* * * * *
The next morning the companions were awakened rudely by the minotaur guards. One held a sword at Sturm's throat, while the other beckoned Caramon outside the cell. The guard handed Caramon two huge buckets of meat and water and instructed him to deliver a portion to each of the prisoners in the cells that lined the dark, dank corridors heading off in four directions—north, south, east and west.
Faltering under the weight of the buckets, the warrior realized how much he had been weakened by his experience at sea. The minotaur guards laughed at Caramon as he struggled to lift the buckets, then stumbled off along his designated route. One of the minotaur guards returned to his post, while the other trailed behind Caramon, brandishing a sword to make sure the ridiculous human did as he was instructed.
For three hours thereafter, Caramon walked the corridors of the prison, ladling rations into troughs outside the prisoners' cells. From inside, the prisoners could stretch out their hands and cradle the food and water to their mouths.
The prisoners were minotaur as well as human, the twin was surprised to discover. Despite their humiliation at being prisoners, the minotaur captives stared at Caramon with bitter contempt. Though he brought them the food and water they desperately craved, Caramon knew they regarded humans as an inferior race.
Most of the prisoners were renegades, pirates, or worse. Some were too tired or sick or wounded to even respond when Caramon dished out their food. In at least one instance, Caramon felt certain that the prisoner, crumpled forlornly in a corner and covered with crawling insects, was long dead. He told the minotaur guard, who was always nearby, watching him. The guard expressed indifference but took a closer look and made a notation in a leather-hided book that hung at his side.
At the far end of one of the dim corridors was an isolated cell, several hundred feet from its nearest neighbor. This was the strangest case of all. An abject figure was strapped to the inside wall, held erect, unable to sit or lie down. His body seemed broken. His head drooped. He had to muster all of his strength in order to look up as Caramon came tottering along with the buckets of meat and water.
Caramon could see very little inside the dimly lit cell, but he could make out that the man's head was oval-shaped, his eyes tiny black holes. Pus and blood oozed from his shoulders and back, as if some vital appendage had been torn from his body. He didn't look as though he could even be alive, hanging there, yet, looking up at Caramon, he managed a curious, brave grin.
Caramon wondered how the broken man could get loose to eat his meat and drink his water. Putting the buckets down, the warrior hesitated.
"Go on," growled the minotaur guard, several feet behind Caramon. "We lets him eat a little now and then. Otherwise he can look at it and smell it as it goes rotten. If s all part of the accommodations here."
Caramon took his time measuring out the meat and spooning some water into the man's trough. As he suspected he would, the minotaur guard had turned away idly and walked a few paces down the corridor. He was no longer watching closely.
"Why are you chained?" whispered Caramon softly.
"So I do not kill myself," said the broken man. "I would prefer death to subjugation."
"Why are you here?".
"I am being interrogated," answered the man in a curiously amused tone.
"What did you do?"
"I am not one of them. That is enough."
Caramon turned.
"Wait!" whispered the man. "Are you one of the new humans?"
Caramon looked astonished. He glanced at the minotaur guard. The bull-man was paying no attention. His back was to them, and he was clanging his sword idly against the corridor walls.
Caramon leaned toward the broken man. "What do you mean?"
"Are you one of the humans plucked from the sea?"
"Yes," said Caramon wonderingly. "How could you know about that?"
"Shh. Not now. Another time."
The minotaur guard turned, bored with waiting. "Hey, you, don't dawdle! Hurry up!"
With a nod of his chin, the chained man waved him on. Reluctantly Caramon followed the minotaur. His shoulders and arms ached from carrying the heavy buckets.
* * * * *
Although they weren't watched closely, Caramon and Sturm chose to talk only at night, whispering in the dark. Caramon told Sturm about the strange man chained in his cell and how he seemed to know about the humans "plucked from the sea." Sturm thought about it, but he couldn't figure out how the prisoner could have known about them. He must be mistaking them for others, the young Solamnic surmised.
Wistfully they talked about Solace and their friends, Tanis, Flint, and Raistlin, Caramon's twin.
They wondered about Tasslehoff and why the minotaurs who had sailed up to the wreck of the Venora had wanted to keep the kender alive. Considering possible reasons, Sturm said that if Tas were indeed alive, he would make a very poor slave, and he wouldn't fare much better as a gladiator against minotaur opponents.
"Oh, I don't know about that," disagreed Caramon with a broad grin. "If they let Tas improvise with his hoopak, he'd stand a fighting chance."
They both had to chuckle at the thought of Tas brandishing his hoopak against one of the hulking bull-men.
Sturm realized that it was the first time either of them had smiled or laughed for over a week. "How long do you think it has been," he asked Caramon, "since we were betrayed by the captain of the Venora, and delivered to this part of the world?"
"I've lost track of time. I'd say ten to twelve days."
"That sounds about right,"
