Page 6 (1/2)

There was only blackness

Mercifully, he couldn’t remember what had happened, where he was Only blackness, corow on his cheeks, robbing him of the tranquility of unconsciousness Gradually, he was compelled to open his eyes, but even when he squinted, the blinding glare was too intense

He was face down in the snow Mountains towered all about hi him of his location They had dropped him in the Spine of the World They had left him to die

Akar Kessell’s head throbbed when he finally htly, but the brutal cold and swirling winds dispelled any warht rays could ih places, and Kessell wore only fli bite

They had left him to die

He stumbled to his feet, knee deep in white powder, and looked around Far belon a deep gorge andnorthward, back toward the tundra and the trails that would take thee of impassable mountains, Kessell saw the black specks thatjourney back to Luskan They had deceived him He understood now that he had been no ns to rid themselves of Morkai the Red

Eldulac, Dendybar the Mottled, and the others

They’d never had any intentions of granting him the title of wizard

"How could I have been so stupid?" Kessell groaned Iranted hiuilt-driven haze He remembered all the joys that the wizard had allowed him to experience Morkai had once turned hiht; and once a fish, to let him experience the blurry world of the undersea And he had repaid that wonderfulwizards heard Kessell’s anguished screa off the mountain walls

Eldulac smiled, satisfied that their plan had been executed perfectly, and spurred his horse on

Kessell trudged through the snow He didn’t knohy he alking - he had nowhere to go Kessell had no escape Eldulac had dropped him into a bowl-shaped, snow-filled depression, and with his fingers nu out

He tried again to conjure a wizard’s fire He held his outstretched pal teeth uttered the words of power

Nothing

Not even a wisp of ss ached; he almost believed that several of his toes had already fallen away from his left foot But he didn’t dare rean to circu the same trail he had left behind on his first pass Abruptly, he found hi toward the middle He didn’t knohy; and in his deliriuure it out All the world had become a white blur A frozen white blur Kessell felt hiain He felt the tingling that signaled the end of the life of his lower extremities

Then he feltwarer

So to hih the frozen barrier, Kessell felt the life-giving glow of its war hands that could not feel their work, he dug for his life And then he ca solid and felt the heat intensify Scraed at last to pull it free He couldn’t understand what he was seeing He blamed it on delirium In his frozen hands, Akar Kessell held what appeared to be a square-sided icicle Yet its warain, this ti the rebirth of his extre, and he didn’t care in the least For now, he had found hope for life, and that was enough He hugged the crystal shard to his chest andout the , huddled in a small area where the heat of the crystal had pushed the snoay, Akar Kessell survived his first night in the Spine of the World His bedfelloas the crystal shard, Crenshinibon, an ancient, sentient relic that had waited throughout ages uncounted for one such as he to appear in the boakened again, it was even now pondering the methods it would use to control the illed Kessell It was a relic enchanted in the earliest days of the world, a perversion that had been lost for centuries, to the disth

Crenshinibon was an enigth froht of day It was an instru, a shelter and ho the powers of Crenshinibon was the strength it imparted to its possessor

Akar Kessell slept comfortably, unaware of what had befallen him He knew only - and cared only - that his life was not yet at an end He would learn the ih He would coain play the role of stooge to pretentious dogs like Eldulac, Dendybar the Mottled, and the others

He would become the Akar Kessell of his own fantasies, and all would bow before him

"Respect," he mumbled from within the depths of his drea upon him

Akar Kessell, the Tyrant of Icewind Dale

Kessell awakened to a dawn that he thought he would never see The crystal shard had preserved hiht, yet it had doneKessell felt strangely changed that ht before, he had been concerned only with the quantity of his life, wondering how long he could merely survive But now he pondered the quality of his life Survival was no longer a question; he felt strength floithin hi the rim of the bowl

"Venison," Kessell whispered aloud He pointed a finger in the direction of his prey and spoke the co with excite white bolt shot out fro the hart where it stood