A long hiss escaped the Magus's lips. Tasslehoff stopped speaking immediately. For perhaps
a minute the Magus said nothing, then he dusted off his robes and looked at the automatons.
“Take him,” the Magus whispered. His voice reminded
Tasslehoff of the closing of a mausoleum door.
“Well,” Tasslehoff said to himself, his voice echoing from the walls of his cell, “I guess
I've been in worse predicaments.”
Unfortunately, he couldn't think of any worse than the one he was in now. He almost
believed that the gods of Krynn were angry with him and that they were toying with his
final punishment even now.
He racked his brain for some sin he may have com- mitted, other than cursing or borrowing
things without putting them back where he found them. Other people called it theft, but
that term made him wince. It was handling, borrowing, not stealing. There was a
difference, though the distinction was rather hazy to Tasslehoff and he'd never quite
worked it out.
He rolled over and sat up. The automatons had cast him in the cell after leaving the
Magus's chamber, and he had only a low-burning candle for light. Tangled spiderwebs hung
from the ceiling. Listlessly, Tasslehoff tapped his hand against the floor, and the ring
clicked out a lonely rhythm.
I SHOULD'VE LISTENED TO MOTHER AND GOTTEN INTO THE SCRIBE BUSINESS, he mused, BUT MAPPING
AND TRAVELING WERE ALWAYS MORE INTERESTING THAN KEEPING ACCOUNT LEDGERS. As a child, he
had filled his room with dozens of maps and had memorized the names on each of them. This
made it easy to invent unlikely tales about his travels, which always amused and
entertained his friends.
Tasslehoff had often tried to make his own maps, but he had no head for the exacting
patience it took to draw one accurately. Instead, he thought of himself as an explorer who
didn't have to make accurate maps, relying on those who came after him to clear up such
details as the direction in which north lay. Being there first, not drawing it up
afterward, was what counted.
For years now, he'd walked the world and remembered many sights, great and small. On a
high gray mountain, he had watched a golden chimera fight a bloody-tusked manticore to the
death. The Qualinesti, the elven people of the high meadows, took him to witness the
coronation of a prince of their wooded realms, dressing Tasslehoff in silver and
silk of rare design. He'd spoken with wayfarers of a dozen nations and all polite races,
and a few races not so polite.
Once in a while, Tasslehoff would run into an old adventuring friend from years ago, and
they'd travel together. He'd sketch crude maps of his journeys to show his friends,
elaborating on his adventures for effect, waiting for the listeners to smile. He loved
story-telling over a map.
Mapmaking was not his only hobby, however. Occasionally, Tasslehoff would see something
small and interesting within easy reach. When no one was looking, he'd borrow the item to
admire it; oftentimes when he finished looking at it, the owner was gone. With a sigh,
he'd drop the item in one of his many pockets and move on. He never meant to steal
anything. Things just came out like that.
A week ago, Tasslehoff found the ring.
Tasslehoff scratched his nose in the dim light and remembered. He was in his home town, a
farming community called Solace. He'd gotten up early to get hot pastries from a nearby
bakery. While waiting for the shop to open, he heard two men having a shouting match in an
alley.
Argument turned to scuffling, then came a hideous cry that made the kender jump. Three
watchmen walking past immediately rushed toward the alley as the killer fled from it.
The thin-faced murderer was almost too hasty to escape. He stumbled on a loose rock and
opened a clenched hand to catch himself. A glittering bauble fell from his palm and
bounced beside Tasslehoff, who was hiding behind a wooden box by the bakery door. With a
slight move, Tasslehoff covered the ring from view. The murderer hesitated, cursing the
ring's loss, but continued fleeing upon seeing the watchmen advance his way. Within
seconds, both pursued and pursuers were out of sight. Tasslehoff pocketed the ring with a
careless flourish and went off to examine it.
It was very impressive, no doubt about that: solid gold, inlaid with small green emeralds,
topped with a great faceted emerald that made Tasslehoff's head spin.
Undoubtedly, the ring was worth a fortune and could alone buy a small mansion or virtually
anything Tasslehoff could imagine. Out of curiosity, he compared his left ring finger with
the ring's diameter, then put the ring on to admire it.
It was then he discovered that the ring would not come off. He tugged, pulled, and used
soap and water, all to no avail. A few minutes after he gave up a last attempt to remove
it, the ring
flashed, saturating the kender's vision with velvety green light. At the same moment, it
teleported him into the ocean, which was supposed to be hundreds of miles away.
The change was so sudden that he almost drowned before he had the presence of mind to
paddle to keep himself afloat. He struggled, growing wearier with each passing minute.
Then a tall wave slapped him and he choked, and the ring flashed green again and
teleported him away-into a woodland full of scratchy briars.
This process continued for days. Every few hours the ring would send him off to a new
place he'd never seen before. If danger threatened, the ring would jerk him out of it and
carry him elsewhere. He knew that the ring was cursed and uncontrollable and that he'd
better find a way to stop the teleporting before he was dropped into a volcano. At least,
he was learning to swim quickly enough.
It didn't take long before he noticed the distance between hops was decreasing;
eventually, he was tele-porting only a mile or so at a time, though more frequently. By
making a mental note of landmarks, he also judged that he was moving in a straight line;
and this heartened him: the ring was taking him somewhere. An adventure, indeed!
This pleasant feeling was lost completely when the giant thunderhead came into view over
the horizon. Below it, illuminated by flickering lightning, was a vast and barren mountain
capped by a black stone citadel. He was heading straight for it.
Tasslehoff said a word he'd once heard an angry barbarian use. He liked adventures, but
there were limits. As if piqued by his comment, a second later the ring teleported him to
within a mile of the mountain itself.
Kender know no fear, but they know a bad thing when they see it. Judging the thunderstorm,
mountain, and citadel to be such bad things, Tasslehoff scrambled over rocks and debris in
a mad attempt to flee. The ring flashed again, and he reappeared within fifty feet of the
pitiless walls of the castle.
“No, no! Stop!” he yelled as he tried to bash the ring with a fist-sized stone. “Whoa!
Let's go back to the ocean! I don't wanna g-”
A green flash in his cell cut the kender off in mid- thought. A spider eyeing Tasslehoff
from the safety of the cell's darkened ceiling coiled its legs in surprise. It was now
the cell's only occupant. At first Tasslehoff thought he had teleported into a cave.
The flash blinded him as usual, and when the effects wore off, he was still unable to see
a thing in the darkness. By feeling about with his hands, he could tell he was in a
narrow, square tunnel only three feet high. He crawled slowly in a random direction,
testing the floor for traps or deep pits (of which there seemed to be none). Soon he saw a
faint light ahead and quickly made for it.
A small, barred opening resembling a window was set in the wall to his right; carefully,
he peered through it. Beyond the opening was a vast carved chamber, perhaps a hundred feet
across and half as high as it was wide. The window was set two-thirds of the way up from
the floor. Logic told Tasslehoff that he was in some sort of ventilation shaft; he had
noticed a gentle air current while crawling along but had paid it no heed.
Within the chamber, light flickered from dozens of firepots laid out in a broad circular
pattern on the floor. As he stared at the pattern, Tasslehoff realized it was a
conjuration circle, such as wizards used to call up spirits from the invisible worlds.
Faint traceries of colored chalk faded into the shifting darkness around the motionless
flames below.
With a start, Tasslehoff saw that the room was occupied. Far below, striding quietly to
the edge of the circle of firepots, was a dark-robed figure. It took but a moment for
Tasslehoff to realize that it was the Magus. He briefly considered hiding, but his
curiosity got the better of him, so he pressed closer to the bars.
The Magus stopped ten feet from the edge of the circle, within a smaller chalk-drawn
circle beside it. For a time he appeared to contemplate the flames before him. Ruddy light
played over his drawn face, white like a ghost's; his dark eyes drank in light, reflecting
none.
Slowly, the Magus raised his arms and called out to the circle of fire in a language the
kender had never before heard spoken. At first the flames crackled and jumped; but as the
Magus continued speaking, the fires dimmed and lowered until they were almost in- visible.
The air grew colder, and Tasslehoff shivered, rubbing his arms for warmth.
Tasslehoff's attention was suddenly drawn to the center of the conjuring circle. Red
streaks appeared in crisscross patterns on the floor, within the design of the firepots,
as if the floor were breaking apart over red lava. A dull haze clouded the chamber, and
the firepots burned more brightly. A strange roaring like a great
ocean wave coming in to the shore filled the room by degrees, growing to a thunder that
made the very rock tremble. Tasslehoff gripped the bars before him, wondering if an
earthquake had been conjured by the sorcerer's powers.
Far below, the Magus called out three words. After each word, light and flame burst from
the center of the conjuring circle. Each flash stung the kender's eyes, but he could not
look away from the sight. Yellow magma glowed with superheated radiance within the circle,
dimming the light from the firepots around it. A wave of heat reddened Tasslehoff's face
and arms where the furs he wore did not cover him. The Magus did not seem affected by the
heat at all.
One last time the dark figure called out, speaking a single name. Tasslehoff thought his
heart would stop when he heard and recognized it. The thundering roar vanished instantly,
and an eerie silence filled the air for the space of six heartbeats.
With a screaming whistle, the lava in the circle vanished entirely and was replaced by
darkness streaked with an eye- burning violet light, resembling an impossible opening into
the night sky. Tasslehoff was straining to see into the pit when a thing of titanic size
arose from it, out of the night-pit and into the room.
Tasslehoff had heard rumors about the thing that stood before him, but he had never truly
believed them until now. The thing towered over the Magus, three times the height of a
man. Two great tentacles dangled from its shoulders in place of normal arms, and two heads
maned with black fur rested where one head should be. Scales glittered over its skin, and
in the light of the firepots the kender saw its feet were clawed like those of a bird of
prey. Slime and oil fell from it, the droplets smoking when they struck the stony floor.
The heads gazed down upon the Magus. Inhuman mouths spoke, their rasping voices out of
time with one another by a fraction of a moment.
“Again,” the voices said, “you call me from the Abyss to defile my presence with your own.
You summon my divine person to fulfill your petty desires, and you tempt my everlasting
wrath. Sorely, I wish to have vengeance on this world for giving you birth, you who toy
with the Prince of Demons like a slave. I thirst for your soul like a dying man for water.”
“I did not summon you to hear your problems,” responded the Magus in a cracked, thin
voice. “Bound you are to me, bound by the circle. You shall hear me out.”
With screams that made Tasslehoff jerk from the bars and
cover his ears, the thing's heads shot down at the Magus-and were thrown back by unseen
forces that sparked and flashed like lightning. The thing's tentacles writhed and flailed
the air like titans' whips.
“AAAHIEEE!!! Wretch! To speak to me so! Ten thousand times you are cursed should these
bonds fade! Ten thousand times will I break you in my coils, until your dark soul rots!”
For several minutes the demon roared out its rage. The Magus stood before it, unmoved and
silent.
In time the thing ceased to cry out. Its breathing became a slow, ragged thunder.
“Speak,” said the heads venomously.
“There is an adventurer in my fortress,” said the Magus, “who wears a green-stoned ring.
The ring will not leave his hand and defies magical attempts to remove it. It teleported
the adventurer into my citadel when it was not his intention to do so. What ring is this?
How do I remove it? What are its powers?”
The thing twisted its necks. “You summon me to identify a RINGI”
“Indeed,” said the Magus, and waited.
The twin heads dipped closer to the Magus. “Describe the largest stone.”
“An emerald the size of my thumb, rectangular cut with six tiers and no flaws. The face is
engraved with a hexagonal sign, with a smaller hexagon set within and another in that one.”
Silence filled the darkened room; even the thing's writhing arms were stilled. After a
pause, the thing stood upright. Its heads turned about independently of each other.
Tasslehoff shrank back against the opposite wall of the tunnel as a head turned his way.
The head stopped when it looked into the barred window of the airshaft. Red fires arose in
its eyes and ran through Tasslehoff like spears.
Tasslehoff Burrfoot had never known fear, though he had seen sights that made hardened men
shake with terror. When the eyes of the thing were upon him, he shook without breathing,
his soul filled with a new emotion.