There were gasps from several of the members of the Supreme Circle. Until now, the Nightmaster hadn't revealed the precise timetable of the spell. Fesz's mention of the exact date and time had had the intended effect of making all the worry and opposition among the assembled leaders disappear.
'What about this escaped prisoner?' asked the king.
'I do not believe he is the human called Raistlin,' Fesz answered respectfully, 'but I will stop in Atossa on the way to Karthay and make certain.'
'Where is this Raistlin, then?'
'That I do not know,' admitted Fesz. 'Perhaps he isn't coming after all. Perhaps we have overestimated him in our minds. In any case, I don't think Raistlin Majere is anything but a minor annoyance, a mosquito on the arse of a woolly mammoth.'
The eight members of the Supreme Circle chuckled at Fesz's use of an old minotaur adage.
The king looked satisfied. 'What about the kender?' he wanted to know. 'Is he still under the effects of the evil potion?'
Fesz nodded. 'Most assuredly he is,' rumbled Fesz, 'and he has proved quite helpful as an ally. I plan to take him with me to Atossa and Karthay. I hope to persuade the Nightmaster that he might play a role in the ritual.'
The king looked skeptical.
'Do not fear,' the shaman minotaur said smoothly. 'Before I depart, I will be sure to double the dose of his potion.'
Chapter 11
Although be bounced and jostled inside the sack, which withstood his repeated efforts to tear a hole in it so that he could see out, Caramon didn't sense he was in any immediate danger.
The Majere twin guessed he was being transported a great distance away from the minotaur prison, although who his rescuers were and why they had taken him remained a puzzle. As glad as he was to be free of the minotaurs, Caramon fretted about leaving Sturm behind, and he realized that he was someone else's prisoner now. In effect, he had traded one captivity for another.
His uneasiness wasn't relieved, over the course of the next two hours, by the distinct impression that he was being swept through the air. Caramon could feel no hard surface beneath or on either side of the burlap sack. The only noises that reached his ears sounded like nothing so much as the steady beating of wings and the occasional caw of a giant bird.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, the young warrior seemed to remember having heard a similar cawing once before.
Eventually Caramon had the sensation he was descending from a great height, a descent that ended with the burlap sack, with him still curled up inside, bumping and scraping along rocky ground. Moments later, someone tugged the sack open. On wobbly legs, Caramon stepped out.
A spectacular sight greeted him.
He stood on a ledge in a high-walled canyon that wound out of sight to his left and right. The sides of the canyon were honeycombed with dozens of caves stretching as far as the eye could see. And perched in front of the caves, as if to greet him, were hundreds of an ancient and wondrous folk whose remote civilization few humans ever had been privileged to glimpse.
A welcoming committee of these fantastical 'bird-people' stood with Caramon on the ledge. They were a mix of hawk and human, walking upright on long, sinewy legs that ended in birdlike talons. Huge feathered wings sprouted from their backs and attached to their arms and hands. With growing excitement, Caramon thought, Why, they look just like…
… like the broken man back in the prison cell. These were his people! Those terrible wounds on his back and shoulders, Caramon now realized, must have been where the minotaurs had ripped off his wings.
The bird-man nearest Caramon was the one who had rescued the Majere twin from captivity. He was taller than Caramon, and leaner. His bronzed face, quite human in appearance, was fiercely handsome. Rather than hair, flowing golden feathers grew from his head. Fine brown pinfeathers covered his chest. He wore no clothing other than a waistcloth of leather.
'Who are you?' Caramon asked his rescuer.
'In your language,' the bird-man said with pride in the common tongue, 'I am Cloudreaver.'
Caramon fumbled for the proper words. 'What are you?'
Cloudreaver frowned and stepped aside, gesturing with his wings to one of the bird-people behind him. His pebble-black eyes watched Caramon haughtily.
Following Cloudreaver's gesture, Caramon saw an elder whom he had not noticed at first. Others grouped protectively around this venerable bird-man who shuffled forward on clawed feet to meet Caramon. In spite of his odd gait, he moved with dignity and grace.
The elder bird-man's feather hair was silver white and streamed down to his chest. Many year of exposure to the sun and elements had darkened and lined his face. In spite of his apparent age, muscles rippled across his chest and in his sinewy legs.
Slightly bent over, his head cocked to one side, the elder bird-man approached Caramon with a glimmer of warmth in his clear yellow eyes. 'We are the kyrie,' explained the elder, his speech clipped but precise. 'I am Arikara-in your tongue, Sun Feather, leader of the people who inhabit the skies.'
'Kyrie?' questioned Caramon.
Sun Feather cocked his head, peering at Caramon. 'A proud and long-lived folk,' the kyrie leader said softly. 'You have not heard of us?'
Caramon glanced at the hundreds of feathered kyrie who gazed at him from the high safety of their respective aeries. They murmured amongst themselves; some of them pointed at him. Raistlin may have mentioned the kyrie once. His twin read so many books, it was hard for Caramon to keep track. The burly warrior shook his head from side to side in response to Sun Feather's question.
'That is to be expected,' said Sun Feather, placing a huge wing over Caramon's shoulder and leading him gently toward a shelter dug out of the canyon wall.
Caramon hadn't spotted the cave before, perhaps because the hide that draped the entrance was the color of sandstone and blended in with the canyon wall. Some of the other kyrie followed, including Cloudreaver, another elder whose face was dotted with sun spots, and two females, one young, another older, both dressed in leather skirts and vests decorated with quills and beads.
The entrance opened onto a spacious cave that vaulted upward into a high dome. Dried grass and twigs covered the floor of the tamped-down earth. A central fire pit, filled with heated rocks, gave off warmth. Weapons and cooking utensils hung from pegs in the walls. Animal furs, more than sufficient to ward off the desert night cold, were stacked near the threshold.
Sun Feather took aside the two females and gave them some instructions in a language that Caramon could not decipher.
Cloudreaver bade Caramon sit near the fire pit. The other elder, whom Cloudreaver introduced as Three Far- Eyes, sat opposite their visitor. Cloudreaver took a place next to Three Far-Eyes.
Sun Feather sat down next to Caramon, moving gingerly. He picked up a stick and prodded the ground with it. It took Caramon a moment to realize he was outlining a rough map. 'Centuries ago the kyrie inhabited many of the islands of Ansalon,' Sun Feather told Caramon. 'We migrated around the world, never content to stay in one place. Our long flights over the oceans were made possible by a magical device called the Northstone. Because we grew to depend on the Northstone, we lost many of our natural instincts, including the ability to navigate. Then we lost the Northstone, and it fell into the possession of our dire enemies, the minotaurs.'
The female kyrie hovered in the background, apparently busy with preparations for a meal. Now the older one circled behind the three male kyrie and Caramon, distributing stone mugs of a pale, flecked liquid. Caramon cupped
