The Companions Read online

  But there are certain strange and inexplicable parts of our trip that I would like to tell you about and which are the purpose of this letter, because I certainly wouldn’t waste a magic letter on a boring trip.

  The minotaur herbalist’s shop was unlike any I’ve ever been in. For one thing, it was in a cave, and if you didn’t have Asa’s map, you’d never be able to find it. Also, the minotaur herbalist was just as polite and pleasant as can be. He didn’t smell as bad as most of them usually do, either. Sturm said he actually detected the scent of soap on the horned beast, whose name is—I guess I should say was, but that’s getting ahead of myself—Argotz.

  The rhythmic creaking of the ship suddenly changed, its gentle motion interrupted by a sudden lurch. A gust of wind slammed open the porthole over the desk. Tas jumped up and peered out, happy for the distraction. Good! A storm was brewing! Tas had never been at sea during a storm. He felt certain it would be fascinating and enjoyable.

  Tas sat back down at the desk and began to scribble faster in order to finish before going up on deck to watch the storm.

  Sturm had barely started to make his way toward the rear deck when the first hailstones pelted him with the force of a thousand tiny, hurtling missiles. The deck shifted beneath his feet, and he momentarily slipped on the icy pebbles before catching his balance. Glancing up, Sturm saw that the ominous mass of clouds had come upon them so swiftly that the sky was suddenly blackened around them. Lightning crackled above. Flames flared from the masthead of the Venora. Grabbing the side railing, Sturm leaned into the wind and began pulling himself toward the Captain’s post in the stern.

  An instant later, Sturm was nearly blinded by stinging rain that poured down with awesome intensity. Shielding his eyes with one hand and clutching the rail with the other, Sturm was barely able to lurch forward.

  What he saw as he approached the stern left him with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. A group of sailors were bunched ahead of him, working frantically to lower a small boat into the heaving waves. Sturm fought his way toward them. As he did, the ship pitched and he fell backward. By the time he succeeded in pulling himself upright, the lifeboat and the sailors had disappeared over the side.

  As Sturm looked on in astonishment, several other members of the Venora’s crew slipped furtively over the side, carrying what looked like makeshift life buoys under their arms. Sturm called out to them, but against the raging tumult of the storm, he could barely make out his own voice. When he reached the railing where they had jumped, Sturm peered downward but could see nothing except the dark waves thrashing the ship.

  Their desertion was a cowardly act and strange as well. Did the deserters expect to fare better in the wild sea than on board the storm-tossed Venora? Was it some kind of mutiny? Sturm glanced up at the steering deck, where Captain Murloch usually stationed himself. Sturm’s perplexity deepened into outrage and fear. Murloch wasn’t there. Not a soul stood by the wheel, which was spinning dizzily.

  Strange indeed. Captain Murloch didn’t seem to be the type to abandon his duties. It was Sturm who had picked him out from among the sea captains whose ships were moored at Eastport. Murloch’s mournful, craggy face bespoke experience. Tas had dubbed the captain “Walrus Face” because of the pronged teeth that stuck out over his lantern jaw.

  A punishing crash drew Sturm’s attention upward. With the peculiar grace of a ballet, the top half of the Venora’s mast broke off and toppled slowly into the violent sea. Nobody had bothered to furl the sails as the storm approached, and now there was no one to respond to this latest crisis.

  Sturm’s worried thoughts turned to his companions. He started to pull himself along the rail toward the back of the small cabin where he had last seen Caramon drinking with a group of sailors. The Venora’s deck seesawed wildly back and forth beneath his feet. The ship seemed to be spinning around in circles that left Sturm’s head swimming. Wind and rain whipped around him, creating an overwhelming cacophony.

  Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Sturm lunged from the side rail to the small cabin and pulled himself around to the rear, which offered some small shelter from the battering of the storm.

  With dismay, Sturm shook his head at what he beheld. Caramon was sprawled on the deck, eyes dreamily closed, an overturned jug of liquor rolling around at his side. Drunk, thought Sturm with exasperation. Sturm had developed an abiding respect for his friend’s fighting skills and bravery, while acknowledging privately that Caramon’s judgment, due to his overly generous nature, could not always be relied upon. But this lapse, at this particular time, seemed almost inexcusable.

  And where were his drinking companions? Clearly, Caramon had been left behind.

  The deck shifted violently beneath Sturm’s feet. He braced himself against the side of the cabin, gauging how difficult it would be to drag Caramon into the slight shelter offered by the interior of the cabin, then shake him awake. After that, Tas still needed to be found, Sturm thought to himself grimly. And this all presumed there were still enough crew members aboard to bring the Venora under control.

  Keeping one foot braced against the cabin wall, Sturm leaned over to grab his friend. Although the deck was slick from the rain, it would be difficult to budge Caramon’s bulk. It was then that Sturm noticed that Caramon’s weapons were missing. Before he could contemplate this odd fact, he heard a scuffling sound. Sturm looked up, but it was too late. The young Solamnic felt a thump on the side of his head, followed by the sensation of falling down a deep, dark, bottomless hole, with the wind shrieking in his ears.

  Tasslehoff had been absorbed in finishing his letter to Raistlin. When the ship’s increasingly turbulent motion caused the oil lamp to slide off the writing desk and shatter, the cabin was plunged into darkness. Tas looked up expectantly, just in time to grab the magic message bottle before it rolled off the desk.

  “Oh … the storm. I forgot,” the kender muttered to himself. Quickly he rolled up the parchment and stuffed it into the bottle. He pinched off a piece of the cork and crumbled it inside, then watched as the letter took on a golden glow before it vanished. Following the instructions he recalled, he swiftly corked the bottle and held it up. It appeared to be empty.

  Standing on his tiptoes, Tas pressed his face against the porthole. In the dim light, he could make out little except that this was certainly a fine storm. He tugged the porthole open, and with a mighty effort, hurled the bottle into the churning sea.

  As he stepped back from the porthole, the cabin tilted at a crazy angle, and the chair Tas had been sitting on crashed into his shins. Flashes of lightning filled the porthole with brilliant white light, extinguished almost as soon as it appeared. Loud cracks of thunder followed. In between two thunderclaps, Tas heard something else up on deck.

  Trying unsuccessfully to ignore his throbbing shins, Tas began hopping around the cabin, gathering up the rest of his pouches and shoving them into his rucksack. He had no intention of leaving any of his treasures behind. “No telling what might happen in a storm like this,” Tas mused aloud. “Sounds like it’s even more exciting up on deck. Sturm and Caramon must be having a great time up there. I bet they can’t wait for me to join them.” He took a moment to strap his hoopak, the fighting weapon prized by kender, to his back.

  Tas paused at the door to the cabin, casting a quick glance behind him. Another flash of lightning at the porthole momentarily blinded him.

  “I wonder if it’s okay to use the magic message bottle during a storm,” he reflected. “Oh, well. Too late now.” He turned and bounded through the narrow passageway leading to the cabin, then up the stairway to the deck.

  Prepared for a warm greeting from his friends, Tas was disappointed when he didn’t see anyone. There was no sign of Sturm or Caramon, or even Captain Murloch. With typical kender agility, Tas managed to keep his footing on the rolling deck as he looked around. The mainmast appeared to have broken and toppled into the sea. The sails left attached to the stub of the mast whipped around
wildly. The Venora careened dizzily. Where were Sturm and Caramon, not to mention everybody else?

  Sensing some movement behind him, Tas whirled around and came face to face with Captain Murloch … old Walrus Face. The captain grinned at the kender, his yellowed teeth sticking out over his lower jaw. Swell, thought Tas. Despite his ship’s dire predicament, the captain was managing to keep in good humor.

  “Hi, Captain Murloch,” Tas shouted into the wind and rain that lashed his face. “Quite a squall we’re having. I bet it’s going to give the ship a bit of trouble. I’ll stay by your side and help you out. I’ve been on many ships in such circumstances … well, not too many, actually. Seven or nine, not counting this one. But Sturm and Caramon can be a big help, too. Do you know where they are? Good thing our friend Flint isn’t along, because …”

  Tas took a few steps closer to Captain Murloch, to make sure he was being heard. Somehow nothing seemed to be registering on the captain’s grinning face. Perplexed and distracted, Tas failed to see the captain’s arm swing up or notice the club arcing toward his head until it was too late.

  “Damnable kender! They’d talk your ears off in the middle of a hurricane,” Captain Murloch muttered to himself. But the captain’s club had put a stop to the kender’s chatter. Tas lay unconscious at Murloch’s feet. The captain seized him by his topknot and dragged him toward what was left of the main mast. Beneath the shredded sails lay the unconscious forms of Sturm and Caramon.

  Captain Murloch dragged the limp bodies closer to the mast and began to rope them to it as he had been instructed. He worked as quickly as he could in the fury of the storm. Finally, when he was finished, he stood for a moment to survey his handiwork. Heavy, purple-black clouds blotted out the sky overhead. The Venora’s timbers creaked loudly.

  Captain Murloch had kept his part of the bargain. The generous payment he had received meant he would be well compensated for the loss of the Venora and the risk to his own life. Like many old sea hands, Murloch loved his ship and regretted losing it. He would almost rather have lost his life.

  “Well old girl, we had a good run,” the captain murmured, licking his lips.

  Murloch bent down and pulled a thick ring of cork from a hatch near the mast. He slipped it over his head and secured it with a rope at his waist. Looking back at the three unconscious bodies, then down toward the dark, turbulent waters, he climbed over the rail and plummeted toward the sea below.

  He had managed to thrash his way through the high waves and swim several hundred feet away from the ship by the time the angry cloud that hovered above the Venora lowered itself upon the ship, spitting fierce blasts of lightning and hail.

  Then, with a fearful, rushing clamor, the cloud began to rise slowly, carryinging the Venora with it. From his distant vantage, Murloch could barely make out the ship’s bow and stern as the Venora spun around like a top and was sucked up into the vortex.

  Half a day later, the treacherous Captain Murloch, drifting with the tide, spied the distant shore of Abanasinia. He was nearly home free.

  Tired and hungry, he was nonetheless comforted by the prospect of being a rich man for the rest of his life.

  His cork preserver fitted snugly around his middle, Captain Murloch reached out and stroked the water, paddling in the direction of the coastline.

  An odd sound drew his attention skyward. The sun was so bright and hot that he had to shade his eyes. Specks appeared to be dancing in the air.

  Suddenly Captain Murloch stopped paddling and stared in shock. What appeared to be specks was actually a conelike swarm of flying insects. As he watched in terror, he realized that they were hovering above him, moving along with him. At that moment, the swarm dipped and came diving downward.

  They were giant bees—hundreds, thousands of them, swirling, buzzing, stinging. Captain Murloch reached up futilely with one arm, trying to bat them away. His arm was quickly covered with the savage creatures.

  The scream that issued from Captain Murloch’s mouth was a cry of utter helplessness. The giant bees swarmed into his mouth, covered his face, went for his ears and his eyes. They formed a living carpet over Captain Murloch, twitching and bristling as they went about their deadly business.

  Within seconds, his heart ceased beating, and the bees flew up and into the sun.

  Below, the captain’s face was a mask of red welts. His tongue hung out, black and swollen to five times its normal size. His arms hung limp and useless in the water.

  Captain Jhani Murloch drifted toward shore.

  Thousands of miles away, in a rugged and desolate place—a salt-encrusted land parched by the sun, scoured by the wind, and surrounded by an inhospitable sea—a hulking figure bent over to read the signs of the shiny objects he had carefully arranged on the high table of a mountain plateau.

  It had taken half a day’s climb from his camp on the dry, ravaged lowland to get here. Nevertheless, twice a week he made the trek in order to commune with the gods—one god in particular.

  The looming figure tilted his head upward, observing the manner in which the light of noonday was refracted in the colored glass, prisms and crystals, and silver shards of mirror.

  Some distance away, grouped in a triad, stood his three most trusted and highly-attuned disciples, known simply as the High Three. Once the figure they watched had been one of the High Three. Now he was their unquestioned leader. It was inevitable that someday one of them would succeed him and carry on the sacred duties.

  Beyond the High Three, ringed around them, behind turreted rocks and craggy formations, stood dozens of lesser acolytes, their features monstrous and contorted, their weapons brutal and deadly, glinting in the sun. Their animalistic faces betrayed no emotion; their huge, round eyes stared, dull and trancelike.

  Beyond the acolytes were arrayed dozens of others, these mere guards and soldiers, but equally loyal and fearsome, waiting for but a signal from their leader.

  Whatever was asked of them, they would do. They lived only to serve the Nightmaster.

  The Nightmaster circled the shiny glass objects, stooping and peering at each of them, fascinated by the glimmers and swirls of light. Shading his massive brow, he gazed up at the sun and the hot white sky, assessing what he had observed and what he had learned.

  Feathers and fur dangled from his great horned head. Bells jingled when he moved. In his huge hands, he carried a long, thin stick of incense, which trailed smoke and a sickeningly sweet scent. From object to object he stepped, pondering the signs.

  Certain precautions had yet to be taken, certain preparations carried out. Renegades and interlopers had to be dealt with. Resources had to be marshaled. Nothing must interfere with the casting of the spell.

  Sargonnas waited.

  The Nightmaster looked deep into the patterns of light in the colored glass and knew that soon it would be time.

  CHAPTER 2

  MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

  ———

  “TWENTY TO FIVE,” SAID TANIS GLUMLY, SCRATCHING A NEW FIGURE into a table in Flint’s workshed. The grizzled dwarf, with evident cheerfulness, rolled a smooth, round black stone into the center of a circle marked in chalk on the floor of the shed. The circle held a clutch of smaller, multicolored pebbles. The instant the larger stone made contact, Flint skipped over with surprising nimbleness and snatched up as many of the pebbles as he could as they scattered outside the circle.

  “Twenty-eight,” Flint pronounced with satisfaction, once he had counted the stones he held in his hand. “But we don’t have to keep track, my boy. After all, it’s only a silly game.” He tried hard to tamp down the smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

  “Twenty-eight to five,” said Tanis, scratching out the old figure and marking in the new one.

  Although it was the middle of a workday, Flint was semiretired and opened his shop only when he cared to deal with bothersome customers. He kept his tools clean and well sharpened, but some of them hadn’t been taken down from their pegs in weeks. No longer
did the grizzled dwarf have the passion for metalsmithing that had driven him to become a master of the craft, so skilled and inventive that even the elven race prized his work. It was the metalsmithing trade, in fact, that had first brought Flint and Tanis together years earlier, when the half-elf was a mere boy in Qualinesti.

  Today Flint had proposed a little game of roosterball to prod Tanis out of his sulking mood. It wasn’t succeeding. All Tanis could think about was Kitiara, who had left Solace a few months back without telling the half-elf where she was going. Flint, on the other hand, was in a whistling mood lately, because that irrepressible kender, Tasslehoff Burrfoot, had also been away, on a journey with Caramon and Sturm, for weeks now.

  It was so peaceful when Tas wasn’t around, Flint thought to himself at least once a day.

  Tanis stood and walked over to the chalk circle, arranging the pebbles in the center. Then he paced back the required distance before turning to face the target. His tall, slender form seemed almost to contract with concentration as he swung the black stone forward and released it with a distinctive flick of the wrist. Despite his admirable technique, the stone rolled wide of its mark, glancing off the clutch of pebbles. Tanis hastened to the circle, but none of the pebbles managed to roll beyond the perimeter.

  “Aw, too bad,” said Flint, bringing his thick white eyebrows together in a semblance of a frown. Amusement danced in his eyes, however, and Tanis was not deceived.

  “I cede the win to you,” the half-elf said with irritation, his face wearing a sour expression. “There’s no point in continuing with you so far ahead.”

  “Fine, fine,” soothed Flint, walking over and picking up the stones, which he placed carefully in a wooden cup. Clearly pleased with himself over his margin of victory, the old dwarf nonetheless cast a sympathetic look at his young friend. “All this fretting over a woman!” he muttered, loud enough, he hoped, for Tanis to overhear. He took the cup and put it back in its place on one of the many neatly ordered shelves that lined his metalworking shop. “In more than one hundred years, I’ve never seen you carry on so. I’ve seen you fight and defeat ogres and brigands. I never thought you would be bested by a woman.…”