Several lambs stirred as he and Nusendran hoisted themselves over the fence and dropped down into the pen, but none of them woke, and after holding still a moment, the two mages moved again. They split up, carefully stepping over the sleeping animals, eyes darting this way and that. Andras bit his lip as he went, feeling the black moon’s weight upon him.
“Boy! Over here!”
The whisper cut through the night, making Andras jump. He glanced across the pen. An orange tree rustled by the fence. Smiling, he started toward it.
There, surrounded by a sea of white fleece, was a single animal that was as dark as his robes. Teeth bared, Andras threaded toward the black lamb. As he went, he pulled a small opal vial from his sleeve. Unstopping it, he crouched beside the animal and waited.
Black Robe wizards used certain magic the other orders wouldn’t touch: spells that could make moldering bodies rise again or cause a man such agony he would smash his own skull to escape the pain. Others treated with the foul spirits of the Abyss. Demons, however, didn’t aid mortals for free.Without the proper offering of appeasement, they would rip apart any sorcerer who dared disturb them. Nusendran had been preparing for months to make contact with such a fiend, but the spell demanded the lifeblood of a black lamb, stolen when Nuitari soared full in an empty sky. A night like tonight.
A soft word hissed, and Nusendran shimmered back into being. In his hand was a long knife of cold-forged iron. Andras ended his invisibility spell as well, holding out the vial.
“Hold it steady,” the elder mage said. “This will be over quick.”
Andras nodded. Nusendran bent low over the lamb, set the blade’s tip behind the animal’s ear, whispered a prayer to Nuitari, then drove the dagger home.
The lamb shuddered, kicking, but made no sound as it went limp. Nusendran jerked the blade free, then opened the veins in the animal’s throat, freeing a crimson torrent to soak the earth. Andras moved quickly; the warm blood poured into the vial and soaked his hands. He rose, replacing the cork with fingers that glistened red.
For the second time that night, Nusendran smiled. He wiped the knife on the dead lamb’s wool and sheathed it again.
“Good,” he said. “Now let’s go, before-”
Another voice rose, clear and loud and close. “Cie nieas supam torco, Palado,” it intoned, “mas bodoram burtud.”
Andras looked up, his breath catching. Like any lettered person in the empire, he knew the tongue of the Istaran church. Though I walk through night’s heart, Paladine, be thou my light.
A shaft of light, bright as the silver moon, lanced down upon the pasture. Nusendran and Andras froze as around them the lambs began to wake. The elder mage whirled, and Andras followed his master’s gaze, his lip curling. There, beneath a poplar tree, stood a man in a white cassock. In his hand, gleaming as it reflected the holy light, was a platinum medallion. A Revered Son, one of the servants of the Kingpriest of Istar.
The cleric wasn’t what made Andras’s eyes widen and his flesh crawl, though. Rather, it was the men flanking him: a dozen knights in mirror-bright armor and horned, visored helms. Half of them cradled loaded crossbows. The rest gripped swords. Emblazoned on their white shields and snowy tabards was an emblem that made hate surge in Andras’s heart: a golden hammer, limned with scarlet flames.
“Ten eyes of Takhisis,” he swore, staring. “Master-”
“Run!” Nusendran shouted, shoving him.
The lambs bleated madly as they fled. Behind, the knights shouted for them to halt.
Andras heard the click of crossbows. He shut his eyes, waiting for the pain of quarrels burying themselves in his flesh, but his master was quicker. Beside him, Nusendran twisted a garnet ring on his finger, and a sphere of golden light burst about them. The bolts struck the light as if it were a wall of stone and spun away, sparking. The knights’ shouts turned to curses, and Andras laughed.
Armor clattered after them as they vaulted the fence again. Andras stumbled over a tree root, nearly fell. Nusendran made no effort to help him. Righting himself, he ran on, catching up to his master as they reached the village’s edge.
Suddenly, there were more knights in front of them as well, swords bristling, Nusendran snarled a vile curse as he skidded to a halt. Andras staggered up beside him. His hood had blown back as he ran, as had his master’s, and his heart dropped when he saw how pale Nusendran was. Even the old man’s lips were the color of bleached bone. Andras had never seen his master afraid before. Now both men were terrified.
The knights clattered nearer, surrounding them. Snarling, Nusendran flung out his arm, and darts of violet light struck three of them with a thunderclap. The reek of burnt flesh filled the air as boneless bodies rattled to the ground. Nusendran wasted no time, dashing toward the gap in the knights’ ranks….
A quarrel hit him in the back, spinning him around. He fell, gasping and clutching at the bloody point sticking out of his breast. Andras stared, his jaw slack. Nusendran glared up at him, his teeth clenched.
“Do something, damn you,” the mage wheezed.
It was too late. Andras was winded, and the magic he’d wielded tonight had drained him. He had no strength to fight, nowhere to run. The knights closed in-
Something strange happened.
At first, Andras thought his eyes were playing him false, but after a moment he knew it wasn’t so. There was a cloud of silvery motes in the air, surrounding him, growing brighter with every breath he drew. The knights saw the cloud too and halted their advance, glancing warily at one another. Nusendran’s eyes went wide.
With a noise like shattering crystal, the motes flared sunbright. Andras saw his master’s shocked face, saw the knights fling up their shields to protect their eyes-then the light blinded him, and he saw no more.
Andras awoke in a bower of acorn-heavy oaks, propped against a gnarled, mossy stump.
It was dark, and the world swam before him as he struggled to sit up. He knuckled his eyes, trying to get them to work. What had happened to him? He could remember the knights, his master falling, the silver light … and now, this place. Where in the Abyss was he?
“Get up, lad. You’re just in time to watch.”
The voice was like none Andras had ever heard before. In his training as a Black Robe, he had met scores of dark-hearted mages, and more than a few priests of the evil gods. He had even listened while Nusendran communed with minor demons. None of them, however, had sounded so eerie, so cruel. It seemed the air actually filled, with frost at the sound.
Shivering, he twisted, looking for its source.
There were many tales of the man his brethren called the Dark One, the mightiest of all the Black Robes, but few were privileged to encounter him. Now, though, Andras found himself staring at a tall, broad-shouldered form whose plain black robes made him all but invisible in the bower’s gloom. His hands were age-spotted and almost skeletal, his face mercifully lost in his hood’s shadows. Only the tip of a long, gray beard emerged from that darkness. Magical power seemed to seethe about him, rippling the air.
“Fistandantilus,” Andras breathed.
The hooded head inclined. “You know me,” said the cold voice. “That will save time. Come, boy. You should see this, before it is done.”
With that, the archmage turned and strode away, into the shadows.
Andras hesitated, torn. His instincts screamed at him to flee: even the highest among the Black Robes feared Fistandantilus. But he knew, too, that the Dark One was not the sort of man from whom one escaped. It would only make the archmage angry if he fled, and tales of Fistandantilus in his wrath were the sort that robbed necromancers of sleep.