Fistandantilus Reborn

by Douglas Niles

  That night he camped in a grove of cedars, again eating fresh trout with a couple of his apples. He built a small fire before falling asleep and, aided by the windbreak of the evergreens, spent a more comfortable and restful night than he had previously.

  On the third day of his trek, the ground began to rise noticeably. He had seen no settlements, no sign of humankind or any other race of builders, in the time since the wrack of his village had been left behind. Now the distant mountains rose as a purple mass to the north and east, and in places he saw long, white snowfields and glistening white cornices draped across the lofty alpine ridges.

  In the late afternoon of this day’s trek, he came around a curve in the upstream trail and was startled to find that the waterway was spanned by an arched bridge of gray stone. Releasing Nightmare’s reins, he scrambled up a slope of broken rock to stand upon a narrow, rutted cart track. The horse kicked and sprang, following him and coming to a standing stop in the roadway.

  “Where do you suppose this goes? Or comes from?” he asked, looking up and down the little-used path.

  Nightmare’s muzzle dipped toward the ground. The horse tore away a clump of clover that grew beside the track, while Danyal tried to think. He saw no sign of tracks—hoof, boot, or cartwheel—in the road, and guessed that it hadn’t been used in some time. Yet it suggested that there was something worthwhile in each direction, else why build the road in the first place?

  He decided to camp nearby and consider the questions during the night. Just upstream from the bridge, he found a sheltered grotto with a soft, mossy bank and a deep eddy in the creek that seemed to promise good fishing. Though he wasn’t sure why, Danyal also made sure that his makeshift camp was out of sight of the unused roadway.

  After another meal of grilled fish, he made himself and the horse as comfortable as possible. Again he fell asleep easily, completely drained by the strenuous activity of the day.

  This time, however, his sleep was interrupted by a sound that had him sitting upright, clutching his fishing knife, before he even knew what had awakened him. Then it came again, a shout of alarm followed by a cold, harsh bark of laughter.

  There were men nearby! And judging by the sounds of confrontation, Danyal guessed that some unfortunate traveler had encountered another group, perhaps bandits or other roadside bullies.

  Heart pounding, Danyal threw off his blankets and crawled to the edge of his grotto. The slope on this side of the road was steep, climbing into a cliff of broken, craggy rock. At the base of that precipice, barely a few paces off the road, he saw the glowing embers of a campfire. And in the dim light, as he stared, he saw one man backed against the rock wall while several others, large, hulking fellows, closed in on him menacingly.

  Nightmare stood still nearby, nostrils quivering, ears cocked toward the disturbance. Abruptly Danyal realized that the horse might make a sound at any minute, a sound that would betray his own position. There was no way he could move the animal soundlessly, so to protect himself, he began to sidle sideways, staying above the strangers, moving along the slope of the hill so that he closed the distance between them.

  Light flared as one of the bandits threw dry wood onto the fire. Danyal got a view of the lone traveler, who stood with his back to the rocks, weaponless, as he faced the others. Moving still closer, the lad was surprised to see that, while he was unarmed, the man was holding a book in his left hand. The tome was opened, and in his right hand, he actually held a quill and ink bottle, trying unsuccessfully to dip the pen while he addressed his attackers.

  “Where did you say we are? And what was that name again? I’m sorry, but in this light it’s terribly hard to see the page. Ah, thank you … that’s much better,” he declared as more tinder was thrown onto the fire.

  “Never mind that,” growled one bandit, a strikingly handsome fellow whose gleaming dark hair and firm facial features seemed incongruous above the filthy mat of his leather shirt. “Hand over your purse, if you have any thoughts of seeing the morning!”

  Danyal gasped quietly. Despite his guess, he was shocked to hear the men’s intentions confirmed. He shrunk down behind a felled tree, trying to remain invisible and silent, yet he pressed his eye to the gap under the log so he could still see the scene around the traveler’s campfire.

  “I daresay my purse hasn’t much to offer,” the fellow was saying. He seemed remarkably unconcerned, thought Danyal, for someone who might be facing the last minute or two of his life.

  “This could go badly for you. Don’t you have the sense to be scared?” demanded the handsome bandit, obviously wondering about the same thing. He swaggered around as if he were the leader of the group. “Here, Baltyar—give me a brand. Perhaps we’ll make this fellow think twice about his answers.”

  “Aye, Kelryn,” replied another, sticking a branch bristling with dry needles into the fire. Flames crackled into the night, exploding with a hissing, popping noise, flaring so brightly that Danyal was certain his own hiding place would be revealed.

  Then he heard another sound, a clatter of movement to the side that drew curses from the bandits and pulled their attention toward the lad’s camp. Instantly Danyal understood what had happened: Startled by the flaring branch, Nightmare had pulled away from her tether. The lad could hear the black horse stumbling over the rocks, charging past Danyal’s hiding place.

  “Look there! A horseman!” cried one of the bandits, pointing at the shadowy outline of the frightened steed.

  Nightmare whinnied, the sound shrill and piercing in the darkness. With a leap and a kick, the frightened black horse lunged along the steep slope above the roadway, slipping and sliding on the loose rocks. Many of the boulders tumbled free, rolling downward with rapidly building momentum.

  In seconds, the sounds of the rockslide roared louder than the shouts of the men or the shrill neighing of the mare. Danyal saw a large stone bounce into the air, then crash into the blazing campfire, sending sparks and embers cascading through the area.

  Men were screaming now, scrambling to get away. In the surges of light, Danyal saw the bandits, with swords drawn, looking wildly back and forth, seeking signs of their attackers. Another big rock thundered through the camp, knocking down one of the bandits, leaving the man thrashing and moaning in the middle of the road.

  The leader knelt over the injured man, who cried out in pain. A short sword flashed in the firelight, and the wounded fellow’s cries swelled to a quick, feverish shriek before they died in a sickening gurgle of blood.

  And then the bandits were gone, footsteps pounding down the road as the rockslide exhausted itself, loose stones and gravel still shifting, settling down the steep slope. Danyal smelled the powdered rock in the air, tasted the dust in his mouth, and tried to imagine what had happened to the lone traveler. His campsite was buried beneath a thick layer of rubble, and nothing seemed to be moving down there.

  The lad gingerly picked his way down the slope, seeing that Nightmare had somehow reached the roadway. The black horse regarded him impassively as he probed through the boulders until he was startled by a voice from the shadows.

  “Hello there,” said the traveler. He came forward, and Danyal saw that he had been sheltered by an overhang of the bluff—the same place he had been driven by the extended swords of the bandits.

  “H-Hello,” the youth replied. “Are you all right?”

  “I think so,” said the man. “I’ll admit that was bad luck with the landslide.”

  “Bad luck?” Danyal was amazed. “I think it just saved your life!”

  “Oh posh,” said the fellow. “It only chased away those men. And I could tell that one of them was just about to tell me his name!”

  The youth wanted to reply that, to his eyes, it had looked as though the bandits intended something other than an informative conversation. Still, the stranger seemed so sincere, even genuinely disappointed, that Danyal changed his tack.

  “My name is Danyal Thwait,” he said tentatively. “Who are y
ou?”

  “Foryth Teel,” replied the fellow, tsking in concern as he picked up the book that the bandit had thrown against the rocks. “It’s not damaged,” he said to Danyal, as if he never doubted that the lad was terribly concerned about the condition of the tome.

  “Good,” replied the youth. “But now, Foryth Teel, why don’t you come with me? I think we should find a new place to camp.”

  Chapter 21

  A Mind and Soul of Chaos

  374 AC

  On those instances when the essence of Fistandantilus became maddeningly, frustratingly aware, the archmage knew that he had languished within the kender host for scores of years. The spirit hungered for escape, craved the exercise of power that would bring him victims, souls that he could absorb, lives he would use to restore his unprecedented might. But always these desires went unsated, remained mere memories from a long-ago epoch of might and magic.

  As more time passed, the archmage’s hunger became starvation, and his need for vengeance swelled. He resolved that, when at last he celebrated his ultimate success, his killing would consume whole cities and countless thousands of lives.

  In these times of lucidity, he remembered his talisman, the bloodstone. Upon occasion, he could almost feel the gem pulse in his hands, so vivid were his memories of its warmth and vitality. The artifact had ever been an eater of souls, and now it throbbed with the stored power of many consumed lives.

  And the stone was still his best hope, for his efforts had brought that artifact into the hands of one who could use it—a man who had once been a false priest and had now become a lord of bandits.

  Sometimes the soul of Fistandantilus tried to reach the bandit lord, using the stone as a conduit. The man had been pliable in some ways, and more than willing to use the powers of the stone. But he was also stubborn and independent, and instead of yielding, had learned to use the bloodstone for his own purposes. And because of the directionless kender, the archmage was unable to use his host to retrieve the stone.

  Still, the archmage could be patient. Eventually there would come a chance for the kender to touch the stone, and then Fistandantilus could assert power and control: The false priest would become his tool, the wandering kender would be doomed, and ultimately the route for the archmage’s return to flesh would lay open before him. Until then, however, Fistandantilus continued patiently to allow the power of the bloodstone to sustain the man, to prevent his aging.

  And the ancient being was aware of another avenue of potential survival as well. He saw through a pair of eyes that occasionally gave Fistandantilus a specific view, and even in his ethereal state, he knew he was not beholding the environment surrounding his kender host. No, these were different eyes, eyes of power and magic, but lacking any substance of flesh, tissue, or tears.

  When the image was clear, the archmage saw fire and smoke, a dark cavern where molten rock seethed and bubbled.

  Sometimes he saw a villainous visage, a great head of scales and fangs that rose to regard him, that met his fleshless eyes with slitted orbs of fiery yellow. This was a great dragon, attempting to commune with the skull. Fistandantilus was forced to be careful; he knew he could never control such a beast, even in the limited way he did the Seeker priest.

  For brief instants, the might of the archmage would surge, rising to meet the power of the skull or the bloodstone. These spells inevitably overwhelmed the kender’s intellect and will.

  But inevitably the power of the ancient wizard could not be sustained, and then the chaos of the kender’s mind would twist and pull at him, tearing his rising presence into shreds. His awareness would fade and he would shriek his soundless horror and frustration until the dissolution cast him once more into the eternal wasteland of his own ambitions. The kender, with his awareness and will restored, was once more free to continue the capricious wandering that had occupied him for such an interminable time.

  Fistandantilus was barely able to sustain the power needed merely to insure that the kender did not age. Drawing upon the store of lives he had consumed, the archmage maintained the fool’s youthfulness for decades, making sure that the host did not suffer the debilitating effects of advancing years. As with the holder of the bloodstone, the ancient sorcerer dared not allow his all-too-mortal tool to suffer the ravages of age, else the mortal might perish before fulfilling the archmage’s purpose.

  But would he ever be free?

  In fact, Fistandantilus never accepted the possibility of failure. He was endlessly patient, and he knew that eventually the potent gem and the wandering kender would come together. In anticipation of that moment, he could almost taste the blood, hear the screams of his victims as the wizard worked his deadly, consuming magic. His vengeance would require many, many victims, and he exulted to images of mass conflagrations, of helpless mortals crushed, one after another, by his own hands.

  And though such gratifications remained but a dim memory for now, he began to sense an impending confluence. His hope, his talisman, was coming closer. The sensation grew in strength and substance until he could hear the pulse of that constant heart, the bloodstone of Fistandantilus.

  It was out there somewhere, and it was not far distant.

  Chapter 22

  An Historian at Large

  First Palast, Reapember

  374 AC

  Instead of following the road in either direction, Danyal took up his fishing pole and creel, and he led Nightmare and Foryth up the streamside trail until they were half a mile or more from the gray stone bridge. The shadows were thick and the trail was rough, but the lad took heart, reasoning that the difficult going would also impede anyone who tried to follow them.

  “We should be safe around here,” Danyal finally suggested when the two humans and the horse stumbled upon a rock-walled niche near the bank.

  “By all means,” Foryth agreed, still displaying his air of bemused cheerfulness. “Gilean knows I’ll be ready for a night of sleep after I take a few notes.”

  “Um, I think one of us should stay awake, just in case those men come back. We could take turns.” The lad looked nervously into the woods, starting at each shifting shadow, each rustle of leaf or snap of a twig. He thought with a shudder of the young, handsome bandit with the curiously dead eyes, and he knew the man would as soon kill them as talk to them if he found them again.

  Danyal had to admit, though, that this new camp was ideally situated for concealment. It was sheltered in another grotto, almost completely screened overhead by a canopy of trees, and as long as they remained quiet they should be safe from anyone who didn’t stumble right into the midst of their hiding place.

  Apparently lacking any of Danyal’s practical concerns, Foryth had already knelt down to flick a spark into a pile of tinder he had gathered. With some difficulty, he brought the glowing specks into embers, waving his hand over the dry pine needles in an unsuccessful attempt to fan the flames.

  “Don’t you think we’d be better off without a fire?” asked the youth. “I mean, in case they come back? It could lead them right to us.”

  “Oh, I think those ruffians are long gone by now,” the traveler said dismissively. “Now, where was I?”

  “Here, let me help,” Danyal said with a sigh. Admitting to himself that he was unusually chilly tonight, he knelt and puffed gently on the embers. In the sheltered grotto, it was hard to tell which way the wind was blowing, and Dan devoutly hoped the smoke would be carried away from the road.

  Within moments, a finger of yellow flame danced upward, growing boisterously as he fed chips of bark and thin, brittle branches to the hungry fire.

  Foryth used the flickering light to illuminate the page of the book he had retrieved from his pack by the rock wall. Once again he had his quill and inkwell out, the latter perched on a flat rock beside him.

  “You’re really going to write? Now?” Danyal couldn’t believe his eyes.

  “Why, of course. The best history is recorded while it’s still fresh in the historian�
�s memory. Say, you didn’t catch the name of that fellow, did you? The young, handsome one who seemed to be in charge?”

  “I don’t care what his name was!” Danyal squawked, then bit his tongue as the sound of his voice echoed through the forest. He lowered his tone to a rasping whisper. “He’s a bandit, and he could be coming back!”

  But Foryth was already engrossed, his only response the scratching of the sharp quill across the page. “Let’s see … the day is First Palast, month of Reapember, during this year of our chronicler 374 AC.”

  Foryth cleared his throat in ritual preparation. “ ‘Bandits encountered on the Loreloch Road, fifth day out from Haven. My camp was interrupted following nightfall’ … let’s see … how many of them did you count?”

  The sudden question took Danyal by surprise. “I—I guess there were six or eight of them, that I saw at least. There might have been—”

  “Drat the luck that didn’t let me get that fellow’s name!” snapped the historian peevishly, though he didn’t let the complaint still the pen-scratching of his scribing.

  “Um—didn’t one of them call him Kelry, or something like that?” Danyal recalled.

  “Hmm … yes, I believe you’re right. It was something similar to that.” Squinting at his page, silently mouthing his thoughts, the man wrote with quick, smooth strokes. Once he looked up toward Dan, but it seemed to the lad as though Foryth didn’t even see him.

  “Why were you out here, anyway?” asked Danyal when Foryth, having busily written for several minutes, stretched out his hand and blinked a few times.

  “What? Oh, thank you, yes. Some tea would be wonderful,” the lone traveler replied as he returned his industrious attention to his page. The feathery plume of the quill continued to bob past his nose, casting a larger-than-life shadow across the man’s narrow face. Features tight with concentration, Foryth Teel took a moment to dip his pen while he chewed thoughtfully on the tip of his tongue.