The Crystal Shard(The Icewind Dale Trilogy 1)(10)

"Fetch the wenches!" he commanded.




There was only blackness.

Mercifully, he couldn't remember what had happened, where he was. Only blackness, comforting blackness.

Then a chilling burn began to grow on his cheeks, robbing him of the tranquility of unconsciousness. Gradually, he was compelled to open his eyes, but even when he squinted, the blinding glare was too intense.

He was face down in the snow. Mountains towered all about him, their jagged peaks and deep snow caps reminding him of his location. They had dropped him in the Spine of the World. They had left him to die.

Akar Kessell's head throbbed when he finally managed to lift it. The sun was shining brightly, but the brutal cold and swirling winds dispelled any warmth the bright rays could impart. Ever was it winter in these high places, and Kessell wore only flimsy robes to protect him from the cold's killing bite.

They had left him to die.

He stumbled to his feet, knee deep in white powder, and looked around. Far below, down a deep gorge and moving northward, back toward the tundra and the trails that would take them around the foreboding range of impassable mountains, Kessell saw the black specks that marked the wizards' caravan beginning its long journey back to Luskan. They had deceived him. He understood now that he had been no more than a pawn in their devious designs to rid themselves of Morkai the Red.

Eldulac, Dendybar the Mottled, and the others.

They'd never had any intentions of granting him the title of wizard.

"How could I have been so stupid?" Kessell groaned. Images of Morkai, the only man who had ever granted him any measure of respect, flashed across his mind in a guilt-driven haze. He remembered all the joys that the wizard had allowed him to experience. Morkai had once turned him into a bird so that he could feel the freedom of flight; and once a fish, to let him experience the blurry world of the undersea. And he had repaid that wonderful man with a dagger.

Far down the trails, the departing wizards heard Kessell's anguished scream echoing off the mountain walls.

Eldulac smiled, satisfied that their plan had been executed perfectly, and spurred his horse on.

* * *

Kessell trudged through the snow. He didn't know why he was walking - he had nowhere to go. Kessell had no escape. Eldulac had dropped him into a bowl-shaped, snow-filled depression, and with his fingers numbed beyond feeling, he had no chance of climbing out.

He tried again to conjure a wizard's fire. He held his outstretched palm skyward and through chattering teeth uttered the words of power.

Nothing.

Not even a wisp of smoke.

So he started moving again. His legs ached; he almost believed that several of his toes had already fallen away from his left foot. But he didn't dare remove his boot to verify his morbid suspicion.

He began to circumnavigate the bowl again, following the same trail he had left behind on his first pass. Abruptly, he found himself veering toward the middle. He didn't know why; and in his delirium, he didn't pause to try and figure it out. All the world had become a white blur. A frozen white blur. Kessell felt himself falling. He felt the icy bite of the snow on his face again. He felt the tingling that signaled the end of the life of his lower extremities.

Then he felt...warmth.

Imperceptable at first, but growing steadily stronger.

Something was beckoning to him. It was beneath him, buried under the snow, yet even through the frozen barrier, Kessell felt the life-giving glow of its warmth.

He dug. Visually guiding hands that could not feel their work, he dug for his life. And then he came upon something solid and felt the heat intensify. Scrambling to push the remaining snow away from it, he managed at last to pull it free. He couldn't understand what he was seeing. He blamed it on delirium. In his frozen hands, Akar Kessell held what appeared to be a square-sided icicle. Yet its warmth flowed through him, and he felt the tingles again, this time signaling the rebirth of his extremities.

Kessell had no idea what was happening, and he didn't care in the least. For now, he had found hope for life, and that was enough. He hugged the crystal shard to his chest and moved back toward the rocky wall of the dell, searching out the most sheltered area he could find.

Under a small overhang, huddled in a small area where the heat of the crystal had pushed the snow away, Akar Kessell survived his first night in the Spine of the World. His bedfellow was the crystal shard, Crenshinibon, an ancient, sentient relic that had waited throughout ages uncounted for one such as he to appear in the bowl. Awakened again, it was even now pondering the methods it would use to control the weak-willed Kessell. It was a relic enchanted in the earliest days of the world, a perversion that had been lost for centuries, to the dismay of those evil lords who sought its strength.

Crenshinibon was an enigma, a force of the darkest evil that drew its strength from the light of day. It was an instrument of destruction, a tool for scrying, a shelter and home for those who would wield it. But foremost among the powers of Crenshinibon was the strength it imparted to its possessor.

Akar Kessell slept comfortably, unaware of what had befallen him. He knew only - and cared only - that his life was not yet at an end. He would learn the implications soon enough. He would come to understand that he would never again play the role of stooge to pretentious dogs like Eldulac, Dendybar the Mottled, and the others.

He would become the Akar Kessell of his own fantasies, and all would bow before him.