Tasslehoff turned to Sturm, missing his gaze, and shrugged. 'Well,' he said, 'maybe it wasn't much of a tale at that. It's about time to turn in, after all.' He smiled and pushed his chair back. 'See you tomorrow.'
Sturm half-waved his hand. The kender left him alone in the inn with his thoughts.
Dreams of Darkness, Dreams of Light
William Sweetwater was a short man — five-foot-three,one hundred and eighty pounds, pig-faced, snout- nosed and he was lost in a universe of nightmares. Eons ago, or so it seemed, the neutral gray mist surrounded his body and drew himinto the void. Groping, stumbling, frightened of each step, he wan dered through the mysterious fog.
Screams roared through the vapors. Harsh, intermittent, guttural shouts blared out. He heard constant whispers in the mist, low murmurings that were sly, insinuating, often obscene. At other times the mist echoed with the howl of banshees, followed by the grisly noise of feral animals feeding on some bony substance.
An intuitive impulse caused William to stop and assess the nature of his situation. He shivered in the swirling fog and tried to get a sense of direction.
Gradually, he discovered he was standing at the edge of a large, seething pit. He stiffened like a carven stone idol, afraid to move. The mist parted, and his gaze focused on a frothing mass of black slime.
The thick fluid was in a stage of fermentation. Dark, reptilian forms bubbled to the surface. Their evil, grotesque shapes blocked his vision. They remained in his view for a short time, then vanished as other forms rose to the surface.
The putrifying mixture seemed to engulf the universe. Entrails of odorous steam boiled up from the surface. Images of angry faces were reflected off the sides of giant bubbles. They were dark, resentful faces with eyes glittering with hatred.
A panorama of scenes and sounds assaulted his senses. Here, a disembodied leg stomped endlessly on a bloody face. There, a man in a military uniform snatched an infant from a lace-trimmed crib. The soldier slammed the baby against a stone wall. A band of ghouls rose out of the slime and performed a macabre dance on the black surface. They sank back into the percolating liquid as a tanged lizard wrapped itself around a screaming maiden. An obscene altar flashed into view. A young man and a woman were tied spread-eagled on a filth-strewn slab of stone. A dog-faced priest with minotaur horns raised a dagger to pierce their hearts.
'… jump!'
'… You belong here! You're like us!' This voice was low, feminine, almost a motherly whisper.
'…jump! Jump!'
'… Everyone does it! You're no different,' rasped a deep, resonant voice.
'… jump! Jump! Jump!'
'… Roll us over in the slime,' sang a guttural chorus.
He wavered.
A part of his being, some ancient reptilian gene, urged him to leap into the abyss and wallow in the slime. As part of the odorous mass, he could act out any evil impulse. He could torture and kill without re morse… if only he would accept the pit as his home. The voices knew of his secret hatreds and lusts, knew that William Sweetwater sometimes dreamed of dark deeds.
With the last remnant of his will power, William teetered on the edge of the abyss. He fought the dark urge.
Then, all of a sudden, the rolling mass stopped bubbling. The fermenting halted, images vanished. The voices went silent as the surface of the putrid slime lay still, unmoving.
Out of the pit rose a comely young maiden with platinum blonde tresses and (and this is the strangest thing, William thought) a hideous serpentine monster straining at the end of a chain leash.
The huge monster towered high above the mist and slime, writhing and coiling. William cringed as the reptile's head parted and became five separate entities twisting above the demented maw.
'Oh, pay no attention to that confounded show-off,' huffed the maiden in a surprisingly baritone voice. She gave the leash a violent tug and the hideous creature was jerked, choking and sputtering, into an attentive pose.
At least the maiden appeared to be young-and beautiful to gaze upon. But William thought he heard the sound of creaking joints, a sort of arthritic crackle, and there was a frostiness in her smile that made him shudder.
'Your name?'
'William Sweetwater.'
She seemed to be perched on a giant mottled toadstool with an ink bottle, quill pen, and sheet of parchment at the ready. She wore a black robe. Two black velvet slippers poked from beneath her garment. A battered wooden staff rested at her side. The hideous serpent creature was trying its hardest to peek over her shoulder as she furiously began to scribble, but she took malicious delight in fidgeting this way and that in order to block its view.
'Race?'
'Human.'
The maiden frowned and wrote a strange symbol on the parchment.
'Age?
'Thirty-eight.'
'Where were you born?'
'Port Balifor.'
The comely maiden hissed a smile. 'Ah, one of my favorite areas. Your people have been kind-hearted since the beginning of Krynn. Now, William, do you have any living relatives?'
'No. My mother died when I was a baby.'
'And your father?'
'He was a sailor whose ship was lost. That happened when I was eighteen. There were bad storms that year.'
'Tragic,' said the maiden, though she was still smiling. 'Now, William, have you lived a life of grace?'
'What does that mean?'
'Have you worshipped the true gods in a faithful manner?'
William shook his head, negatively. 'I've not given much thought to worshipping gods.'
The maiden frowned. 'Do you have courage?'
'I'm a coward,' answered William truthfully. 'I dream about doing something brave, but I never do it.'
'Follow your instincts in matters of courage,' said the maiden in a waspish tone. 'Now, are you committed to anyone?'
'What does that mean?'
The maiden raised an eyebrow. 'You know… do you fiddle faddle around with any females?'
'Women like their men to be handsome. I have a face that only a mother could love.' William's hand moved across his porcine features. 'Folks say a pig overturned my crib when I was a baby. My face was supposed to have been marked by the experience.'
One of the serpent heads left the reptilian cluster and glided forward to inspect William's snouted face. Hard, reptilian eyes examined his features as a long forked tongue darted in and out of the salivating mouth. The mouth of the snake-if indeed, it was a snake-opened wide, exposing two ghastly fangs. Abruptly, the creature began to guffaw, horridly, a foul unearthly noise that shook William's fast-beating heart and prompted him to draw back in horror.
The comely maiden jerked the chain leash, and the serpent monster retreated to its position, hovering silently, for the moment, behind her.
But she too leaned forward and gazed with more intensity upon William. Her breath is not felicitous, thought
