Fistandantilus Reborn

by Douglas Niles

  Only then did he swing onto the framework, feeling his stomach lurch sickeningly as the beams and girders shifted. Again the creak of metal assaulted his ears, but the movement of the mass was less extreme than it had been when Emilo descended. Gritting his teeth, the dwarf scrambled down the rest of the way. When his feet were firmly planted on solid rock, he shifted his weight back and forth, glowering fiercely. His pale eyes were wide, absorbing the darkness, then settling upon the agitated figure of the kender.

  “Well, that took a while,” said Emilo, a trifle sourly. “It’s over this way.”

  Once again Gantor suppressed his murderous urges, seeing that the wreckage of chambers and corridors around them still created a fairly extensive maze. Yet here the kender seemed to know where he was going with some degree of certainty, for Emilo started along one of the passages, winding easily between great pieces of stone that had fallen from the ceiling. Judging by the coat of dust over the scattered rubble, the Theiwar assumed that the place had been pretty much undisturbed since the convulsive explosion that had rendered Zhaman into Skullcap.

  Again he found himself descending, following the kender down a series of stairways, but these were honest, stone-carved steps, cutting through squared passages that had been gouged into the living bedrock of the fortress’s foundation. Gantor recognized dwarven work and admitted to a measure of racial pride when he saw that most of these stairways remained relatively undamaged.

  Finally they emerged into a maze of small rooms. Despite the dust and rubble, Gantor discerned that these chambers were furnished with far more attention to detail than were any of the bare stone passages that had marked the rest of the catacombs. Woven carpets had once lined the floor, though most of these had rotted into a layer of moldy paste. The smell of decay was pungent here, and doorframes and beams of punky dried wood were visible in each of the four directions where the Theiwar could see corridors.

  “It’s this way,” said the kender. “If you’re sure you want to—”

  “Don’t try to back out now!” Gantor’s heart pounded at the notion of the treasure that he sensed must be very near. He sniffed, and the spoor of riches was an almost tangible scent in the air. Unconsciously his fingers closed around the hilt of his knife.

  They passed through several more chambers, and the Theiwar was vaguely aware of tables, of the wreckage of bottles and vials, of leathery tomes that, though layered in dust, had somehow escaped the rot and mold that had claimed the wooden and fabric objects within the deep cell.

  “It’s right there,” Emilo said, halting abruptly and pointing to a shadowy archway. “Y-You go in if you want. I think I’ll just wait here for—”

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” Gantor’s suspicions, always bubbling near the surface, burst into full boil. He gave the kender a hard shove, ignoring the sharp yell of protest, and then clumped after Emilo into a small room.

  Only it wasn’t a room at all. Instead, the corridor seemed to continue until it ended in a blank stone wall. At first the dwarf was convinced he had been tricked, but when he glared downward at the kender, he saw that Emilo was paying him no attention. Instead, the little fellow’s eyes were fixed upon an object at the base of the featureless wall.

  Gantor shifted his gaze and then gasped as he beheld the eyeless skull, lying on the stone floor, gaping up at him from those empty sockets. It was just a piece of white bone, identical in appearance to any of a hundred other skulls that the dwarf had seen. Yet there was something disquieting, undeniably menacing, about the morbid object. The skull did not move, nor was there any visible trace of illumination around it; neither did it emit any kind of noise that the dwarf could hear.

  But he could still not banish the sense that it was glaring, waiting, watching him. Shivering, he took a step back, his pale Theiwar eyes still fixed upon the piece of bone.

  In fact, the fleshless visage was so distracting that it was several moments before the dwarf even thought to look at the other object lying on the otherwise featureless floor.

  “The jewel!” he declared, suddenly wrenching his gaze to the side. Trembling, he approached and knelt, though as yet he did not reach out to touch the gem.

  A golden chain, still bright amid the dust of the floor, indicated that the thing had once been worn around a person’s neck. A filigree of fine gold wire enwrapped a single large stone, a gem of pale green that was unlike anything else Gantor had ever seen.

  He didn’t need to identify the piece to know that it was tremendously valuable. This was an object unique in his experience, and that experience included very many encounters with precious gems of numerous varieties. And then he knew, his memory triggered by thoughts of a few odd stones of a type he had not seen for many decades.

  “It’s a bloodstone,” he said gruffly, greed thickening his voice. He reached out, touched the chain, then looped it over his wrist to lift the gem up to his eye level. “You can see traces of red fire—the same color as fresh blood—there, right below the surface.”

  Avarice welled within the Theiwar’s cruel heart, and he knew that he was holding the most precious object he had ever seen.

  “Maybe you want to look at it outside,” said Emilo, edging toward the door. “Right this way.”

  But Gantor wasn’t listening. He stared at the stone, convinced that he was seeing flickers of light—hot, crimson bursts of illumination—deep within the gem. The pulses were faint, but visible to his keen eyes.

  “Uh, Gantor?” asked Emilo. “Can we get going now?”

  The dwarf snapped his head around to see that the kender had his back turned as he looked longingly up the corridor. With a snort of contempt, the dwarf realized that the little fellow was still nervous, unaccountably distressed by their presence here.

  And finally the dark dwarf remembered his other intent, the determination that he would leave no witnesses, none who knew where he had found this treasure, or even who knew of its existence, its possession by the rogue Theiwar.

  Gantor’s face was distorted into a leer as, grinning, he lifted his knife. But then his eyes lighted upon the skull, the object that the kender found so discomforting. Enjoying the irony, the Theiwar sheathed his knife and reached down to pick up the bony artifact.

  “What are you doing?” demanded Emilo, whirling back to stare, wide-eyed, as the dwarf raised the skull over his head.

  “It’s called murder,” replied Gantor Blacksword, bringing the piece of bone down hard, feeling the satisfying crunch of the blow as the skull struck Emilo square between the eyes. Soundlessly the kender fell, rolled over, and lay still. The dwarf dropped the skull on the kender’s motionless back. Then, clutching his treasure to his breast, Gantor scuttled from the room and started to make his way back to the world above.

  Chapter 8

  A Host, of Sorts

  251 AC

  His world had focused around one burning, constant feature:

  Pain.

  Everything was a throbbing ache, beginning in the back of his head, spreading through his jaw, his neck, his shoulders. It swelled out of the darkness, reaching with clutching, fleshless fingers, growing stronger with each stab of anguish, like hot blades piercing his skin and his mind. The agony reared high, like a kicking horse, and then the black void swallowed him again.

  Later, the pain was there once more, but he took some comfort this time, realizing vaguely that the sensations could be taken as a sign of hope. At least it meant that he was still alive. Even so, the swelling momentum of his suffering sickened him, set his stomach to churning. Before his eyes, all was blackness, save for occasional sparks of red and white that appeared in the far distance, whipped forward like shooting stars, then blinked away.

  Even in his confusion and his pain, he knew that these were not external lights, that they existed only in the bruised and battered passages of his mind.

  My mind. He told himself over and over that this was his body, that the thoughts meant that he was alive. And all along a deeper question
arose, as menacing as a fang-tipped serpent, to leer at him out of the darkness. He tried to ignore the question, tried to tell himself that it didn’t matter. But it hissed insidiously, this mystery that would not be ignored, whispering itself over and over into his ringing ears.

  Who am I?

  This was a new question, he knew—at least a new mystery to him. Once he could have rattled off the answer without difficulty, with no hesitation. He had a past, a mortal life with parents, with a childhood, and … and travel. He had seen much of the world in the guise of that mortal life.

  Why, then, could he not remember the person who had lived that life, the person he was?

  The question was as frightening, in its own way, as the sickening anguish that threatened to pin him into his place. The first attempt to move brought a fresh wave of agony, a sickening assault that sent bile surging violently into his throat. Ignoring the shrieking protests resounding within his head, he rolled onto his side and vomited, spilling his guts onto a flat stone floor.

  The floor, for some reason, triggered a suggestion of familiarity. He knew that he was inside, of course—the stale, musty air was confirmation of that. But now he perceived that he was far, far underground. There was no clue in his lightless surroundings to suggest that truth; it was simply a fact that he felt inclined to accept.

  That was a victory of sorts, and he collapsed onto the floor again, drawing ragged breaths, trying to remember where under the ground. While he thought, the aching in his head receded somewhat, and before he had considered the challenge of movement, he found that he had risen to a sitting position. Resting his back against a wall—also smooth, solid stone—he tried to stare through the darkness.

  There was nothing to see.

  His hands, familiar hands with short but dexterous and nimble fingers, probed into one of the pouches that he knew would hang from his belt. He found a flint and a short-bladed dagger right where they were supposed to be. And here was a bit of tinder, dry and brittle, protected by a soft leather folder. Beside that was a scrap of oily cloth.

  His movements were smooth and practiced, clearly well rehearsed, though he could not remember a specific instance of ever having done this before. He scraped sparks from the flint, blinking at the sudden brightness, watching as they sizzled and faded. Again he struck, and this time one hot speck caught in the web of tinder. A small breath, carefully puffed, brought the tinder into flame. Twisting the oilcloth into a knot, he touched the frayed edges to the fire, and now orange light flickered all through the confines of the subterranean chamber.

  And he felt a sharp stab of terror.

  A skull was staring at him, the dark voids of its eye sockets cast even further into shadow by the flaring of the makeshift torch. With a gasp, he scrambled backward, holding the flaming cloth high, unwilling to take his eyes from the glaring death mask. Only when he had scuttled, crablike, around a corner did he allow himself to draw a deep breath.

  He stood and, mindful of the rapidly burning cloth, began to search through the dark corridor. Soon he found what he sought: a creosote-soaked timber that had once been the leg of a table or laboratory bench. When the rag was wrapped around the blunt head of the tapered stick, the flames took slow root on the tarry timber, and soon a growing light flared brightly through the darkness.

  This was a flame, he knew, that would last him for many hours. And it would take him a long time to get out of here—though it still irritated him to realize that he didn’t know where here was. He hoisted the torch and looked through the surrounding wreckage for clues. He saw overturned tables, a litter of vials and flasks, even some tomes and scrolls, but nothing that looked even vaguely familiar. With a shudder, he turned his back and left the place behind.

  For a time he wandered through a maze of stone passages, seeking only to avoid that menacing skull that had so startled him when he awakened. Yet despite his care, he found himself once again coming around a corner to confront the eyeless face that stared dispassionately upward from the floor. The bone-white visage had startled him when he had awakened, and he had the feeling that it was a dangerous object, lethal and powerful in ways that he could not understand.

  Yet now, as he looked at it in the yellow light of his torch, he saw it for what it was: a lifeless piece of bone, sitting motionless on the floor where it had been dropped. He stepped closer, banishing the nervousness that once again churned his stomach. A trailing end of his long hair had somehow found its way into his mouth, and he chewed absently on the end of the thick mop.

  “You’re dead.”

  He spoke the words aloud, taking comfort from the sound of his own voice. He knelt beside the bone, noticing a fleck of rusty red on the back side. The blood was dried, but far fresher than the skull, and instinctively his hand went to his own forehead.

  There was a lump there, a bruised patch of skin and a scab where he had been struck, where his own blood had flowed after the blow of a hard object.

  He knew then that it was his own blood on the skull, that the piece of bone had smashed against his head and felled him here, in the depths of this shattered place. But why couldn’t he remember?

  “Who am I?”

  He made the demand loudly, challenging the skull, the darkness, the stone walls—anything that might have been witness to the attack, that might offer him some hope of an answer. But of course, no answer was forthcoming.

  Again the black eye sockets drew him, and he knew that the skull should have been a terrifying thing—indeed, some time before it had frightened him, and he knew that he was a person who was not easily scared. Yet now he perceived little of that earlier menace. It was as if the skull was a vessel that had been full of something dangerous, but now, perhaps shattered by the force of the blow, the danger had flowed out and left the fleshless head as a silently grinning remembrance.

  Resolutely he turned his back on the skull and started to walk. Soon he found the iron framework of an old stairway, and he didn’t even pause before starting what he knew would be a long climb. Ascending steadily, he held the torch in one hand, except during the most difficult parts of the climb. Then he clenched the narrow, unlighted end of the brand between his teeth so that he could use both hands to scale steadily upward.

  He stopped once, startled by a distant sound. Listening, he discerned a thumping pulse, like the beating of a heart. As he strained to locate the sound, he saw a sudden image: a greenish stone, red lights flaring within the gem in cadence to the mysterious heartbeat.

  Once again he suppressed a shiver a fear, knowing without understanding that fear was a strange emotion to him.

  After the iron stairs there were more corridors, and a room where there was water. He stopped here, grateful for the drink, and took the time to fill both of his water-skins. He remembered that, beyond this ruined labyrinth, he would find very little water.

  But how could he know this and not know where here was?

  Finally he emerged beneath the muted blue of a clear sky fading softly after the sunset. He was not surprised that the great edifice behind him rose so high, nor that it was cast so perfectly into the shape of a great skull. Now he knew that this place was called Skullcap.

  And then he had another vivid impression as the skull that he had left underground seemed to rise into his mind. He stared into those black, empty sockets and shivered under the feeling that it was still watching him.

  “But who am I?”

  He found the answer when he collapsed for rest in a shallow ditch. Under the fading light of day, he pulled out the contents of his pack. There was the hardtack—he remembered exactly what it tasted like, but he didn’t know where it had come from. He found a soft fur cloak and knew that it would be useful on a colder night than this.

  And he found an ivory scroll tube that was certainly one of his prized possessions. Within the cylindrical container, he found several maps and pieces of parchment with strange symbols and indecipherable notes scrawled across them.

  At the top
of several of the sheets, he discerned two words: Emilo Haversack. Taking a stick, he scribed the symbols into the sand, and he recognized that the words on the parchment had been written by his own hand.

  “My name is Emilo Haversack,” he declared, as if the repeating of the words would make the truth that much more evident.

  But still, how had he come to be here?

  And where were the rest of his memories?

  Chapter 9

  From Black to Life

  259 AC

  For a long time he had done nothing, been no one. This was his protection as it had been in ages past, a tactic for use when those who sought his life for crimes real and imagined became too powerful. And so he had escaped the vengeful, had given pitiful humankind the false notion that he was finally and irrevocably slain.

  He recalled the fateful casting, the mighty spell that should have yielded passage to the Abyss, allowed him to challenge the Dark Queen herself. Instead, the enchantment had erupted in violent convulsion, tearing him to pieces, destroying him.

  Indeed, by now the whole world must believe that he had been killed.

  But he had only been hiding.

  How long had he lurked here, so far beyond the ken of humankind? He didn’t know, really didn’t care. As ever, he trusted to certain truths, knowing that the nature of human, dwarf, or ogre would eventually accomplish his task. The folk of Krynn tended to be violent peoples, and he needed their violence to give him flesh and blood and life.

  Finally violence had been done, and the gift had been given. Again his essence was cloaked in flesh, the blood pulsing through a brain that, while it was not his, had been given to him to use. He could not discern immediately whether it was a human or perhaps a dwarf or even an ogre that had bestowed this gift upon him. Nor did he particularly care. He could make any of these peoples his tool, use whichever body was offered him until he could exert full control, reclaim his rightful place in the world.