Fistanadantilus Reborn

CHAPTER 45

Third Bakukal, Reapember

374 AC

"My lord Fistandantilus!" cried Kelryn, throwing himself at the feet of the nearest of the wizards. "You have appeared in answer to my prayers!" He reached out as if to wrap his arms around the figure's legs, but then hesitated, rising to his knees, staring hopefully upward.

The black-robed figure ignored the man, turning a shadowy face toward the other gaunt, shrouded form. Though the two were dressed alike and approximately the same size, the nearer sorcerer was somehow more substantial, more solid than the other.

Both, Dan realized, were equally frightening.

The second wizard drew back its hood to reveal a visage of ghastly horror. Danyal recognized the skull of Fistandantilus, except that now that bony visage was attached to a skeletal neck, extending out of a corpselike body. The arms that moved the sleeves of the robe seemed vaporous and incorporeal, while the face bore that same, teeth-baring grimace that the companions had seen on the inanimate skull. The hands were skin stretched taut over bone and seemed to float, unattached physically, at the ends of the wide sleeves.

And the eyes of the skull had changed, Dan saw with a dull throb of horror. Instead of cold shadows within the empty sockets, there glowed a spark of heat in place of each eye, a crimson spot of burning fire that seemed to penetrate Danyal's skin, to shrivel his insides with the force of hatred, violence, and cruelty. It was as if the pure evil of this creature had somehow been condensed into illumination, and that vile brightness now glittered wickedly from the dead sockets.

Only vaguely did the lad become aware that the flaming, hellish inspection was not specifically directed at himself. Indeed, though the eyes seemed to see everywhere, the posture of the skeletal body showed that the creature's attention was fixed upon the other black-robed magic-user.

"Who are you?" asked the death's-head wizard of its counterpart, the voice a rumbling growl that shivered through the bedrock of the mountain.

"I am Fistandantilus!" crowed the other, the flesh-cloaked sorcerer, his tone exultant. This archmage threw back his hood, and Danyal saw the stern face of a mature, but not old, man. His hair was long and black, and his stern features were centered around a hawklike nose. Cold, dark eyes blazed with intensity as he raised a finger and pointed at the image of death.

"Now name yourself!" he demanded.

"I am Fistandantilus! I am the lich of Skullcap, survivor of the Dark Queen's foul challenges." The cry roared from the skull as the fleshless jaws spread wide. "It is you who are the imposter-and you who are doomed!"

Danyal tore his eyes away, saw Kelryn looking wildly back and forth between the two black figures. Mirabeth and Foryth watched with awestruck expressions, while Emilo Haversack observed the conflict with a look of intrigued curiosity. Looking around, the lad saw that the gray-robed observer remained in place, scribing diligently. The dust still trickled through the hourglass, though the level of sand in the timepiece hadn't appreciably changed.

"Dispassionate." Dan suddenly remembered the word Foryth Teel had used, the ideal that he strived for-and he knew that it fit perfectly this silent, aloof figure.

"Wait!" the command came from Kelryn Darewind. The Seeker priest, still on his knees, crept around the side of the human Fistandantilus. "You have both come in answer to my plea. Both of you together are the arch-mage!"

"I have no need of together, or of any intrusive assistance!" declared the man in black robes. His eyes never left the apparition of death, which likewise maintained a tight focus on its opposite number. "I am myself, powerful and invulnerable. I have returned to Krynn, and now I am ready to commence my vengeance."

"Wow-will you have a look at that?" Emilo's voice, calmly speaking into Danyal's ear, was like a dousing of cold water on the numbed young man. Grateful for any indication of normalcy, Dan turned to see what the kender was talking about.

Emilo was pointing at the floor, where the bloodstone of Fistandantilus lay, temporarily forgotten. Danyal saw that the green gem was pulsing, radiating its sickly illumination through the darkness, the seeping, misty light apparently unnoticed by the great figures debating nearby. That vague illumination swirled in the air, slowly congealing into a flat disk, suspended perpendicular to the floor. The hourglass was below the disk, and the foggy image seemed to be centered above the silver timepiece. As he watched, Danyal saw a vaporous essence take firmer shape, whirling into an image that looked like nothing so much as a window, a view through space into a place of gray mist, like the dew-laden air of a foggy morning. The representation solidified above the hourglass, and Dan knew he was looking at an entirely different place.

"It's the power of the stone and the skull. It has opened a window to other planes, other worlds!" Foryth gasped. "A gate into space and time."

The bandit remained focused on the twin sorcerers. "You have come because I called you! I summoned you!" cried Kelryn Darewind, rising to his feet, turning to confront one, then the other of the two mages.

"Silence!" snapped the human version of Fistandantilus. He stared at Kelryn Darewind for a moment; then his eyes flickered, attracted to something else. "Ah, my bloodstone!" declared the archmage, spotting the gem on the cavern floor. He stepped toward the pulsing artifact.

Danyal watched the shimmering window take firmer shape in the air.

"Hold!" cried the skeletal Fistandantilus. Abruptly the grotesque personage vanished, reappearing directly before his counterpart. Kelryn Darewind stepped after it, forming the third point of a triangle.

"I remember!" It was Emilo Haversack who spoke, his voice a whisper of wonder. "I recall everything that happened to me. It started with the skull, a very, very long time ago. I saw it there, in the darkness… The dwarf struck me with it, and my memories were gone."

He looked at Dan, his eyes wide with awe and dawning understanding. "That's where my sickness came from-and it took away my memories, too! My life, my whole past! But now they've come back!"

Emilo skipped a little step, as if he were ready to break into a dance. "I come from Kendermore, and… and I remember a time before the Cataclysm! And… and I thank you all for helping me, for keeping me alive, for letting me get better!"

"You saved us, too, if you don't remember," Danyal replied.

The kender scowled. "But that stone and skull-they shouldn't be together, should they?"

"No, they shouldn't!" Mirabeth wrapped the kender in a hug as Danyal continued to watch the two magic-users and their prophet. Kelryn was raving, his voice shrill as he made demands of first one, then the other Fistandantilus.

And all the time the bloodstone lay on the floor, pulsing in time with the flaring image of that green-framed window. The mysterious portal whirled in the air, still suspended above the silver hourglass.

"The power was mine-the bloodstone belongs to me!" Kelryn's voice was shrill but futile.

"You are mine!" the lich declared in a voice like the wind from a newly opened crypt, finally turning to regard the bandit lord with its flaring, horrifying eyes. "For too long you have used my talisman as your toy, playing your role as a priest. My strength sustained you, and now you will sustain me!"

Kelryn recoiled, his face draining of color under the inspection of the ghastly undead mage.

"His life belongs to me!" the other wizard interjected. "It was my essence that held back the effects of age, that allowed him to survive for so long."

Each of the black-robed figures took one of the bandit's arms. Light seared the air, a sizzling aura that outlined the twisting, writhing figure in cold brightness. Danyal, watching in awe, saw the illumination as power, and he observed the power divided.

The essence of Kelryn Darewind's life was sucked from his body as the bandit lord writhed and screamed in unspeakable agony. He weakened quickly, moaning, slumping between the two mighty sorcerers. Vitality faded from the man's eyes, and Dan could almost see the warmth of his blood being pulled from his flesh, flowing in equal portions into the two versions of the black-robed archmage.

Finally the sorcerers released the clawlike hands of their shriveled victim, and Kelryn Darewind crumpled to the ground, the shell of his skin drained of blood, of vitality and life. The corpse lay motionless on the floor while the two images of Fistandantilus stood trembling under the onslaught of renewed life and restored power.

A web of green light flared, sparking and firing between the two archmages. Tendrils of ghostly power connected into a glowing net of supernatural, sinister force.

"Together-they've absorbed him together!" Foryth Teel whispered, awed.

"What does it mean? What will happen?" Danyal asked.

"I don't know, but see: Neither archmage can break away from his counterpart. I think that whichever one prevails will either be very powerful, so much so that he becomes in fact invulnerable, or he will be doomed."

The mountain itself trembled under the onslaught of barely contained power. Pieces of rock broke from the ceiling, tumbling down to shatter on the floor. Sharp-edged shards of stone flew here and there, several whizzing past dangerously close, but Danyal's attention was rapt, still focused on the two wizards. They strained visibly to tear themselves apart, but with the violence of the collapsing mountain forming a convulsive backdrop, the two black-robed forms were pulled inexorably closer together.

At the same time, vibrations of power continued to seethe and to rumble in the ground itself. Spatters of gravel tumbled from the ceiling, and tongues of flame flared upward, breaking through the crust of the floor. The cavern rocked back and forth, filling with smoke and dust, thundering with the violent noise of collapse and destruction.

And Danyal knew that Flayze's mountain was dying.