“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?”