Under the Shadow of Darkness: Book 1 of the Apprentice Series (3 page)

Nes’egrinon exhaled in frustration then said, “Apprentice? Err, what’s your name? Kerlith, right? Tell the Fifth Year what you know about ghoul-kind. I’m tired of talking.”

Kerlith looked at Bel and for once in his life felt sorry for him. They had competed in everything at Lasaat and he loved to see Bel fail but for once Kerlith decided to defend him. “Bel, I know they didn’t teach us much about the dead at Lasaat. I learned everything I know about them quite recently. Even my master has little experience with them. We are defenders of the mountains, the land of the stonecutters. Our magic is of crystals and minerals, not ghouls and the dead.” Kerlith paused and glanced at Nes’egrinon to see if he was listening but his gaze never stirred from the hearth.

He continued, “Bel, do you remember anything about the dead, any of the stories from the academy?”

Bel coughed then sat down on the floor. “I remember one.”

“The one about Ulysses?”

“Odysseus. I rather call him Odysseus. It was in our History of Magic class, I think.”

“That’s the one I was thinking of,” Kerlith replied.

“I remember it going kind of like this. So, Odysseus, a great wizard, visits the underworld—I don’t remember how he got there—and he sees the dead. I seem to remember them being described as ghosts? Or shadows of their former selves?” Bel said.

“That’s what I thought too.”

“Then Odysseus gives them blood to drink. As they drink the blood they become more substantial. More... human. They can speak to Odysseus like any human would. Since a bunch of them died in different parts of the world, including Odysseus’ home town, they were able to give him information on what was going on there before they died. Some of them died recently so the information ends up being valuable.”

Kerlith turned in his chair. “Yeah. That’s about all I remember. Except one other thing.”

Bel looked up at him and questioned, “What’s that?”

“There was one of the dead that Odysseus spoke to who was a seer.”

“Oh yeah.”

“And the seer could still see in the underworld. He still had his gift of sight. Even though he was one of the dead, he could still see into the future. He just needed some blood to do it.”

“Right. I remember that now. They were people, all kinds of different people, with all their human knowledge and their abilities. They were just dead.”

“But they never taught us how to fight them at the academy.” Kerlith looked at the old mage again but he was still staring at the fire.

“How did you learn?” Bel asked.

“Much like you. We tried some things that didn’t work. But luckily it was only on singles. We never tried anything on a group like last night.”

“And what worked?”

Kerlith snickered. “Well, poison certainly doesn’t. That only makes them stronger.”

“I know that now. What else? How were you burning them?”

“Healing,” Kerlith stated plainly.

“Healing?”

“The same way you can help someone heal, digging deep within yourself, grabbing hold of your spirit, your life-force, and giving it up, pushing it into them. The same way. You give the ghouls all the goodness, all the life you have inside of you. For some reason that hurts them, burns them. They don’t like it. It is one thing that will make them go away, that’s for sure.” Kerlith explained.

“I see. Anything else?”

“Nothing so far. Nothing else we have tried works. In fact most things we tried somehow bounced back at us. Poison, for example. If you try to well up poison into them, it will only make you sick. But you already know that.”

Bel rubbed his temple. “My head is still ringing.”

Muolithnon stirred so Kerlith leapt from his chair and went to his side. “I am here.”

“Is it still night?” the mage asked groggily.

Kerlith looked out the window and replied. “It is morning, but it grows darker. The eternal night spreads its fingers here now.”

“Aye. We must return. See if you can find the horses while I ready myself. Take your stone and be watchful. The ghouls should not return during the day but just the same, do not venture too deep into the forest.”

Kerlith retrieved his stone from the table, placed it around his neck and exited the room.

Bel shakily stood, walked across the room and placed himself in front of Nes’egrinon. “Master, I am truly sorry. Please accept my apology.”

“Fifth Year, don’t apologize. It makes you look weak and wormy. Maybe like you are, but just the same, don’t do it around me. It gives me nausea just thinking about it. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I’m going to tell you two things here. First, I am a mage—”

Bel interrupted him, “I know that. You are one of the great—”

The old man sliced his words in the air with a glare. “I don’t care what you think you
know
and who told you what.
I’m
talking here and I’m telling you that I am a mage. Now, along with that comes a certain expectation. People in this uneducated world expect me to know everything about everything. A frog farts in the woods and people around here expect me to know why. But guess what? I don’t know why. Maybe the little frog had gas. I don’t know. It could have been for any number of reasons. Frogs fart. Get it?”

“Yes, master.”

“Don’t give me that ‘yes, master’ line. I’m talking here. What it comes down to is I don’t know everything and don’t think that you ever will either. Now I was getting to a point but I lost it somewhere. Oh, yeah. Learn this. There is sometimes much more power in inaction than in action.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t. We saw that last night. Tell me, what did I do last night to scare them off?”

“You held your staff high and filled it with light. You showed them that you could have destroyed them.”

“Did I? Could I have destroyed them?”

“Of course. You are one the greatest mages yet living. They told us at Lasaat—”

“Okay. Stop right there because I am starting to think that you really are an idiot. They told you at Lasaat, did they? So that’s the garbage Rylith is spreading now. You need to flush all that stuff out of your brain right now.”

Bel did not know how to respond so he stood in silence. Rylith, the headmaster at Lasaat—no one there would dare address Rylithnon so, leaving off the last syllable of honor.

The old mage continued, “Listen to me and learn. What I did was a parlor trick. Understand? Psychology. I tricked them. A bright light can no more hurt them than you or I. My bellowing made them think I could so they left. Thank God, they left.”

“But...”

“But what?”

“But in the story—it’s coming back to me now—in the story of Odysseus, the dead charged at him and his men. The ghouls were desperate for blood but he held them off with his sword.”

Muolithnon stumbled from the bed and into the conversation. “Aye. He did. That sounds about right. A sword of power. A sword full of magic. But it is as your master has said. He speaks truth and you should heed his words. Odysseus could no more hurt the dead with a sword than any of us could last night with mage-light or mage-fire or mage-rain. He tricked them into thinking he could though. Tricking people into thinking that we have more power than we do is one of our best tools. This is why we must not tell anyone how our magic works or what we have the ability to do. They must always think that we have more than we do, that we are merely holding back. There is much power in secrets, young Bel. To destroy the dead? It is not possible. They are dead already.”

“Then we are undone,” Bel said in defeat.

Nes’egrinon looked at Bel then at Muolithnon and whispered, “No, not yet. There is yet still a way.”

Kerlith entered. “Master, I called to your horse using my stone and he came. He looks a little ragged. I think he may have been running to and fro most of the night. If we are to leave today, I do not think we can ride him.”

“And your pony?”

Bel interrupted, “He is gone.”

“Where?” asked Kerlith.

“The ghoul-kind. Last night. They tore his flesh. I saw it. I do not think he survived.”

Kerlith shook then quickly turned his back to them. Muolithnon said, “So the young pony joins the world of the dead. Do not be upset, Kerlith. Perhaps you will see him sooner than you think. But for now we walk. Nes’egrinon, thank you for your hospitality. If the ghouls followed us then I am sorry that I have brought that problem to you. My apprentice and I will go to see what we find. We will send you word, to you and the others, when we find the source of this abomination.”

The gray bearded mage looked down at his aged feet, his old hands showing brown spots and his dirty cloak that had already seen too many battles. He peered over at Bel’s soft face and frowned. Nes’egrinon looked around his home at his meager possessions and stood slowly. His bones cracked. He turned his head and gazed at Kerlith, standing away from them, still shuddering at the thought of what the ghouls had done to his pony. The old mage stretched out slowly, grabbed his hat from the table, knocked the dust off of it and said with a cracking voice, “Fifth Year, ready yourself. We are walking to the Hinterlands.”

Bel wished someone would say something to break the tension but no one spoke and the silence was unnerving. Of course, he couldn’t speak first. Not yet. He needed someone to start talking so he could ask a question. He assumed that when he arrived his new master would have spent some time alone with him so that they could talk and the old wizard could explain to him how his training was going to go. But as yet he had no clue as to what his expectations were or even if he could speak openly. At Lasaat, students weren’t allowed to speak to masters unless they were in a classroom environment.

It had been dark ever since he got here too and that was one thing that Bel couldn’t quite understand. Bel knew it should be daytime by now. There should be a light-blue sky overhead but all he could see was dark twilight. Sitting on the far horizon behind them streaming fingers of light poked into the darkness, fighting a war for the sky. Bel turned his head back and marveled at it as the group pushed through branches of the overgrown path. Apparently not many people came this way into the wooded Greenlands and Bel could see why. There was nothing here but dark, dense forest; trees, trees, more and more trees, thin but tall, a slender variety of fir, stretching their arms high into the sky.

The silence of the forest was equally disturbing. Much quieter than a peaceful stillness; this was the quiet of death and darkness and eyes watching and patiently waiting. Like a cat crouching in the tall grass waiting for an unknowing sparrow to land just in front of it, Bel felt like a predator’s eyes were on him.

Here no bird sang; in this wood, no animal crept. There was only silence and shadows. Bel found himself constantly looking around and over his shoulder at tiny flickers of motion in his periphery, hoping to find insects or snakes or anything really but he could find no motion in the places that he chose to direct his stare.

As Bel and Kerlith walked a few paces behind their teachers, Bel decided to strike up a conversation with his old classmate if for no other reason but to hear his own voice. “So, how’s your training going? Been a year already. I see from last night you are already doing some things.”

“Yeah. It’s killer. I’ve been doing all kinds of stuff. Way better than school. Back there all they let us do was the stupid common stuff. You know. Now I am learning real stone magic under someone who wants to teach me everything.”

“That’s cool.”

“I have to do some menial stuff too. Take care of my master: food, water, washing, that stuff. But I don’t mind ’cause I get to use my stone for all kinds of stuff. It’s nothing like school.”

“Yeah. I can’t wait.” Bel tried to ignore the creeping feeling that something in the woods was watching them, following them and listening to every word they spoke.

“Oh, I got a new stone the other day.” Kerlith pulled out the stone hanging from a string around his neck. “It’s awesome. Much stronger than the one I had at school. It’s onyx but has amethyst surrounding the lower edge. Wicked, right? Here, touch it.”

He stared at Bel as they walked, then down at the stone then back at the thin boy. Suddenly Bel realized that the way he said it wasn’t so much of an offer as a command.
Touch my stone, now.
“Err, I don’t want to touch your stone. It looks cool though, I guess. Rocks never interested me much.”

Kerlith tucked it back behind his shirt and said, “It’s wicked awesome. Kills. You have to get yourself some kind of fancy stick, I guess. Get rid of that schoolboy practice staff you’re lugging around.”

“Sure. Soon as I get a chance. None of this is going how I expected.”

“I know. Right. First day in and you’re already on an adventure. Well, could be worse. You could be sitting back at his shack cooking dinner every day and learning nothing.” Kerlith whispered, “You never can tell with these masters.”

Muolithnon began telling a story as they walked, out loud, to no one in particular. “This reminds me of the time that the North King attacked the Hinterlands. We went out on a path such as this one to meet them and let them know that a great mage protected the Land of the stonecutters. After I explained to them who I was and what I was capable of they went scurrying back to their forest. Such is the power—”

“Wait!” Nes’egrinon held his fist high and turned his head to the side. The party stopped. In the distance they heard hoofs. People were coming on horseback.

A good sign. Ghouls probably do not ride horses
, Bel thought.

A group of people came above the ridge, some walking, others on horses and a few draft horses pulling a wagon. They looked ragged and worn. When they arrived, Nes’egrinon said, “Ho! How goes it?”

A man walking said, “Not well. You are the wizard of the forest, are you not?”

“I am. What can you tell me of what lies ahead? Are there ghoul-kind about?”

“Yes, we are fleeing west. The ghouls have overrun Sha’ul. We waited them out until they broke in and we used torches to burn them but they kept coming. We are the few that are left. The ghouls mostly rest during the day so we were able to steal away.”