"You need to rest for a moment," she mumbled aloud, hoping the sound of a voice-even her own-would keep her awake. "Find some shelter from the wind." Selana half stumbled, half walked toward a dazzlingly white outcropping of rock in the face of the mountain. Surely she could find a nook or cranny and hide there from the merciless mountain gales.
At last she found a small, low ledge, barely deep enough for her slight form. She collapsed in a ball against the cold granite, her face turned outward. With the tattered tunic drawn up close, she blinked foggy eyes at the bleak scene before her.
She knew with frightening clarity that she was going to die… alone. As the wind howled, she would slip into eternal oblivion and never awaken-unless she believed the clerics who said there was an afterlife, if she believed in the true gods, whoever they were, but she didn't believe.
Thinking she had seen movement, Selana forced her eyes to focus once again for just a moment. A fallen branch, perhaps? Or a hallucination? She discarded the notion because whatever she had seen was much larger than a branch and blended perfectly into the grayness of the granite mountainside. She thought she saw a hulking minotaur, a savage man-cow hybrid, though this one was made of polished white granite. It was crossing the gap, headed toward her.
I really am hallucinating, she thought. I'll just close my eyes and sleep, and when I awaken it will be gone. But with her eyes closed she heard ragged, vicious snarling and breathing. I'll just close my ears, too, she thought groggily, and the sound will go away. Eyes tightly closed, fingers in her ears, she waited.
Then two great hands, icy as the granite itself, clasped her by the shoulders and hefted her into the air. A heartbeat from unconsciousness, Selana's eyes fluttered open briefly and saw the frightening, horn-headed granite minotaur again.
For one last, brief moment, she thought, almost gratefully, that she must already be dead.
Chapter 15
Tasslehoff stretched out beneath a small night-stand, licking his paws and smoothing out his fur. His tail flicked back and forth casually. It was an engaging feeling, and he was just a little rueful that kender had no tails.
He still could not believe what he and Selana had witnessed in the laboratory. A talking coin, who represented the evil god Hiddukel! He could hardly wait to tell Tanis and Flint about it, particularly now that Selana had flown away. She'd flashed him one more telepathic message before she'd disappeared through the loophole in the mage's chamber.
"Tas, I'm going to follow him and get my bracelet back," she'd said, giving Tasslehoff no chance to talk her out of it, since she flew from sight and range right after.
So, in a mouse-induced panic, Tas had skittered out of the evil mage's laboratory, run partway down the hall, then slipped under the first door he came to. He found himself in a bedchamber. Probably a spare, unused room, he decided, because the fireplace was cold and several leaves swirled about in the comers whenever a breeze gusted through the tiny window. Still, a few rugs on the floor made it cozy enough and it seemed like a good place to pause and decide what he should do next.
Tas's first decision had been to shed his mouse form for something the mage might not be looking for. Most people seemed to like cats, so Castle Tantallon now had a white, brown, and turquoise cat with an unusually long shock of hair at the back of its head.
He also thought he would do well to wait a minute or two before moving around too much, just in case someone was watching the hallway. Tas washed himself, cat style, wondering all the while if he really would be cleaner when he changed back to his normal shape.
He soon began considering his situation strategically. Few people realized that kender were capable of analytical thought. In fact, they were quite good at it under the right conditions but, because they were so easily distracted, they rarely managed to carry an argument through to a logical conclusion. Tas discovered that lying under a nightstand, licking one's paws, and purring softly were all conducive to clear thinking.
Tasslehoff posed himself a question: If I were an evil wizard in league with Hiddukel and I found myself in this situation, what would I do? The mage would be guarding the bracelet now, that much was certain. And they had lost a big advantage by revealing both that the bracelet was what they wanted and that they could change shape.
Tasslehoff decided it was time to switch plans. He and Selana had failed to get the bracelet back, but Flint and Tanis were still prisoners somewhere in the castle. The captives had seen things under the castle-the zombie, for instance, which the wizard undoubtedly wanted to keep quiet from the knight, at least. That put the dwarf and the half-elf in considerable danger. Tas was certain he would never have a better opportunity to rescue them than while the potion was still effective, so he had better hurry.
He remembered that after the shadow monster had expired, he and Selana had seen the mage walking to the keep from the jail, so Flint and Tanis probably were being held captive there.
Tas finished his washing, stood, stretched, and padded to the door. He eyed the space under it, gauging its height. As a mouse he'd slipped under with no trouble, but why be a mouse again when there were so many other diverting forms he had yet to try.
In the blink of an eye he transformed into a two-foot-long, tan, brown, and gold fox snake. The stone floor felt nicely cool under his belly. Tas flicked his tongue experimentally a few times, then poked his head under the door and swung it slowly to look both ways. The hallway was clear.
His first effort to move forward was less than successful. His body twisted and jerked and rolled over, and he banged his head on the bottom of the door, but did not move forward. This is not as easy as snakes make it look, Tas concluded. After a few more abortive efforts to master a crawl, he managed to roll right side up again, but still was not in the hallway.
At last he realized that he was taking an altogether wrong approach. Crawling required arms and legs. Instead, he had to figure out how to slither. He thought about how a snake wiggles its way through a meadow. Without really understanding how he did it, he suddenly found himself making swift progress sideways and forward at the same time, until he was under the door and right out into the hallway.
Tas's curiosity about snakes was quickly settled- besides, people tended to startle and shiver and try to chop snakes in half whenever they ran across them-so he transformed himself again as soon as he was clear of the doorway. This time he settled upon an orange-and-ivory spaniel. He trotted down the corridor with his tail in the air, sniffed under doors, scampered down a winding staircase and through an open doorway into the main corridor. The way out was just down the hall to his right.
Tasslehoff ran to the exit and leaped up to plant both front paws on it. He pushed the latch up with his nose, and the door swung open. Once outside, Tas ran straight toward the jail. The front door stood open, so he trotted inside.
Two soldiers straddled a bench in the front room, rolling dice between them. Tas knew he'd come to the right place when he recognized Tanis's bow and Flint's axe on the floor behind them.
On the other side of the room, a door made of riveted iron bands led to the jail cells. The spaces between the bands were large enough for Tas to walk through, but the door would have to be unlocked to let Flint and Tanis out.
During his travels, Tasslehoff had encountered very few locks that he couldn't open with his picks. He had enough experience to know that the locks on most jail cells were not very good. But just in case, he looked around for a ring of keys. He spotted one hanging on a large hook on the wall, behind the two dice rollers.