Kaz the Minotaur

They found the elf in a study room of the library, sprawled over a long, yellowed parchment that Kaz guessed was at least a century old. Argaen was nodding and chuckling, a wild sort of chuckle that disturbed the minotaur. Again he wondered how sane Ravenshadow truly was.

“Come see,” Argaen called out as they entered. Without looking up, he pointed at the center of the parchment. ‘This is a copy of the original design for this library. Your founder”-the elf glanced up briefly at Darius-”designed more than half of this… the secret half.”

“What?” The knight was completely at a loss to understand what Argaen meant.

“I do not know how your smaller southern keeps are diagrammed, but Vinas Solamnus wanted every building here to have one use other than the obvious one. He knew that Vingaard itself might come under siege and possibly even be broken into someday. Therefore, he had passages built inside the walls, wide enough for two men if they rubbed shoulders. Your kender friend has uncovered some of the passages in this building.”

“I’ve never heard of passages such as you speak of,” Darius argued.

“Most of them seem to have been forgotten. These parchments were located during the war, supposedly after one of your own turned out to be a traitor.”

Darius turned white at the suggestion and would have drawn his sword if Kaz had not grabbed his arm. “He’s right, Darius. I’ll fill you in later.”

The knight let his arm drop. Kaz could see the despair growing in the man again. The minotaur could not blame him. He recalled Huma’s face when told of Rennard. Rennard, despite his pale-white face and lack of humor, had always treated Huma well, and indeed was one of those who had trained him. The knight’s career had proven a mockery, however, for long before Rennard had joined the order, he had surrendered himself to the cult of Morgion, god of disease and decay. The gaunt knight was found to be responsible for the death of Grand Master Trake and the serious illness of Oswal. Worse yet, Huma had discovered that the fiend was his own uncle.

“Here, here, and here,” Argaen said calmly, pointing at the map as if unaware of Darius. “These are the most likely entrances your kender friend will be near. If we each cut him off and converge, one of us is bound to catch him.”

“He better pray it’s not me!” Kaz rumbled. “I’ll hang him from the top floor of this building by his shirt collar!”

Delbin was having the time of his life. Secret passages and locks were the things a kender lived for. He thought about how jealous some of his friends back home would be. Serves ‘em right, he decided.

In some ways, Delbin was a bit odd for his kind. Most kender cared for little more than fun, although there were the occasional serious ones, “oddballs,” as they were called by some of the young. Delbin liked adventures, but although he had never told anyone, especially Kaz, he also yearned for some purpose in his life, some grand scheme. Listening to the stories of heroes, both kender and otherwise, his ambition grew. Unfortunately, Delbin had been too young to participate in the great war, and by the time he was old enough to sneak away on his own, word had reached Hylo that She of the Many Faces, as the kender called Takhisis, had been banished to the beyond.

Delbin returned to the business at hand. A great web blocked his path upward. So far, this grand adventure had brought him nothing more than a few old coins, a rusty knife, and one amusing secret door. The web was kind of fascinating, Delbin thought, and he briefly imagined some great spider, as big as himself, spinning it. The image he conjured up was so real, the kender could almost see its eight red eyes…

Suddenly the eight red eyes flashed, and Delbin found himself facing the very spider of his imagination. The thing was incredibly ugly, what he could see of it, and barely able to fit in the passageway. Nevertheless, it was making headway. Imagining a huge spider was one thing, but actually being attacked by one was… was… icky, Delbin decided. The little candle he had shone too weakly to scare the monster, and the knife, which was useful for picking locks on secret doors, was too dull for a confrontation. Actually, a longsword, if he could have lifted one, would probably have been just as useless. The spider was awfully large.

Its eight long legs, each as thick as the kender’s arm, scraped against the passage walls as the huge creature slowly burst its way through the web. Delbin found himself paralyzed, not with fear, which he had experienced only occasionally, but with a trancelike fascination for what was happening. The multiple eyes of the spider seemed to entice him to a warm, safe place where he could sleep snugly, wrapped in his blanket.

He dropped the candle.

The spider scurried back, and Delbin’s mind cleared. The horror was only a few feet away from him. He tried to turn, but to his amazement, his feet were bound together-By webbing, of course, he thought, as he went crashing down on the steps. Recovering from its fright, the spider once again scuttled forward toward its helpless victim.

A roar-a war cry-ripped through the musty passage, and suddenly a huge figure bathed in light stood behind the giant arachnid. In one hand, nearly scraping the ceiling, was a magnificent battle-axe that no man could have wielded with such ease.

The spider hesitated, caught between desire and confusion. Delbin watched in open-mouthed awe as the axe rang down and bit into the monster. Ichor spilled out, splattering the kender and the walls, as the great weapon fairly cleaved the spider in two. It refused to die immediately, its tiny brain lagging behind reality. The light in its eight eyes slowly dimmed as it wobbled in the direction of Delbin. The axe came down once more.

The monstrosity finally collapsed at the kender’s bound feet.

“Delbin!” His axe dripping with the spider’s life fluids, Kaz stepped over the creature’s remains and kneeled down beside his companion. Behind him, carrying a torch, hurried Tesela. There were other sounds in the passage, running feet that undoubtedly belonged to Darius and Argaen.

“Delbin, you little fool!” Kaz muttered. He looked down at the kender’s feet. “What is that stuff?”

“It’s webbing,” Tesela remarked. “What else would a spider use?” She handed the torch to Kaz and brought her medallion in contact with the webbing. The sticky, ropelike substance melted away.

‘That thing’s pretty handy.”

“Yes, isn’t it.” She leaned back and spoke to the kender. “Do you feel any dizziness or have bruises? You must’ve fallen.”

“How’d you do that?” Delbin was touching the remains of the webbing. “Could I do that, too? Does it just work for spiders? Well, at least I don’t think I’m hurt. You should’ve seen it, Kaz, though I guess you did, but it just seemed to come right out of nowhere, and all I was doing was thinking that the web looked like a giant spider, and-”

Kaz briefly put a hand over the kender’s mouth and looked at Tesela. “I think he’s all right.”

“Paladine’s Sword! What happened here?” Darius, blade in one hand and a candle in the other, came running up the stairs behind Delbin. “Is that a-a-”

“A spider, yes.” Argaen joined them from the steps above. While both he and Darius had obviously run, only the knight seemed at all winded. “I cannot say I’ve come across one that big before. Not in a place like Vingaard Keep.”

Kaz wiped his axe blade off on the spider. The stench from the bodily fluids of the monster was becoming noticeable. “Have you ever been in these passages?” he asked the elf.

“When I first found those parchments-and, believe me, that was purely accidental, for they were extremely well hidden-I decided to traverse the entire library system. I came across many spiders, of course, but nothing like that.”

“Delbin says that it seemed to come out of nowhere, that he was just thinking how the web looked like one spun by a giant spider.”

The elf frowned. “I do not like the sound of that. Things grow ever worse. I fear that the kender himself may have somehow created that monster-by magic,” The kender was silent, but there was a gleam in his eyes that Kaz did not like.

“What do you mean?” the minotaur asked Argaen, “when you say that Delbin ‘created’ it?”

“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.