“Sharissa . . . ,” he whispered, almost afraid to speak her name in this place. He stared at his hand again and saw that it remained stable. Shade began concentrating.
However, before the sorcerer could gather his thoughts enough to try a spell, he sensed that he was no longer alone. Glancing up at the walls, he saw everywhere the eye of the Dragon King observing him.
“Have I entertained you?” the hooded sorcerer said mockingly. “Is this why you’ve brought me here? Is that why you used her image to lure me to your lair?”
“What you sssaw wasss shaped from your own desiresss and ssseen only by you. It wasss meant to be sssomething important, sssomething you could not ignore.”
Which meant to Shade that the Dragon King had not chosen Sharissa; the sorcerer had. On the one hand, Shade was glad to know that he had been wrong, but on the other, it showed how much he still dwelled on a woman lost to him ages ago. A woman who had never cared for him as he had for her.
A painful twinge coursed through his right hand. The appendage did not fade, but the threat was there. Shade concentrated and the pain dwindled.
He looked up again just in time to see the eye disappear. The chamber dimmed. Shade managed a curse and returned his attention to vacating the Crystal Dragon’s lair.
The crystals flared to life again.
Shade instinctively looked up. The eye once more stared at him from every direction.
“Place thisss around your neck . . .”
At first, Shade had no idea to what the dragon was referring. Only after his eyes adjusted to the new change in light did he see that now something lay not far away. Although distrustful of anything a drake lord might offer, the sorcerer took up the object.
It was a medallion on the end of a silver chain. A series of small, multicolored gemstones created a pattern that too much resembled the eye. Shade ran a finger over the pattern and felt the complex spellwork set upon it.
“What is it?” he asked of the eye.
There was no reply. Shade matched gazes with the eye for a time, then considered the Crystal Dragon’s command.
“The medallion will aid you . . .”
The sudden declaration caught the sorcerer off guard for a second. He had no reason to believe the Dragon King . . . and yet, for some reason he did.
Shade shoved back his hood. He knew that, even exposed, his face remained blurred, but the eye gave no hint of any surprise on his host’s part.
With some last hesitation, Shade set the chain around his neck. He let the medallion rest on his chest.
“And now?” he asked.
In answer, the eye receded. Shade expected the chamber to dim, but instead something new formed in the countless facets. A face almost human save for slight but distinct features that hinted at something else. As the face came better into focus, an uneasy feeling swelled up inside Shade. He knew that face beneath the black locks of hair spilling over the forehead, knew that stern brow and that sharp gaze.
He knew those eyes . . . those dark, crystalline eyes.
“By the Dragon of the Depths . . . ,” Shade murmured, dumbstruck.
The image in the facets bore the same expression of shock . . . and why not? After all, it was his face.
His face as it had been clearly seen only perhaps a handful of times in more centuries than even Shade cared to count.
Shade staggered back. So did the face in the crystals. The sorcerer put a hand to his chin and so did the image.
The chin was slightly narrowed at the end and led up to a mouth that seemed perpetually twisted in rueful thought. The nose was somewhat aquiline, but just enough to make the face as a whole work. There were those women who would have found the features attractive, perhaps most of all because of the eyes, but seeing himself now reminded Shade of one person whom he had once hoped would look on him with favor. She had not.
The vision abruptly transformed into the eye of the Dragon King.
“The spell holds . . . ,” the drake lord’s voice announced all around the sorcerer.
“This is no cure, then,” Shade responded with some curtness. A heaviness briefly descended upon his heart, but he quickly dismissed it. How many times did you think you were near to success, hmmm? This is just one more false hope, one more false trail . . .
Yet, even Shade had to admit it was a powerful spell. The Crystal Dragon had brought into definition what magic ancient and powerful had set out of sync with the mortal world.
Magic ancient and powerful that Shade had himself commanded.
“The medallion buys time. That is all . . .” As the drake lord said this, the eye faded away. Now, nothing was reflected in the crystals.
“‘Buys time’?” Shade glared at the wall before him. “Come back! Buys time for what?”
“For us to begin our search,” said the Crystal Dragon’s voice from much, much closer . . . and from behind him.
The sorcerer spun in that direction. He half-expected what he would find, but still the presence of the Dragon King did not fail to instill in him some awe.
The Crystal Dragon did not come to him in his true form. Shade knew from the other drake lords he had seen that the gargantuan body would have filled most of the chamber. While that might suit his host when alone, unless the Crystal Dragon desired to possibly crush the spellcaster, a more diminutive shape was needed.
That shape still towered over him. The Dragon King wore the form of the mailed knight so oft preferred by others of his race, but as with his counterparts, his was of a more elaborate appearance. Indeed, when seen close, the “mail” was composed of crystalline scales that were in actuality the dragon’s hide. It glittered in the light of the cavern.
The helm was topped by a massive crest that appeared a perfect reproduction of the Crystal Dragon’s savage visage. The eyes of the crest matched the intensity of those within the helm itself, and when Shade studied the head further, he saw that the dragon’s maw was open in a sinister smile.
“I cannot promissse how long the medallion will function, but it will for sssome time,” the Dragon King hissed.
“And what else does it do?” The sorcerer held the piece up, again studying the pattern. “What other surprise awaits me?”
“You have my sssolemn word that thisss isss all it doesss.”
And that’s quite impressive as it is, Shade thought. His expression no longer held astonishment at seeing that face after so long. It was a face that, although he knew it as his, seemed more that of a stranger. “Why?”
“You were becoming too unssstable. You would have disssipated sssoon at sssuch a rate.”
The spellcaster glared. “You know what I mean! What search were you referring to, drake lord?”
The Crystal Dragon chuckled. It was a raspy sound that grated on Shade’s ears. “The one for the tower, naturally . . .”
He turned from Shade the moment he finished, striding toward a darkened passage leading from the cavern. Shade hesitated, wary of not only wherever the drake headed but also the reply.
“The tower . . . ,” he murmured. “The tower . . .”
It was enough to at last urge him to follow. He entered the darkness, not at all surprised to find that his eyes did not adjust after a moment. The blackness was magical, just a hint of the Crystal Dragon’s power over him.
Shade drew a circle. It became a ring of golden fire that he made flare much brighter than necessary. The fire revealed a gem-encrusted passage running some distance. What it did not reveal was the Dragon King.
With a low sigh of exasperation, Shade advanced. The Crystal Dragon appeared to enjoy playing some game with him. Yet, mention of the tower meant that the drake knew something.
He will tell me what he knows, the hooded sorcerer thought grimly. Weakened though he was, Shade still wielded a magic older than that of any Dragon King. More to the point, he knew a weakness within them of which even they were unaware. It was one that he had forgotten with so much else when first the spell had gone awry a
nd cursed him, but now most of his distant memory had returned. Not all of it, but enough in this matter.
The shadowy entrance to another chamber stood not all that far ahead. Shade’s frown deepened. Just a moment before, the passage had stretched much farther.
“More games?” The sorcerer gestured. A trio of emerald orbs darted ahead, not only illuminating their immediate vicinity but leaving light in their wake.
But when they reached the darkened chamber, they ceased to exist. At the same time, Shade suddenly heard voices. Several voices. At first he thought that they were his again, that for the second time the Dragon King was going to toy with his sanity, but then the variations in the voices made him realize that he listened to other people, to many other people. The number of voices multiplied constantly as he finally strode toward the chamber, yet each individual one could still be made out.
Shade reached the chamber and the darkness fled to reveal a thousand and more faces.
They were the faces of individuals all over the continent. Shade recognized the billowing garments worn by a noble from Gordag-Ai, the gruff features and long blond hair of a horseman from Zuu, and a bronze-scaled drake warrior who could only belong to the confederation in the northwest formed by survivors of fallen drake clans such as Brown, Iron, and, of course, those of the Bronze Dragon as well. He sighted a feathered Seeker flying through the air, a party of dour elves moving cautiously through what was probably the Dagora Forest, and a ship sailing the seas that bore the unmistakable wolf’s-head banner of the Aramites. The ebony-armored soldiers had once ruled a continent in the name of their savage god but were now reduced to control over a shrinking portion of that other land. Many of their number had turned to piracy to fund not only their crumbling empire but also their own individual gain.
“I hear them all,” the Crystal Dragon suddenly announced from behind Shade. The drake lord had not been there a moment before, but the sorcerer was not surprised in the least by his abrupt appearance. “I hear the land . . .”
There was something in the Dragon King’s tone that made Shade eye the drake sharply. “You hear the land? An interesting phrasing.”
The Crystal Dragon gestured and the images faded away. “A concise phrasssing and one you should underssstand explicitly.”
Shade instinctively clutched at the medallion hidden on his chest. “I’m afraid I don’t.”
His host peered down at him. “You do. You understand very well, Vraad.”
That the drake knew what he was did not startle the spellcaster. What intrigued Shade more was that the Dragon King was now speaking very precisely, eliminating all sibilance. For most drakes, this required exceptional effort and was used when seeking to emphasize the importance of something.
“The land . . . ,” the Crystal Dragon said again, gesturing at the walls once more. “I hear the land . . .”
The facets now displayed the realm in all its glory and even revealed places beyond, such as that nameless continent where the Aramites and their former vassals battled. Yet, none of the images actually centered on any of the various races. Instead, Shade observed desolate, lonely regions. Empty forests. The chill plains of the Northern Wastes. Ruins that had once been the great kingdom of Mito Pica, destroyed in the Dragon Kings’ hunt for a young Cabe Bedlam.
“I do not—”
But the Crystal Dragon cut him off, simply murmuring, “Listen . . .”
Exasperated, Shade finally obeyed. Not at all to his surprise, silence greeted him. He knew that madness had claimed more than one Dragon King—did not the Storm Dragon fancy himself a god?—and had always suspected that there was something dark touching the minds of the reclusive line of which this current drake lord was the latest. Even Shade knew little of the masters of the Legar Peninsula—only their origins, which would have shocked his current companion.
Yet, all thoughts about the Dragon King vanished in an instant when some slight sound caught the sorcerer’s attention. Shade leaned close, seeking the source from the various images and realizing quickly that the sound came from all.
And slowly, ever so slowly, the sound rose enough that he could hear what appeared to be murmuring. Shade strained but was unable to make it out any more clearly.
“Do not struggle,” the drake lord quietly told him. “It will not avail you.”
“What is that? What speaks and what does it say?”
The Crystal Dragon’s eyes burned from within the false helm. “I have told you . . . and you, of all, should know.”
Shade had of late felt more than one sinister shiver course through him, almost as if some terrible winter were approaching that he could sense more than anyone else. Now, that shiver returned a hundredfold stronger, because the drake lord had at last verified all the sorcerer’s millennia-held fears.
The land, the Dragonrealm and likely all realms beyond its shores, did indeed live.
“I tried to make you understand, Father . . . ,” he could not help muttering to one of the greatest ghosts in his past. Then, recalling himself, Shade turned on the Dragon King. “What do you seek from me? What do you want from all this?”
“I thought I wasss clear,” the scaled figure replied, the hint of sibilance belying his confident aspect. “The same as you. The land is alive and the land hasss a purpossse. We—all of usss, every sssingle living creature—are pawnsss played to sssee to the culmination of that purpossse . . .”
If he expected another look of shock from Shade’s recently resurrected face, the Crystal Dragon was surely disappointed. The hooded sorcerer’s brief nod was the only initial response. The drake lord finally dismissed the images, secretly a welcome relief to his guest.
“The tower is but a legend, and one scarcely known even to those wielding magic,” Shade at last remarked. “Certainly, I search for the tower, just as I search for any other thing, however obscure, that might end my curse.”
The Dragon King said nothing, but Shade sensed that the drake lord did not believe him. Before the sorcerer could remark further, his reptilian host stretched forth a clawed hand.
The facets of the wall glittered and something new took shape in them. At first, it stood as tall as the ceiling and stretched as wide as the chamber, but then it rapidly shrank, becoming a form perhaps a foot tall and more than twice that wide.
Shade took a step toward it, unwilling to believe what he saw.
It was a statuette, a bird made of gold and some other unidentifiable metals of silver and green hues. The sorcerer moved to the wall and reached a hand to it even though it was only a vision and not the true thing.
But then Shade found himself in another gleaming chamber, the statuette now floating before him. A crystalline sphere surrounded it. This time, however, Shade was wise enough not to reach for the artifact.
He sensed the ancient power still radiating within the statuette. The spellcaster also noted telling details. He saw the stylized flames rising up around the magnificent avian, which itself bore a fiery crest and cried to the sky through a long, sharp beak. He read the fearsome intelligence in those watchful eyes.
It was a statuette of a phoenix, and unlike with the artifact in Irillian, Shade knew this to be no fake.
The Dragon King once more stood beside him, even though there had been no sound of movement. Once again, he spoke carefully, without sibilance. “Found in the Northern Wastes after the death of the Ice Dragon.”
“‘Found’?” Even with the death of its macabre master, the Northern Wastes was not somewhere even the hardiest of creatures willingly traversed. Its tempests rivaled those of the Storm Dragon himself and had the added touch of biting cold.
“Found.” The tone indicated that there would be no more explanation in regard to that subject.
Already angry at his reaction to the revelation of the statuette, Shade commented, “This could be anything. A simple piece of art, designed only to please the eye.”
The Dragon King hissed. The crystalline barrier surrounding the statuett
e fractured and the pieces flew from the phoenix. However, they did not fall to the floor but rather hovered around the artifact several inches away.
The phoenix moved, but what initially appeared to be life stirring proved merely to be the statuette turning so that the back was displayed to the onlookers.
And amidst the plumage there, a series of arcing symbols crossed diagonally from the upper right to the lower left.
It was the script of a race dead long before the Dragon Kings, long before the Seekers, the Quel, and any other known race.
It was the script of a people known only to the few versed in the truths of history as the “founding race.” Even Shade, who had made them the study of a thousand lifetimes and more, had never discovered any evidence as to what they had called themselves. Of course, there was one great impediment, as he knew all too well as he studied the script.
“Have you been able to translate it?”
There was a telling moment of silence, then, “The meaning continuesss to elude me.”
The brief surge of hope that Shade had experienced upon seeing the markings faded. The hooded sorcerer glared. “Then you offer nothing new and no reason for me to remain here.”
He braced himself for whatever attack the Dragon King might attempt, but the drake lord merely shook his head. That, in some ways, disturbed Shade more than a spell against him would have.
“I have been unable to discover the meaning, but I would not show thisss to you if it did not supply sssome clue.” The Dragon King pointed at the statuette. “Look closely, sssee it as well as try to comprehend it.”
Despite being unable to understand what his reptilian host might mean, Shade obeyed. He eyed the script, wondering if the Crystal Dragon was merely seeking to make a fool of him.
But then something stirred among the curved markings. They twisted and turned as if a living thing. Shade nearly looked to the Dragon King but then recalled himself.
Legends of the Dragonrealm: Shade Page 7
