Wistril Compleat

Kern stepped aside. The gargoyles shuffled past, wings drooping, eyes downcast. Kern shook his head. "Looks like I won my bet," he said to Wistril. "Shall I begin drafting a full and unconditional surrender?"

Wistril's fingers blurred and sparked. Kern blinked, and found himself in the cellar, two steps from a beer-keg.

"Show-off," he muttered.

Halt."

The Captain waited for the dust to settle. Men coughed, grumbled, shifted their packs. Horses shuffled nervously to and fro.

"Lieutenant. We'll camp here for the night and start up the mountain at dawn. Post the guards."

The Lieutenant nodded. Ahead, the road vanished beneath a thick line of towering, swaying pines.

The wind gusted suddenly, filling the forest with a thousand dry wooden rustles that sounded like soft, malicious whispering. The wind waned and died.

The whispers, though, grew louder, more distinct. The Lieutenant heard one word emerge from the soft babble. With a chill, he realized that his name was being called out, whispered over and over like some dire incantation.

"Lieutenant!" snapped the Captain. "Post the guards."

"Yes, sir. At once." The Lieutenant wheeled his mount, eager to ride away from the shadowed, whispering trees. As he rose, the Lieutenant saw scores of nervous faces lift up toward the trees as if they, too, heard their names in the wind.

That's a nice touch, those voices," said Kern, tapping the crystal ball on the desk. "How'd you learn their names?"

"I didn't," said Wistril. "Each voice repeats a random set of syllables. Every utterance is nonsense, but approximately one in every four listeners will find words amid the babble—most often, their own name."

Wistril gestured and the image in the crystal vanished. "The sun sets in twenty minutes, apprentice," he said. "We shall need the equipment in the north tower for the remainder of the night's activities. Open the tower. Engage the scrying spells."

Kern nodded. "Straightaway. But before the festivities begin, I have a question."

"Be brief."

"Do you have anything up your sleeve beside phantom voices and will-o-the-wisps? And, if so, can you use it without breaking your Oath?"

Wistril shook his head. "You sadden me, apprentice. Are you so certain we shall fail?"

"Not certain. Just worried. I'm worried because you intend to show yonder band of murderers things that would send a sane man fleeing back to the Sea. I'm worried there isn't a sane man among them."

"I see." Wistril glanced at the whirling, intricate brass goblin-clock that stood on a corner of his ironwood desk. "Sunset is in eighteen minutes," he said.

Kern stamped out of the study. He heard the slap of small, bare feet echo down the empty hall followed by snatches of childish laughter. A stern adult voice admonished the child to be quiet, lest they "distract the good Mage from his labors and our defense."

Kern hurried toward the tower, wondering just how secure the villagers would feel if they knew the good Mage's powers were bound by an oath of strict non-violence.

The tower was cold, dark, and thoroughly haunted. "Wake up, gents," said Kern. "We've got a long night ahead."
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