With a flash of light, a minotaur and a red robed woman appeared in a courtyard. The woman had her hood up ,with graying red hair hanging limply out the opening. She had black runes embroidered throughout her robe and spell components hung from pouches at her belt. She had a brace of ruby darts that glinted whenever they caught the light.

The minotaur was more exotic. He walked upright, and had a seven foot body and the hands of a human, but he was covered in short brown fur, and had the massive head and hooves of a horned bull. He wore a kilt with spell pouches handing from it. A clabbard, -a five foot long gladiator's sword- , was attached to a shoulder harness. His horns, which added a foot to his height, were polished with loving care. Among minotaurs, the quality of their horns was a matter of great pride.

The courtyard was empty save for a pair of men talking in hushed whispers. One was in black robes and the other was in white. There was a fountain in the center of the courtyard, surrounded by whitewashed stone walls, with marble columns supporting the surrounding overhanging roofs. The only exit was through a narrow arch between two walls.

The woman said to the minotaur, "This is the fabled Tower of High Sorcery. It is the last haven of the three Orders of magic on Ansalon. Here, infighting between the Orders is punishable by death. Hold your temper, Klunk."

The minotaur rumbled agreement, then looked questioningly at the woman.

The woman pulled back her hood, revealing hair falling in waves to her shoulders, and a face wrinkled only a little by the years. She said "follow me", and began walking to the arch. Klunk followed, his hooves clacking on the ground with each step.

She passed through the arch and emerged into a plaza before the Towers. There were three towers arranged in a triangle, with walls surrounding them in the configuration of another triangle. The enchanted forest of Wayreth was outside the walls. She entered a Tower, which was shaped much like an oblong beehive. A black robed apprentice bowed and led the way through the Great Corridor to a pair of double doors, then bowed again and left.

The great oak doors swung out silently, with no apparent cause. It looked like a black void in the next room. Without hesitation, the woman confidently led the way in. Klunk breathed a sigh of relief when she didn't fall into a bottomless pit, and followed.

As soon as he stepped through the door, the inky darkness enveloped him. He looked over his shoulder, and snorted when he couldn't see the door. His hand gripped the hilt of his sword, and he started walking forward.

Suddenly the darkness vanished, to be replaced by light. It wasn't a cheery yellow light, like the kind found in fireplaces and candles. It was white light, cold and sterile. It only illuminated a small dome. The chamber was so vast that the light couldn't penetrate it all. All that could be seen was the black marble floor. The light looked impossible to make, but to the arch-mages of the conclave, it was very simple magic.

There was a table, shaped like a crescent at the end of the dome of light. There were six white robes at one wing of the table, and seven black robes at the other end. And there were seven red robes at the center of the table. In the exact center was an old white robed wizard with a long white beard and a bald head. Klunk's mentor stood in front of the desk. All eyes shifted to Klunk as he entered.

The old man stood and said to Klunk's teacher in a soft voice that could be clearly heard across the room , "Maivin of the Red Robes, do you vouch for this rather .......unique apprentice?" His voice echoed off the huge room.

Maivin met his blue eyed stare. "Yes, Master. I believe he is ready."

Klunk stared at the old man with new respect. This was Par-Salian, Master of the Conclave ( and the most powerful magic-user on the world of Krynn!). Par-Salian shifted his gaze to look at Klunk. "Yes lady. Quite a catch to bring us a minotaur. We've never had one of them as a full-fledged sorcerer before." His gaze shifted away. Klunk felt honored to have been looked at, at all. Most of the time arch-mages ignored apprentices, except when work needed doing. Par-Salian's voice cut through his thoughts. "Any objections to the minotaur taking the Test?"

The other wizards whispered amongst themselves. The black robes soon stopped and sat facing the white robes, looking confident. The reds were silent almost at once, being too neutral to take a side. One of the whites rasped out on a broken voice, "Master, the minotaurs have always been on the side of the Queen of Darkness. If you let this one in, others will follow. And they -cough- will most certainly choose the black robes!"

"Sigamun," Par-Salian said, "It does not matter which alignment he chooses, so long as he uses magic responsibly. Any more objections? No? Then, Justarius, take the apprentice to the Testing Chambers."

A wizard of about thirty-five carefully stood , and limped to where Klunk was standing. Justarius was the Master of the Red Robes, and some say he will become the Master of the Conclave when Par-Salian retires. He said " This way, apprentice." Klunk walked toward him. Justarius laid the palm of his hand on Klunk's shoulder, then said, " Chapak."

Klunk's vision blurred, then disappeared altogether. When his vision came back and cleared, he found that he was in another room. With his stomach still roiling from the teleportation spell, he noted that ahead of him were three doors, made of white, red, and black wood respectively. Behind him was a staircase going down. The circular marble floor was tiled with a black circle, over a red circle, over a white circle. It symbolized the Night of the Eye, the time when all three moons of magic, - Nuitari, Lunitari, and Solinari -, are aligned and in High Sanction.

Justarius turned to Klunk, gesturing at the doors, "Choose your destiny, Minotaur."

Klunk had made his decision long before he had entered the Tower. "I choose the Red Robes of Neutrality."

Justarius's face betrayed his surprise before he could compose himself. "I must say, I expected the Black Robes! You could serve your people better that way."

"Let us say that I am an exceptional minotaur," Klunk grumbled, his natural arrogance overcoming his awe of the Tower, " I have met the goddess Lunitari, herself." Justarius listened intently, absently wiggling his fingers. "She might have influenced my choice a bit," Klunk finished, his eyes coming to rest on Justarius's fingers.

"Yes, sure. Every minotaur has claimed to have personally met their god Sargonnas, the Great Horned One, yet your claim seems to have a kernel of truth. "

"You probed me!" Klunk snarled.

"Yes, but just to see if you lied. By the way, here is your robe." Justarius produced a red robe, unadorned, yet well made. He helped Klunk slip into it. "Perfect fit! This was the only one we had in your size. We found it in an ogre mage's castle. But enough of such nonsense!" Justarius walked to the red door, and said, "Destiny awaits, young man. I hope you are strong enough to survive your Test."

Klunk opened the red door, and walked in. * * *

He emerged into a place from out of hell. All around him, ancient buildings precariously hung on to islands of rock, connected by high arching stone bridges. Between these islands, a lake of molten lava bubbled, occasional pillars of fire erupting towards the sky, further eroding the islands. It appeared to Klunk that he was in the middle of a volcano that was about to erupt. He couldn't see the sky through the sulfuric haze, but he knew it had to be there, or he would have suffocated from lack of oxygen.

Then he wondered why he wasn't dying from the heat. He drew his sword, which was in it's harness, underneath the robe. The blade glowed blue. Puzzled, he raised a finger and touched it to the blade. It was cold, almost unnaturally cold. He cast a simple spell to identify it, and found out that it was a magical frostbrand blade, which meant that it protected him from all heat.

Klunk had a purpose here. He didn't know what it was, but he felt that if he continued to walk it would reveal itself.

So he left the little building that he had appeared into earlier , noticing that the portal was gone. His building was the only one left on this particular island. He stepped onto a bridge. It was just wide enough for him to walk comfortably, though no hand railing was there to prevent a plummet into the fiery abyss because of a misstep.

Soon he made it to another island, feeling lucky that no fiery geyser had erupted underneath him. This island was bigger than the other one, having a few large buildings, with plenty of space between. Having nothing better to do, Klunk approached the nearest building; a multi-floored complex - probably a temple or a university at one time.

A bolt of lightning gouged a hole in the stone in front of him. Seeing an elf with gray robes behind a second floor window in the house, Klunk broke into a sprint, certain that battle with the elven wizard was his first test.

Klunk dove into the doorway, closing the bronze-plated door just in time to avoid a fireball that was cast by the suspicious gray-robe.

He quickly studied the anteroom, and sprinted up the grand staircase, all the carpets and tapestries around him long ago rotted from disuse. The elf appeared at the top and barked a word in a melodious voice. Klunk slipped to his hands and knees, noticing that dark grease now oozed from the floor. He grasped the banister and slowly walked up the stairs. The elf was gone. Klunk cursed to himself for letting him get away.

The words to a spell on his lips, he made it to the top of the stairway. Come to think of it, he thought, those gray robes might mean that he is a renegade mage. Renegades were wizards that refused to take the Test because they didn't want to be bound by the Conclave. Renegades were sometimes very powerful, but they were mercilessly hunted down by the Conclave. Klunk figured that the arch-mages were trying to test his loyalty and his working knowledge of the Conclave's laws. He wasn't about to let them down.

He slipped through the halls, his instincts as the gladiator he had once been taking over. He looked into a room and saw the mage a hundred feet away on the other side. Klunk grinned and let loose a magical missile at the elf. The foot long shaft of white energy hit his chest at the speed of light.

However, the elf was only mildly perplexed at the blistering wound on his chest. He said "fyrwual-ak moiparalan," and the portal where a door had once hung, and where Klunk was standing right now, burst into flames, propelling Klunk into the room, crashing into a rotten wooden table that stood near the center. He looked up, and the elf was gone once again. Snarling in fury, he decided that he couldn't go back the way he came, for the doorway was still writhing with fire that didn't seem to touch anything else.

So he walked to the one remaining door and, very cautiously this time, cast a detection spell on it. "Good," he murmured to himself, "No traps, mundane or magical."

He opened the door, and he looked upon the roof of the house, which was designed so that people could walk about it, gazing at what once had been a magnificent view. The heat pressed in on him once again, but was tolerable because of the sword's magic.

The renegade elf stood proudly at the far edge of the roof, robes fluttering though there was no wind.

Klunk drew his sword, but it turned into a snake as he raised it to strike. In disgust, he threw the snake to the side, noticing in a corner of his mind that the heat did not bother him, even without the sword.

The mage cast a cone of freezing coldness at Klunk, who rolled to the side and put up an invisible magical shield. A bit of the enchanted wave of cold penetrated, but it only served to cool Klunk down.

Klunk threw a fireball at the elf, who just stood there and absorbed the killing flame. "Haaah, ha, hack, cough, cough, cough. You can't kill me with fire, you fool! I live here! I'm immune to it's effects! I'll just get more powerful if you continue to do foolish things like that!" Klunk figured that the elf was obviously insane. The wizard shot a magical missile at him. Insane but dangerous.

Klunk threw a lightning bolt at the persistent mage. He disappeared in a puff of smoke before it hit, destroying a building built on another island.

"Where did ye go, worm" Klunk growled, looking in all directions. Then Klunk felt a hand on his back an instant before an electrical charge ripped through his body.

Klunk fell to the ground, gasping for breath. The mad elf stood above him, peering at his victim.

But Klunk wasn't beaten yet. He grabbed the renegade by the shoulders, and heaved him over the side of the building. The mage plummeted toward the lava, then regained control and started to levitate back up. But the lava below him bubbled, then a great geyser of liquid flame erupted into the sky, incinerating the renegade elf, the blast throwing Klunk into the wall. Klunk slid down, seeing that the door was only a few feet to his right. He stood up, and his stomach began to roil. His vision blurred and disappeared, and he lost all sense of direction.

When he could see again, he was in a different place altogether. * * *

The Test of High Sorcery. no one knows for sure whether it is real or an illusion. Certainly those who fail meet certain death. Even those who survive may be maimed or horribly disfigured. Justarius once had prided himself on his athletic skills; Now he cannot stand on his right leg. The places the aspiring mages go during the Test could be real, but might not. The people the mages meet may look like their friends, yet they are not. * * *

Klunk was standing on a big tree root, which arched four feet off the ground. His sword was in it's sheath, and his new red robe had scorch marks all over the fabric.

He was in the middle of a forest with trees so high he couldn't see the tops.

With his sword loose in it's harness. Klunk rolled to the dirt path with a muffled thud. He started to lope along the path, winding among the huge trunks of the vallenwood trees.

Klunk hadn't broken into a sweat when he chanced upon a clearing with a bubbling stream rushing through it. Short grass grew in abundance, and apple trees ringed it all. He figured that this would be the perfect place to have lunch, and a short respite from the test.

So he picked some apples, and leaned against a tree to eat.

The sound of metal scraping against leather alerted him to danger. He snapped out of his reverie, leaping to his feet.

"Jennica!" he roared happily. A woman with long blond hair silently entered the glade. She was dressed in tight fitting brown and green leather armor; a ranger's garb. She also had a pair of curved scimitar in each hand for some reason.

"How did you get here so fast? When Maivin spirited me here, I thought you were still with Vadarin in Newports." Klunk didn't really expect an answer from his old adventuring companion - she had hardly spoken to anyone but his friend Vadarin the whole time he had known her.

She continued to walk slowly towards Klunk, her swords lowered but not sheathed. "Where are the others," he asked, "I hope you didn't bring that bothersome kender Earwig Lockpi-" Jennica brought a scimitar to bear when she closed within range.

"Hey, what was that for?" She had struck a glancing blow - a thin line of blood trickled down Klunk's chest. He dove to the side, Jennica's blades lodging into the tree trunk. Klunk took advantage of her mistake by run ning across the clearing. He drew his sword and held it with both hands in a classic guard position. Klunk's mind raced for reasons for the onslaught. He had never developed a close relationship with her, but that was hardly a reason to attack him.

Then he realized the answer ; she was an illusion! He just hoped he was right....

Jennica had worked her scimitars out of the tree and was now bearing down on Klunk, her blades weaving in a criss-cross pattern. Her left scimitar suddenly left the pattern and flew to Klunk's hip, only to be blocked by his clabbard. But while Klunk's attention was diverted by her left attack, her right scimitar swung out wide and opened a bleeding gash in Klunk's muscled left arm.

Klunk howled out in pain, grasping his bleeding arm, his sword lying forgotten in the grass. Jennica, with a wicked smile on her beautiful face, went back into a slow attack routine. Klunk used his good hand to grasp the dagger that was concealed in the folds of his kilt.

Klunk's dagger came up just in time to turn aside the blade that went for his hand, sending the scimitar flying well over his horns. The other scimitar quickly slapped the dagger away, cutting deeply into his hand. At the same time, Klunk's other balled fist slammed into her face, making her stagger back, a stunned look spreading across her face.

He roared an ancient minotaur battlecry, and charged forward with his head down, his horns piercing her armor and sinking into her flesh. She screamed and dropped her scimitars from nerveless hands. His powerful muscles rippling, his head went up in a savage jerk, and Jennica flew back behind him, her body hitting a tree with a sickening crack.

Klunk walked to her, surprised to see that she was still alive, though she coughed up blood and was having trouble breathing because of broken ribs. But she still glared defiantly up at him.

With his good hand, Klunk grabbed Jennica by the neck and lifted her up until she was eye level with him. His face softened and he looked like he was about to say something, but then something snapped in him and he snorted in her face, his hot breath flowing over her.

His grip slowly tightened. Her ice-blue eyes never left his as he crushed the life from her.

Klunk let the limp corpse drop from his blood smeared hand. It crumpled to the ground like a rag doll.

He slowly, methodically, walked to retrieve his clabbard sword. He kneeled over and unthinkingly cleaned it on his tattered red robe. Then he ripped the hem of his robe into rags and bandaged his hand and arm. Klunk refused to look at the corpse of Jennica. He prayed that she had been an illusion. Damn the conclave! This blasted test! He had never been forced to take the life of a friend before.

"But if this is the price of magic," he murmured to himself, "so be it."

Once again, his stomach began to roil. The wounds he had suffered in his fight caused him to violently convulse, vomiting on the grass. The pain was so great he that he closed his eyes, clutching his body.

When he opened his eyes again, he was no longer on Krynn. * * *

He stared at a sickly green sky that had no sun.

Klunk laid on his back; he was weak from both the loss of blood and the teleportation. After a few moments, he was strong enough to sit up. He looked around, scanning his surroundings.

A flat plain of cracked, dry mud stretched in all directions, as far as the eye could see.

Seeing nothing to test him, Klunk made himself comfortable on the ground. Soon, the weather changed. Dark storm clouds approached from two sides, striking the ground with red bolts of lightning. It looked to Klunk like the two fronts were heading toward him, so he put his hood up, and huddled deeper into his robe to escape the stifling heat.

The storm was almost upon him, and it surprised him that no rain had hit the ground around him. He heard a buzzing noise, though, and he sprang up, turning around to face the source of the irritating sound. A giant dragonfly flew at him, its razor-sharp legs poised. Klunk dropped to the ground, the dragonfly passing over him. When it completed its pass, it turned around, and Klunk noticed that instead of an insectoid head, it possessed the head of an old man, the mouth twisted in a permanent sneer. Klunk's eyes widened in confusion and he instinctively cast a magical acid bolt at the monster.

The spell had melted two of the monsters wings, forcing it to crash to the ground. Klunk took out his sword and approached the strange beast. It twitched in pain, obviously unused to being on the ground.

"What are you?" Klunk demanded in the common trade tongue on Krynn. In all of the tomes of knowledge Klunk had read, he had never heard mention of such a beast.

"Tanar'ri," the monster garbled proudly.

"Ah, my thanks," Klunk stepped closer and decapitated the thing. "then I am in the Abyss."

He worked swiftly, now knowing that the storm clouds were actually hidden armies of demons, ready to clash with each other. He took a pouch of powdered silver from his belt, and made a thirty foot wide circle with the bright metal. After checking to make sure that there were no gaps, he chanted "Ast Kroymagar/Gorhk Lomtanum." A translucent dome of shimmering energy quickly appeared around him, along the path of the silver dust.

As soon as he finished, the clouds rolled overhead, blocking out the green sky. When the sickly light disappeared, several gigantic figures burst into flame, their bat-like wings lighting the battlefield as bright as day. Legions of pitiful manes, the souls of the damned, marched into battle in wedges thousands strong, to be cut down by the gargoyle-like creatures called cornugons. The massive pit-fiends and terrifying balors led their armies, shattering foes with earth braking swings of their lightning bladed swords or their flaming whips.

"Sargas!" Klunk swore, "those gods-cursed mages threw me into the middle of the Blood War!" The Blood War was a campaign that had existed for untold millennia, a war between the baatezu and the tanar'ri to control the Lower Planes. The baatezu were great tacticians and strategists, winning battles with carefully laid plans. The tanar'ri were too chaotic to bother with plans, instead using their overwhelming numbers to crush the other fiends.

But Klunk was protected for the moment. When a lesser fiend fell against his sphere of protection, they simply bounced off. He didn't want to know what would happen if a greater fiend tried to get in.

Klunk was so absorbed in the battle that when he turned around, he was startled by the appearance of another minotaur in the sphere with him. The pale furred beast-man was wearing armor, cleverly wrought to look like it was made from red dragon scales. A mutilated human child was laying in a crumpled heap. The warrior held a bloody broadsword in his fist.

He poked the child with his sword one more time, then threw his sword on the ground. The Blood War continued beyond the confines of the shell. He then said to Klunk with a guttural voice, "Pronounce judgment. If you are truly honorable, and loyal to the minotaur kingdoms, then you will give up this foolish distraction and join us in the glorious bloodletting! If you are devoted to the ways of magic, however, you must strike me down and turn your back on your great and honorable kin who are destined to rule the world!"

Klunk thought hard on this. If he chose to accept magic, his people would hunt him down when they heard that he had joined the conclave. All the wizards in the League of Minotaurs were in the service of the emperor, and they wore the gray robes of service, not the robes of the orders of High Sorcery. It would be seen as a great dishonor to his clan if he chose the conclave over the League, and his family would try to remove him if he returned to Taladas.

On the other hand, if he chose to join the minotaurs in their campaign, he would most likely be sent to the front lines with the other common soldiers. That was because only nobles of the ruling clans were permitted to become wizards. And Klunk's clan was important, but not that important. He would be risking certain death.

But he wouldn't have come this far if he had any serious second thoughts. Klunk cleared his thoughts, and put a flat hand level with his mouth. He quietly blew a breath of air at the other minotaur. In the space of a few yards, it had turned into a violent wind. The gust of wind slammed into the soldier, throwing him outside of the silvery sphere and into the front lines of the raging battle.

Klunk couldn't suppress a toothy grin at the ironic way he had dispatched his fellow minotaur. His people had always prided themselves on their battle prowess. Judging from the dismembered body quickly being burned to a crisp by a raging pit-fiend, the warrior hadn't measured up to this particular battle.

This time, when the dizziness washed over him, he welcomed it. For some reason unknown to him, a piercing pain erupted on his head. It was so intense, that he fell unconscious even before he lost his sense of sight. * * *

Klunk awoke with a splitting headache. He was sprawled on a hard stone table that was shaped like a circle and was covered with runes that glowed red with power.

But he hardly noticed these details. The ceiling was open to the sky, and his gaze was riveted on the crimson moon, Lunitari, that loomed overhead, blocking out the night.

"You survived." The soft voice of Maivin said to him. "I am impressed that you did so well, though I'm not surprised."

Klunk tore his gaze from the moon and looked at his red robed mentor. She looked tired, as if she had stayed up all night without sleep. "You look well, Maivin."

"Of course, compared to you. Take a look at yourself, young man."

Obediently, he looked at himself. His new robe was tattered and stained with dried blood. The bandage on his hand was soaked through and dripping. He was covered with numerous small cuts that he didn't remember getting. "All things considered, Mistress, I feel fine."

"Good, good. The only thing that matters is that you passed. Now you have no limits on what you can accomplish."

The door to the bare, dark room opened outward without a sound, admitting Justarius. "May I be the first....." he glanced disconcertedly at Maivin, "....or the second, to congratulate you on your victory. You are now a wizard of the Red Robes. You have every right to be proud." He handed Klunk a tied bundle. "This is a new robe. I don't believe you'll be wanting to keep that bundle of rags."

He said to Maivin, "He doesn't know yet, does he?" Maivin shook her head.

"Know what?" Klunk demanded.

"Look," Justarius said gravely, moving his fingers in an intricate pattern. A mirror appeared in midair, in front of Klunk.

Klunk gasped. Blue symbols were tattooed over his forehead and his face! Right over his fur! But more disconcerting was what the runes said.

They were written in an ancient form of the minotaur tongue. They read, "This minotaur has forsaken the honorable ways of his people."

Now there was no way he could come back. Magic had a stiff price, indeed.

Justarius explained to him that everyone is tested in their own particular way, and that whatever had happened to him would help him use magic responsibly. After saying his farewells, he silently walked out and closed the door.

Maivin looked up at him and said, " I have a gift for you." She produced a bundle wrapped in felt out of thin air, and handed it to Klunk. "This was given to me by Lunitari. I hope it serves you as well as it did me." Klunk unwrapped a slender wand made of twisting gold. It had a small ruby embedded in it's tip. "I call it my Wand of Wonders."

"Maivin, what should we do now? I hadn't thought any farther than the Test."

"You should see more of the world, young man. I don't think Ansalon has ever seen the likes of you. They will be in for a shock," she said with a smile, "I think that Vadarin and your other companions will be looking for you. I will send you there."

"Wait, what about you?"

"You don't need me anymore, my boy," She said as Klunk felt the stirrings of the now-familiar teleport spell. "I think your getting too old to hide behind an old woman's skirts."

The Tower of High Sorcery faded from view, not giving Klunk a chance to respond to her dry humor. This time, he was too strong to suffer from the spell's disorienting effects. Klunk was certain that magic was worth the price.

Go back to the Antechamber?