He thought he heard a rustling sound somewhere.
"Did Caramon leave anything behind . . . even the slightest hint of a clue?" asked Tasslehoff.
"Nothing," mumbled the minotaur guard from farther up the corridor. "Just the two buckets of food and water that he had been carrying. They were overturned, almost empty."
Fesz watched the kender carefully.
Tas paced around in a circle, coming back to a position in front of the cell. He glanced at Fesz. He looked at the kyrie again. Slowly he raised his eyes to the ceiling, which was even higher than Caramon Majere was tall—but not by much.
About two buckets and an armspan higher, Tas guessed.
"I think—" began Tas.
"Yes?" Fesz asked eagerly.
"I think," the kender declared in a loud voice, "that the thing we ought to do is punish Sturm Brightblade!"
"Punish Sturm Brightblade?" Fesz repeated. The emissary of the Nightmaster sounded puzzled.
"It's a matter of principle," explained Tasslehoff, even louder. "The principle being that Sturm must have known that Caramon was going to try to escape, and since he refuses to give us the slightest cooperation—"
"We've already done our best to torture it out of him," offered the dungeon guard from up the corridor.
"Your best!" the kender exploded. "You have the temerity to tell me you've done your best?"
Dogz snorted but held his tongue. Although the minotaur guard wasn't a very fast learner, he realized that he ought not to say anything else.
Turning to Fesz, Tasslehoff asked, with great solemnity, "Are there any minotaur methods of execution that are truly special?"
Fesz pondered the question, delighted that Tas had turned his imagination to such worthwhile pursuits. "Well," answered the shaman minotaur slowly, "the Pit of Doom is a particularly cruel spectacle, one that I myself—before spending my time on Karthay, in devotion to the Nightmaster—always enjoyed watching."
"The Pit of Doom?" mused the kender. Tas liked the sound of it.
"A dance of death around hellish holes of fiery liquid," the shaman minotaur explained briefly. "A demise made all the more humiliating by the fact that it is staged for the entertainment of hordes of spectators who watch from a gallery."
Tas's eyes widened. "The Pit of Doom!" he exclaimed with glee, practically shouting, "That's it! That's the punishment that I would like to see meted out to that snooty Solamnic!"
"The only difficulty," rumbled Fesz, "is that we must get to Karthay in three days."
"Three days!" repeated Tas loudly, clearly enunciating and emphasizing every word. "So why can't we stick old Sturm in the Pit of Doom tomorrow morning and set sail by midday?"
"I don't see any reason why not," agreed Fesz, "but we must hasten to make arrangements."
"Good," said the kender. "I would consider it a personal privilege to watch Sturm get his just deserts. Also, I have an abiding curiosity about all pits, whether of doom or just plain—"
Fesz was already in motion.
With a pitying backward glance at the kyrie and a hasty look up at the ceiling, Tas hurried after the shaman minotaur.
The broken man twitched.
Dogz snorted.
As Tas passed the minotaur guard, he paused and gave him a hard kick in the shins.
* * * * *
The next morning one hundred bull-folk crowded the small semicircular gallery that rose along one side of the Pit of Doom.
Snorting and stomping, the minotaur audience made its impatience known as they awaited the arrival of the officials, without whom the duel to the death—between the local champion, a merciless bull-man named Tossak, and the human prisoner, the Solamnic, Sturm Brightblade—could not begin.
In ceremonial procession, a dozen functionaries and prison authorities accompanied Dogz, Tasslehoff, and Fesz as they entered the arena and took their seats in a privileged section of the gallery. The spectators craned their necks to gawk at the unusual sight of a kender sitting next to an emissary of the Nightmaster. As befit the occasion, Tas sat up straight, scowling as fiercely as he could.
At the suggestion of the evil kender Tasslehoff Burrfoot, Sturm had been told the night before that he would be thrust into a deadly competition the following day. He took the announcement impassively.
On the bright side, his bonds were untied and he was given the very best food and a pallet to sleep on. The minotaurs promised he could fight with the weapon of his choice. After considering the options they showed him, Sturm chose a long, thin, double-edged blade with a chiseled hilt. Whatever happened in the fight to come, Sturm vowed that he would give a good account of himself.
Battered and weary from his torture and imprisonment, the young Solamnic tried to make sense of the situation. He tried to fathom why Tas would be cooperating with these minotaurs. Could it be possible that the kender truly was allied with them? As weak as he was, Sturm lay awake half the night thinking without coming to any definite conclusion.
In the morning, his hand drifted, in its customary fashion, up to his mustache to tug on it thoughtfully. The Solamnic felt only thin air. Ruefully Sturm rubbed his cheek, remembering the kender's glee as he snipped off half the young man's moustache. Sturm flushed, suddenly very angry, his determination to fight and fight well strengthened.
Within the hour, Sturm stood at one end of a tunnel, gripping his sword tightly. At a signal from a minotaur keeper, he started down the narrow passage. As he moved toward the entrance to the pit, he felt the first rush of warm air.
Entering the staging area, Sturm saw what his keeper had described as the Pit of Doom.
