The Legend of Huma

by Richard Knaak

  Huma chose to spoil the serenity of the scene by coughing just then.

  The mage grimaced. “Forgive me. You must be tired and thirsty. We shall go inside and be refreshed. After that, we shall speak.”

  Magius raised his staff again and muttered a long string of seemingly nonsensical words. The staff, whose earlier glow had diminished, suddenly blazed with a new life. Both Huma and Kaz were forced to momentarily shield their eyes.

  The gate opened, perhaps moved by some great, invisible hand. Magius was continually amazing Huma, although it might very well be that the castle, too, was a product of these ancients.

  They passed through the gate and into a hallway which, while smaller than that of any noble’s estate home, outshone most by pure extravagance. Sculptures of elves, animals, tall manlike beings, humans, and what could only be the gods themselves lined the walls. Like an oversized serpent, a single stairway curled its way up to the floors above. A gold and red tapestry displaying the constellations draped one side while another one depicted a mountain that virtually towered over the landscape. It was so real that it drew Huma’s attention. At the back of his mind nagged the feeling that he knew this place from somewhere, although, in fact, Huma knew he had never seen the mountain before. He continued to stare at it until Magius’s voice broke the tapestry’s spell.

  “Not all of it is original, but one cannot have everything. Be careful!”

  The last was aimed at Kaz, who was busily inspecting an ageless sculpture of an odd-looking dragon. It was long and narrow, almost like a snake with legs and wings. What little remained of the coloring indicated it had once been green and blue, intermingled, an odd hodgepodge of colors for any dragon.

  “This sculpture was made by one of my people.”

  “Impossible. It must be elven. Look at it.”

  Kaz snorted. “Do you think we have no artisans? I recognize the telltale patterns in the clay, even if your ‘well-versed’ mind cannot make anything out of them.”

  “Why would anyone want to mold a dragon like that? I’ve never seen one so long and narrow. Did such exist?” Huma asked, turning to Magius.

  The mage shrugged. “I have never uncovered evidence of such a beast. It is my belief that this is purely an artistic representation, the product of someone’s imagination. Another reason why it cannot be the work of minotaurs, not to mention the fact that it is far too old.”

  “We were the first civilized race.”

  “Civilized or domesticated?”

  Kaz moved swiftly, but the statuette froze in midair some three feet before Magius’s face. The mage’s look of contempt was matched only by the intense disappointment draped across Kaz’s visage. “Make your next throw a good one, cow, because it will be your last. And next time use something a little less valuable.”

  With a wave of his free hand, Magius returned the dragon sculpture to its resting place. Kaz snorted continuously, and his eyes were crimson. Suddenly Huma stepped between them, brandishing his sword.

  “Stop it!”

  The outburst was so savage that both mage and minotaur stared at him as if he had lost his mind. Huma looked from one to another with what he hoped was a ferocious expression.

  “Ansalon, perhaps all of Krynn, may be lying helpless beneath the Dragonqueen, and you two are acting like schoolchildren!”

  Kaz was the only one of the two to look ashamed. Magius took the reprimand as he did all else. He merely shrugged and pretended as if the incident had never happened.

  “There’s much more to see, but I imagine you two might wish to get some rest. Am I correct?”

  “On that point, at least,” Kaz muttered.

  Huma sheathed his sword, but his temper was still aroused. “What happens after that? Can you contact your order? We cannot stay here forever. You came looking for us. Don’t you have a plan?”

  “Of course.” The answer came quickly, but there was something in the spellcaster’s eyes that Huma thought belied his response. Here, again, was a Magius with whom he was unfamiliar. Here was a Magius who held back secrets from the one person he should have been able to trust. How he had changed.

  Or is it I who am changing? thought Huma. In the old days, he would have never truly questioned Magius or probed at his friend’s answers. The knighthood had opened his eyes to the veiled half-truths that played so large a part in most people’s lives.

  Deliberately, Huma said, “I should like to hear your plan.”

  “In good time. There are far too many matters here that I must attend to immediately. While I do so, you two may relax and perhaps enjoy some food.”

  Magius tapped his staff on the ground. Huma felt a shiver cut through him. Then he saw the mist.

  It fluttered about Magius as a pet bird might around its master. Huma could not feel any sort of breeze, nor was there any seeming source of the mist. It moved as if with a life of its own.

  “Guests. Guide.” Magius spoke the words, not to Huma or Kaz, but to the cloud—and it responded:

  “Guesssstssss. Guiiiiiiidde.” The mist’s voice sounded like steam escaping from a doused campfire.

  “Rooms for the night.”

  “Rooommmmss.”

  Magius grimaced. “Air elementals are so slow.” He waved his hand at the floating mist. “Now, if you please.” To Huma, the spellcaster said, “When you are fed and rested, things will be clearer.”

  Kaz let out a deep “hmmmph,” which Magius ignored. The air elemental, given the command to begin its duties, floated impatiently around the two “guests.”

  “Commme. Rooommmmmss. Guesssstsss.”

  Their host watched as they followed the mist creature up the spiral stairs. When they were out of earshot, Kaz leaned toward Huma, who had taken the lead, and whispered, “This mage is your friend?”

  “Yes.” Huma found it difficult to answer with assurance.

  “Pray that he still considers you in the same way. I think that this tower and its secrets would make for a very secure, very permanent prison.”

  The knight did not argue the statement, having already considered that possibility.

  If this were indeed a prison, it was one to which many a villain would have begged entry and incarceration. After becoming at least partially used to the misty servants, Kaz and Huma had no difficulty enjoying the meats and fruits, not to mention the wines, which would have been fit bill of fare at any royal court.

  The rooms, too, were resplendent, albeit much too large for a normal-size person like Huma. Kaz, on the other hand, found the furnishings perfect for his bulk and pointed this out as more clues that the tower was some remnant of his own race. Huma knew that no one had ever recorded minotaurs this far west until the wars had begun, but he kept his doubts to himself.

  They had been given separate rooms, something which Kaz had at first protested as an obvious ploy to divide and conquer.

  “Had he desired to, Magius could have struck us both down any one of a hundred times,” Huma countered. “You saw the way he handled you in the corridor.”

  “Luck. Let me take him on, one to one.”

  “And he will leave nothing but ashes. Magic is as much a part of him as breathing is to us.”

  The minotaur smashed one massive fist into the wall. To his satisfaction, it yielded quite nicely. “In my homeland—”

  Huma stopped him before he could go any further, “This is Ergoth. These are human lands. Human ways.”

  “Are they? Have you forgotten the battle already?”

  “I have not. I only think that you should trust me. I know Magius far better than you.”

  Kaz quieted, but not before replying, “I hope you do. For both our sakes.”

  It was those words that Huma contemplated as he sat against the bedboard. Despite the drain of energy from their walk through the grove, he had found himself unable to sleep. Kaz, on the other hand, might have been dead, save for the fact that his snores resounded through the walls and into Huma’s room.

  The
candles, lit before he had entered, had melted to the point where many were of little or no use at all. The flickering made odd shadows around the room, and Huma eventually found his eyes returning to one particularly high and deep shadow in the far corner. It was so dark, he almost believed that, if he chose to, he could have walked right into it and through the wall.

  “Huma.”

  A hand, open, thrust out from the shadow. It was followed by another. The knight edged away from that side of the bed and toward his sword, which hung next to the bed.

  “Huma, I must speak to you.”

  “Magius?”

  “Who else?” Arms followed the hands, and then the rest of the mage appeared as well. “Forgive me the dramatic entrance,” Magius whispered, “but I wish to avoid speaking with the minotaur, who might be displeased with some of what I am about to say.”

  “And I won’t be?” Huma was feeling irritable. The mage’s tricks were beginning to wear even on his boyhood friend.

  Their eyes met, and Magius quickly turned away. “You might be. But at least you also see reason. My powers need only slip once for that two-legged bull to do me in.”

  “I could not entirely fault him, Magius.”

  “I know.” The spellcaster put his face in his hands. “How dearly I know.”

  Huma stood up, walked over to his childhood friend, and rested a gentle hand on the other’s shoulder. “Tell me, and I will promise to listen with an open mind.”

  Magius looked up, and they were briefly back in their early days, when neither had cared about anything more lofty than fun. The look vanished almost as soon as it appeared. The elegant Magius held out one hand. Instantly, the staff was there, awaiting his commands.

  “You see before you a magic-user of great power—and even greater potential. I was not the first to say that. Fat, cheerful Belgardin said that the day he sponsored me.”

  Belgardin. Huma remembered the old mage. He had been the first to see the power welling within the young Magius. Power such as he had never seen before. Belgardin was a high adept of the Red Robes, and this enabled him to realize the help the boy needed while still calculating the prestige that accompanied the training of a possible Master of the Order—any order.

  “He was right. You remember. I excelled at all things. I was the brightest candidate they had ever seen. I mastered spells even some established adepts had difficulty with. I was a prodigy.” The hint of conceit in the voice of Magius was quite reasonable; everything he had said was true.

  The mage’s face fell serious. “You ordinary people hear of the Test and all the rumors about what goes on.” Magius made a cutting motion with his free hand. “The rumors pale in comparison to the truth.”

  The Test was the final proof of a mage’s ability to cope with the power. It did not matter which of the orders he or she belonged to. All magic-users took the Test.

  Magius dropped the tip of his staff to the floor and leaned heavily upon it. “I cannot say what others have gone through, just that some did not survive. I went into the Test with every possible scenario plotted out in my mind. I thought they would send dark elves after me, force me to kill an elderly or ill person. Perhaps, I believed, they would have me stand at the edge of the Abyss and face the Queen herself. I knew some of it would be illusion, but much of it would be very real. Real enough to kill me.”

  Huma nodded understanding. Word naturally leaked out. Some of the rumors, it seemed, carried elements of truth.

  The handsome face broke into a smile, one that seemed mad under the circumstances. Magius laughed lightly, although Huma could not guess what he found so funny. “They fooled me completely. Or perhaps even they do not truly know all that goes on during the Test. I suspect that sometimes the power itself takes a hand. Whatever the case, I was confronted with the one thing I found I could not accept.

  “My death. My death in the future.”

  There was nothing Huma could say to that. He might deny that it was real, try to convince Magius that it had to be all illusion, but what could he say that he himself believed?

  “Somehow, I succeeded in surviving. I think that madness was what waited for me if I failed. I fooled them by entering into another type of madness then. A madness created by the realization that what I saw would indeed come to pass. I left the tower, left the Test, knowing my fate and determined to do something about it.

  “And I found I could not. Not by the strict bylaws of the Orders. Despite their supposed freedom from restrictions, neither the Red nor the Black Robes offered anything that could assist me. They were still too limited, and I certainly was not cut out to wear the robes of white, as you well know.”

  Magius chuckled at the last, then sighed. The candles had burned down to nearly nothing.

  “With a realization of the restrictions placed upon me by the Three Orders, I decided that I would be forced to step beyond the lines they had drawn in order to—if you’ll pardon me for saying so—change the future.”

  Huma stepped back involuntarily. The wild spells, the outlandish clothing, so different from the austere robes of other mages. He shook his head, not believing that it were possible to do what Magius had done.

  “Then and there,” Magius was saying, his attention focused inward, “I turned from the formalized, stifling training of the Conclave and became a renegade.”

  CHAPTER 10

  “Does it shock you so, Huma? I was young, unbridled. I probably would have left for other reasons. Disgust for the Test, perhaps, which I still find a barbaric way of trimming the dead leaves.”

  Huma slumped back on the bed. To one brought up under the strict beliefs of the knighthood, all magic-users were untrustworthy. A renegade was considered blacker than even the Black Robes, for he would meddle with spells even they would balk at using.

  Magius read the look and smiled ruefully. “A renegade is only what he makes of himself, Huma. There are very few, since it is hard to escape the notice of the Conclave, but some of those few are very good people. Not powerful enough, sometimes. Had they taken the Test, most of them would have perished. While they live, they do what little they can to help others. Of course, there is always the other side.”

  “Galan Dracos.”

  “Yes.” Magius had gone pale. “Even the Queen’s dark clerics fear him. She needs him, though.”

  The knight stiffened. “You know a lot.”

  “I—I heard much of him as I traveled. I thought he might be the one to aid me, to give me protection. He has no fear of the Three Orders.”

  There was motion in the next room. Magius stepped back into the shadows. “I do not think we can continue our discussion for now. Try to understand that everything I’ve done is for good reasons. We’ll talk later.”

  Magius melted into the darkness. Leaping up, the knight put a hand into the shadowy corner. Only walls, as he suspected. Whatever portal Magius had opened had just been closed.

  With a snarl, Kaz burst into the room. “I heard him! Where is he?”

  Startled by the ferocity of the minotaur, Huma stepped back. “What is it, Kaz?”

  “This is a trap, as I suspected! My ax is gone! My daggers are missing!”

  “What are you talking about?” Huma reached for his own sword, which hung near the bed. Only—

  The sheath hung as before, but it was empty now. Hurriedly, Huma went through his belongings. Like Kaz, he was missing all his weapons. They had disappeared even while the two old friends had talked.

  Huma put a hand to his head. The room was becoming terribly hot. He felt flushed. Kaz was suddenly by his side, supporting him.

  “What has he done to you? Are you ill?”

  “I’m fine.” He waved his sympathetic companion away. “It’s nothing.”

  Huma had been a fool. He had believed that the past still counted, when now it was all too obvious that the mage had been lying. The inconsistencies, the overlengthy explanations, left more questions than they answered.

  Huma reached for
his armor. “We’re leaving—somehow.”

  Kaz helped him suit up.

  The hallway was apparently unguarded, although the knight was sure that unseen servants watched their every move. He wondered how far Magius would allow them to go.

  “I don’t like this,” Kaz muttered. He, far more than the human, distrusted the workings of any magic-user.

  They reached the long, spiral staircase without incident—which only served to make them that much more cautious. Huma reached out and touched the bannister with one finger. When he felt nothing, he dared to grip it. He took a step downward. Another. A third. Kaz followed as closely behind as his huge bulk permitted. Their pace quickened unconsciously.

  On the sixth step down, Huma blinked. He was no longer on the step, but back at the top of the staircase. Five steps below, Kaz whirled about, searching for him. Before Huma could warn him, the burly easterner set one foot down on the sixth step. Huma had only a quick glimpse of Kaz before the latter vanished, to reappear beside him a moment later.

  “More tricks,” muttered Kaz.

  They tried again, achieving the same result. Each time, the one who put a foot down on the step never noticed the shift. It was magic of the most complex and subtle nature.

  They were trapped in some loop. Huma quit first, realizing the folly. Kaz continued for some time after, hoping there might be a way out. In the end, though, the minotaur joined Huma in the corridor.

  “What now?”

  Huma dropped the pack he had been carrying and undid the empty sheath. “Nothing. We won’t be going anywhere, it seems.”

  “We cannot stay here!” The red glare was returning to the giant’s eyes.

  “Have you any ideas? There are no windows, and the walls are solid. At least for us.”

  “We could climb down to the corridor.”

  Huma picked up the empty sheath and walked over to the stairway. He lifted the object over the rail and dropped it.