Fistandantilus Reborn

by Douglas Niles

  Chapter 17

  A Day of Fire

  374 AC

  Fourth Misham, Paleswelt

  Danyal scooted down the ladder from the straw-bedded loft that served as the bedroom for himself and his brother Wain. Wain, and Danyal’s mother and father as well, were already outside tending to chores—milking the cow, getting the sheep into pasture, perhaps gathering turtles from the traps by the stream bank.

  The lad felt an almost guilty thrill of pleasure as he thought of his own personal duties. His “chore” today was to go fishing, to bring home enough plump trout for the evening meal—and more, if possible. It was useful business, to be sure, valuable to his family and the rest of the little village of Waterton. But more importantly, fishing was about Danyal’s favorite thing to do in all Krynn.

  Of course, the lad did his share of the other chores as well. Though Bartrane Thwait was the most important man in the whole village, he made sure that his sons, Wain and Danyal, worked as hard as anyone else. They took turns helping with the traps, gathering potatoes from the field, tending the sheep, and milking the lone cow that was the most obvious sign of the Thwait family’s exalted status in the community.

  And the boys took turns doing the fishing, Danyal reminded himself. He shouldn’t feel remorse just because it was his day to drown a worm or two. In all honesty, he admitted to himself with a private smile, he really didn’t feel guilty at all.

  He found his willow fishing pole just outside the house and checked the fine catgut line, insuring that it was free of snags. The supple pole, its length nearly three times the boy’s height, whipped back and forth satisfactorily. Danyal had several hooks in his pocket, each painstakingly sharpened by his father last night, and a pouchful of plump worms that he had gathered several evenings ago under the silver light of a full Solinari. Finally he took up the creel, the wicker basket that hung on the hook beside the house’s only door.

  It was when he reached to his waist, looking to attach the creel to his belt, that he remembered that the strap of tanned leather he usually wore had broken just the day before. A piece of rope would suffice to hold up his trousers, but the creel—especially if he managed to fill it with fish—called for a sturdier support. Putting down the pole, he went back into the house.

  Sunlight flashed off a surface of silver on the other side of the room, and Danyal saw his father’s belt in its place of honor above the mantle. Of course, he knew it wasn’t the belt that was being honored—it was the silver buckle that was a family heirloom, a treasured memento that had been worn by Danyal’s ancestor.

  The lad hesitated for a moment, knowing that the importance of that treasured buckle suggested he find some other way to attach the creel. But the late-summer breeze was already freshening. Soon the trout would drop deep to wait out the brightest part of the day.

  With a quick decision, Danyal snatched down the belt, passed it through the loops on the creel, and wrapped it around his waist. As a last touch, he took a wool blanket and wrapped it over the belt; if questioned, he could always claim that he had taken the blanket in order to have something to sit on.

  Even with the concealing blanket, he hoped that no one would notice as he stepped outside and carefully closed the door behind him. Grabbing his pole, he jogged along the track that led behind the village, heading for the undercut bank that dropped toward the stream. As he hurried along, he heard laughter from the village commons, where he knew that many of the townsfolk were stomping on grapes in the large wine tuns.

  Glad that everyone seemed to be occupied, the young fisherman followed the railed fence around the back of the blacksmith’s stable, knowing he was unlikely to meet anyone here. He was startled by an angry whinny and reflexively ducked out of the way as a large black horse that had been lurking on the other side of the fence reared on its hind legs. The animal snorted and lashed out with a steel-shod hoof, a blow that Danyal barely avoided by skipping out of the way.

  “Better luck next time, Nightmare,” he muttered, not very loudly. He shook his head nervously, admitting that the blacksmith’s ill-tempered nag really frightened him—as she did anyone who came too close to the small corral.

  Still, the woods and the stream beckoned, and within a minute the village was out of sight, lost behind the willow and cottonwood trees that lined the banks on both sides. Danyal headed for the first of a series of deep pools, where he and his brother had met with frequent success. If the nearest of the holes didn’t offer an ample supply of hungry fish, he would cross the stream on the makeshift bridge formed by an old willow, a tree that had fallen across the waterway before he was born. There were deep pools within easy reach of the other bank as well, and though they were a little more inaccessible, they were also a little more likely to yield positive results.

  For several minutes he meandered through the sun-speckled woods, watched the sparkling reflections from the stream, smelling the cool wetness of clean water. Everything seemed perfect as he reached the streambank beside a deep, still pool. The blue-green depths of the water concealed many fish, he knew, and he took care to approach the bank in a crouch, so as not to disturb his prey.

  The shadow that flickered across him was moving too fast to be a cloud and was too large to be a bird. Danyal gaped upward, then fell to his rump, stunned beyond words by the sight of a massive red dragon. Rocked by a numbing wave of dragonawe, he could only stare, trembling in all his limbs, feeling his guts turn to water in his belly.

  The serpent was gliding low, so low that the tip of the creature’s sinuous tail trailed through the tops of the tallest cottonwoods. As the monster drifted out of sight beyond the trees, Danyal’s first conscious thought was that he was safe. The serpent obviously had flown past without taking notice of him.

  His next thought was of the village.

  “Mom! Pap! Wain!” he cried, leaping to his feet, his voice shrill and urgent as it pierced the woods. And then he was running, his fishing pole forgotten, desperately sprinting toward the village where all the people that he knew in the world resided.

  Before he had taken twoscore steps, he heard the first of the screams, cries of horror that rang even louder than his own urgent shouts. By the time he was halfway home, the smell of soot and ash was heavy on the summer breeze.

  And when he scrambled up the bank and burst through the last of the trees, toward the rear of the blacksmith shop, he thought he had stumbled into the aftermath of a terrible war.

  Smoke was thick in the air, stinging his eyes and nostrils. Even worse was the heat, a physical blow against his face that slammed him to a halt, brought his arms up in an effort to shield his skin from the searing blazes that threatened to blister his forehead and cheeks. He squinted, trying to see through the smoke and tears.

  It seemed that every building in the village was ablaze, and most of them had been smashed into kindling. Bodies—the corpses of his neighbors, his family!—were scattered everywhere, many gored by horrific wounds, others burned beyond recognition by lethal flames. He staggered sideways and caught a glimpse of the common square. The tuns full of grapes had been shattered, and the spilled red wine provided a grotesque carpet for the torn and shattered bodies that lay motionless among the wreckage.

  A great scarlet wing sliced through the roiling smoke overhead, and Danyal fell to the earth, crawling frantically under the shelter of a broken door. He watched the lashing tail of the dragon as the beast flew away, toward the north, returning along the direction from which Danyal had first seen it.

  Slowly Dan stood up. The fires had settled somewhat, though his face still burned from the surrounding heat. He edged around a nearby building, skirting the destruction as he stayed beneath the shelter of the trees alongside the riverbank.

  Something moved and the lad lunged backward, tumbling into the underbrush as a great, black shape emerged from the burning wreckage of the blacksmith’s shop. He saw the shining pelt, the wild eyes, and then noticed the cruel gouge of a fresh, bleeding wound on th
e panicked animal’s shoulder.

  “Nightmare!” he shouted as the horse plunged past him, skidding around the first bend of the stream trail at a full gallop. The lad was not surprised when the frightened creature ignored his cry.

  And then he was possessed by a panic as deep as the fear that had driven the horse. Danyal, too, turned his back on the village. Without conscious thought, he felt his feet carry him onto the streamside trail, away from the ruin, away from everything he had known in his life.

  Chapter 18

  Ashes

  374 AC

  Fourth Misham, Paleswelt

  Danyal’s feet pounded the smooth dirt of the trail as he relied on subconscious memory to avoid the rocks and roots that jutted forth from so many places. Certainly he did not see these obstacles; his eyes were blinded by tears, and his mind refused to let go of a specific picture: the remembered shape of a child’s body, someone his own age charred black and stretched on the ground, reaching with outstretched arms toward the edge of the village, the stream, toward Danyal himself.

  It was that last recollection that all but shouted aloud, dominating his awareness. Somebody had been reaching out for him, had desperately needed his help, and he had not been there.

  He had identified none of the bodies in that first horrified glimpse, but a new wave of tears spilled freely as he thought that any one of them could have been his father or his mother, or Wain. And if they hadn’t been there, in the small commons square, then they had certainly been killed in the crushed barns or the incinerated char of the torched outbuildings.

  In truth, Danyal didn’t want to know any more. His only comfort was running in this mindless dash through the streamside woods.

  Eventually, however, the straining rawness of his lungs, the stinging ache in his side, slowed the pace of his flight. Shambling with fatigue, he stumbled over a thick willow root, staggering a step farther before he collapsed. On the ground, he sobbed until he had no tears left, until his panting breath faded to raw, painful gasps. His eyes, clear once more, stared at the twisted trunk of the aged willow tree, saw sunlight flicker from the rills of the stream.

  Numbly he tried to absorb the fact that this was the same stream he had seen that morning, but it didn’t seem possible. His grief had gone, a fact that he thought very strange. Trying to think about that, he realized that he had no feelings of any kind. He lay there for what seemed like a very long time, considering the reality of this, amazed that he wasn’t crying or frightened.

  Or angry.

  When he was able to summon the strength, he rose to his hands and knees and pushed himself around to sit with his back to the smooth bark of the huge-boled tree, watching the water. He recognized this place, and it amazed him to see that he had run so far upstream. In fact, he had already passed the last of the trout pools that had seemed so remote that morning.

  A fish jumped, a beautiful flash of silver scales in the sunlight, spattering a rainbow cascade of shimmering drops before splashing back to the rippling water.

  Strangely, Danyal wasn’t hungry.

  Only then did he notice that his throat was quite dry. He rose, stumbling awkwardly to the bank, and when he knelt on the bank, he had to catch himself as he almost pitched forward. The surface of the stream danced and dipped in ways he had never noticed. It was as if he had never seen flowing water before. Lowering his cupped hands carefully, he lifted the clear liquid to his lips and slurped draft after draft of the drink.

  Thirst quenched, Danyal blew his nose, then looked around the sun-speckled valley. It occurred to him that he would have to decide what to do. He thought of the village again, and his next breath was ragged, but when he shook his head sternly, the numbness returned. The secret, he saw, was not to let himself feel anything.

  Again he faced a decision. He knew he couldn’t stay here, though a small part of him quibbled with the notion, suggesting that he might as well flop down right here and sleep till he died.

  But where was he to go, then? And what to eat, how to live?

  With a flash of hope, he thought of his fishing pole, knowing he must have dropped it around the time he first saw the dragon. His feet took to the trail and he backtracked, again amazed that he had run so far.

  It took a long time to reach the pole, and by then he could smell the acrid stink of the burned village. Crows jeered each other from the trees overhead, and he saw buzzards wheeling high in the sky.

  He picked up the supple shaft of willow. Again he thought of the village as he had last seen it, and he told himself that he could go no farther. His eyes filled with tears and he shook his head in frustration as a nagging, unwelcome question intruded into his thoughts.

  What if somebody had lived, had miraculously survived the onslaught of fire and destruction—a person who was injured, maybe badly, someone who needed help?

  Uttering a sharp, bitter laugh, he knew the notion was ridiculous. The devastation was too complete. Still, he also realized he couldn’t leave, couldn’t go away from this place, until he knew for sure.

  Slowly, hesitantly, he stepped along the trail, following the bend away from the stream, stopping for a moment, taking the time to carefully lean the pole against a gnarled willow, then climbing the low bank that marked the end of the trees. He was grateful now for the smoke that seeped through the air, trailing upward from countless burned beams and charred foundations. At least he could only see a small portion of the place at once.

  He went first to his own house, the largest building in the village. It was hard to recognize the building he remembered amid the twisted wreckage of broken stone and charred, splintered timbers. He saw the paving stones of the front walk and a pit full of black timbers that he tried to tell himself was the cellar.

  But it wasn’t, couldn’t be. Surely this was some strange location, a spot in some infernal realm that bore only a surface resemblance to the place where Danyal had spent the first fourteen years of his life.

  The blacksmith’s shop was recognizable by the anvil and forge that still stood in the midst of charred wood and the splintered stone of the building’s back wall. Danyal staggered away, gagging reflexively at the sight of a brawny hand, burned fingers stiff around the hilt of a heavy hammer, the limb and tool extending out from the base of the rubble.

  And everywhere else it was the same. He stepped around the pool of wine and the blackened bodies that had been gathered around the wine tuns in the commons, vaguely deducing that most of the villagers had died here—probably in the first lethal blast of the dragon’s attack. Many of the corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable, and he kept telling himself that these were just carvings of wood or charcoal, inanimate things that had been formed into grotesque caricatures of actual people.

  In the small pasture on the far side of the village, he turned away from the sight of the shepherd boys—including Wain, he knew—who had met death from the dragon’s rending claws. These bodies were even more horrifying because the former humanity was apparent, undeniable, in the small, cruelly torn shapes.

  Danyal wanted desperately to turn and run, to leave this place behind forever, but he forced himself to complete his grim circuit. In the center of the village, before the remnants of his house, he turned through a circle, peering through the smoke for any sign of life.

  “Hello!” he shouted, startling a hundred crows into loud, cackling flight. “Is there anybody there? Anybody at all? Can you hear me?”

  He waited while the birds grew still and the soft echoes faded. The stillness, then, was absolute, and he accepted the truth: He was the only living person here.

  Before he knew it, he was back in the woods, at the streamside, where he had set the fishing pole before entering the village. And again he wondered, Where should I go?

  For the first time in his life, Danyal considered the fact that he really knew very little about the world beyond this valley. He knew that somewhere downstream, far along a distant forest road, there was a city called Haven. His a
ncestors had come from the city. Occasionally some adventurous person from the village would go there and return with stories of exotic people living strange, crowded lives.

  Upstream, to the north, there was wilderness, and there was the dragon. The creature had come from that direction, then returned along the same path. Danyal knew the waterway rose in some of the mountain heights that a person could glimpse, on a clear day, if he found a vantage where he could get a view through the trees. It seemed likely that the dragon lived there, too.

  As soon as he reflected on the two options, he knew he would be going toward the mountains. An emotion was beginning to creep through his curtain of numbness, a feeling of anger, of bitterness and of hate. The dragon had taken everything about his life from him. He would do the same thing to the great crimson serpent!

  The notion gave him a surge of energy. Excited about the prospects of a real objective, he was immediately ready to start out. He could worry about the details of his mission later.

  Picking up the fishing pole, the youth started on the upstream trail. His step was firm, his intentions clear. He had a fine creel and a sharp knife, as well as flint, tinder, and the warm wool blanket wrapped at his waist.

  Anger propelled him as he strode quickly along the trail. He decided he would walk until sunset and then hope to catch a fish or two before dark. As to where he would sleep, he had a good chance of finding a riverbank cave or a hollow tree. Often he had camped with his brother, using nothing more than the arching foliage of a weeping willow as their shelter. If he had to, he could do that tonight as well.

  But Wain wouldn’t be there, would never be there again. Thoughts like this kept intruding on his anger, threatening once again to drag him down with grief. He resisted courageously, though more than once he was startled to realize that he was crying.

  A crashing in the brush nearby nearly sent him sprawling. He drew the thin-bladed fishing knife reflexively, brandishing blade and pole as he heard a large form pushing through the trees. Then a black shape burst into view, ears flattened against its skull as it uttered a shrill neigh of fear. With a thunder of hoofbeats, the animal turned to gallop along the trail, swiftly disappearing from view.