Free The Very Best of Tad Williams by Tad Williams Page B

way.”
    “I’m...I’m not certain what you mean.”
    “What if my heart’s desire is to be the greatest wizard of my age? I felt that way once, when I was young and first entering the Academy. What if that desire has not gone, only hidden?” He shook his head again. “I dare not risk it.”
    “But what if an ordinary mortal—someone not a wizard—has the same thing as his heart’s desire? Or something worse, asking for the end of the world or something.”
    Dondolan gave the priest a shrewd, sober look. “So far, that has not happened. In fact, the power Elizar wields seems not to have harmed much of anybody, except, by your account, a pair of nasty old folk who deliberately stood in the way of their children’s happiness. And even there, we cannot prove that coincidence did not carry them away. Perhaps there is something to Elizar’s magic that is self-limiting—something that prevents him from granting any but mostly benign wishes. I do not know.” He looked up. “I do know that we must discover more before we can make up our minds. We cannot, as you said, simply leave things be, not with Elizar the Devourer here, surrounded by eager supplicants, busily creating miracles, however kind-hearted those miracles may seem.” Dondolan ran his fingers through his long beard. “Not to mention the evil chance that this is all some cruel trick of Elizar’s—that he only shams at having lost his mind, and plots to seize the Middle Lands again.” He frowned, thinking. “When do they stop for the night?”
    “Soon. When my sexton rings the church bell for evening prayer.”
    “Wait until that bell rings, Father, then bring me the man Feliks.”
    The small man seemed almost relieved to have been found out. “Yes, it is true. He was once Elizar, the greatest wizard of all.”
    “After Kettil the archmage, you mean,” said Dondolan.
    Feliks waved his hand. “My master poured his soul into five thousand beast-men at Herredsburn, animating them throughout the battle. Even so, he duelled Kettil Hawkface to a standstill.”
    “This is neither here nor there,” said Father Bannity impatiently. “Why is he the way we see him? Is this some new plot of his, some evil device?”
    “Tell the truth, minion, and do not think to trick me,” Dondolan said harshly. “Even now, Kettil himself must be hearing news of this. He will not take longer than I did to deduce that your Eli is in fact his old arch-enemy.”
    Feliks sighed. “Then we must be moving on again. Sad, that is. I was enjoying it here.”
    “Damn it, man, one of the most dangerous men in the world sleeps twenty paces away! Talk to us!”
    “Dangerous to you, perhaps.” Feliks shook his head. “No, not even to you—not now. There is no trick, wizard. What you see is the truth. The old Elizar is gone, and dumb Eli is what remains.
    “It was after Herredsburn, you see, when the king and your Wizard’s Council turned us away. With all his beast-men dead or changed back to their former selves, my master left the field and retreated to his secret lair in the Darkslide Mountains.”
    “We suspected he had a bolthole there,” murmured Dondolan, “but we could never find it.”
    “He was determined to have his revenge on Kettil and the others,” continued Feliks. “I have never seen him thus. He was furious, but also weary, weary and distraught.” The small man peered at the priest and the wizard for a moment. “Once, in middle-night when I was awakened from sleep by a strange noise, I found him weeping.”
    “I cannot believe that,” said Dondolan. “Elizar? The Devourer?”
    “Believe what you will. There was always more to him than you folk on the Council understood. Whatever the case, he became fixed on the idea of securing the Amulet of Desire, which can grant its possessor whatever gift he most wants. He spent many months—a year, almost—pursuing its legend down many forgotten roads, in old books and older scrolls. He spoke to creatures