His voice was lyrical and had a soothing effect on the kender. His hand kind of felt good, Tas had to admit.
"You are not our enemy; you are our friend," rumbled Fesz. "I can see that. It's wrong that they have treated you so badly." His head flicked scoldingly in the direction of Cleef-Eth. "Wrong and cruel. These city dwellers have such crude methods. It makes my heart heavy to see that they have inflicted pain upon you. The Nightmaster himself has sent me. I came on his behalf as soon as I learned of your predicament."
Tas was listening. Although the breath was still fetid, the words were lulling. And behind the fist-sized eyes of the shaman, he thought he saw a gleam of kindness that gave him hope.
"I have brought you a restorative, Tasslehoff Burrfoot," rumbled Fesz soothingly. "It will do the job much more considerately than torture. It will make you my friend, and it will make my friends your friends, my enemies your enemies. You have an understandable inclination to act for the cause of good. However, this will put you on my side . . . the side of evil."
The huge hands of the minotaur reached a little farther and clutched Tas by the throat, holding him firmly but not too hard; he could still breathe. Tas squirmed uncomfortably as the minotaur pulled him closer. Held not only by the throat but by the shaman's compelling gaze, Tas saw Fesz gesture with his other hand. One of the minotaur retinue hastened forward, carrying an ornamented drinking goblet. Self-importantly, Cleef-Eth grabbed the goblet from the minotaur and stepped up behind Fesz.
Fesz pried the kender's jaws open as Cleef-Eth poured a greenish gold liquid from the goblet down Tas's throat. Not bad-tasting, Tasslehoff thought. As for turning him evil, Tas felt it was an intriguing idea. It was Tas's last conscious thought.
The kender's head drooped downward as the potion began to take effect. Fesz let him slump to the floor.
Standing, Fesz looked at Tasslehoff Burrfoot with satisfaction. "Put him in my guest quarters," commanded the shaman. "I will deal with him myself. From this moment on, he is one of us."
Cleef-Eth turned to bark orders, but Fesz grabbed him by the shoulder and whirled him around. The shaman struck out at the jailer, hitting him across the face and knocking him down with violent force. Cleef-Eth staggered up from the floor, rubbing his cheek ruefully, but he didn't dare retaliate. Instead, he made a slight, pathetic bow.
Sarkis and the other minotaurs smirked in the background.
"This kender is no mage!" Fesz growled at Cleef-Eth angrily. "Any fool can see that!"
* * * * *
For hundreds of years, the island of Karthay was thought to be abandoned and desolate. Few travelers journeyed there. Those that did risked being greeted by giant insects, swarms of locusts, lumbering umber hulks, and deadly sand creatures who creeped and crawled among its dunes and rocks. Few could survive the howling wind and stinging sand, let alone the harsh, uncompromising heat of the endless days and the bitter cold of the torturous nights on the island.
Hundreds of years ago—nobody knew exactly when—a great city had existed on this island, a fabled city that was also called Karthay. It was the site of magnificent buildings, clean and ordered streets, and a flourishing civilization. It was said to house a great university of higher learning and a library renowned for its huge store of books.
Then, hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago, some unknown disaster befell the city of Karthay. Now it lay buried under tons of rock beneath a collapsed cliff face on the south shore of the island. Here and there, broken stone and identifiable pieces of buildings jutted up from the ground. In the collapse of the great city, numerous tunnels and canyons had formed among the rubble, a skein of underground passages, some treacherous with trapped gases, others dotted with sandpits, still others extending safely and uninterrupted for miles.
The inhospitable climate in the haunted ruins made it a congenial setting for the Nightmaster. Although a few unsettling problems had arisen, his plan to summon Sargonnas, to bring the god of vengeance into the world, and to forge alliances with the hostile and evil races of Ansalon was progressing.
The Nightmaster had fashioned his sanctuary in a hollowed-out area of the shattered ruins where once the great library had stood. Of that once great repository of learning, only a few isolated columns and occasional windblown scraps of ancient books remained. Fires ringed the Nightmaster's camp, which was open to the sky.
Never far from the Nightmaster, serving his every whim and learning from his every word and deed, were the two remaining shaman minotaurs of the High Three. Around the perimeter of the sanctuary, at a respectful distance, camped a group of devoted disciples and a small army of stalwart minotaurs who stayed in Karthay for the Nightmaster to command.
On this night, the camp entertained a rare visitor, one who brought the Nightmaster vital information. A scaly creature with tiny wings and an ugly snout, the visitor sat on a broken wall near the high cleric of the minotaurs, sating its thirst on strong, hot spirits after its long journey. Its actual appearance was known only to the Nightmaster and the High Three. The nearby disciples and armed minotaurs, if they endeavored to peer through the darkness, would have seen only a small figure wrapped in a cape and hood.
"I adopted a clever disguise," reported the scaly, snouted creature, its voice harsh and piercing, "and asked everyone that I met in this dull and backward place, but nobody knew where they had gone or why." The creature refilled its stone cup and took a long, satisfying drink.
An acrid, sulfurous smell emanated from the creature and traveled on the wind to the encamped minotaurs. Several of those horned bull-men, notorious for their own stench, exchanged looks.
The Nightmaster, his eyes huge and intelligent,
