Darkwell - Douglas Niles [1]
Tristan Kendrick claimed as ancestors a long line of kings, but for two centuries the Kendricks ruled only the small, sparsely populated land of Corwell. Now, as High King of the Ffolk, King Kendrick accepted fealty also from Moray, Snowdown, and mighty Callidyrr.
The king had recently won a war, the Darkwalker War, besting a supernatural beast and its human allies. He had claimed as allies the graceful warriors of the Llewyrr and the doughty fighters of the dwarven realms. His blade, the Sword of Cymrych Hugh, girded him as ample proof of his heroism, for he had returned the weapon to the Ffolk after many decades of its absence.
Finally the man turned from the sea, walking slowly along the rocky barrier toward the welcoming lights of Llewellyn Town. The sea had given him no answers. Nothing, it seemed, could give him the answers. And there were so many questions.
* * * * *
The eagle soared slowly. Its eyes, dulled by fatigue, searched the barren landscape below, seeking any morsel of lifesaving food.
But the bird saw nothing. No trace of animal, small or large, appeared across the stretches of brown marsh. Even the trees of the once-vast forests now resembled gaunt skeletons, barren of leaves and needles, surrounded by heaps of rotting compost.
The great bird swirled, confused. It sought a glimpse of the sea, or even the high coastal moor. But everywhere the view yielded scenes of rot and corruption. With a sharp squawk of despair, the eagle soared off in a new direction.
A sudden movement caught the eagle's keen eye, and it swept into a diving circle to investigate. But it pulled up short, screeching its frustration at the shambling figure on the ground. Though the creature smelled of carrion, it moved. Though it moved, it was not alive.
Growing desperate now, the eagle soared away in search of something, anything, to eat. It came upon a region of utter desolation, a place that made the past reaches of barren land seem fertile. The predator flew north, over a stagnant brown stream. It crossed a reach of dead, fallen timber.
Finally it came to a small pond. The water was surrounded by twenty stone statues, remarkably lifelike human figures in various poses of battle. The surface of the pond itself was an impenetrable black.
But what was that? The eagle saw, or imagined, motion below that flat, lightless surface. It could have been a trout, swimming complacently in the center of the pond. It could have been anything.
The bird tucked its wings and plummeted toward the shadow. The water rushed up to meet it, and the true nature of the dark shape became visible. The eagle shrieked and struck outward with its wings, slowing but not halting its descent. One claw, still extended to clutch the imagined prey, touched the surface of the black water.
A crackling hiss broke the silence, and for a moment the eagle froze, outlined in blue light. In another instant, the bird was gone, though no ripple disturbed the surface of the dark pond. A lone white feather, caught by an errant breath of wind, drifted upward and fluttered forlornly to settle upon the muddy shore of the Darkwell.
Bhaal, god of murder, relished the eagle's death. Though he still dwelt in his fiery bier upon the distant and hostile plane of Gehenna, the minor snuffing of life in a place unimaginably remote was power transmitted directly to his foul essence.
Such was the power of the Darkwell. And such was the power of Bhaal.
The patron god of any who would slay another of his kind, Bhaal found plentiful worshipers among the humans and other creatures of the many worlds. Foremost among them were the people of the Forgotten Realms.
It was in the Realms that the eagle flew, and died, and it was in the Realms that Bhaal's most powerful minions had been fought and bested by these humans who called themselves the Ffolk. Now Bhaal focused his entire baneful nature on the land claimed by these humans. Now one servant, a cleric of great