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.'
