Fistanadantilus Reborn

CHAPTER 2

1PC

First Palast, Reapember

The young magic-user tried to walk softly, to bring his smooth-soled boots soundlessly against the forest trail. But with each footfall came a whisper of bending grass or the tiny slurp of suction from moist, bare dirt. Once, when he raised his head to look through the brush before him, he carelessly cracked a twig, and the noise was like a lightning bolt stabbing through the silent woods and into his pounding heart.

He told himself that it should not be so, that his fear, his extreme caution, were illogical reactions to a danger that he had by now left safely behind. In fact, it was a threat that was probably imaginary. There would be no pursuit-indeed, he had been sent away from Wayreth by the master of the tower himself, and Fistandantilus was no doubt glad that young Whastryk Kite was gone.

But still he was afraid.

Nervously he cast a glance over his shoulder, along the tangled track of Wayreth Forest. The tower was invisible now, screened by the intervening foliage. That same greenery had parted invitingly before Whastryk, leading him away from the sorcerous spire and its two remaining occupants. The tower, with its arcane legacy and wonderful trove of magic, had been Whastryk Kite's home, as well as his school and the residence of his companions, for several years. Yet abruptly the course of all the apprentices' studies had come to an end. Now, as he suspected that he had left that place behind him forever, he felt a strange mixture of emotions.

Despite the midsummer warmth in the woods, when he thought of the pair of magic-users who still occupied that arcane spire, the young mage shivered forcefully enough to send ripples shimmering through the smooth silk of his black robe. What powers, he wondered, would be wielded by them before the issue was resolved?

And that resolution, Whastryk had come to suspect, would be the death of the young apprentice, the lone representative from among the archmage's pupils who had been selected to remain.

He shuddered at the thought of ancient Fistandantilus, the lean and wolfish man with the vitality and temperament of a caged feline. Whastryk had seen the hunger so clearly etched in his master's ageless eyes. The archmage craved something precious and vital from the young men who came to study at his table, to learn from his words. He lusted for their youth and vigor, and from one he would claim his very soul.

Whastryk had felt his master's hunger himself, had chilled to the knowledge that the elder's gaze seemed to penetrate to every fiber of his being. The touch of those eyes had been a terrifying sensation, yet strangely exciting and alluring as well.

Even now, as the discharged apprentice hastened away on the forest trail-even now, when he suspected that the chosen one was doomed, would quite possibly be dead before the sun rose on the morrow-Whastryk felt a surge of jealousy, of pure, raw hatred directed at the one who had been selected to remain.

Why had that apprentice, and not Whastryk Kite, been found worthy?

Bitter thoughts raged in the young mage's mind, and he felt again the familiar resentment, the knowledge that in every aspect of life, his lot was unfairly restricted. Orphaned and abandoned as a boy, he had survived on the rough streets of Xak Tsaroth by his wits and eventually by the knack for magic that had persuaded bigger, stronger thugs to leave him alone. Then Fistandantilus had summoned him to the tower, and Whastryk had seen things he could never have imagined. For his own benefit, he had learned to wield his power, an arcane might that would allow him to master many other men and further the causes of the Order of the Black Robe.

And yet he would have given it up for a chance to stay behind, to share the powerful-and undoubtedly lethal-enchantment of his master's greatest spell.

Still, the young mage carried a valuable legacy from the Tower of Wayreth. It was not a treasure in his pouch, a value in steel or even in arcane trinkets. It was the knowledge of magic, the memories of his master's teaching, that he now held in his mind. He was free, and that knowledge would be the key to great power among the world of humankind. Whastryk merely had to choose where he would go and how he would wield that power.

And he also had one memento of his tutelage in the library of Fistandantilus.

The magic-user's hand settled around the silver vial in his belt pouch, the treasure that his master had given him as a parting gift. The liquid within was clear, and his fingers could sense the unnatural coldness through the smooth metal of the tiny jar. He remembered the solemn sense of ceremony with which Fistandantilus had bestowed the treasure upon him.

And once more he wondered, Why me? The archmage had been secretive on that point, telling his young apprentice to save the potion, retaining it for all the years of his life, unless, at some point, Whastryk Kite was threatened with imminent and seemingly inevitable death. If he drank the potion at such a time, Fistandan-tilus had declared, then the magical liquid would insure his survival.

A rumble of thunder trembled through the woods, and the black-clad mage paused. The tiny patches of sky visible between the dense canopy of leaves were invariably blue, and the sky had been cloudless when Whastryk had departed the tower barely two hours earlier. When the deep, resonant noise came again, the man knew: This thunder was born of magic, not nature. The source was the tall tower, the spire of sorcery that lay at the heart of Wayreth Forest.

Light flashed, a sparking glow brighter than the sun, penetrating deep among the trees with a cold, white glare. More thunder smashed, and shivers of force rolled through the ground. Whashyk stepped faster now, trotting, then running along the trail. His earlier regrets vanished, washed away by a wave of pure fear that-like the noise and the light-certainly emanated from that distant tower.

Winds lashed through the trees, hot blasts of air that bore none of the moist freshness of a rainstorm. Instead, this was a stinking, sulfurous gale, a wash of putrid breath that pushed him even faster along the trail. Lightning crackled with growing violence, and he shuddered under a clear impression that the sky itself screamed in raw horror. He heard a clatter, then felt a sharp stab of pain against his shoulder as black hailstones rattled through the trees, bouncing and cracking against the ground.

And then he was sprinting like the wind, driven by the force of his own terror. Branches lashed his face, and unnatural gusts tore at his hair, whipped his robe. It seemed that the two magic-users behind him, the tower, the woods, and the very world itself were being torn to pieces. If he slowed even a half pace from his full run, Whastryk sensed that the destruction would extend even to himself.

Finally the woods were gone. Wayreth Forest vanished into the mists over his shoulder, a place of his past. He was surprised to learn, at the first village he came to, that he was in the foothills of the Kharolis Mountains. After all, the magical forest had grown outside the great trading city of Xak Tsaroth when Whastryk had first encountered it. But he had heard that was the way of the enchanted wood. The worthy traveler did not find Wayreth Forest, so much as Wayreth Forest found the worthy traveler.

Now he saw no sign of the woods behind him, and the young mage thought it was good to be removed from the place. He set his sights upon the future, sensing that he would never see that forest again-and the knowledge was more a relief than a fear.