Except that this glow was clearly, uncannily powerful, in a way that no natural glow could ever be. In fact, it seemed as though the greenish luminescence actually smelled of some sort of arcane power, some inner might that allowed it to freeze them so helplessly in their tracks. When the bandit lord came closer, he smiled, white teeth gleaming in the strange light.
“I knew tonight would be the night that you came for her. I knew it even before your friend made such an untidy racket outside the walls.”
Now Dan could see that the pale light glowed from between the man’s fingers, sickly beams of eerie illumination expanding from Kelryn Darewind’s hand to spread through the dungeon. He held an object there, something small enough to be held within his closed fingers, but it was a thing that pulsed with frightening arcane power. Too, it was something terribly, unnaturally bright but not fiery, for clearly it was cool enough to be held.
“The bloodstone of Fistandantilus.” The bandit lord held up a golden chain, allowing the pale stone pendant to dangle and sway before them. “It’s too bad your friend, the historian, isn’t here. I know he’d get quite a thrill out of seeing this.”
Danyal stared at the bloodstone, unable to move. He felt the power of the gem in that terrible light, sensed that his eyes—and his brain—were being damaged even as he was compelled to maintain his unblinking attention. There was no doubt in his mind that it was this stone that glued him in place, that compelled his obedience to a command he would have given anything to disobey.
“It was the bloodstone that allowed me to trick him, to make him think that I was a real priest!” The bandit lord chuckled over his own cleverness.
Danyal tried to speak, worked to choke out a word or two of challenge, but he was unable to make his mouth and lips obey his will.
“Oh, very well. You may relax, but don’t try to flee.” Kelryn masked the stone again as he spoke, and the sudden darkness was a huge relief, like a wash of fresh air blowing away the scent of an open crypt.
Suddenly their feet weren’t fastened to the floor anymore, and Mirabeth and Dan staggered in shock as the spell faded. They clung to each other for balance and reassurance. The youth desperately wanted to run, but now that he knew the power of the stone, he dared not take the chance—at least, not yet.
“The gem is the key to my success. It not only insures the obedience of reluctant listeners such as yourself, but it also protects me from those who would do me harm. There was a time when its power brought people flocking to my temple. Now I have learned—and only in the last few decades—that this gem of Fistandantilus even gives me the power to heal. Oh, it’s not perfect, of course, not like a spell cast by a true cleric. But you saw it work.”
Kelryn Darewind drew a deep breath, shaking his head in apparent wonder. “This bloodstone has a soul of its own, and it helps me! Over the years it has consumed countless lives and amassed a mighty power. It has taught me many things, shared wonders of history that others would never believe!”
Dan wanted to ask if the stone had corrupted him, made him evil and cruel as well.
“Hah!” Kelryn’s bark was loud and abrupt. “Even that fool of a historian doesn’t know the scope of his own ignorance. I know, because there is a voice, a spirit of knowledge, that talks to me through the stone.”
The man came closer, looking down at his two captives, and Dan sensed that once again Kelryn really wanted to talk, wanted to make them understand. And the lad hated that smooth face, that calm expression, more than ever. He wanted to punch the man, to draw his knife and plunge it into Kelryn Darewind’s evil heart.
“And it was the bloodstone, after all, that provided me with the knowledge that you were coming here tonight. It was really quite a simple matter to understand your objective.”
Kelryn frowned suddenly, allowing the green light to ooze once more from between his fingers as he scrutinized Mirabeth. “Though I would have thought that the kender himself would have come after his woman.”
Abruptly he squinted, as if seeing Mirabeth for the first time. He reached out, pushing her hair back from the rounded human ear. Roughly he slapped at the pointed tip of her other ear, drawing an immediate shout of protest from Danyal but at the same time knocking away the wax ear.
Then he threw back his head and laughed.
“You’re her! Sir Harold’s daughter, the one who escaped!” he exclaimed, full of mirth. “I’ve had you locked in my dungeon for the past days, and I didn’t even know it. Oh, what a splendid joke! What wonderful irony!”
He snarled then, his face distorted by a momentary naked cruelty. “Your father was a menace to me, a danger who lasted for too many years. It is good to know that you will soon join him in death.”
Danyal felt an onrushing wave of horrible fury, combined with an agonizing awareness of his own helplessness. They were both as good as dead, he knew, and he felt utterly powerless to change their impending fate. His fingers itched toward the weapon at his waist as he considered the chances. Could he draw the knife and sink the blade into his enemy before Kelryn could work the magic of the bloodstone?
He knew that he couldn’t.
“Raise your hands, both of you,” declared the man curtly, as if reading Danyal’s thoughts. Though he struggled valiantly to resist, Dan’s arms moved against his will, extending themselves over his head until he stood with hands helplessly upraised. His weapon might as well have been at the bottom of the sea for all the chance he had of reaching it.
“I think we’ll do this in a fashion my men will enjoy,” the bandit lord declared in a tone of amusement. “Let’s see … perhaps I should have the two of you leap from the upper battlement onto the rocks. They’re at least a hundred feet below. Yes, that would be effective. And dramatic as well, I’m sure you’ll agree.”
Kelryn frowned, apparently confronted by a deeply distressing problem. “But should I have you jump together or one at a time? I just don’t know.” Kelryn Darewind sounded genuinely distressed over his difficult choice.
Dan’s heart was pounding, and he felt the sweat trickling down his brow, but he still could make no gesture nor sound of protest.
“Well, to get us started, we can climb out of the dungeon. You, girl, go first. The lad will follow, with me in the rear. Now proceed, but slowly.”
Like zombies, Mirabeth and Danyal shuffled through the dark corridor of the dungeon. Once the lad tried to stop, to resist the commands of the bandit lord, but the feet that had been so unwilling to move a few minutes ago now refused to stop their inexorable march toward whatever doom Kelryn Darewind chose to devise for them. The pale, glowing bloodstone was like a physical prod behind him as Dan strained to turn, tried to resist with all his will the commands that marched them toward imminent execution.
“It shall have to be one at a time,” mused the bandit captain, startling them with his casual return to the topic of murder. “The look on the survivor’s face is not a treasure that I would care to waste. But which of you first? I really would like you to make a suggestion.”
Once again Kelryn’s fingers tightened around the bloodstone, and as green light seeped through the dungeon, Dan saw that the gem was pulsing with renewed power.
Danyal’s mouth opened and his tongue jerked reflexively, but he gagged on words that seemed drawn to the power of the bloodstone, that rose like bile in his throat. Spitting and coughing, he shook his head, drawing a sigh of disappointment from the false priest of Fistandantilus.
“Now, climb!” barked Kelryn Darewind as they reached the foot of the stairway. Mirabeth still led the way, and Danyal allowed her to advance several steps before he started after her. Once more he thought of trying to resist, though he still couldn’t manipulate his arms. Could he throw himself backward, try to carry the bandit lord down the steep steps? Perhaps he could badly injure, even kill the man!
Buoyed by the sudden hope, Dan worked his head around, getting a glimpse of his captor. He was dismayed to see that Kelryn Darewind had drawn hi
s sword as he followed them onto the stairs. Any maneuver such as the lad had contemplated would only result in a gory wound for himself.
Slumping in despair, Danyal turned his attention to the climb. Each step seemed to emerge from a haze before his face, and he found his feet rising without conscious direction as he gradually ascended.
They came to the door at the top of the stairs, and Mirabeth pushed it open, shuffling into the great hallway beyond. Danyal followed, and Kelryn came last. He still held his blade, but he seemed to be most concerned with the green gem that still glowed between his fingers.
“Go that way,” he declared, pointing toward the curve that Dan remembered led toward the entry hall with the tall, tapestry-lined walls. The corridor had been illuminated by only a pair of candles before, but now a dozen or more torches burned in sconces spaced along each of the walls. The youth didn’t see any of the other bandits, but he heard shouts from outside; he could only hope that Emilo, at least, had gotten to a place of safety. With a grimace of heartache, he wondered again what had become of Foryth.
“These depict great moments in the history of my temple,” the would-be priest declared, gesturing toward the long strands of fabric. The artistry might once have been splendid, but the bright colors had faded, and the fringes of the tapestry were tattered and moth-eaten.
His hands still stretched over his head, Danyal couldn’t have been less interested in the soot-blackened banners. Yet as he flexed his numbing fingers, trying to think of something, anything, useful to do, he suddenly had the flash of an idea.
“That picture,” said the lad, pointing toward the nearest tapestry. He stepped right up to it, vaguely discerning a crowd scene and a depiction of a large square edifice. “What is it?”
“The tapestry displays the laying of our temple in Haven’s outer wall.” Kelryn spoke with animation and interest. “You see? There I stand to oversee the work.”
The man stepped up to the embroidered illustration, indicating a figure outlined in green light, standing like a rod atop a small pyramid of square stone blocks. The Seeker priest stared admiringly at the handiwork, and the lad sensed that the man’s attention and desire had shifted momentarily, coming to rest in his reminiscences of those days of glory.
Dan saw his chance. Hands still upraised, he seized the edge of the tapestry and threw himself backward, instantly hurling all his weight and momentum onto the support of the ancient fabric.
Please give way! His prayer was desperate and, apparently, successful: The long swath of cloth tore near the top, and a great, dusty shroud tumbled downward, burying Kelryn Darewind, his sword, and his green bloodstone.
As soon as the bandit lord disappeared, Dan felt his arms drop, freed from the spell as the green light was smothered. Instantly he had the dagger out, ready to slash at the form that struggled beneath the billowing layers of the tapestry.
“Danyal—this way! Hurry!” Mirabeth took his arm and pulled before he could make his attack. He heard footsteps and saw the flaring of bright torchlight from the direction of the kitchen.
Groaning in frustration but recognizing the need to flee immediately, Danyal followed the lass as she darted through the entry hall. The manor gates, he was surprised to see, were standing open. Torches flared among the crude cottages of the village, and he guessed that some of the men, alarmed by Emilo’s diversion, must have charged out of the fortified structure to investigate.
And then the two of them were through the gates, plunging down the sloping ground beyond the wall. With a sharp turn away from the road to the bridge, Danyal pulled Mirabeth into the deep shade of a small barn.
Panting, trying to breathe as quietly as possible, he looked around, assessing their surroundings.
But he wasn’t expecting to see anyone as close as the figure who rose to stand right beside him.
With a reflexive twist, Dan raised his knife, pushed Mirabeth aside, and stabbed.
Chapter 35
Escape or Doom
Second Kirinor, Reapember
374 AC
“Wait!” The familiar voice jolted Danyal, giving the lad barely enough time to check the deadly blow he had intended to land.
“Emilo?” Danyal sagged backward, allowing the dagger to fall away from the shadowy figure. “I—I almost didn’t recognize you! You could have—I could have …”
“Don’t worry. It’s me, and I’m all right. I see you heard my diversion. Oh, and hi, Mirabeth!” declared the kender. “I’m really glad to see you!”
“Thanks—thanks to all of you—for coming after me,” she replied. But then she looked around, seeking someone else in their hiding place, which was the shadowy alcove behind a small barn. “Where’s Foryth?”
“Still in there, I guess.” Danyal shook his head in despair. “I told him to stay with me, to be careful, but he wandered off before we’d been inside for ten minutes!”
“I don’t know if we can afford to wait for him,” Emilo said ruefully. “It kind of puts the whole plan in trouble.”
“What choice do we have, besides waiting here?” argued the youth. “Did you see how many men were gathered at the base of the bridge?” He gestured into the torchlight at the end of the little lane, where a small knot of bandits milled about.
“Yes.” Emilo didn’t sound concerned. “Actually, I don’t think they’ll be there long.”
“Why?” asked Danyal incredulously.
The kender made no answer. Instead, he cocked an ear to the side, clearly expectant of some noise.
Within seconds, a great boom resounded through the night, echoing back from the neighboring mountain as a cascade of orange flame leapt into the air from the far side of the manor’s walls. A heavy thud rumbled through the ground under their feet, and debris clattered around them while the fire flared into a brightness like false daylight.
“You did that?” Danyal asked, amazed and impressed.
“That used to be a shed just outside the stronghold,” Emilo said smugly. “See if they’ll ever store all their kegs of lamp oil in one place again!”
The band of men who had been guarding the end of the bridge now raced in a mob toward the scene of the explosion. Flaming oil had been cast in a great arc around the blast, and several neighboring cottages and a haystack were all crackling into a lively conflagration. The guardsmen were joined by others from the manor as everyone within sight labored to fight the flames, shoveling dirt onto the fire or, more rarely, casting a bucket of precious water on some particularly vulnerable outpost of the blaze.
“D’you think that will hold their attention?” asked the kender nonchalantly, leaning against the wall of the barn and trying to observe the gates of the manor. Flames soared into the sky, glowing like a beacon in the night.
“Let’s get to the bridge!” Mirabeth urged, pointing to the route that had opened before them.
Ducking low, staying to the shadows as much as possible, the trio scuttled past the outbuildings of the small village. Finally they reached the last hut, still twenty paces from the end of the bridge. The whole surface of the span was visible from the manor, though the illumination naturally was brightest at this end.
“No point in hanging around and waiting for someone to find us,” Danyal said, after checking to see that Kelryn’s bandits were still busy with the fire.
The three of them raced onto the bridge, not daring to look back as they willed their feet to fly, and sprinted with all possible speed onto the surface of flagstones. In moments the deep chasm, black with night shadow, yawned to either side of them and the chilly air breezily washed away any trace of warmth that might have lingered from the fire in the village.
The first shout of alarm didn’t come until they were halfway across, but even that was disastrously early, Danyal knew. Knowing their flight had been observed, he urged his companions to redouble their efforts, intending to fall back and try to gain them time, holding off the pursuing bandits with his dagger. But Mirabeth apparently sensed his int
ention, for she seized his wrist and pulled him sharply along at her side.
Finally the far end of the bridge was there, and they raced off the span and onto the dirt roadway. But now they heard the sounds of an angry mob, shouts and cries and hoarse, communal cheers as the bandits left the dying fire at the stronghold to give pursuit. Danyal sensed the bloodlust of the band and knew the three of them wouldn’t live for a minute if they were caught.
“It won’t work. We can’t all make it!” he gasped. “Run!”
Again he tried to hesitate, to turn and buy more time, but Mirabeth pulled him hard. “You’re coming, too!”
And so he followed, the kender and the two young humans dashing into the shadows of the mountainside while dozens of murderous bandits charged onto the bridge.
The crushing wave of awe that swept over Danyal was no less sickening for its familiarity.
“Dragon!” he gasped in horror, all but lurching forward. His knees turned to rubber, and he stumbled, staggering, then falling onto his face as Mirabeth collapsed and buried her face in her hands beside him.
Emilo skidded to a halt beside them, his face turned skyward. “Would you look at that?” he declared, his tone full of wonder. “A dragon!”
Danyal didn’t want to look, but he needed to know. He raised his eyes and saw the serpent soaring overhead, blotting out the stars across a great swath of sky. Crimson scales reflected like rubies in the flaring light of the fire across the chasm, and then two massive wings pulsed downward, a blast of wind raising dust from the road.
“Take cover!” shouted the youth, reaching up from the muddy ditch on the uphill side of the road to seize Emilo by the wrist. He pulled the kender in beside Mirabeth and himself, hoping that they had been far enough from the lights around Loreloch to escape the serpent’s notice.
Fistandantilus Reborn Page 23
