by Simon Hawke
The pterran clicked in an interrogative manner.
“Yes, next they must secure the Breastplate of Argentum.”
The pterran clicked again.
“Yes, in Bodach.”
The pterran emitted another series of sharp sounds.
“I know there are undead in Bodach. What do you want from me? I did not put them there.”
The pterran shook its massive head and clicked several more times.
“They will never make it? That’s what you said when they went across the Stony Barrens, as I recall, and yet they seemed to have survived that somehow.”
The pterran issued a brief response.
“Oh, they were lucky, were they? Well, perhaps they were. But I think that skill, patience, dedication, and perseverance may have had something to do with it, don’t you?”
The pterran shrugged and chirped a reply.
“You always find the dark cloud in every silver lining, don’t you?” said the Sage. “Well, I think you’re wrong.”
The pterran spoke.
“Would I care to wager on it? Why, you oversized, insolent, prehistoric sparrow, you have your nerve. A wager! A wager with me! What insufferable arrogance. What sort of wager?”
The pterran returned a quick response.
“Hmmm, I see. Interesting. And what if you should lose?”
The pterran gave out a raucous caw and clicked again.
“Name my stakes? My, my. Such confidence for someone who cannot even eat without dropping half his food onto the floor. Very well, then. I shall name my stakes. But I shall name them when you lose.”
The pterran threw back its massive head and gave out a long, ululating, piercing cry.
“Laugh all you like, my friend,” the Sage said. “We shall see who winds up laughing out of the other side of his beak.”
Still cawing raucously, the pterran left the chamber.
The Sage grunted irritably, then walked over to the window, moving slowly, a man in pain. He looked out over the landscape toward the rising sun. “Your path is no less arduous than mine, my children,” he said as he gazed out the window. “I shall do what little I can to ease your hardship. But the rest, I fear, is up to you. More depends on what you do than you can know. Our fates are linked now. If you fail, I fail. And if I fail, all is lost for our benighted world.”
He turned away from the window and hobbled over to his chair, sinking down into it slowly. For a time, the pain of transformation had subsided. But soon, it would return again. He gazed into the mirror at his fading humanity. He had almost grown accustomed to it. As he pondered his reflection, he could no longer see any trace of the young man who had once set out across the world to chronicle the lands and ways of Athas. Now it was for Sorak to follow in his footsteps and go beyond, where he had never dared to go. He fervently hoped the elfling and the priestess would succeed. For now, all he could do was wait. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes as the sun’s rays warmed him through the open window. After a while, the Wanderer slept.