The nearest exit is the one you came through.”
Kaz stepped back over the remains of the spider. Tesela helped Delbin rise to his feet. The kender seemed a bit unsteady. The cleric made a move to help him, but Argaen was suddenly there. He took hold of one of Delbin’s arms. “Allow me, human.” Argaen smiled politely at her. Tesela automatically stepped away. The elf helped the kender over the spider. Tesela blinked and followed hastily after them, not wanting to be left alone with the horrid remains. Spiders had always scared her as a small child.
The day, like all other days he could remember, dwindled away. Nothing changed… ever. No end seemed in sight.
Lord Oswal sat in the central chamber, where he and his numerous predecessors, including his late brother, had held court. The throne room was a place of power, designed to accentuate the Grand Master’s status as supreme commander and voice of Paladine. The chair on which the Grand Master sat was a level higher than the next closest. Anyone seeking an audience would be forced to look upward. Behind the high-backed throne, further emphasizing who ruled here, was a great representation of the Solamnic symbol. The kingfisher was larger than a man.
Once guards would have stood on both sides of the throne. More would have lined the hall, and there would have been still more at the great doors. Now, as Oswal slowly raised his head, he saw but a handful of knights, little more than a dozen, he supposed, and it was questionable how much he could rely on them. These men were filthy, unbathed, hardly typical of the knighthood as once he had cherished it. They were mad, of course, and it was a madness forced on them by him. He was lucky that he himself had not fallen victim to the tremendous power of that one, though each day it grew a little harder to resist. Each hour it grew so much easier to just let one’s mind drift… to…
The bell sounded, snapping him from his reverie. His eyes widened, and a smile played across his cracked lips. Perhaps his men had thought it part of his madness when the Grand Master had ordered at least one man stationed at the bell at all times. Certainly his command that the bell be rung at random hours had been met with looks of pity from men who had once respected him. Lord Oswal knew what he was doing, however. The loud ringing of the bell stirred his mind whenever he was sinking too deep into madness. The ringing-and his own power as a cleric of Paladine, something that even most of his fellow knights did not know.
What was going on outside? he wondered. Where was Bennett? Where was Arak Hawkeye, head of the Order of the Crown? Where was Huma? Rennard? Where…
He cursed the one who traveled in the darkness as he realized with a jolt that some of the men he was waiting for were long dead. There were others, though…
“Contemplating your mortality, Grand Master?” a voice like a hiss asked him suddenly.
Oswal was well beyond the point of being startled when he manifested himself. “Come out from behind me, coward.”
A blur of darkness formed before the throne of the Grand Master, but none of the guards noticed. “Are you blind?” he wanted to scream at them. “The enemy is before you!”
The other knights continued to stare without reaction. They were caught in a bizarre world of fanaticism in which the performance of their duties was all they existed for. They were being the best, most alert sentries that they could possibly be, yet they could not see the figure cloaked in shadows.
Oswal refused to consider the possibility that it might be himself who was mad, and that the one before him did not, in truth, exist anywhere but in the Grand Master’s mind.
“Shall I tell you what this day will bring?” the shadow mocked him. “Would you like to know what new atrocities are being performed in the name of Paladine and the Knights of Solamnia?”
It was a game he played each day at some point. Lord Oswal trembled in growing rage and uncertainty. Solamnia was in ruins. The knights were plundering the very people they were supposed to protect. Former allies were now hunted enemies.
All at the Grand Master’s command.
“You can tell me nothing new, mage, and I will tell you nothing new, either.” He said the last with some satisfaction. He could no longer summon up the strength to fully utilize the gifts of Paladine with which he, as a cleric and a Lord Knight, was endowed. How had that come about?
“I can save your people from your madnessssss.” Oswal had struck a nerve. “You merely have to tell me a few simple things. The longer you delay, the worse you make your own position. Do you know that your keep lies open, defenseless, and that other than the few men you have here, there are only two or three dozen remaining in all of Vingaard?” The shadow chuckled. “Soon the Knights of Solamnia will cease to exist, and all for naught.”
‘To the Abyss with you!” the Grand Master shouted as he rose from his throne. The knights guarding the chamber turned to look at him fleetingly, but noting that nothing was apparently wrong, they turned back to their “duties.”
“If you could take what you wanted, you would have taken it long ago! I have seen it in a vision! Paladine has guided me from the first! It is only a matter of outlasting you, specter! Your own time is limited! I will prevail!”
“You will do nothing. You are impotent, Grand Master. Shall I tell you a secret? Ssssoon, very ssssoon, what I want will be mine.”
“Takhisis take your murky hide!” Oswal slumped back onto the throne.
“She already hasss, asss you can sseee…” The shadow began to fade into nothing, but not before the Grand Master was allowed a glimpse of a face. It was a human face, but only barely, for the hair lay flat against the skull and the face was overly elongated, like that of some reptile. The skin added to the effect, showing a layer of scale or scab. It was hard to tell which.
Long after the shade had vanished, if indeed it had ever been there, he finally succeeded in whispering the name that accompanied that horrid, less-than-human visage.
“Dracos!”
Chapter Thirteen
The light of day was fading swiftly. Around the Grand Master’s stronghold, Kaz and the others saw the few remaining knights of Vingaard Keep begin what seemed to be automatic rituals. With slow deliberation, a group of some three or four passed among the others, lighting and distributing torches to each. Their pace never faltered, yet never varied, either. Kaz was reminded of folktales about the undead shambling out of their graves. Beside him, Darius watched, his hands clutching the base of the window, his knuckles white. The knights, once all were equipped with burning torches, shifted into a protective shield around the entrance of the building, each man facing the darkness without. Neither the minotaur nor Darius had seen any visible threat. It was almost as if the knights were s
eeking to hold back the coming darkness. The bell rang its single note for at least the thirteenth time today, though Kaz had lost count.
“How long can this go on?” he muttered.
Vingaard Keep, Kaz mused, was like a limbo of some sort, an unreal place, where everything seemed to slow down, seemed never really to change. There were no conclusions here, just one perpetual emptiness. The knights changed guard several times during the day, but they did nothing else. A few wandered briefly along the walls of the keep, supposedly on sentry duty, but Kaz knew that an enemy horde could stroll in undetected.
“What are we waiting for?” he groused at his companions. Darius nodded agreement with that sentiment. He was all for making some grand plan. The minotaur grimaced slightly. Darius was a good, brave soul, as humans went, but like many of his fellow knights, he seemed to think that what was called for was a glorious attack straight into the teeth of danger. Kaz knew that he himself was guilty of overzealousness at times, but experience had mellowed him somewhat.
Tesela was quiet. She sat on the floor, legs crossed, eyes closed. Kaz could not say for certain whether she was performing some ritual or was just plain bored, like he was. He suspected that she herself was not quite certain what to do.
Sensing his eyes on her, she opened her own and met his gaze. Something was troubling her, the minotaur felt instinctively. “What’s wrong?”
The cleric shook her head. “I can’t really say. I’ve been trying to clear my mind and have been asking Mishakal for guidance all day, but I still can’t determine what it is that disturbs me… only that it concerns Argaen.”
“The elf?” Darius grumbled.
“I’ve prayed to Mishakal for guidance, but where the elf is concerned, I feel nothing. It’s as if there is a-a blockage.”
“And your goddess is not strong enough to remove the obstacles?”
Her glare burned holes into the knight’s eyes, making him turn red. “I don’t snap my fingers and have every request taken care of instantly, Knight of Solamnial Mishakal, like all the other gods, has concerns that go beyond mortal ken. I am not her sole concern, though I feel her love. There may be a hundred different reasons why I can’t see what I want to see. For that matter, where is your Paladine? Why has he not helped his own people?”
Kaz, perhaps the only one of the party who had ever actually met a god-unfortunately, it had been Takhisis-smiled slightly. Gods, in his opinion, had more limitations than people imagined.
Rising from the chair where he had sat polishing his axe and trying to figure out some way to repair the one chipped edge, the minotaur stalked slowly toward the window. Other than the wind and an occasional sounding by the bell, things had been too quiet. On the night they had come here, dark, otherworldly things had been manifest. Now, save for the emptiness and the perpetual cloud cover, things were almost… ordinary.
Kaz did not like that one bit. In his experience, when things turned calm and ordinary, something unusual was about to happen.
“It’s almost as if we’re waiting for a signal,” the minotaur whispered to himself.
“What’s that?” Tesela called.
“Nothing. A whole lot of nothing, it seems.”
“Ah! There you are!” Argaen came stomping in as if he had been searching the entire library for them. The elf always seemed to be at least a little astonished that they were still here, which made Kaz uneasy. It was as if they were temporary diversions from his normal scheme of things and one day would simply cease to exist. No doubt, then Argaen Ravenshadow would probably forget they had ever been here.
“I’ve brought you food!” The elf carried a plate of bread and a pot of thick vegetable soup to the table.
“Most kind of you, Master Ravenshadow,” Darius said politely.
“Where do you get your supplies?” Tesela asked, sniffing the soup. Delbin was trying desperately to pull the pot from her hands. Argaen reached over and pried the kender away with a shake of his head. Delbin smiled and kept his hands at his sides, but his eyes kept drifting to the food.
“There are wells in the keep, and one of them nearby serves as one of the knighthood’s storage areas. Because it is partly underground, it helps to preserve the food. I am afraid that the meat spoiled long ago, but plants can last for months. As for the preparation of the food, you can thank what little sorcery I have. I’ve grown fond of human foods. Elven dishes are too ethereal for my tastes these days.” Argaen gave another broad smile.
“The supplies in Vingaard could help some of those villages to the south,” Tesela said rather harshly.
“You are welcome to try, cleric. I am only one person and the immediate need, if you will pardon me for saying so, is here.”
Tesela’s expression indicated that she did not share the elf’s view. For the past few years, the elf had been working here uselessly while other people were barely surviving. But what could she expect from an elf?
“How do your studies go, Argaen?” the minotaur asked. “Have you discovered something?”
The elf gave him a crooked smile. “I may have learned something that will change the entire situation. You will know before long, I promise you that. Please, eat.”
The smell of the soup was mouth-watering. Kaz, used to rations and living off the land, forgot all his worries and took the pot from Tesela, who was beginning to look as if she was never going to get around to eating. Darius took out a knife and cut the bread into equal pieces. Delbin hopped up and down with anxiousness.
Argaen looked down at the kender. “Delbin, before you eat, could I ask a favor of you?”
Delbin looked at the food, then at the elf, then at the food again.
“It involves an interesting lock.”
The kender’s eyes gleamed. “Where is it?”
‘This way.” Elf and kender swept out of the room. Kaz snorted in amusement. Trust Argaen to come up with the one thing more important to a kender than food.
They each took a share of the soup and the bread. The bread was still warm and had that delicious taste only a fresh-baked loaf could have. Kaz decided there and then that sorcery had its useful aspect after all. Perhaps there was some way that Argaen could teach him the minimum spells for whipping up a stew.
“Truly, this is excellent,” Darius succeeded in saying between mouthfuls.
Tesela, on the other hand, was not so enthusiastic. “It smells good, but there’s a funny taste to it.”
“Tastes fine to me.” Kaz was just finishing the contents of his bowl and trying to calculate exactly how much they had to leave for Delbin.
“I’m not saying it’s not delicious, but the taste just doesn’t seem quite right.”
“Would you trade some bread for your soup? I’ll eat it if you don’t want it.” Kaz hoped she would take his offer.
She gave him a smile but declined. “The bread is good, but the soup is healthier. Maybe it’s just me.”
Kaz, disappointed, watched her take a couple more swallows. As she took the second one, he noticed something.
“Human… Tesela… why does your medallion glow?”
“What?” The cleric put her bowl down with a clatter and stared at the artifact hanging from the chain around her neck. “I’ve never seen it do that before!”
“Does it have to pulse like that, Milady Tesela?” Darius asked. He was sweating. “It makes my head spin.”
“I don’t know what it’s supposed to do, because I don’t know why it’s doing it!”
“It must be… must be…” Kaz could not recall what it was he had wanted to say. Like Darius, he was sweating profusely now. “I…”
A groan from Darius prompted him to turn his head, though the action took an eternity as far as the minotaur was concerned. He watched helplessly as the knight fell to the floor. Tesela moved to aid him, but she herself was having trouble standing straight. Kaz felt his mind begin to separate from his body. With what little of his wits remained, he put one clawed hand against his leg and sank his n
ails into his leg. The pain washed over him, reviving him somewhat.
Tesela, he could see, was no longer trying to reach Darius. Instead, she was on her knees and holding the medallion above her head. The strain was obvious on her face.
Half-delirious, Kaz rose to his full height and stumbled toward the hall. Delbin, his mind repeated. Delbin had to be in danger! He made it halfway before his legs gave out and he fell onto the floor. Delbin in danger… and Argaenl
Kaz could no longer move. Even breath seemed a laborious thing, almost a waste of time. Argaen. The minotaur’s mind slowly made the connection. It had to be. It simply had to be.
“Mishakal! I plead with you! These two are needed! I know I’m not the best of your clerics and my skills are few, but give me the strength to bring them back!”
The harsh voice broke through the sweet, warm darkness that had enveloped Kaz like a fur. He wanted to tell the voice to leave him in the quiet solitude of his slumber. What right did the voice have to disturb him? He was tired and needed rest, a long rest.
“Kaz! Hear me!”
He wanted to tell the human to go away. The human named Tesela. The human named Tesela who was a cleric. The human cleric named Tesela who was trying to pull him from his sleep.
Wot sleep! a part of him whispered.
His mind, which seemed to have fragmented, began to coalesce again. Tesela was a cleric of Mishakal. She would not disturb him without a reason. The human was trying to help him. The thought of a feeble, human female helping a full-grown male minotaur amused him for some reason, and he started to laugh. It came out as a gurgle.
Tesela must have heard it, for her voice became excited. ‘Thank you, Mishakalf Thank you!”
“Stop…” Kaz forced his mouth and tongue to work. “Stop shouting… in my ears.”
“Kaz!” He felt the warmth of another body on his. The minotaur began to feel other things as well, especially a nauseating sensation swelling in his stomach.
“Move!” He bellowed in a voice loud enough to make his own ears ring. Tesela moved away from him, and Kaz rolled over just in time to keep from drenching his own body with vomit. It seemed for some time that every meal he had ever eaten was departing his body in haste. Gradually, however, he finished. Disgusted, he rolled away.
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