Legends of the Dragonrealm: Shade

by Richard A. Knaak

  The crystal rose from where it had lain hidden under a veneer of dirt and grass. Its thousands of facets glistened like the sun—save for the hundred or so scattered far apart that were as black as pitch and shook with the rage of the captured eternal.

  The crystal, no more than the size of an apple, hovered a yard in the air, then darted west.

  Its flight ended abruptly as a powerful gauntleted hand easily snatched it. The hand glittered more than the artifact as it brought the latter to its master’s gaze.

  The tall, black-bearded man—built and dressed more like a warrior than a sorcerer despite his clear ability—eyed his snare with immense satisfaction, then simply vanished.

  SHADE DOWNED the last of the ale. He had not interacted with anyone other than the serving woman, but the sights, sounds, and smells around him—some of the last rather rank, to be sure, but welcome nonetheless—touched the sorcerer in a manner that they had not since . . . since . . .

  A part of him wanted to stay a little longer, but night had finally come and his knowledge of the Gryphon’s ways reminded him that now was the best time to strike. He passed his hand over the table and three coins of varying value materialized. The serving woman had done her duty adequately, leaving him to his private musings and not trying to pry into his identity.

  No one noticed the sorcerer’s departure. It would be several minutes before anyone would realize that the table was empty. By then, Shade would be far from Penacles.

  One hand grazed the hidden medallion. Gaining more confidence from its presence, Shade strode among the dwindling crowds, eyeing the looming palace out of the corner of his eye. He sighted a particular window high above—

  And appeared inside that particular room in the next breath.

  Time was now of the essence. If the Gryphon’s safeguards had not warned the lionbird of his intrusion, they soon would. Shade concentrated on another chamber, one he had not visited in several lives.

  With the image to guide him, the hooded spellcaster transported himself. He eagerly looked around . . . and if there had been a mirror before him Shade would have easily read the great frustration suddenly spreading across his face.

  “The tapestry—” he blurted, unable to at first accept what he saw—or did not see. The Gryphon had kept the key to the libraries in this particular room for decades; Shade had assumed that it would still be here.

  The palace was far too vast for him to decide from past experience just where the tapestry now hung. Shade could make some assumptions, but even repeating his mistake once risked much greater chance of the Gryphon discovering him.

  Muttering a curse that would have made his father proud, Shade drew an emerald triangle in the air. The triangle spun about, then hesitated. Within its frame there formed the image of another chamber.

  Shade seized the triangle, which dissipated. As that happened, the sorcerer vanished from the first room to the one revealed by the spell.

  The tapestry filled the wall before him. Shade reached for it.

  The slight grating of metal was his only warning. Shade disappeared again, immediately re-forming behind his would-be attackers.

  The golems reacted with impressive swiftness but were still too slow. Shade pointed at the nearest of the golems.

  Swerving, the construct fell upon its companion. The second golem tried to continue on to Shade but could not.

  Shade brought his hands together. Invisible forces crushed the golems into one grotesque mass. An iron hand continued to grasp futilely for Shade.

  The warlock had scarcely dealt with the guardians when he sensed a new threat. He fell against the nearest wall and pulled his voluminous cloak over all but his eyes.

  Thunder roiled and lightning filled the chamber. Only Shade’s quick thinking enabled him to shield himself in time from the harsh assault on the room. Even the fearsome golems were ravaged by the blinding bolts, the iron figures reduced to slag in seconds.

  And in the midst of the storm the Gryphon, crouched and ready for combat, materialized untouched. Eyes both avian and human peered around the chamber, seeking the intruder.

  Shade shoved a hand at the lionbird’s back.

  A shock wave sent the Gryphon flying forward. Despite his predicament, the lord of Penacles managed to twist in the air and face his attacker. At the same time, his own power enabled the Gryphon to safely slow.

  As he landed, the lionbird began casting.

  Unseen by the Gryphon, the great tapestry tore free. It fell upon the Gryphon.

  Shade sent a fragment from the devastated golems at where his foe’s head could be seen under the tapestry. The iron chunk struck hard.

  The Gryphon slumped.

  The hooded sorcerer sent the tapestry fluttering to the wall, where it reattached. He glanced suspiciously at the Gryphon’s still form, then looked to the artifact.

  It was simple to spot the symbol representing the libraries. Shade floated up and touched the mark. He rubbed it and waited.

  Nothing happened.

  Frowning deeply, Shade repeated the necessary step. Still he was not transported to the libraries.

  Shade’s eyes briefly refocused. He now saw the complex patterns surrounding the tapestry, patterns of recent origin and powerful spellwork. The sorcerer recognized the Gryphon’s devious effort. Even stunned, the lord of Penacles confounded his ally of old. Only the Gryphon would know the key to removing protective spells Shade knew were designed specifically for him.

  Another survey of the lionbird’s handiwork confirmed Shade’s worst fears. It was possible that he might be able to unlock the spells, but there was not enough time to even make the attempt.

  Shade spun to stare at the Gryphon again.

  With rising hope, he went down on one knee next to the unconscious figure. Only you know the key, my friend. Let us see if as you are now you might be willing to give it up . . .

  Placing his palms on either side of the Gryphon’s head, the sorcerer focused. He imagined himself literally inside the lionbird’s head, seeking entrance to the secrets there.

  There was some hesitation, the Gryphon’s natural instincts strong even now. Shade pushed carefully. The hesitation vanished. Fragmented memories from the City of Knowledge’s unique ruler raced through the warlock’s mind.

  Shipwrecked on the Dragonrealm’s shore two-hundred-plus years ago . . . part man, part avian, and part feline . . . an origin lost even to himself . . .

  With the memories came images. One in particular Shade recognized. There came rank upon rank of harsh, armored soldiers whose officers bore the sign of the wolf on their helms and breastplates. They were known specifically as the Aramites, colloquially as the dreaded Wolf Raiders. Once, they had ruled the major continent across the sea, their lives sworn to a creature called the Ravager. Shade knew something of their origins and that what they had served had been no god, but a powerful entity who itself had been created to obey other masters. The same masters who had supposedly built the very tower for which Shade searched.

  Among the Wolf Raiders, he saw a few specific faces, no doubt personal enemies of the Gryphon. Shade paid them little mind as he delved deeper.

  The Gryphon’s mate and queen appeared more than once, as did several young who surely were their offspring. Shade felt some bitterness that even a being as different and overall inhuman as the prone form below him had been able to find such happiness in his otherwise violent life. There had been a time—a time before time began, so Shade thought of it—when he had dreamed of a possible future with the one woman whom he had believed understood him.

  But you loved another, Sharissa, the sorcerer suddenly thought. And perhaps that is when I first cursed myself . . .

  Shaking off the darkness, Shade investigated further. He concentrated on the tapestry, hoping that by doing so he would stir the Gryphon’s subconscious in that direction.

  More images of war flashed by. The Gryphon, only a lance in hand, standing against a gargantuan dragon of a dark mauv
e hue. Around them, the previous incarnation of Penacles lay ravaged not by the effects of the Turning War but the folly of its own drake lord.

  This goes too slowly! Shade pressed harder yet. He could ill afford to stay here for hours sifting through one war-torn memory after another. He needed the key now.

  The images flew by faster, so fast, in fact, that they were little more than blurs. Shade felt the Gryphon’s defenses giving way and grew hopeful.

  But suddenly the sorcerer discovered himself descending too far too swiftly. He plunged into the blackness surrounding the most ancient and well-protected secrets of the stunned monarch.

  Shade struggled to extract himself. There was a risk of losing his own mind within the Gryphon’s. How ironic that his millennia-spanning quest might end with him a drooling idiot discovered kneeling before Penacles’s king.

  The descent slowed, then stopped.

  Memories so old and well buried that even the Gryphon surely did not recall them struck Shade from all sides. He began to dismiss them—and then confronted a revelation as astounding as his own foul existence.

  So shocked was Shade that he almost severed the link between the Gryphon and himself. That, however, almost lost him a key far more important than the one to the tapestry’s protective spells.

  The Gryphon was bound in his own way to the tower.

  Show me more! the sorcerer demanded. Show me more!

  Revelation followed revelation, each more unbelievable than the previous. Shade felt the secrets for which he had been hunting so many lifetimes just beyond his reach . . . but only for a moment more.

  Shade made one last push.

  Someone seized his hands, both physically and mentally ripping Shade from the Gryphon. The separation wracked both the sorcerer and the lord of Penacles.

  The world momentarily came back into focus. Shade discovered the face of a young woman—not his long-lost Sharissa—staring back at him in horror equal to his own.

  An old and all-too-familiar pain tore through Shade. Through tearing eyes, he caught a glimpse of his hand—and the floor visible through it.

  The medallion was failing. Shade felt his body lose cohesion. His thoughts darted to the Crystal Dragon, the talisman’s creator, and the thought of whether the drake lord could possibly repair the medallion before Shade entirely faded. Concentration slipping more by the second, he willed himself away from the palace, away from Penacles . . .

  THE GRYPHON LAY motionless, the only sign that he was not dead a shallow breathing.

  And of the one who had seized Shade’s hands from the Gryphon’s head, there was no sign.

  IX

  LAND OF THE HILL DWARVES

  VALEA FELT AS IF she plunged into one senseless nightmare after another. In fleeing from the Tyber Mountains, her initial thoughts had been to find her parents in the last place she knew them to be . . . Penacles. However, into those thoughts had mixed others concerning her original quest and whether her parents or the Gryphon had discovered her intrusion into the libraries.

  It was, therefore, not surprising that she might appear in the chamber guarding the tapestry nor that the Gryphon and not her parents might be there. Truly, it would not have surprised her to miss Penacles altogether, considering how haphazardly and desperately her spell had been cast.

  But what Valea had not expected to find was the Gryphon sprawled on the floor and a cloaked figure in the midst of some foul magic kneeling over him. She had reacted instinctively, leaping toward the preoccupied intruder and ripping his hands from the Gryphon’s head. Valea hoped that doing so would free the lionbird.

  Then, matters had again gone awry. She had stared into a face equally as startled as her own, a face vaguely familiar to her, and once more the world had changed.

  When she had blacked out, Valea could not say. The next thing she knew, she awoke in another cavern with the feeling that several hours had passed. There had been no doubt that this was someplace other than Kivan Grath, for nowhere in Kyl’s sanctum did any chamber glitter so.

  That glitter quickly identified just where she had materialized. Nerves taut, Valea rose. She recognized a part of the Crystal Dragon’s lair, even if she had never seen it. Valea expected the mysterious drake lord to make his entrance at any moment, but the cavern remained empty.

  No . . . not entirely. As Valea became more aware of her surroundings, she noticed what at first her somewhat unfocused mind had taken for a large pile of black cloth. Now the enchantress recognized that cloak and hood of the Gryphon’s assailant.

  A part of her told Valea to flee, but instead she moved to the body. Again, there was something familiar about the obscured figure, but Valea could not place her finger on just what.

  The cloak utterly covered him. A spell ready, Valea gingerly touched one arm. When nothing happened, she dared seize hold of the arm and slowly turn the body over.

  As soon as she saw the face, the enchantress gasped and released the arm. The body slumped onto its back.

  The face was a blur.

  “Shade!” Valea exclaimed.

  Images from the frantic seconds in Penacles surged through her memory. She recalled the face she had seen then.

  Once, not all that long ago, Valea had met a ghost . . . literally. The ghost of a man held captive by the Lords of the Dead. The necromancers had offered the ghost a chance for life again, offered him his very body back.

  Of course, that body had already had an occupant. Shade.

  The ghost had been that of his original self, the last of the Vraad.

  The Lords of the Dead had failed in their attempt to usurp Shade’s body for their slave. The ghost had sacrificed himself instead, in part because of Valea.

  Valea put a finger to Shade’s murky chin. The point of the finger remained distinct. Only Shade himself was affected by the curse. Even despite what she had witnessed him doing to the Gryphon, Valea could not help feeling sympathy. Shade had saved her family from the necromancers and in the process had appeared to have some hope of redemption, at least in her eyes.

  But her father’s concerns had turned out to be valid after all. The warlock was once again as the world knew him, a featureless threat to all.

  She blinked. For no more than a breath, he had looked as faded as one of the phantasms of the Manor. Valea could have sworn that she had seen the floor through him.

  It happened again.

  Valea pulled back—and belatedly realized that eyes were upon her from elsewhere in the cavern.

  The image vanished from the faceted wall just as the enchantress attempted to focus on it. Valea berated herself for not having been intelligent enough to flee while she had had the chance.

  “Step aside from him,” ordered a deep voice with just a hint of sibilance.

  Valea spun to face the Dragon King. Even aware of their ability to transform into shapes almost human, she could not help but stare at the towering figure in gleaming armor.

  The Crystal Dragon ignored Valea, who was ready to do battle with him, and bent beside Shade. The drake tugged on a small chain hidden by the sorcerer’s collar and pulled free a medallion that radiated complex magic.

  “I warned him not to reshape its matrix, but, of course, he wouldn’t listen . . .” The Dragon King passed his hand over the talisman, adjusting the spellwork.

  The scene was an incongruous one to Valea. The Crystal Dragon spoke almost as if he and Shade were companions of old. Indeed, the drake sounded more bemused than concerned about what had happened to the hooded warlock.

  A new scene stole Valea’s attention. As the Dragon King worked, Shade’s visage slowly became defined and his body solidified. As if the prone form sensed this, his breathing became less labored.

  “You’ve—” Valea could scarcely believe what she was about to say. “You’ve cured him!”

  “No . . . as I explained to him . . . thisss isss only a temporary sssolution.”

  She did not miss the sudden increase in sibilance, a mark of the drake
lord’s concern. Whether that concern was actually for Shade or whatever the Crystal Dragon desired of Shade was another story.

  Valea remembered where she was. Taking advantage of the Dragon King’s continued distraction, she tried to transport herself away.

  Not at all to her shock, her attempt failed.

  “You are my guessst,” the lord of Legar quietly declared as he rose. The inhuman orbs fixed upon her. “For asss long asss necessary.”

  Before Valea could argue his definition of “guest,” Shade stirred. The Dragon King immediately glanced down at the hooded figure and Valea could not help but instinctively do the same. Only after she had done so did she sense that the Crystal Dragon had tricked her.

  Sure enough, the enchantress was once more alone with Shade.

  His eyes opened, eyes that remained the one thing still marking him as other than merely human. In their own way, Valea thought that they sparkled more than the cavern walls.

  He did not look at her. Instead, Shade stiffened, then thrust one gloved hand before his gaze.

  “Safe . . . ,” he muttered bitterly. “For a time.”

  Then, as if with that fear his senses came alive, he looked in her direction.

  “Valea Bedlam.” Shade’s tone was flat, unrevealing of his true thoughts. “Of course. It was you who interfered.”

  Unsure how to take his words, she grew defensive. “You attacked the Gryphon!”

  “I meant him no harm. Allowed to proceed to its conclusion, it would have merely left him asleep.” He pushed himself to a sitting position, then winced. “I cannot say what will happen to him now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He ignored her, instead turning to the walls. “I should thank you, I suppose.”

  Valea knew it was the Dragon King to whom he spoke. She waited, but the drake did not respond.

  “He was here, wasn’t he?” the sorcerer finally asked her.