Kaz the Minotaur

Chapter Ten

Stepping into Vangaard Keep reminded Kaz of stepping into one of own his nightmares. There was an unreal quality to the place, encouraged by the lengthening shadows as the day slowly died. Every second, Kaz expected some ghastly figure to leap out from a hiding place.

“Where is everyone?” Tesela whispered. There was no real need to whisper. Darius’s shouts should have alerted any within these walls that the party was there. On the other hand, it still seemed somehow proper to whisper.

“Paladine preserve us,” the knight muttered. He was staring at the refuse scattered about the courtyard. Several great piles, taller than Kaz, were spread about the open areas of the keep. They appeared to be lined up in some sort of pattern, but for what purpose no one could say. Everything seemed to have been included: chairs, armor, tools, and much more.

Kaz narrowed his eyes as he scanned the interior of the keep. Lack of maintenance had taken its toll on the buildings. Moss and ivy grew unchecked. Everything had a thin layer of grime and dirt.

Darius took the reins of Tesela’s mount-and Delbin’s, as an afterthought-and led both animals to the stable. After peering inside, he tied the horses to a post rather than leading them into the stable itself. When he returned to the others, he explained. “As near as I can see, no one has cleaned that place in months. There are no horses in there, and I would never forgive myself if I put ours in that sty. It’s a breeding ground for disease.”

“Evidently it’s seen recent use, then,” Kaz commented.

“A month, perhaps two months ago. The cleaning stopped long before that, though.”

The minotaur leaned lightly on his battle-axe. “Delbin saw someone-or something-while we were riding up to the gate. A knight, possibly? I say we continue to look around.”

“I don’t think I’d like to separate, if it’s all the same to you,” Tesela said quietly. Her right hand had not left her medallion. No matter the powers bequeathed to her as a cleric of Mishakal, Kaz knew that she was no trained fighter. Bravery counted only so much against what they might find lurking in the keep.

“We’ll stay together.”

“It will take longer to search,” Darius pointed out.

“And if one of us falls into trouble, it’ll take forever to find that one. Better to stay together. Vingaard Keep is no longer what I would consider a safe haven. Goblins might have very well set up camp in some part of it.”

“Perhaps you would rather we depart.”

Kaz shook his head. “I’ve come all the way here to confront the Grand Master, and I won’t leave until I know for certain whether he’s here or not. If he is, I have business with him.” He looked at Delbin and Tesela. “You two might be better off waiting for us outside.”

He already knew Delbin’s answer and was not surprised when the cleric also refused. “You yourself said we should stay together.”

Necessity made for strange companions, Kaz thought wryly.

It seemed likely that Lord Oswal, if he still ruled here, would be found in his quarters, which were situated in the middle of the keep. Vingaard, however, could be a great maze to the uninitiated. Darius, who had not been back to Vingaard in more than two years, found his memories oddly vague, to the point where in fact Kaz, who had not been there in five years, was able to recall some things in more detail. Kaz ended up leading the tiny group as they made their way deeper into Vingaard. Even he, however, found his mind go almost blank at times. The minotaur grew even more unsettled, for he was certain that the lapse was not entirely his fault. There was a feeling about the place that ate at his nerves.

Shadows lengthened and swelled, enshrouding complete sections of the massive fortress. The only one seeming to enjoy their trek was the kender. Delbin’s earlier gloom had given way to curiosity. It was hard to keep him from rushing off to investigate some little interesting nook. The last thing Kaz wanted to do-and he reminded Delbin of that-was to go searching for the kender in a structure as large as Vingaard. Nevertheless, Delbin continued to range farther and farther afield.

Kaz caught the flicker of a torch as what little sun there was vanished over one of the outer walls. “Look there!”

It was gone after only a moment, not as if someone had tried to hide it, but rather as if the bearer had simply walked away. Kaz suddenly had the vague feeling that the party was not so much alone as being ignored by whoever still inhabited Vingaard.

“It leads away from where you wished to go, Kaz,” Darius pointed out.

“Makes no difference. If someone else is in here, I want to know who it is.

Wordlessly, they weaved through the alleys and paths as best they could, hoping to catch some glimpse of the elusive torchbearer or some other inhabitant, yet they well knew that they could be walking into a trap.

A quarter of an hour passed, and Kaz called a halt. Tesela and Darius, lacking the incredible stamina of a minotaur, were only too happy to oblige. The minotaur took a deep breath. The torchbearer was gone, to only Paladine knew where.

Cursing quietly, Kaz was about to inform the others that they should turn back when he discovered another problem. Delbin was missing. In fact, he could not recall when last he had seen the kender. Neither could the two humans.

“Sargas take that runt!” Kaz swore. He was beginning to have a terrible dream in which they all became separated and spent the rest of eternity wandering through the mazelike alleys of this keep. “I warned him!”

A huge shape flitted overhead. It was gone before any of them even had a chance to look up.

“Perhaps the kender did not leave of his own free will,” Darius suggested grimly. He turned in a circle, as if expecting enemies from all sides.

“I think that we’d have noticed if a dragon-or whatever it is-swooped down and made off with Delbin. Let’s backtrack.”

“Do you think that is a wise idea?” Tesela asked.

Kaz shrugged. “I don’t really know. I just suddenly don’t like the thought of standing around here.”

They had not even taken a step when a bell began to ring. Kaz and Tesela peered through the gloom at Darius, who was listening intently.

The bell stopped tolling.

“Odd. Unless I am totally mistaken, that is the bell for evening prayer. I suppose it would be the proper hour.”

“We passed the bell tower some time back,” Kaz reminded them. “It could be Delbin, I suppose…”

“Delbin is hardly that foolish,” Tesela stated resolutely. The minotaur could not argue. Kender were adventurous, not stupid.

It was difficult going now. Darkness had almost entirely claimed the keep. The trio stumbled around, vaguely nearing the bell tower.

Darius, momentarily in the lead, nearly ran into a tall object suddenly blocking their path. It took several seconds for them to realize that this particular object was a Knight of Solamnia, fully clad in mail and carrying a sturdy longsword. The knight wore a face-concealing helm. Despite the near accident, he had not budged one step.

“Did you not hear the bell?” the newcomer rumbled within his helm. “All save the dragonwatch are to be in prayer, as the Grand Master commands.”

Sheathing his sword, Darius began, “We’ve only just arrived in Vingaard Keep, friend, and we-”

The other knight leaned forward, as if seeing his counterpart’s companions for the first time. “Demonspawn!”

Without explanation, Darius suddenly found himself backing up before a sword strike intended to lop his head off. Kaz, seeing that his comrade would not be able to free his sword in time, charged forward, battle-axe thrust out before him. The longsword’s blade bounced off the side of the axe head with a sharp ting! and the attacking knight lost his grip on the weapon. It fell to the ground even as Kaz continued his charge, barreling into his adversary before the man could recover. As the two of them collided, the minotaur was nearly overwhelmed by an odd stench emitted by the knight. The two of them fell to the ground, Kaz on top.

Kaz had always considered his strength far superior to that of most humans. Even among his own kind, Kaz’s strength had won him renown in the arenas where he had vied for rank among his fellows. Now, though, he found himself struggling to maintain his advantage. The knight not only matched his power, but he also began to overcome the minotaur.

“Darius!” he succeeded in grunting. His companion hesitated, caught between loyalty to the order and his growing friendship with the minotaur. At last he moved to aid Kaz.

‘Take… off… his helm!”

The unknown knight struggled in vain as Darius worked the helm off. Darius almost dropped it when he saw the face of the knight.

“Hit him!”

Gritting his teeth and praying to Paladine for forgiveness, Darius struck his brother knight hard across the jaw, and then struck him again when the other did not flinch. This time the man was stunned. The trapped knight continued to struggle mindlessly, however, and Kaz was forced to administer a final punch to the jaw.

‘The first soul we run into in Vingaard, and it turns out to be a berserker,” Kaz muttered, rubbing his own throat. There was some bleeding, he could tell, and no doubt there would be marks of the struggle for the next few days.

Thinking of the cleric, Kaz whirled around, almost expecting to discover that she, like Delbin, had vanished. Instead, he found her watching them with some relief.

“I’m sorry, Kaz, Darius. I tried my best, but he wouldn’t react.”

“React?”

“I was trying to put him to sleep. His resistance was incredible.”

“Not surprising,” Darius replied softly. He was kneeling next to his counterpart, examining his armor and face. “He is a Knight of the Rose. They have some power of their own in matters of faith.”

Kaz stood and sniffed in disgust. “Evidently he does not have much of a sense of cleanliness.”

The minotaur had confronted many knights in his time, and unlike some orders, the Knights of Solamnia believed in the virtues of fastidiousness. Not so, apparently, this knight. His armor was old, dented, and covered with grime. His mustache was unkempt, almost wild, and his hair was a tangle that had not seen a brush or any care in quite some time. He also stank like someone who had not bathed for over a month.

“What do we do with him?” Tesela asked.

“He is a Knight of Solamnia,” Darius reminded them needlessly. He looked up at the others. “As such, he should be treated with respect. If he is ill, then perhaps you could help, Tesela.”

“I’ll try my best.”

The bell sounded again. Darius rose, and all three looked toward the tower.

“Mishakal!”

Kaz and Darius glanced at the cleric, who pointed to where the other knight lay-or, rather, had lain. There was no sign of him, not even the helm that Darius had removed. Kaz sniffed the air. There was a strong odor, but it seemed a general smell and nothing like what he had noticed emanating from the fallen knight.

“I don’t like this.”

The bell had ceased ringing after only one strike, but now another sound replaced it-the sound of great wings beating slowly.

“If only we had a torch,” Darius muttered.

“I can create an aura if you think it would be helpful,” Tesela offered.

The minotaur shook his head. “Right now light would only make us a better target for whatever that is.”

The noise grew. Pieces of roof and clouds of dust descended upon them.

“It’s directly above us!” Darius whispered. Quietly he unsheathed his sword.

‘That won’t do us much good. I chipped my axe on that thing back in the village.”

“What do you suggest, then?”

It was Tesela who supplied an answer. “There!”

The other two turned but saw nothing. Then Kaz caught a glimpse of a familiar, childlike face peering around a corner. It did not strike him as odd that he could see Delbin so clearly in the dark. The kender had a finger to his lips and was smiling broadly. With a wave, he indicated that they should come to him.

“He must have found something,” Tesela suggested.

“A place of safety, I hope.”

With Darius first and Kaz guarding their rear against a creature he already knew to be invulnerable to his axe, they followed the walls to where they had seen Delbin. Around them, they began to hear sounds. They were not the movements of the unknown beast above them, but the sounds one might expect in Vingaard Keep: knights marching closer and closer, the cries of warhorses as their riders brought them to rein, the ring of steel against steel.

The unnerving part was that there was still no one to be seen in the deserted keep.

“Vingaard is cursed!” Darius muttered bleakly. “The specters of the dead have risen!”

“If noise is all they can make, we’ve little to worry about. If they become solid, like that one back there, then we have a problem.” Kaz wished his voice carried more confidence.

“Where’s Delbin?” Tesela asked abruptly.

“Sargas-no! If we’ve been following another spook…” He cut off as Delbin reappeared.

“He says you have to hurry!” the kender whispered as loudly as he thought safe. Delbin no longer seemed interested in exploring the citadel.

“Who is he?” asked Kaz as they reached the kender.

“No time for that now, because there’re knights here, not to mention other things that he said we’d be better off not running into because the whole place has gone mad, and unless we get to the library-”

At least some things stay the same, the minotaur thought sarcastically. “Take a breath, Delbin.”

The bell rang again. Only once.

Darius bent down by the kender. “Delbin, are there actually knights at the bell tower? Do you know where the Grand Master is? Is he-”

“He’s waiting!” Delbin scurried a few paces. “He said it would really be bad to be caught out here. The knights are likely to kill anything that moves. He says they can’t help themselves.”

Kaz grunted. “If someone has answers, I’m all for meeting him.”

“It could be a trap,” Darius countered.

“Then we’ll have to break out of it.” The minotaur hefted the massive battle-axe.

In retrospect, Kaz would come to realize that Vingaard Keep was not half the maze it seemed. There were not even many separate buildings. Tonight, though, it was different, as if not all of the keep existed in the same confusing world. He was certain at one point that Delbin was leading them in circles, until it became obvious that the route was chosen to avoid certain “other things” wandering Vingaard.

Now and then they spotted ghostly armored figures moving through the center region of the keep, where the Grand Master’s quarters were situated. Each carried a torch and moved at a slow pace. Not once did the unknown others, who were possibly Knights of Solamnia, seem to notice them. Still, the kender never led them too close to those dark forms.

Delbin came to a dead stop. “There it is,” he whispered. “He’s in the library. Follow me!”

The library stood out from the rest of the keep by being the only building in this area lit by torchlight. A massive set of steps led up to a tall, wooden door. On each side of the steps was a pedestal, on which sat a huge bird of some sort. Kaz finally identified it as a kingfisher, which was only logical. Undoubtedly a closer examination would reveal that it not only wore a crown, but also held a sword and rose in its talons.

Dawdle awhile, minotaur. Come and speak with me. It has been soooo long.

The hair rose along Kaz’s backside. His blood grew cold, and his knuckles whitened as he tried to grip the dwarven battle-axe even harder. What was he hearing?

What do you know, minotaur? What secrets do you know?

Tesela was the first to notice his strange behavior. She touched him lightly on one arm. “Do you see something? Is something wrong?”

It was as if some great compulsion were upon him, and the only way to free himself was to follow it through to the end. Slowly, his head turned and his eyes sought out-what? — in the darkness.

Shall we let the chase go on a little longer?

A blurry patch of white coalesced into a partially distinct form with four legs and a long, narrow muzzle. Kaz knew that if he could see it up close, it would have eyes of a killing shade of red and that there would not be one patch of fur on its pale, cold body.

“Dreadwolf!” Kaz spat the word out.

“A what?”

“There…” The minotaur blinked as he found himself pointing toward nothing. The murky form had vanished. If it had ever been there…

The bell tolled again. Only once.

“Paladine preserve us, may they cease doing that!” The bell had a mournful sound to it, and lacking any purpose that they knew of, the tolling of the bell disturbed them more each time.

Delbin finally seemed to have lost his patience, an unusual thing for a kender, but then Delbin was proving most unusual for one of his kind. He grabbed Tesela by the hand and started pulling her out into the open. Darius started to reach for the cleric, but she shook her head and began running with the kender. The knight, not wanting Tesela to move without some sort of protection, went charging after them.

Only Kaz hesitated, not because of any fear, but because he still heard the voice of the dreadwolf.

I am wherever you go, minotaur!

“You’re dead,” Kaz grumbled unconvincingly. “You’re dead!”

Kaz was alone. Whatever it was-ghost, illusion, a phantasm of his own mind-it was gone. Kaz turned toward the library. The others stood near the door, anxiously awaiting him. Gritting his teeth and holding his battle-axe ready, the minotaur raced across the open area.

No storm of arrows came streaming down on him, no horde of mad knights charged him. Despite the light of the torches and the relative quiet that made each of his steps sound like thunder, he went unhindered. He nearly slipped in his haste to be up the steps. Darius covered his back as he completed the last few yards of his run.

Kaz huffed and snorted. “Well? Where is this all-knowing benefactor that you’ve supposedly led us to- or are we supposed to wait out here all night?”

“I am standing in the doorway, minotaur, and I would suggest that you and your companions enter immediately. The night is young, and you have seen only the first signs of the madness.”

The voice was very calm, almost matter-of-fact in its tone. How he had come to open the door and be there, none of them could say. In the glare of torchlight, their benefactor looked like little more than dark, swirling cloth and a long head of hair. There was something else in his voice that Kaz felt he should recognize, but what it was he could not say.

Delbin obeyed the suggestion almost instantly. Not to be outdone by a kender, Darius followed, one arm protectively guarding Tesela. Kaz reluctantly followed, pausing only when he thought he heard laughter coming from the darkness out beyond the library. When it did not recur, he tried to convince himself that it was just the wind.

The door was bolted behind them, and they got their first good look at Delbin’s friend and their rescuer. He was tall, almost as tall as Kaz, and he wore robes of silver and gray. Strangely, his hair, stretching long past his shoulders, was silver, with a patch of gray in the center, as if the clothing had been designed to match. The face was inhumanly handsome, with slightly delicate features. It was a young face, until one studied the eyes, green eyes that burned with an age almost unbelievable. Then one realized that this was no human, but an elf.

The elf folded his hands, almost as a cleric would do. His expression held only a hint of emotion, a slight, upward curling of the mouth, which Kaz gathered must indicate a smile.

“Welcome, my friends, to a haven in the midst of insanity. My name is-”

“Argaen Ravenshadow!” the minotaur finished abruptly.

Looking a bit amused, the elf nodded and said, “I think I would recall meeting a minotaur. We have not met before.”

“No, but I did meet one of your kind who knew you well. His name’s Sardal Crystal thorn.”

A stream of emotions flashed quickly across the elf’s visage. “Sardal. How odd to hear his name-to hear any name-after these past three years here.”

“What is going on here?” Kaz almost bellowed. “What’s happened to Vingaard Keep and the Knights of Solamnia?”

Argaen’s face was once more an emotionless mask, but his tone hinted of dark things. “Minotaur, you cannot imagine what you and your companions have walked into, and the odds are against you ever walking out again-at least sane.”