'I told you, you're Emilo Haversack,' the kendermaid declared sternly. 'And you're our friend, and you'll just have to be satisfied with that for now.'
Silently accepting, Emilo mouthed the clearly unfamiliar sounds of his name several times. Danyal, meanwhile, ducked under the low branches of an evergreen and found a small clearing giving passage through the woods.
'Go on ahead,' he told Mirabeth as she followed with Emilo and Foryth. 'I'll brush our tracks off the trail to cover our route if we're followed.'
'Good idea!' the historian agreed, absently grinding his heel into the ground as he tried to adjust his bootlace. 'Would you like me to help?'
'Urn, no,' the lad demurred. Foryth followed the two kender while Danyal followed their backtrail to the edge of the meadow. The grass was trampled flat and would undoubtedly mark their passing for some hours to come, so he decided to concentrate on masking their route through the woods.
In several places, he could see footprints, mostly from the historian, in the soft loam of the needle-covered ground. He brushed these with a branch, starting to back carefully along the route they had taken.
Abruptly he was taken with an idea. He stepped into the meadow at the end of the trail the companions had made. Moving at a right angle to their path, he took low, sweeping steps toward the bank of the stream. Trampling the grass, he stepped firmly, holding his feet in place to leave clear marks.
When he reached the edge of the water, he saw that the banks of the streambed were slightly taller than his own height. A short distance below, the water babbled cheerfully along a flat, graveled bed, the flowage no more than a foot or two deep. At the lip of the tall bank, Danyal skidded downward, intentionally leaving a gouge in the dirt and a footprint at the very edge of the water. Next he rinsed his feet free of mud, then climbed across several boulders until he reached the fringe of the wood. Seizing a root of pine, he pulled himself into the shelter of the trees. Here he stepped lightly as he returned to the original backtrail and continued to sweep away their tracks until he reached the place where the trio had turned toward the deep woods.
Danyal took care to obliterate every sign of their passage, feeling a strange thrill at the thought that he was deceiving Kelryn Darewind, Zack, and the other bandits. Of course, a stern and practical part of him was afraid that they might be followed, but another part was able to take grim pleasure in the knowledge that his careful masking would be certain to thwart the bandit chief and his villainous group of thugs.
After he had concealed a hundred paces or more of the connecting trail, Danyal tossed his broom-branch aside and jogged after his companions, following footsteps that were barely visible in the smooth forest floor.
However, he would have gone right past the clump of brambly wild rose that clustered at the base of a low rock promontory, except for the fact that the bush seemed to call out to him as he went by.
'Sssst! Dan-this way.'
He stopped and stared, finally perceiving the outlines of a dark opening at the base of the rocky knoll. Gingerly he stepped around the prickly bushes, avoiding the thorns while at the same time taking care not to leave any sign of his passage.
Foryth, Mirabeth, and Emilo were huddled within a small alcove in the rock. The place was too tiny to be called a cave, but it was spacious enough to hold them all as long as nobody wanted to lie down, and, more importantly, it was well concealed from the woods beyond.
'You're Danyal, they told me,' Emilo said as soon as the youth made himself comfortable in the small enclosure. 'Pleased to make your acquaintance… again.'
'Urn, me, too.' It was strange, this loss of memory, but the lad was glad to see that Emilo seemed to have regained his vitality. Dan wanted to ask questions: Why, for example, had Emilo taken it into his head to rescue them? But he doubted that the kender would know the answers, at least not now, and he didn't want to upset him further by posing queries that would only highlight the unfortunate fellow's loss of memory.
In any event, it seemed to be the kender who was determined to ask questions.
'Foryth said you were traveling into the mountains by yourself, and then Mirabeth told me that your village was burned by a dragon. I'm sorry.'
'Don't be. It wasn't your fault,' Danyal declared curtly, even as he was surprised by his own snide reaction. Still, one thing he knew was that he didn't want sympathy. He laughed bitterly as he remembered his plans in that long ago time-was it just four days ago? — when his world had died.
'I was on my way to kill that dragon,' he admitted, sheepish over his earlier brusque attitude. 'I guess I never gave any thought about how I was going to do it. All I had was a fishing pole and a little knife, and I don't even have those anymore!' Again he laughed, trying to sound harsh, sensing that he had wandered dangerously close to the brink of tears.
'And what about you?' Emilo, to Danyal's relief, had turned to Foryth. 'Do your studies often bring you this far away from the temple library?'
'Er, no.' Foryth cleared his throat, then repeated the mannerism, and Danyal sensed that he was reluctant to talk, a reluctance that made the lad all that much more curious about the historian's tale.
'Actually, I have been given a chance-sort of a last chance, to tell the truth-to be ordained into the priesthood of Gilean.'
'This is some kind of a test?' Danyal guessed. 'Getting to Loreloch?'
'Not that, specifically. You see, I have studied the priestly doctrines for many years, but I have never been able to master the casting of a spell. I pray to Gilean with utmost sincerity, asking for guidance, for a hint of power. But there is nothing there.'
'And if you don't cast this spell…?' probed the youth.
'Then I shall never become a priest. My life's objective, all the fruits of my labors, the volumes of my writing, shall have been for naught.'
'I don't think so!' objected Danyal. 'You told me that story about Fistandantilus. It was good. You don't have to cast a spell in order to make the words you write on paper, the histories you tell, mean something. To make them be important, I mean.'
'But the most highly regarded historians of Krynn have been priests of Gilean,' moaned Foryth. 'And all I need is one spell, a single, simple enchantment that would prove my faith. Then I could join their numbers!'
'I wouldn't count on a priest of the Seekers giving you one,' Danyal muttered sourly. 'And I can't believe you still want to go to Loreloch!'
'It's more important now than ever. I simply must see the writings, the records of Kelryn Darewind. How did the archmage become a god? Where does he reside? And are there other facets to his faith, sects in different parts of Krynn? These questions must be answered.'
The historian drew a deep breath, continuing firmly. 'There are very few things about Fistandantilus that have escaped the light of the historian's torch. But the details of his passing, at the time of Skullcap's creation and beyond, have always called for further investigation. And now it seems there was real import there, occurrences that we never suspected!'
'And you're going to study those things but remain aloof, uninvolved?' Dan asked, remembering the historian's concern over his intervention that had kept the lad alive.
'Er… yes, of course. That is, I have to be. Tsk.' Foryth shook his head, flustered. 'My efforts would be doomed to failure if I should let myself become attached to individuals or, worse yet, attempt to play a role myself.'
'But how does all this study and research help you learn a spell?' Mirabeth voiced the same question that Danyal had been wondering about. 'My father said- that is, I heard somewhere that priests pray for their spells, get them from their god.' She halted, flustered, though only Danyal seemed to notice the kendermaid's distress.
'Well, I guess it doesn't, to tell the absolute truth,' Foryth admitted with slumping shoulders. But then he raised his head, and his narrow chin jutted forward in an approximation of determination. 'But I don't know where to find a spell, so I thought it made sense to do something useful while I was looking.'
'You can't argue with that,' Emilo agreed with an amiable chuckle.
Despite his willingness to do just that, Danyal was forced to concede that the kender was right-Foryth's decision made as much sense as anything else. 'Good luck, then,' said the lad. 'I hope you find that magic.'
'You know, in a way I envy you kender,' Foryth said, leaning his head against the cave wall and shifting his eyes from Mirabeth to Emilo. 'Your folk are, in many ways, the favorites of Gilean. True neutrals, that's the kender. Nary a care in the world as you go wherever your mood and your interests take you.'
