Read Under the Shadow of Darkness: Book 1 of the Apprentice Series for Free Online Page A

it often during the old apprentice game of hide and seek. They would all hide then ask the animals where the others were. Sometimes they would let them look through their eyes. But this was entirely different. There were no questions to ask, just a feeling.
    He sent out his mind and the roaring grew louder and louder and became a sort of howling. There were sounds in the forest, moving sounds, rustling sounds; Bel could feel them now, but this was none of those; the howl was inside his own head. It was the kind of sound that could drive a man insane if he listened to it long enough.
    “Madness,” Bel coughed involuntarily.
    “Yes!” the mage said excitedly. “Yes, it is the sound of madness. It is here, in the dark, waiting for us. Be mindful of it.” Without another word he went inside leaving Bel alone with his thoughts.
    Bel listened, trying to understand the noise, trying to understand how the sound could be in his head. The wail grew fiercer the longer he listened to it. He remembered a storm, full of wind and salt and gale, smashing against the side of the house as if it would throw it to the ground like so many sticks, long before he left Lavaala. He was young, just a boy at his mother’s knees. She cried for the storm and his older brother told her everything would be all right and Bel did not understand until later. His father was out on the water.
    The roaring grew stronger, ecstatic, excited, as if a hunting dog found his scent and was calling out to the others, “Come! I have found them! Here! Here! Here! They are here! Follow me! I have their scent! Let’s get them! Attack!”
    Bel stared straight ahead, into the black, suddenly trying to squeeze the clamoring, shrieking sound out of his mind, trying to beat it back. Get out! Get out! Get out of my mind! He stared into the darkness of the forest, shaking, and he could see nothing but in his periphery he caught glimpses of motion, something in the shadows, and he knew it was something more than ghouls. It was like when he was on the path but now he refused to chase his eyes around after them. He was terrified. He knew they could not reach him—there was an enchantment—but they were somehow in his mind. He couldn’t stop shaking. He knew they would not be there when he looked. He knew where they really were and it was all he could do to keep himself from going insane.

Chapter 5
Ghoul Speak

    The four slept on the dirt floor huddled near the fire. Bel slept fitfully and awoke restless. There was nothing to eat in the abandoned home so Muolithnon took the situation into his own hands. “Kerlith, we are hungry. See if you can call a few pigeons. Or rabbits. Mmmmn, that would be good for a stew.”
    Kerlith bounced up and headed out the door. Bel looked at Nes’egrinon and the old wizard only said, “Fifth Year, ready the pot. Find some water so we can boil whatever the apprentice brings back.”
    Bel went outside and looked around. There was a woodpile behind the structure and most of it was still usable. The house couldn’t have been abandoned for too long. Next to the woodpile was a small three-walled shed with some crude tools and next to that was a hand-pump well. Bel retrieved a pail from the shed and began pumping but nothing came out but dust. Bel retrieved his staff, waved it above the pump and called to the water until it came.
    Hunger didn’t bother Bel. He was quite used to it, being a fisherman’s son on the western coast of the Basque country. Becoming a wizard was never about becoming rich or having a full belly. He wanted to help people. People like the fishermen in his village, people who no one ever seemed to want to help. Their home was shored up enough to keep out the storms, barely, and they had more than many, a small boat, a couple of nets and a gaff. Bel had his own knife that he used to cut crustaceans off the rocks for soup when his father was gone for days. They had much and much to be thankful for.  He wondered how his