The soldiers had built a wooden scaffold near the edge of the mouth, with a dozen stairs leading to a platform overlooking the fiery fountain.
The stars had glided into conjunction. Day was turning into night.
All was ready when the Nightmaster and his group crested the summit. Wearing ceremonial furs and feathers, with bells jingling as he moved, the Nightmaster strutted proudly toward the oval-shaped depression that housed the volcano's original crater. He walked between a double line of his acolytes and soldiers who had gathered in formation to greet him.
Trailing the Nightmaster were several armed minotaurs and the High Three shamans. Following them was a young, thin human in a dark robe, who stumbled as he was prodded forward by the sullen Dogz, and a kender without a topknot who chattered enthusiastically about the glorious spectacle of evil he was about to witness.
* * * * *
"Tell me, Raistlin, how you divined that I was going to cast this ancient and generally forgotten spell? Satisfy my curiosity. You know you are going to die anyway."
The Nightmaster bent over Raistlin, leering triumphantly.
The young mage sat in stony silence on a rock near the lip of the crater, his arms bound behind him, his feet also tied tightly with rope. Yet Raistlin refused to let defeat show in his face. Instead, he offered the Nightmaster an enigmatic smile with his reply.
"It was completely by chance. It was only a torn page in a yellowed spellbook that caught my eye. I knew that the spell had something to do with minotaur rituals. That much was obvious. And there was a citation of Sargonnas, the Lord of Dark Vengeance. But I had no hope of assembling the spell components, and beyond that, I cared little.
"Then my friend, Tasslehoff Burrfoot"—here Raistlin nodded in the direction of the kender, who was bounding back and forth between members of the High Three, trying to help them mix potions and ingredients but mostly getting in the way—"happened to make mention of a minotaur herbalist located on the island of Southern Ergoth. A minotaur herbalist . . . that aroused my curiosity. I asked a kender friend of Tasslehoff's who sometimes sold herbs, roots, and other items to me about certain peculiar ingredients that were mentioned on the torn page of the yellowed spellbook.
"One of these ingredients was crushed jalopwort, and the kender assured me that the minotaur had a supply available. Along with my brother and a friend, Tas volunteered to travel to Southern Ergoth to purchase the jalopwort."
Here Raistlin paused, glancing around. The pale of evening had settled in, promising a crisp night, with the stars clear in their formations.
The acolytes and troops had retreated to the edge of the summit, well away from the staging area. Silent and grim, holding their weapons aloft so that the steel and embroidered gems glinted under the twin moons, the small force of soldiers stood back from the Nightmaster, Raistlin, and the others.
Dogz took a position near the Nightmaster, guarding Raistlin.
"Even then, I would not have thought too much about it," the young mage continued. "It is part of my business to be interested in exotic herbs and rare spells. Except then my brother, his friend, and Tasslehoff vanished. And before they vanished, Tas sent me a magic message bottle that told me all about the strange execution of the minotaur herbalist.
'The person who brought me the message bottle added some curious details about the missing ship and its treacherous captain. After completing his job, it seems the captain was also killed in a manner that appeared to me to be distinctly magical."
Raistlin's eyes glittered with intelligence as he spoke.
"After that, it was mostly guesswork. I went back to the crumbling spellbook and read and studied the partial spell. I discussed my conclusions with—" here he paused—"let me call him a learned advisor.
"Through these efforts, it gradually dawned on me that the jalopwort was just a small part of a magical undertaking grander than anything I had suspected, that this ambitious spell had to involve minotaurs at the highest level, and that the spellcasting that was being planned would, if successful, bring Sargonnas, god of the minotaurs, into the material plane. The most logical place for such a rite would be here, near the ruins of Karthay, the last known place on Krynn where the Lord of Vengeance showed his wrath of fire."
"So you did get my magic message bottle!" chirped Tasslehoff. The kender had bounded up behind Raistlin. "I'm glad it wasn't wast—"
The Nightmaster grabbed Tasslehoff, whose habit of idle chatter was beginning to irritate him, and rather roughly shoved the kender under one arm, blanketing his mouth with a huge hand.
Raistlin looked at both of them coolly.
"Yes," purred the Nightmaster while Tas did his best to get loose from the high shaman's smothering grip. "Tasslehoff sent you a magic message bottle. You and he are old friends, right? So how do you like the new, improved Tasslehoff—to whom one of my disciples has fed a potion and turned into an evil kender? He has been most useful to us so far"—here the Nightmaster gave Tas a hard squeeze—"and I trust he will continue to be useful to us in the future."
Raistlin glanced at the struggling kender, then returned his gaze to the Nightmaster. "So that is how you did it," said Raistlin. "A potion."
"Do you doubt it?" rumbled the Nightmaster. For a moment, the Nightmaster lifted his arm away from Tas's mouth.
"It's true," said Tasslehoff, wrinkling his face into what he hoped was a fierce-looking sneer. "I'm incredibly evil now. Quite a change, huh?"
The Nightmaster clapped his arm back around the kender's mouth, and Tas resumed his struggling.
"I would have thought," Raistlin said blandly, "that a potion would not have any long-term effect."
The Nightmaster smiled. "You're quite right," he rumbled. "Dogz!" Dogz approached him,
