Selana could scarcely believe it was possible, but she was now in worse straits than before. The temperature in the stream had been nearly constant, but the air was much colder this high in the mountains. Now seriously injured, she was without food and shelter. She realized that she could very well die before the sun rose again.
I have to get dry, Selana thought faintly, her head spinning dizzily from loss of blood. Mustering every ounce of stubbornness in her makeup, she concentrated on the one spell left in her memory: a cantrip, nothing more than a practicing technique, so minor it was almost negligible. Once mastered, though, a cantrip could be extremely flexible, and Selana was counting on that. It took a great deal of effort, but with the cantrip she managed to squeeze the icy water from her skimpy tunic and blot it dry. The effort left her weaker still.
Acting largely on instinct and reflex, she ripped a two-inch strip of cloth from the ragged hem of her tunic and bound the oozing, burning wound tightly to close the gash and stop the flow of blood. The added pressure of the bandage hurt, but felt reassuring at the same time.
"You need to rest for a moment," she mumbled aloud, hoping the sound of a voice—even her own—would keep her awake. "Find some shelter from the wind." Selana half stumbled, half walked toward a dazzlingly white outcropping of rock in the face of the mountain. Surely she could find a nook or cranny and hide there from the merciless mountain gales.
At last she found a small, low ledge, barely deep enough for her slight form. She collapsed in a ball against the cold granite, her face turned outward. With the tattered tunic drawn up close, she blinked foggy eyes at the bleak scene before her.
She knew with frightening clarity that she was going to die . . . alone. As the wind howled, she would slip into eternal oblivion and never awaken—unless she believed the clerics who said there was an afterlife, if she believed in the true gods, whoever they were, but she didn't believe.
Thinking she had seen movement, Selana forced her eyes to focus once again for just a moment. A fallen branch, perhaps? Or a hallucination? She discarded the notion because whatever she had seen was much larger than a branch and blended perfectly into the grayness of the granite mountainside. She thought she saw a hulking minotaur, a savage man-cow hybrid, though this one was made of polished white granite. It was crossing the gap, headed toward her.
I really am hallucinating, she thought. I'll just close my eyes and sleep, and when I awaken it will be gone. But with her eyes closed she heard ragged, vicious snarling and breathing. I'll just close my ears, too, she thought groggily, and the sound will go away. Eyes tightly closed, fingers in her ears, she waited.
Then two great hands, icy as the granite itself, clasped her by the shoulders and hefted her into the air. A heartbeat from unconsciousness, Selana's eyes fluttered open briefly and saw the frightening, horn-headed granite minotaur again.
For one last, brief moment, she thought, almost gratefully, that she must already be dead.
Chapter 15
The Jailbreak
Tasslehoff stretched out beneath a small night-stand, licking his paws and smoothing out his fur. His tail flicked back and forth casually. It was an engaging feeling, and he was just a little rueful that kender had no tails.
He still could not believe what he and Selana had witnessed in the laboratory. A talking coin, who represented the evil god Hiddukel! He could hardly wait to tell Tanis and Flint about it, particularly now that Selana had flown away. She'd flashed him one more telepathic message before she'd disappeared through the loophole in the mage's chamber.
"Tas, I'm going to follow him and get my bracelet back," she'd said, giving Tasslehoff no chance to talk her out of it, since she flew from sight and range right after.
So, in a mouse-induced panic, Tas had skittered out of the evil mage's laboratory, run partway down the hall, then slipped under the first door he came to. He found himself in a bedchamber. Probably a spare, unused room, he decided, because the fireplace was cold and several leaves swirled about in the comers whenever a breeze gusted through the tiny window. Still, a few rugs on the floor made it cozy enough and it seemed like a good place to pause and decide what he should do next.
Tas's first decision had been to shed his mouse form for something the mage might not be looking for. Most people seemed to like cats, so Castle Tantallon now had a white, brown, and turquoise cat with an unusually long shock of hair at the back of its head.
He also thought he would do well to wait a minute or two before moving around too much, just in case someone was watching the hallway. Tas washed himself, cat style, wondering all the while if he really would be cleaner when he changed back to his normal shape.
He soon began considering his situation strategically. Few people realized that kender were capable of analytical thought. In fact, they were quite good at it under the right conditions but, because they were so easily distracted, they rarely managed to carry an argument through to a logical conclusion. Tas discovered that lying under a nightstand, licking one's paws, and purring softly were all conducive to clear thinking.
Tasslehoff posed himself a question: If I were an evil wizard in league with Hiddukel and I found myself in this situation, what would I do? The mage would be guarding the bracelet now, that much
