"If you are really a friend to all these people-first, Sturm. And now this female, Kitiara. The way you treat them."
Tas patted Dogz on the shoulder. "Well, I got turned into an evil kender, right?" Tas reminded Dogz. "I'm just doing my best to act like one. Sure, they used to be my friends. But that was when I was good -well, pretty good-most of the time, anyway. Now I'm evil. And if I betray them, I'm just doing my job in the evil category. You ought to be proud of me."
"Yes," said Dogz hesitantly.
"The way I look at it," Tas expanded, lying back on the ash-covered ground, clasping his hands behind his head, "I'm a kind of honorary minotaur nowadays. Didn't you tell me once that might makes right and the minotaur race was going to conquer the world someday, and all that stuff?"
"Yes," replied Dogz once again.
"Well, I'm just proving my loyalty to the minotaur nation. If you had a choice between betraying your nation or betraying your friends-oops, I mean used-to-be friends-which would you do?"
The minotaur dipped his huge horns, and when he looked up, his eyes were huge and sad. His fetid breath nearly overwhelmed Tas. "I don't know. Betray my friends, I suppose," he added slowly, obviously confused.
"Aren't you looking forward to the time when Sargonnas comes into the world?"
Dogz looked over to where the Nightmaster sat reading his spellbooks. Behind him, the High Three stood purposefully.
"Yes," said Dogz.
"Well, see? So am I," said Tas triumphantly. He patted Dogz's shoulder. "Don't worry so much, Dogz," added the kender. "It'll put wrinkles on your snout." Tas yawned exaggeratedly. "Now I'm going to catch some much-needed rest."
The kender closed his eyes. A moment later, he opened one to monitor Dogz's reaction.
Dogz had sat up and was cleaning and polishing his weapons with a faraway look. Like Tasslehoff, the minotaur used to have clearly defined friends and enemies-take kender, for instance. Dogz used to loathe kender, even though he had never met or seen one. When he had first encountered Tasslehoff aboard the Venora, he didn't even want to touch him. He regarded Tas as worse than an enemy, as one of the lowest beings on the scale of creation.
But after taking Tas prisoner and spending a good deal of time with him, Dogz had grown fond of the quirky little kender. He admired his pluck and bravery under torture, his sense of humor in dire situations. From conversations with Tas, he had learned a lot about Solace and the kender's friends-especially the gruff dwarf Flint Fireforge and Tas's Uncle Trapspringer-and he had come to think of them as his friends, too.
Dogz had plenty of relatives, but he didn't have that many friends. Friendship was an entirely new concept to him, and Tas was responsible for teaching it to him.
Then Tasslehoff had been turned evil by Fesz, and he had changed. He became demanding, less fun to be around. Maybe the evil Tas would help bring Sargonnas into the world, but Dogz wasn't sure that he didn't like the old version of the kender better.
Dogz sighed. He bent to scrape some dirt off his katar, a long blade on an H-shaped hilt, oiling and polishing the unusual dagger as he thought long and hard about the subject of friendship.
Twenty yards away, in her wooden cage, Kitiara paced restlessly. Her watchful eyes missed nothing. She strained her ears to pick up scraps of conversations around her as the words drifted to her across the broken ground. Kit wasn't the world's greatest fan of kender, but she definitely liked Tasslehoff better the way he had been before.
The Nightmaster had mentioned Sturm, so apparently the Solamnic was still alive. And the other day, Kit had heard him speak of Caramon and Raistlin, too. It was clear they were all somewhere in this vicinity and that the Nightmaster feared their intrusion.
That thought brought a lopsided smile to Kit’s face.
The sun had reached its highest point. The land baked and cracked under its intensity. The thick-skinned minotaurs seemed oblivious to the conditions. Dogz methodically cleaned and oiled his weapons. The minotaur guards on the perimeter passed in and out of Kit's sight on their appointed rounds.
The Nightmaster continued to sit at his long table, sorting and sifting ingredients for the monumental spell he would cast tomorrow night.
One of the few benefits of Kit's cramped cage was that the wooden slats over her head kept out the worst of the sunlight. Her gaze flicked over to the traitorous kender. His eyes were closed. Tasslehoff Burrfoot appeared to be sleeping peacefully.
As the Nightmaster labored over his spell, he thought back to his moment of epiphany five days before-one day before the human female was captured-when at last the timing of the spell had been confirmed and Sargonnas had revealed himself to the minotaur.
He had been up on the mountain plateau, at noonday, with the colored glass prisms, crystals, and silver shards of mirror scattered around him. In them he was reading the movement of the stars and the sun, reckoning their positions in the heavens in relation to the two moons, and coming to the conclusion that all the externals were right.
Suddenly he spied a ripple in one of the reflective surfaces. Glancing around rapidly, he saw flickers and ripples in the pieces of shiny cut glass. As the Nightmaster watched in wonderment, the flickering and rippling took shape, so that each fragment of glass held a piece of the face of the God of Dark Vengeance.
A terrible, fearsome, obscure face, misted with red, stared at the Nightmaster through brooding black eyes.
Then all of a sudden, flickering in the pieces of glass, the image of Sargonnas vanished.
His eyes drawn skyward, the Nightmaster beheld a great red condor with black plumage, a wingspan that seemed to blanket the sky, and a curiously small, naked head. Fire licked at the tips of its wings.
Greetings, Nightmaster, servant of evil.
The red condor had seemed to speak inside the Nightmaster's head with a silky, enticing voice. Tongues of flame darted from the corners of its beak.
Greetings, Sargonnas, God of Dark Vengeance, ally of Takhisis.
The Nightmaster had never felt so powerful-nor so humbled-as then, when Sargonnas had first spoken to him.
Your plan is known to me. For centuries, I have waited for someone with your audacity and courage. For centuries, I have plotted to enter the material world and wreak havoc with my powers. For centuries, I have been foiled. Have you taken every precaution with the spell? Are you ready for the time?
Yes, Lord.
Are you watchful of deceit? Treachery?
Yes, Lord.
Are you worthy?
I trust, Lord.
Do not fail me. Do not dare to fail me, or you will learn that my vengeance reaches everywhere.
With that, the red condor had shimmered in the sun, then evaporated as if it had never been there.
The Nightmaster sank to his knees, turning his head, dazed. The conversation with Sargonnas had taken place entirely in his mind. Looking around, he could see the minotaur guards standing idly at their positions. They had neither heard nor seen Sargonnas.
The same was true of the two members of the High Three, who hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary-until now.
One of them had come running up to the Nightmaster. "Are you all right, Excellency?" the young, bulging bull-man asked solicitously.
The Nightmaster hadn't answered immediately. The young shaman had struggled to help the Nightmaster to his feet.
"Are you all right, Excellency?"
The voice this time belonged to Fesz. Standing behind the Nightmaster, the shaman had stepped forward and tapped him on the shoulder.
Jolted back to the present, the Nightmaster was confronted by one of the officers of the minotaur troops. He stood in front of the Nightmaster, who had been lost in thought at his long table in the middle of the dead city. The Nightmaster blinked, eyeing the horned soldier in front of him, and growled a reply to Fesz.