Fistandantilus Reborn - Douglas Niles [62]
“Drat the luck that didn’t let me get that fellow’s name!” snapped the historian peevishly, though he didn’t let the complaint still the pen-scratching of his scribing.
“Um-didn’t one of them call him Kelry, or something like that?”
Danyal recalled.
“Hmm… yes, I believe you’re right. It was something similar to that.”
Squinting at his page, silently mouthing his thoughts, the man wrote with quick, smooth strokes. Once he looked up toward Dan, but it seemed to the lad as though Foryth didn’t even see him.
“Why were you out here, anyway?” asked Danyal when Foryth, having busily written for several minutes, stretched out his hand and blinked a few times.
“What? Oh, thank you, yes. Some tea would be wonderful,” the lone traveler replied as he returned his industrious attention to his page. The feathery plume of the quill continued to bob past his nose, casting a larger-than-life shadow across the man’s narrow face. Features tight with concentration, Foryth Teel took a moment to dip his pen while he chewed thoughtfully on the tip of his tongue.
“Uh… I don’t have any tea,” Danyal interjected in the momentary pause of the pen’s progress.
“Why, yes, that would be very nice.” Foryth’s head bobbed in agreement, though his face remained someplace very far away. “Help to take the chill out of the bones and all that. Now, where was I?”
Danyal sighed, figuring he could probably inform the historian that the sky was falling down on them and Foryth would merely suggest, politely of course, that he would really like a little sugar with that.
The lad stared into the flames, moping. For some reason, though he had a companion in his camp for the first time since leaving his village, he felt lonelier than ever. Foryth Teel couldn’t even carry on a decent conversation. At the same time, the distracted traveler seemed as if he would be terribly vulnerable if the bandits decided to return. Again Dan wondered about the flames. He knew the fire was a beacon that would extend well beyond the confines of their narrow grotto.
It occurred to him that he could just take Nightmare and leave, moving farther up the streamside trail, but he wasn’t ready to turn his back on the strange traveler. Foryth Teel, for all of his distractibility, at least did not seem likely to be any threat. And he was company.
Finally the historian drew a breath and raised his eyes. The book remained open on his lap, but he set the quill carefully on the flat log where he had placed his ink bottle. “Didn’t you say something about tea?” he asked.
“No!” Danyal’s exasperation crept into his voice. “I asked what you were doing on this road, and when you said you wanted some tea, I told you I didn’t have any!”
“What? Oh, forgive me. I have tea. It’ll just take a minute.”
Danyal waited impatiently as the traveler pulled a tin pot from his pack, scooped some water from the stream-almost falling in as he did so-and then looked vainly into the surging flames, seeking a place to rest his kettle. “Here.” With a sigh, the lad used a stick to pull a small pile of hot coals to the side of the flames. “Set the teapot on these.”
“Splendid! Now, what was it you were trying to say?” Danyal was about to shake his head in disgust, muttering that it didn’t matter, when Foryth brightened with sudden recollection. “Oh, yes-why am I here? I daresay they’d have to let me into the priesthood if I could give a complete answer to that one!”
He laughed self-consciously, though the youth saw no humor in the statement. Foryth continued. “I’m on my way to a place called Loreloch.
It’s up in these hills.” He gestured vaguely to the darkness on all sides.
“I’ve never heard of it,” Danyal admitted. “But I’ve never been very far from Waterton.”
“Well, it’s kind of a secret place. In truth, most people don’t even know it’s there. It’s a little village, so I hear, gathered around a fortified manor house, a stronghold of armed men. The lord there doesn’t have much to do with the outside world.”
“Why do you want to go there?” Danyal also wondered, but didn’t ask, how the