Not once did Delbin imagine that Kaz might be dead.

A figure moved in the rocks ahead of him. Delbin, his sling ready, quietly moved closer, as only one of his kind could. The figure sharpened into the backside of an archer. The man had a good supply of arrows and looked ready to use them all. Delbin glanced around and saw other ambushers spread around the area, but only this one blocked his path. The kender chose a proper bullet for his sling, loaded the weapon, and with no hesitation, swung the sling around and around above his head. It seemed a bit unfair to strike the man without his knowledge, but Delbin considered the fact that the human had no such compunction where the knights below were concerned.

On the next swing, he released the bullet. It soared swiftly through the air and struck the archer soundly in the back of the head. A river of red briefly washed over the man’s backside before the archer fell forward-and over the edge where he had been kneeling. Delbin sincerely hoped he would not hit somebody when he landed.

Scurrying past the spot where the archer had stationed himself, Delbin saw the keep. It really did not seem that far away.

Suddenly Delbin felt the shock of the earth itself rippling wildly. There were screams as some of the attackers fell to their deaths, and curses from above and below the kender’s position. Delbin enjoyed the movement of the earth-it seemed like one of the most enjoyable things he had ever experienced-but the liquefying earth that materialized around his feet fast became an annoyance.

Kender liked to move, and mud was strictly for gully dwarves. It was difficult to find solid ground, for despite its new traits, the ground he moved upon looked no different from unaffected patches nearby. The only way to tell the difference was to actually step on the surface and hope one didn’t sink.

That concern died when Delbin noticed the stone dragon rise from behind some smaller peaks. Sharp kender eyes saw the shape clutched tightly in its claws. Delbin had seen the creature up close and knew how big those claws were. To him, there could only be one person as big as the helpless figure he saw in the distance, and that was Kaz. Kaz, his friend, needed rescuing, and the only one who would be able to rescue him was the kender himself.

A mask of stern resolution on his face, or the nearest facsimile he could muster, not knowing how stern resolution was supposed to look, Delbin picked up his pace. He would not let Kaz down.

After his initial shock, Kaz fell back into the dark realm of unconsciousness and did not revive for quite some time. When he did, he discovered himself chained up in a chamber. This was hardly the way he had wanted to enter the keep. He scanned his surroundings. There was actually very little to see. He could make out a single entrance, where the door stood tantalizingly open- either through great carelessness or overconfidence. The walls of the room were cracked with age but still quite sturdy. Cobwebs decorated the ceiling. The chains that held Kaz looked to be formidable, and whoever had secured them to the wall behind him had known his business.

He wondered what the situation was like outside. He suspected it was a full-scale battle, something he had hardly expected. Delbin and the others were out there, possibly injured or worse. Nothing was going right. Nothing had ever gone right. Kaz snorted in self-pity. Did the gods have nothing better to do than pick on a lone minotaur who wanted only to live the rest of his life quietly with an occasional trial of blood to keep him from becoming too bored?

He was still sitting there feeling sorry for himself for all the troubles the world had dumped on him when a guard suddenly materialized. He was not alone, however. There was one very familiar figure with him.

Argaen Ravenshadow walked in, and Kaz saw immediately that his previous brief encounter with the dark elf had been no figment. Ravenshadow did indeed lean to one side as he walked, and it was obvious he did not feel well enough to actually straighten up. This seemed to annoy the elf only slightly, but it gave the minotaur great satisfaction.

The gifts of the emerald sphere are tainted.

The dark elf stopped before Kaz and stared at him for quite some time. Argaen started to speak, seemed to think better of it, and turned to the guard.

“You are dismissed for now. I will call you if I need you.”

Oddly, the guard hesitated. Kaz was rather surprised by the open defiance, but Argaen appeared to expect it. He stared the man down, and the guard finally thought better of his insubordination and reluctantly obeyed, closing the door behind him. The elf waited until he was certain they were quite alone before speaking.

“You saw him, did you not, minotaur?”

Kaz shivered involuntarily, but he kept a calm appearance. “I saw. Even expecting something like that, it was surprising.”

Ravenshadow smiled, but his smile had a peculiar quality, almost as if the elf were mocking himself. “A great prize, yes? Not only is the most powerful artifact of Galan Dracos under my control, but I have made contact with the master sorcerer himself!”

“How did he survive, Argaen? Sardal thought he had, somehow…”

“Sardal? Is that whom you are with? I should have recognized his presence sooner. I’m sure I would have, but there is so much to do and so little time to do it, as they say. Still, I feel that you are the one person I should take time out to talk to, if only because of the role you are destined to play.”

Kaz stiffened.

Ravenshadow waved off any comment. “You ask how Dracos survived? He did not. Your comrade, Huma of the Lance… he saw what truly happened. Dracos knew he had failed in his bid to be a god and also knew that he could only expect the most imaginative of the Dragonqueen’s tortures as reward for his folly. Better, I would agree myself, to destroy both body and spirit, to cease to exist.”

“I know all that.”

“Do you know, then, that it did not go as Dracos planned? Even he is not infallible, evidently. Instead of death, he discovered himself in a sort of unlife, a specter floating helplessly in the chaos of his own shattered creation.” The smile on Argaen’s face altered subtly. The thought of Galan Dracos condemned to everlasting emptiness pleased him.

Kaz wondered what the elf would have said if he had known a similar fate had been planned for him at Sardal’s hands. Another failure on my part, the minotaur bitterly recalled. Had Huma ever failed so often and so greatly? Likely not.

“It was all he could do to slowly pull the emerald sphere back together. He thought it would enable him to free himself, but in that he was wrong, and so he patiently waited, seeking one with the skill and cunning he needed.

“I know all too well now that some of the things I thought I was responsible for were his doing. For some reason, he could not draw sufficient power from the crystal itself, but he could extract it from those other objects that the knighthood so foolishly piled with the fragments of the sphere. I daresay that they will find most of those items worthless and powerless now, if they investigate. Dracos is living on borrowed time, though. He was fortunate; if not for my intervention and the timely appearance of you and your little kender friend, he would have failed. Vingaard Keep would have returned to normal. For our success, I thank you, minotaur.”

Kaz, however, was not paying attention to the elf’s sarcastic remark. Instead, at the mention of Delbin, his thoughts had turned fleetingly to his companion and the rest of his friends. Were they still alive?

“You seem pretty calm for someone whose stronghold is under attack by a large force of Solamnic Knights-or don’t you know about them yet? Has anyone bothered to inform you, or do they just alert their true master, Dracos?”