The beast who carried them folded its wings as it entered the cave. Gwen felt every bone in her body jostle as they touched the rock floor.
Time and hundreds of dragons had worn this area almost smooth. No stalactites or stalagmites decorated the interior, those long ago cracked free by the huge inhabitants.
As it slowed, the dragon shoved the two ahead. The enchantress immediately whirled on the beast and, to her credit, Yssa did the same. Unfortunately, before they could do anything, a voice behind them said, “It would be unwissse to anger the Great One further, femalesss . . .”
Behind them, a drake servitor stood waiting. He resembled one of the scaled warriors in every manner save that his helm was all but undecorated. He had no huge crest, only a thin, barely noticeable ridge going back. Even without it, however, he stood almost seven feet tall.
“I am Ssssurak. You will come with me.”
To emphasize his command, a pair of strong hands pushed both forward. Glancing over her shoulders, Gwen discovered the dragon gone. In its place stood an even more towering drake warrior, his savage crest the exact image of the head of the dragon who had brought them here.
“Move . . .” he ordered, eyes flaring red.
Ssssurak waved one hand over the palm of the other. A small, blue pyramid about the size of an acorn materialized in the palm. A faint light emanated from it.
“I will lead,” the servitor declared.
With Ssssurak ahead and the warrior behind, the four entered a darkened passage at the deep end of the cave. No sooner had the servitor stepped inside, then the light from the pyramid immediately increased, filling the area with blue-tinted illumination.
A slight sound from Yssa made Gwen glance the other’s way. The half-drake had a determined look in her eye and her expression tensed even as the enchantress watched.
With a flickering frown, Gwen tried to warn her not to try anything. The power of the Dragon King prevailed here. Gwen could feel her abilities being muted by his spellwork. Did Yssa think that she could fare any better?
Evidently she did, for in the next second the Green Dragon’s daughter threw herself back into the unsuspecting guard. Physically, he should have been no more affected than if a gnat had collided with him, but an orange aura flared to life as Yssa struck the giant and both of them went flying.
The drake hit one of the walls, bounced off of it, then rammed into the other. The collisions were hardly chance; Gwen sensed Yssa’s hand in each harsh crash.
Behind the enchantress, Ssssurak hissed. He closed his hand tight, which would have plunged the passage into darkness save for Yssa’s aura. Gwen turned on the servitor, but somehow despite his close proximity, he had become invisible to her.
Yssa seized Gwen by the hand. “Hurry!”
Gwen did not argue. Despite her own handicap, Yssa’s skills seemed entirely untouched. The enchantress belatedly thought of the younger woman’s origins. Perhaps both Gwen and the Dragon King had underestimated what a cross between human and drake might be capable. Still, it seemed odd that the Storm Lord would not take that consideration in mind.
They ran back along the corridor, racing down the dark passage toward freedom. However, it took Gwen only a few seconds to realize that they should be far, far closer to the exit than they were. Ssssurak had barely led them into it before Yssa had acted.
“Wait!” she called. “Yssa! We’re being led!”
Her companion stumbled to a halt, but by then it was already too late. A blinding light assailed them from both directions. Gwen and Yssa threw themselves against one another for protection.
And as the light died, the voice that Gwen had dreaded to hear echoed loud.
“Welcome, welcome, my chosen . . .”
The corridor vanished. Gwen and Yssa now stood in the center of a looming cavern with walls of black onyx. Within the onyx, the primal fury of the storm played itself out over and over. The result was a violent, constantly shifting light that forced both to shield their eyes in order to focus on the massive figure seated above them.
Gwen had confronted several of the Dragon Kings over her life, had even seen the old Emperor at his height, but the Storm Lord dwarfed them all. Standing, he would have been eight, nine feet high, not even including the wide, menacing crest that surely added another three feet.
He smiled, revealing his sharp, reptilian teeth, and indicated with one broad finger that they should come closer.
The two women suddenly discovered themselves within only a few yards of the high stone dais upon which the gray marble throne had been set. With only that single gesture, the drake lord had transported them from one end of the chamber to the other.
“Yes, we have chosen well . . .” He leaned back, red, forked tongue flickering. “All that remains now is to see which one of you will succeed in slaying the other . . .”
VI
As a child, Aurim had enjoyed being frightened. He had constantly encouraged his father, the Lord Gryphon, and even Darkhorse, to tell him stories that would fill him with delightful fear. He always knew that there were happy endings to the stories, but that made the images of nasty Dragon Kings, cunning Seekers, and brutish Quel no less spine-tingling.
But nothing had stirred him so much as tales involving the enigmatic warlock, Shade.
Yet, Shade was supposed to be dead. His father said so, Lord Gryphon said so, and even Darkhorse had finally, after years, reluctantly agreed. Still, the hooded sorcerer with the murky face whose curse constantly sent him swinging from good to evil and back again had become for Aurim a symbol of the unknown, the unexpected.
Now the unknown stared him in the face . . . so to speak.
Shade slowly and calmly led him through the rain-drenched landscape, moving as if Yssa would be just over the hill and not, as the golden-haired wizard suspected, miles away. The hooded figure appeared to be looking for something, but just what that something was he had so far not said to either Aurim or his other self.
This Shade was far different from the one in the stories. He did not appear either good or evil, but trapped somewhere in the middle for the time being. Aurim did not like traveling with him, but if he could find Yssa, that was all that mattered.
“We were dead,” rambled Shade not for the first time. “So dead. Peacefully dead.” He shifted his head to the left. “And we were quite furious when we no longer were.”
Aurim noted the rising bitterness in the tone, the first emotion he had heard from his dire companion. He wisely kept silent, knowing that Shade would continue on.
The hood turned right. “I remember . . . I remember her name was Sharissa . . .”
To the left. “No . . . her name was Galani . . .”
To the center. “And she thought she could help me . . .”
He grew silent for a time, now and then inspecting various bits of the land around them. Aurim pondered the names, but they meant nothing to him. His sister and father had a better knowledge of the history of the Dragonrealm; perhaps they would have made more sense of the ramblings.
Shade paused without warning, nearly causing Aurim, who hunkered low in his cloak since he dared not cast a spell, to collide with him. The hooded sorcerer leaned down. “Aaah . . . Here it is . . .”
He pulled up what at first Aurim thought a peculiar white stone. Only when the gloved hand thrust it closer did he realize that it was more.
A bone fragment.
“I knew it had to be near . . .”
A shift to the right. “Of course it would be near! We’re the reason it’s here in the first place!”
Shade leaned over again, digging into the wet soil with gloves that got neither moist nor muddy. Within seconds, he had removed another, larger object from the earth.
A skull.
Overcoming his initial dismay, Aurim studied the skull. The jaw bone was missing, but enough remained identifiable. What he had at first taken for a small dragon was, in fact, something quite the opposite. Instead of the broad, toothed
muzzle of a reptilian creature, this had a squat, almost noseless appearance that reminded the young wizard in some ways of a rodent whose muzzle had been crushed.
Shade set the mud-covered cranium on the ground, then drew with his finger a circle around it. A faint, sickly green aura arose from the circle, swiftly enveloping the skull.
“They will be warned, but it doesn’t matter,” the warlock commented.
Aurim paid scant attention to the cryptic statement, his gaze fixed on the astonishing display before him. As the aura covered the skull, the latter began to rise from the ground. However, no longer did it lack a lower jaw. Instead, a new one composed entirely of the green glow filled the empty space. As the skull continued to rise, other magical bones rapidly replaced those missing, building the entire macabre structure a piece at a time.
The creature, whatever it was, had surely been grotesque in life if this unearthly skeleton was any indication. It towered over the pair and would have stood even taller if not for the fact that it seemed designed to lean forward at almost a right angle. The legs bent as if the creature had to constantly run or else fall. Odd bones that Aurim eventually recognized as forming wings stretched forth from the sides, ending in horrific, clawed appendages capable of grasping or tearing a victim apart. Had someone taken the worst from a human and bat, it surely would have resembled something akin to how this horror had looked when flesh had covered it.
When the skeleton was complete, the undead creature bent low and opened its mouth as if to make some sound, but only the wind whistling through its naked bones reached Aurim’s ears.
“The Necri will take us where we need to go.”
“Necri?” The word sounded vaguely familiar, like something out of the old journals his father kept.
“It served the Lords of the Dead,” Shade remarked offhandedly. His head shifted to the right. “And once sought to serve us to our cousins . . .”
The Lords of the Dead. . . . What had his desire to see Yssa tossed both her and Aurim into? He recognized that name, of course. Some saw the Lords of the Dead as the gods of the underworld, but they were both more and less than that. Darkhorse explained them as ageless necromancers seeking dominion over the world of the living by commanding the plane of the dead. However, they were not immortal. They could be destroyed, if only at great cost.
It did not surprise Aurim that Shade and they had crossed paths, even battled against one another, for surely he was a prize they desired to add to their macabre collection.
But-had the warlock just said that he and they were . . . cousins?
Shade gestured to the glowing skeleton. The Necri flapped its empty wings, ascending into the air. It fluttered around the pair once, then came down behind them.
Long, splayed feet with huge, savage claws cautiously seized the two around the waist and drew them up.
They flew high into the dark heavens, the fleshless creature somehow able to carry both with ease despite a lack of any muscle or membrane in its wings. The monstrous feet kept Aurim and Shade almost completely vertical, making the flight only somewhat harrowing.
As unnerving as both the journey and those who accompanied him made the wizard, Aurim reminded himself that they brought him closer to Yssa. In the end, she was all that mattered. It had been by his entreaties that she had agreed to cross the border into Wenslis. What a fool he had been to think that even they could keep their clandestine meetings hidden from the Dragon King. His parents had always warned him that the Storm Lord watched everything that went on in his realm.
That thought made Aurim frown. If so, then the drake should have even known about Shade’s presence . . . which made it curious that he had evidently done nothing about the warlock.
But then, could even a Dragon King plan for Shade?
“AND WHY WOULD we slay one another, especially for you?” Gwen asked defiantly. She had reached her limits. Even despite the Dragon King’s obviously threatening presence, the enchantress could not believe his audacity.
“Because we wish it so,” the reptilian figure boomed. “Because the consort of so glorious a being as us must be the most powerful, most capable.” The Storm Lord steepled his fingers. “And because if you do not, we will make you fight, anyway.”
Yssa eyed him contemptuously. “I will never fight for the right to be yours.”
The arms of the Dragon King’s throne suddenly broke free, seizing the Storm Lord in a suffocating grip. The back of the throne stretched high, then folded over as if to swallow the master of Wenslis.
A black aura immediately surrounded the drake. Without the slightest effort, the Storm Lord rose, the arms pinning him cracking to pieces. The back of the throne instantly solidified, then retracted to its original state.
Gwen frowned, but not only because of the failure of Yssa’s spell. When the aura had formed around the Storm Lord, the enchantress had sensed a peculiar-and yet somehow familiar-style of sorcery, one she had never noticed used by any previous Dragon King.
“You prove yourself worthy,” the Storm Lord told the Green Dragon’s daughter as if nothing had happened. “It is time to begin.”
He raised his hands palm up and lightning crackled between them. Twin bolts shot forth, striking both women in the head. Gwen expected pain, but instead a frightening numbness took over her body-and once again she sensed something different about this Dragon King’s spellwork.
Suddenly she found herself against her will turning toward Yssa-who already faced her. The half-drake’s expression was emotionless save for her eyes, which radiated an intense apprehension that matched Gwen’s own.
The enchantress’s body moved. Gwen felt the summoning of power even though she herself had attempted no such thing. Across from her, Yssa radiated raw magical energy, but her eyes still held the same anxiety.
“Memory will serve,” the Storm Dragon informed the two unwilling combatants. He almost seemed distracted, as if he had other, more significant matters to which to attend. “Memory will guide. Your bodies will recall what they must, when they must. They will determine your fates.”
Gwen’s hands suddenly clapped together.
From them came a swarm of black, buzzing insects that immediately encircled Yssa. They bit into her flesh, tore the skin free.
But despite the ordeal, Yssa quickly countered. A fearsome wind tossed the swarm about, then fiercely slapped them against one wall of the immense cavern. As the dead insects dropped in clusters, the same wind tore free a part of that wall and sent it hurtling at the enchantress.
Gwen’s left hand made a cutting motion. As if tossed into some vast invisible grinder, the huge chunk of stone vaporized bit by bit as it neared her. In seconds, all that remained was a sizable pile of dust.
But Gwen leaned forward and, borrowing from Yssa, pursed her lips and blew. The dust poured over the younger spellcaster, choking her.
This must stop! I’m sure to kill her! Yssa might have her own astonishing skills, but Gwen had the experience of two centuries, in which time she had been trained by both the Green Dragon and Nathan Bedlam, Aurim’s great-grandfather, and done battle alongside the Dragon Masters. Yssa had not lived long enough to experience all she had and that, in the end, would surely be the deciding factor.
She fought against the Storm Lord’s will, refusing to become his tool of death. Gwen felt his control over her slip ever so slightly. The spell her body had been about to cast dissipated before it could harm Yssa. The enchantress managed a slight smile of triumph-
But in battling the Dragon King, she left herself open to the other sorceress. A chilling cold swept over Gwen. Her movements slowed to a halt and even the blood in her veins felt as if it had begun to freeze. She opened her mouth to scream-and it remained caught in that agonizing position.
Yssa blinked as if waking, then dropped to her knees in exhaustion. Eyes wide, she stared into Gwen’s own. Unable to move, the cold sapping her will further, Gwen could say nothing to assuage the horrendous guilt she read in th
e other’s gaze. Yssa had only done what she had because the Storm Dragon had forced her to, but it made the outcome no less monstrous. With each passing second it proved more of a strain for Gwen to remain conscious. She was well aware, though, of what would happen when the cold finally took her. There would be no waking, no life. Yssa’s spell would turn her literally to ice.
“How interesting,” remarked the Storm Lord, approaching Gwen. “An unexpected outcome. We thought surely that the Lady of the Amber would prevail . . .” He touched Gwen on the chin, the arm. “Interesting.”
Even despite her mental struggles, the enchantress could not help meeting his fiery gaze-and in that moment she had the odd sense that she stared at someone other than the Storm Lord.
But the Dragon King turned away before she could discover more. At his unspoken command, Yssa rose and went to his side. Yssa took his arm in her own, holding him as one would hold the arm of a mate.
Her eyes continued to radiate horror over what she had accomplished.
The Dragon King stared again at Gwen. “Now we shall see what the bait draws . . .”
And with that peculiar comment, he led Yssa away, leaving the enchantress standing helpless, her thoughts growing hazier . . . and her death growing nearer.
VII
Three peaks stood shrouded in the stormy sky. Aurim did not have to ask if he and Shade closed in on their destination, for he easily sensed the dark power emanating from the jagged mountains. If this was not the stronghold of the Dragon King, he could not imagine another.
“Down,” the hooded figure quietly commanded. The skeleton immediately began its descent, flapping its useless wings as if they actually held air.
“Is it safe to land so near the lair?” objected Aurim.
“It’s where we have to go.”
For Shade, this settled everything. For his anxious companion, however, such a frontal assault presaged disaster.
Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. III Page 85
