He knew how powerful magic always called powerful magic.
If the Draken left their mountain and entered the fight, their magic would be the strongest call yet.
You reason well, Weshen, Kinmare said, and Nik snapped his eyes to the Draken. He hadn’t even noticed the eye in his mind, watching his thoughts. But you forget. Some evils will come, whether or not they are called.
Nik blanched. No, he hadn’t forgotten that. Never would he forget that lesson. But he’d done much to lock it away.
You will never again be a slave, Shuri said, her voice barely a whisper as she ducked her head lower, near his ear. But this task must be done, and only you and I can do it.
“Why me?” Nik asked. Her power was an obvious clash to Shadow. But his? “I have strong shifting, but so do Coren and Sy.”
They do, and their part is also needed, Kinmare agreed. But your shifting is different. You are a creator of beauty.
Nik gasped as his mind surged with images, the Draken calling them forth from his own memory. Like a spoon stirring stew, the memories swirled, and every pretty thing Nik had ever made bobbed to the surface. Flower after flower, made from sand and water and wood and ash.
Ending with the sculpture he’d left on the beach of Weshen Isle.
“You want me because I make flowers? Trinkets and tokens?” He almost laughed, but a snarl from Kinmare stoppered the emotion.
Nature’s beauty is the physical form of love. When you mimic it with your shifting, you draw on the most ancient of power. That instinct, combined with my daughter’s power to shred shadows with light, is the weapon the world has been waiting for. Kinmare’s voice echoed from cliff to cliff, and Nik could only stare as his brain struggled to process.
The Draken above him began to shriek and beat their claws against the stone. Several spread their wings and took flight, bursting into the sky like a shattered rainbow.
Nik sank to his knees, watching them with the wonder of a child. Yes, he could believe in this manifestation of beauty. Sy’s smile flashed into his mind - the most beautiful thing Nik could imagine. That was love. He knew it to be true.
Will you fly with me to see the rest? Shuri asked, pressing the heat of her giant body to his side.
“If that’s what you want,” he replied, suddenly shy. Several Draken still soared above, impossibly high. Nik had seen Coren fly, and he wasn’t certain he could stomach it. But there was no denying the command in Kinmare’s eyes.
Nik stood, nodding at the older Draken.
Shuri lowered herself as far as she could, crouching on her belly among the wildflowers. Nik hesitated, not knowing where to grasp, but she only huffed. He scrambled onto her back, trying not to pull at her wings or catch his boots on her scales.
Hold on, she warned, as Nik began to slip when she stood. You won’t hurt me, she said, and Nik felt a slight shake like a giggle beneath him. Grasp the edges of my scales if you need a handle.
Nik slid his fingers under a scale and tugged a little. “Is this okay?” His knees found ridges along her back, indentations where his thighs could tighten their hold. He was just below the end of her neck and above the edge of her muscled wings.
You aren’t strong enough to hurt me, she repeated. But you must hold tightly. I can’t guarantee I won’t hurt you if you fall, and I must catch you in my claws.
Nik swallowed hard, imagining those blade-sharp claws around his chest. He tightened his grip on the scales, and Shuri nodded. She spread her wings, and Nik squeezed his arms and legs tight to her body, trying not to give in to the fear that was creeping up his spine.
He ducked his head and squeezed his eyes tight as her massive form rose into the air, climbing above the mountain peaks in mere seconds.
Umbren is far. Conserve your strength. Shuri warned, her words clear in his mind despite the wind whipping in his ears. His eyes popped open.
“Umbren,” Nik cried, his voice was lost to the wind. He wished he’d known this destination before agreeing to the ride.
That’s why I didn’t tell you, Shuri said, and he could feel her shudder beneath him as though suppressing a laugh. You must see what Shadow is becoming. Only then will you understand what needs to be done.
Nik flattened himself to her back and closed his eyes, still too disoriented to watch the ground far below. His stomach had yet to settle, and the sweet bronzeberries sloshed in his belly whenever he adjusted his hold on her scales.
He trusted the Draken. He wasn’t certain why, but he believed nearly everything they said. The only doubt in his mind was their fear of Shadow.
The being had not been difficult to best in Riata, though Nik knew now they had merely delayed it. It seemed more that Shadow was a symbol of the darkness in people - the evils he had endured in Rurok and among the slavers. The hunger for power in people like Zorander Graeme and his Queen.
But if creatures as strong as Draken feared Shadow, there must be a reason, and he was certain to learn it today.
Hours passed in flight, and the sun sunk lower on the horizon to Nik’s right. Finally, they neared a green-black mass that must be the forests of Umbren.
At first, the woods below looked like any other woods Nik had seen. Granted, he’d never seen one from above. Thick groves of trees had grown so close together as to admit little sunlight. Nik imagined the forest floor would be bare of undergrowth and deeply shadowed.
But as Shuri veered closer to the tops of the branches, Nik began to feel an invisible pull sucking at his skin, like a current in the water coercing him farther and farther from shore to a place where he could be pulled under in a moment. He threw his senses wide and was shocked to feel thousands of sources teeming beneath the branches. They swarmed from one place to another, moving in sinuous whorls of darkness.
He could feel them but not grasp them. They had no substance. Spirit but no life.
“What is that?” he said, his voice much too loud as she coasted in the still evening air. He sensed a mass of them still beneath the canopy, listening. Nik drew his feet in closer as though something might reach up from below and snag his ankle, dragging him away.
That is Shadow’s army, Shuri replied. Her voice was grave, and her words hung in Nik’s mind, a mixture of threat and challenge.
She swooped lower still, her claws nearly brushing the dark green needles. Out of the corner of his eye, Nik saw a great black shape lunge from the trees, leaping into the air beneath them. Long limbs reached nearly to his perch on her back. He cried out, but Shuri veered away expertly.
Nik twisted his neck around just in time to see the dark form slither down into the leaves again. His heart was pounding. The shadow-thing almost resembled a man with chains wrapping his meaty fists, swinging them wide. It was then that Nik began to feel their malice - their gnawing, restless hunger.
The shadows can form anything, and they know your nightmares. They can join and become as endless as the sea, or they can divide into thousands upon thousands of tiny fearsome things, Shuri explained. She flew in a full circle, and Nik watched as several more shadow-things leaped at them, Shuri always just high enough to avoid their grasp.
“Can they survive beyond Umbren?” Nik asked. If these things could get beyond these shores...
Not yet.
The words chilled Nik to his core.
As Shadow’s strength grows, so does theirs. When Shadow returns, his army will leave the forests again and swarm Husush to forge their ancient weapons anew.
“Have you seen Husush?” Men had never gone there and returned, but perhaps Draken had.
Images filtered into his mind instead of words - Shuri’s memories of gritty black towers and hellish orange fire, twisting emotions of pain and fear. And millions of broken, skittering shadow-things.
Husush is the Umbren city. The only one I know of, and likely the only one they need. When Shadow is weak, they do not gather. It is only when Shadow is strong and preparing to attack again that the army will come to the city of light a
nd dark.
Nik saw towers in the distance then, massive craggy things silhouetted against the setting sun. Darkness seemed to spool from their spires as Shuri banked left and thankfully flew in the opposite direction. This took them back over the restless forest top, though, and the closer she got, the more the darkness of twilight overtook them from behind.
“Should we be flying here at night?” Nik failed to keep the tremble from his voice.
I am faster than the shadows, Shuri replied, keeping her course. For now.
Nik did not feel better.
But Shuri was true to her word, and she flew them swiftly back to the green valley hidden in the NeverCross Mountains. Nik was nearly toppling over from fatigue when he slid from her back, and he heard a rumbling sort of chuckle just as he was nudged again into a soft bed of grass and covered with a luxurious fluff of blanket.
Despite what he’d just seen, Nik felt safe. It was possibly the first time since he’d spent a night with Sy.
Rest, Weshen, Shuri’s voice whispered in his mind, lulling him to sleep almost instantly.
DRAKEN MAGIC HAS MUCH to do with our minds, Shuri told him as they stood in the clearing the following morning. Several Draken were curled on the ledges above, and a few had even ventured closer. None had spoken to him, but all seemed curious about the human in their midst.
“What does that mean?” Nik asked. Kinmare huffed nearby, and Nik decided he would wait for Shuri to continue.
I can speak in your mind and hear what’s in yours, even when you don’t project it to me. I can also send you images, memories.
Nik nodded. She’d done a bit of that yesterday, with her memories of Husush.
Kinmare added, This is a tool, of course. But it can also be a weapon. Close your eyes.
Nik obeyed, and soon he was looking into the eye of the tornado in his mind again. But no, he wasn’t exactly looking at it. His perspective lowered, shrunk, until he found his whole body in the eye, looking back up. The edges of wind nudged at his back, and soon he was walking.
Part of him still recognized he hadn’t moved, and this was all in his head, but Nik also knew how powerful the brain truly was. His own had trapped him in hallucinations too many times for him to ignore the power of this as a weapon.
“So, you can feed images to anyone?”
Yes, Shuri answered. Here is Shadow’s army.
Nik looked down as a map formed beneath his feet, the familiar curve of Weshen Isle beneath his boot and the ridges of the NeverCross Mountains stretching before him. As before, his point of view sunk, as though he were falling weightlessly through the air.
He landed on his feet on a dark forest floor, his body as light as a feather. Something moved before him, but it did not turn to look at him.
You are here only in my memory, Shuri assured him, and Nik nodded, grateful the creatures slinking before him were not real, not now. They seemed to be shadows but moved like creatures, semi-transparent but somehow still whole and sentient. Distorted, the way darkness and light bend the natural shape of things.
One crawled too near him, and Nik jumped back, earning a chuckle from Shuri. The creature’s limbs were overly long and broken at odd angles, with too many joints on one, making it appear about to topple over. Instead of the lurching crawl Nik expected, the creature slithered and slunk over the forest floor. Its body seemed to almost elongate and contract as needed, its joints popping with wet smacks and clicks.
Then another climbed on top of the first, and their bodies melded together until Nik could no longer see two creatures but one. It slithered and jolted away into the forest, and Shuri mentally nudged Nik to keep going.
Ahead, a huge shape separated itself from the general darkness of the forest. As they walked forward, the shape turned abruptly and faced Nik, or rather it faced Shuri in her memory.
Nik gasped to see a form that had Shuri’s coloring and eyes but was much larger and older. Perhaps her mother?
Yes, she whispered. My mother, who was killed by Shadow’s army nearly four hundred years ago. This is a memory of her death, which is now my greatest fear.
As the Draken faced them, it began to wobble as dozens of the dark shadow-things swarmed through and around Nik, climbing her haunches with mismatched joints and ripping Shuri’s mother apart scale by scale.
Nik felt Shuri shudder behind him, but she pushed him again, and he moved through the body of her mother as if through colored, dense smoke.
Shadow’s army can disassemble and reassemble to form anything, Shuri said as they made their way deeper into the dream forest. They can take themselves apart at the seams and pile together to create enormous beasts. They can take the form of anything you fear or love and shred you with it.
They stopped, and Kinmare appeared at Nik’s right side, another Draken by his side. As Nik gazed up at the two enormous creatures, he realized they were no longer in the magic-created memory of the Umbren forest, but instead at the edge of a great lake, silvered with moonlight.
In the center, a form wallowed, bobbing beneath the surface and then up again, gasping for air.
It was not a Draken or a shadow-thing, but a young girl, her panicked face illuminated by the moon above.
This is my memory, the Draken beside him said, his voice rumbling deep in Nik’s chest. You have shown me your fortitude, young Weshen, and so I will share with you both my name and my fears.
I am Rastern, and this is the memory of a girl I did not save but should have.
Nik watched, his heart in his throat as the girl weakened, bobbing above the surface once more for a split second, and then no longer. Shadows spilled over the surface of the water, the creatures climbing over one another as they scrambled to reach the land that was much too far away. They were surely shoving her beneath the water with their weight.
Nik felt a tear sting his eyes, and Shuri nuzzled his shoulder.
This happened long ago. There is nothing more we can do for this girl.
Rastern nodded, grumbling to himself. He swung his great head toward Nik, leveling his yellow eyes to Nik’s gaze. I was selfish, thinking the affairs of man had nothing to do with Draken. I was arrogant and careless. I may not have caused all the problems of the world, but neither did I move to stop this one.
“But what is this?” Nik asked, gesturing to the water, now silent and still like a mirror. “Why have you shown me a girl drowning?”
That girl is the woman you know as Queen Mara, Rastern answered solemnly.
Nik’s breath caught in his throat. “No! How?” he stuttered.
She died many years ago in the MagiSea. But her soul was given a second chance. Some would say she squandered it, but her second creator would say she has done well. Rastern bellowed a stream of glittering black fire and golden smoke into the night of the dream, and the water began to splinter like glass and fall away, leaving only the darkness of an empty mind.
“Who is her second creator?” Nik called as the dream world faded. He was afraid to know the answer but guessed he already did.
Shadow, Shuri replied, and Nik found himself falling up, backward, and upside down as the four of them were sucked away from the lake and the forest and the map and back into the summer-sweet clearing hidden deep in the NeverCross Mountains.
Chapter 28
“DO YOU KNOW WHAT IS happening with my friends right now?” Nik asked Shuri and Kinmare as he sat in the meadow with them and several other Draken. The night sky had grown into a deep navy lit with a full moon and thousands of stars. The air around him was like mild spring, and the scent of the multi-hued flowers laced the occasional breeze.
For a heartbeat, Nik wished he could stay here, hidden from all the problems of the world outside this oasis.
We Draken have stayed hidden too long, Rastern said. It is long past time for us to help where we can.
Shuri nodded and looked to Kinmare. Has the battle begun?
The Riatans and their new Weshen Queen prepare even now to sail for S
ulit. But I fear the Brujok will be more than ready. Mara waits in the southern forests, and your friends must fight not only Brujok, but Mara, and ultimately, Shadow, Kinmare explained. Nik nodded, knowing this had been coming.
“But it’s good they’re preparing now. The witches will be ready. And Mara - I know so little about her,” he added. “Do we have a plan?”
For now, I am the only one coming with you, Shuri said. Draken do not meddle with men often, she reminded him.
Nik’s eyes widened in alarm. He’d assumed many of the Draken would fly, filling the skies with flame.
My daughter and I lead our cote, but we do not require the others to follow, Kinmare said. It is only if they are needed and willing that they enter the fight. And even if they do, most will fly south to patrol the borders of Umbren. Shadow must not be permitted to enter the NeverCross Mountains to the northeast, or the Listening Forest to the northwest. Draken are still keepers of these lands. Regardless of what happens, our responsibility lies there above all.
“I thank you for any help you give,” Nik said, understanding these creatures had much more to lose if their own land was overrun by Shadow’s army.
You misunderstand, Weshen, Kinmare said, dipping his snout to the crystal water and lapping at it. Your people have responsibilities as well. If any of us fail, all of us fail. You must fight your battles, and we must fight ours.
“When will we go, then?” Nik asked Shuri.
When you master your next shift.
Nik blinked at her, his brain failing to interpret her words.
Your friends have merged their sources with MagiCreatures, have they not? It is your turn, she said, and the hills vibrated with her laughter at his confusion.
“I could never...” Nik whispered. She was too majestic. Too... too sentient. He could never take over her body like Sy had with his Grizzlin or even Coren’s Vespa.
Those creatures are different. They have small minds, especially the Grizzlins. Though it has a much larger heart to make up for that. It is no wonder your lover took that form.
Dream of Darkness and Dominion Page 28
