Margaret Weis - The Second Generation

Amberyl ran blindly down the hall, yanked open her door, and stumbled inside her room to stand, shivering, against the wall in the darkness.

She may have slept. She wasn’t certain. Her dreams were too near her waking thoughts. But she’d heard a sound. Yes, there it was again. A door slamming. Though it could have been any one of the rooms in the inn, Amberyl knew instinctively whose door it was.

Rising from the bed on which she’d been lying, fully dressed, the girl opened her door a crack as a voice echoed down the hall.

“Raist! It’s a blizzard out there! We’ll perish! You can’t take this!”

“I am leaving this inn! Now!” came the mage’s voice. No longer whispering, it was hoarse with anger and fear. “I am leaving, and I go with you or without you. If s up to you!”

The mage started walking down the hall, leaning upon his staff.

Stopping, he cast a piercing glance at Amberyl’s room. Panic-stricken, she ducked back into the shadows. He headed toward the stairs, his brother standing behind him, hands spread helplessly.

“This has to do with that girl, doesn’t it?” Caramon shouted. “Name of the Abyss, answer me! I—He’s gone.” Left alone in the hall, the big warrior scratched his head. “Well, he won’t get far without me. I’ll go after him. Women!” he muttered, hurrying back into the room and reappearing, struggling to lift a pack to his back. “Just after we got out of that damn magic forest, too. Now, I suppose we’ll end up right back in it.”

Amberyl saw Caramon look down the hall toward her room and, once more, ducked back.

“I’d like to know what’s going on, my lady,” the big man said in her general direction. Then, snaking his head, Caramon shouldered the pack and clumped hastily down the stairs.

Amberyl stood for a moment in the darkness of her room, waiting until her breathing calmed and she could think clearly. Then, grabbing her scarf, she wound it tightly around her face. Pulling a fur cloak from her own pack, she crept cautiously down the hall after Caramon.

Amberyl could recall no worse storm in her life and she had lived many years in the world, though she was young yet by the standards of her kind. The snow was blinding. Blown by a fierce wind, it blotted out all traces of any object from her sight—even her own hands held out before her were swallowed up by the stinging, blinding white darkness. There was no possible way she could have tracked Raistlin and his brother—no way except the way she did it—by the bond that had been accidentally created between herself and the mage.

Accidental. Yes, it must have been accidental, she thought as she trudged through the drifts. Though the snow had been falling only a matter of hours, it was already knee-deep. Strong as she was, she was having some difficulty plowing her way through the steep drifts and she could imagine the magic-user ... in his long robes....

Shaking her head, Amberyl sighed. Well, the two humans would stop soon. That much was certain. Wrapping her scarf tighter about her face, covering her skin from the biting snow, she asked herself what she intended to do when they did stop. Would she tell the mage?

What choice do I have? she argued with herself bitterly and, even as she asked the question, she slipped and stumbled. There! she thought, a sickening wave of fear convulsing her. It’s beginning already, the weakness that came from the bond. And if it was happening to her, it must be happening to him also! Would it be worse in a human? she wondered in sudden alarm.

What if he died!

No, she would tell him tonight, she decided firmly. Then, stopping to lean against a tree and catch her breath, she closed her eyes.

And after you’ve told—then what?

“I don’t know . ..” she murmured to herself brokenly. “The gods help me. I don’t know!”

So lost in her fear and inner turmoil was Amberyl that, for a moment, she did not notice that the snow had suddenly ceased falling, the cutting, biting wind had lessened. When she became aware of the fact, she looked around.

There were stars, she saw, and even moonlight! Solinari shone brightly, turning the snow silver and the white-covered woods into a wondrous realm of the most fantastic beauty.

The woods.... She had crossed the boundary. Amberyl laid her hand gently upon the trunk of the tree against which she leaned. She could feel the life pulsing in the bark, the magic pulsing within that life.

She was in the magical Forest of Wayreth. Though the blizzard might rage unabated not one foot away from her, here, within the shelter of these trees, it could be summer if the wizards commanded it. But it wasn’t. The wind, though it had ceased its inhuman howl, still bit the flesh with teeth of ice. The snow was piled thigh-deep in places. But at least the storm was not permitted to vent its full fury inside the forest. Amberyl could see now quite clearly. Solinari’s light against the snow was bright as the sun. No longer was she stumbling in the dark, led on only by the burning remembrance of the mage’s golden eyes, his touch....

Sighing, Amberyl walked on until she found tracks in the snow. It was the humans. Yes, her instincts had led her unerringly. Not that she had ever doubted her powers. But would they hold true in this forest? Ever since she had come to this land, she had been hearing tales about the strange and magical wood.

Pausing, Amberyl examined the tracks, and her fear grew. There were two sets—one pair of footprints that went through the deepest drifts without stopping. The other, however, was a wide swath cut through the snow, the swath left by a man floundering along in heavy, wet robes. In more than one place, she could see quite clearly the marks of hands, as though the mage had fallen. Her heart began to beat painfully when she saw that one set of tracks—the mage’s—had come to an end. His brother must be carrying him!

Perhaps he... perhaps he was...

No! Amberyl caught her breath, shaking her head. The mage might be frail-looking, but there was a strength in him greater than the finest steel blade ever forged. All this meant was that the two must stop and find shelter, and that would work to her advantage.

It wasn’t long before she heard voices.

Dodging behind a tree, keeping within its moon-cast shadow, Amberyl saw a tiny bit of light streaming outside what must be a cave in the side of a cliff, a cliff that had apparently appeared out of nowhere, for she could have sworn she had not seen it ahead of her.

“Of course,” she whispered to herself in thankfulness, “the wizards will take care of one of their own. Do they know I am here?” she wondered suddenly. “Would they recognize me? Perhaps not. It has been so long, after all”

Well, it did not matter. There was little they could do. Hope fully, they would not interfere.

“I’ve got to get help, Raist!” she heard the big warrior saying as she drew near. Caramon’s voice sounded tense and anguished. “You’ve never been this bad! Never!”

There was silence, then Caramon’s voice rose again in answer to words Amberyl could not hear.

“I don’t know! Back to the inn if I have to! All I know is that this firewood isn’t going to last until morning. You yourself tell me not to cut the trees in this forest, and they’re wet anyway. It’s stopped snowing. I’ll only be gone a few hours at most. You’ll be safe here. Probably a lot safer in these accursed woods than I will.” A pause, then. “No, Raist. This time I’m doing what I think best!”

In her mind, Amberyl could almost hear the mage’s bitter curse, and she smiled to herself. The light from the cave was obliterated for an instant by a dark shadow—Caramon coming out. It hesitated. Could the man be having second thoughts? The shadow half-turned, going back into the cave.