Legends of the Dragonrealm: Shade

by Richard A. Knaak

  He hoped that would be enough.

  They maneuvered into the older parts of the necropolis. The carved faces, the etched names . . . everything in this section had all but worn away with age. Still, Shade recognized a burial here and there, kings with whom he had dealt during one lifetime or another. He even suddenly recalled when one of the mausoleums had been new and the young prince who had been his friend had buried both parents, slain by the dark magic of the sorcerer himself. The young prince would nearly die a few days later when he discovered that the Shade he knew had perished some weeks before and had been resurrected once more, this time with evil purpose in mind.

  It was good I thought enough of you to give you the means to kill me in advance, Ioldus, Shade thought, recalling the young prince’s name. And better that you did not hesitate to use it immediately upon realizing the dread truth . . .

  So many people had succeeded in killing him over the millennia. It was a shame to Shade that so many others had died because of him. In his eyes, the scale could never be balanced.

  “Here,” the Crystal Dragon announced without preamble.

  The vault entrance before which they stood was near to crumbling despite the obvious care with which workers had tried to maintain it. The name over the arch had been reduced to a few worn bumps.

  “Fedryn Antilun,” Shade whispered.

  The enchantress looked at him in surprise. “You can make that out?”

  “No.”

  He watched her expression change as it dawned on her what his short answer implied. Even having grown up with his legend, Valea Bedlam did not entirely fathom just how long his curse had been going on.

  The Dragon King ignored both of them. He moved his free hand to the side and the iron gate—a more recent renovation—swung aside with only a slight squeak.

  “We’re going inside?” Valea asked with discomfort.

  “In part,” was all the Dragon King would say.

  The trio descended. Rotted torches hung in rusted metal. Despite the obvious dampness, the torches erupted into illuminating flame as the Crystal Dragon passed. Shade was unimpressed by the theatrics, although he could not help feeling that they were directed at him, not Valea at all.

  Why do you continue to play with me, Dragon King? This is more than simply a constant display of your “superiority.”

  At the bottom of the steps, a short passage led to where King Fedryn, an earnest if naïve ruler, lay buried. However, the drake lord did not move on, but rather indicated a stone wall on their right.

  “This wall was not carved by the same artisans,” Shade commented before the Crystal Dragon could say so.

  “Part of something much older,” the Crystal Dragon said. “Much older.”

  Shade knelt, then placed one gloved hand against the ancient carving. He, who had lived and died so many times, could sense the vast age in the work. “This is the work of the founding race.”

  “Those with no name . . . thus far,” the bearded figure said. The disguised Dragon King held the stone toward the carving. The iridescence grew noticeably stronger.

  “Like to like.” Shade straightened.

  The flames from the nearest torches shot out and surrounded Shade and the Crystal Dragon. They bound the pair like strong bonds.

  “Valea!” Cabe Bedlam’s voice echoed through the passage. “Come to me!”

  Whether it was due to the spell cast upon her by the drake lord or her own volition, the enchantress made no move. Shade struggled to overcome the magic trapping him and felt the Dragon King attempting the same. While he concentrated on the flames, the sorcerer wondered how the wizard had known they would be in the region. Had Queen Erini sensed them after all, or had Cabe himself set some secret alarm up?

  But why would he even consider doing that? Shade dropped all interest in the reasons; he felt the first slight unraveling of the wizard’s spell. Just a few moments longer.

  “Father! I can’t!” She gestured at the Crystal Dragon, who remained in his illusionary form despite his entrapment. “He has—”

  But in bringing attention to the third member of their party, she utterly lost her father’s attention. The wizard stared at the burly human figure and growled, “You!”

  The false face of the drake lord twisted into an expression that confounded Shade. The Crystal Dragon let out a hiss. He brought the stone up to the flames.

  The flames dissipated. The Dragon King reached for Shade.

  A tremor shook the tomb. It was clear to Shade that it was the work of neither Cabe nor the drake.

  The walls began to close in. The ceiling cracked. As the tremor increased, Shade also suffered an odd sensation, as if his magical abilities had been muted.

  The land! The sorcerer was certain he had identified the true culprit, although that in no way helped now. The land had moved more aggressively this time, striking even at his power. One way or another, it hoped to bury those seeking to end its desires for the Dragonrealm.

  A figure stepped down behind Cabe. The pale-haired young man carried a short staff with an eagle on it. Shade assumed he was Master Roe.

  “Master Bedlam! The entire necropolis is shaking! The guards are having trouble reaching us.”

  Master Roe’s eager intervention bought the Dragon King the moment he needed. He grasped Shade by the shoulder. Shade felt the energies of the stone flow through him from the drake.

  The tomb vanished—or rather, Shade and his companions did.

  They did not find peace in their new destination, for the moment the landscape defined around them, the ground shook with even more intensity. Shade rolled uncontrollably. He could not hear or sense the others; all he knew was that in addition to being tossed about, the sorcerer was also half-smothering from heat.

  And that finally identified their destination as the Hell Plains.

  A long roar all but deafened him. It came from no beast, but rather a volcanic crater not all that far from where they had landed. Shade realized how fortunate they were; they could have just as easily landed in the crater or in the lava flow a short distance to the north.

  Managing to stop his roll, the sorcerer searched for Valea and the Dragon King. He spotted Valea fighting to stand. Risking a simple spell, Shade transported himself to her.

  He reached her just as she fell. Shade caught her in his arms.

  “Where’s the Dragon King?” she shouted.

  The Crystal Dragon was nowhere to be found. Shade focused on the unique properties of the stone but could sense nothing specific. A wide crevice stretched a few yards to the west. Shade wondered if the Dragon King had fallen in, but the hot gases rising from that location prevented even him from getting too near.

  “We must leave here!” he shouted.

  “I—” Valea hesitated despite the danger. “No! He’s very near! I can’t leave him!”

  Her odd concern for the Crystal Dragon troubled him. He stared into her eyes but could read no subtle geas the drake might have cast upon her. “The Dragon King has brought this on himself!”

  “No! Not him!”

  Something crossed over them, briefly leaving a shadow. Fearing a red dragon, Shade prepared a defensive spell even as he looked up.

  There was no dragon, but something at the corner of his vision made the sorcerer forget his spell. For just the briefest of moments, Shade could have sworn that he saw—

  “He’s this way!” the enchantress shouted, interrupting his thoughts. She tugged him to the east, a path too near to the lava flow in his mind.

  The silhouette of a ruined structure rose well ahead. Shade felt a familiar tingle of warning as Valea continued to lead him in that direction.

  The outline took on more sharpness. Shade’s wariness magnified.

  It was as he feared . . . the remains of Azran Bedlam’s citadel.

  He pulled Valea to a halt. “Not this way.”

  “Yes! This way! I can feel him near! Darkhorse is near!”

  “Darkhorse?” The sorcer
er concentrated. Barely, just barely, he finally sensed the eternal’s presence somewhere in that direction. Yet, the trace was so diffuse that he could see why he had missed it.

  “The Crystal Dragon has something to do with this,” she said. “When we were near him, I heard Darkhorse calling out. He must’ve sensed me.”

  And likely sensed me, too, but chose you as the safer hope, Shade thought wryly. “You say the Dragon King had him?”

  “I know it sounds impossible.”

  “No.” In truth, it made perfect sense in more ways than one to Shade. The drake lord had seized Darkhorse not only because he stood as a potential threat, but also because he had probably had some plan to use the shadowy stallion against the sorcerer.

  And that the Crystal Dragon had secreted Darkhorse near—or more likely on—him did not startle Shade, either. There were methods, including ancient ones.

  “He has a Vraad device, a foul creation.” Shade grew more troubled. “The Dragon King is well versed in the distant past of this world. Very well versed.”

  But Valea was not listening to him. Instead, she turned slightly and started toward an area just to the north of the ruins. “Here! He’s very close!”

  Shade could just barely sense that also. He was impressed but not surprised by her abilities. She had inherited much from her illustrious parents.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the crumbling citadel. There was no hint of the dark power of his cousins, but foul energies already saturated this area thanks to Azran’s insidious experiments over the course of two centuries.

  “Darkhorse should be here,” Shade heard Valea say with growing confusion. “Almost exactly where we are.”

  Once more, the sorcerer’s own search only verified what she said. It was as if Darkhorse was utterly shielded from their normal senses.

  “Serkadion Manee!” Shade blurted, an old Vraad exclamation slipping from his lips as the truth—the astonishing truth—began to dawn on him.

  “Valea, keep your focus on Darkhorse. Imagine only him. Think of nothing else.”

  He expected hesitation from her, but she accepted his suggestion immediately. The enchantress shut her eyes and did not even open them when Shade put his fingers to her temples. That said much, considering how she had encountered him in Penacles.

  “Concentrate only on Darkhorse,” he repeated, his own senses divided between their efforts and his concern that some power might strike while they were fixed on seeking the eternal. The Lords of the Dead were surely monitoring their efforts. They wanted the tower.

  But it could all be for naught. Where is the Dragon King?

  Valea’s thoughts suddenly intruded on his as their efforts melded. Shade felt an odd discomfort at the linking even though he had instigated it.

  Darkhorse . . . Her call echoed through his mind. Darkhorse . . .

  A shadow passed over the pair again.

  Shade nearly broke contact with her as he sought to discover what was stalking them. Yet there was no magical signature that he could note; it was as if the shadow were a figment of his imagination.

  Valea Bedlam . . .

  The faint call tore his attention back to the enchantress. A slight smile touched her expression. Shade could not help but admire her at that moment. Yes, there were hints of Sharissa in her even after so many generations, but what drew him now had nothing to do with the Vraad sorceress. He had seen and known enough about Valea Bedlam to understand her.

  Valea . . . , Darkhorse called again.

  “So near,” she murmured to Shade.

  He agreed. Why, then, could they not locate the eternal, unless the warlock’s suspicions about their quest were all fact, after all?

  The shadow passed by again. Shade had no choice but to break contact and thus break the spell.

  “What happened?” Valea cried.

  “Down!”

  As she dropped to her knees, Shade spun in the direction where he had last seen the shadow. Always it was at the corner of his eye, but more and more it had a disturbing familiarity that reached into the darkest part of Shade’s soul, assuming that he still had one.

  “Not you . . . ,” he growled under his breath, grateful that the volcanic eruptions drowned out his words. “Never you. What were they thinking, the fools, to ever bind you?”

  The ground shook, but this time not because of any tremor. Tons of rock and dirt shot into the air.

  What burst forth was not molten earth but rather a gaunt, gigantic form. It was the skeleton of the predecessor of the current Dragon King, but the drake’s spirit did not animate it. Rather, a more malicious spirit now drew the bones together as if they lived.

  “I still feel him!” Valea shouted. “Darkhorse is closer than ever!”

  The cracked skull veered toward Shade. The hollow eye sockets burned into the sorcerer’s own eyes.

  Well . . . my little brothers . . .

  Shade stood there, trying to deny what his senses insisted he could not.

  “Shade!” Cabe’s daughter seized his shoulder. “Give me your help!”

  He did so without hesitation even though the skeleton was descending on them. He did so because he suddenly realized that he had as much faith in Valea as she had had in him a few moments earlier.

  The animated bones stretched closer. The spirit controlling them was very strong, but it had been millennia since it had worn any sort of flesh.

  Without warning, a brilliant light burst forth from behind Shade and his companion. A fearsome gust buffeted the sorcerer, but it had even more effect on the skeleton. The dragon’s bones shook. Several smaller ones fell away. The spirit within roared his anger.

  He never liked any interference in his hunts, Shade recalled even as he struggled to stay with Valea. Shade managed to turn and finally see the source of the brilliance.

  There was a hole in the air.

  What seemed bright sunlight burned through that hole, a literal tear in the empty air. The hole opened just a yard above the ground and had already spread more than twice that across.

  “He’s there! He’s there!”

  Shade did not know if what she said was true. He only knew that they had to enter the hole. Not only was it the one avenue of escape from the skeleton—the magic gathering around the behemoth at that moment made any teleportation spell too risky—but Shade wanted very much to see what was on the other side, whatever danger might lurk there.

  And he very much wanted to get away from his dear brother.

  “Hold tight!” Shade seized Valea by the waist. He gestured at the ground beneath them.

  The earth shot up, carrying them through the hole.

  With another roar, the skeletal dragon dove toward them.

  The hole exploded.

  XVIII

  THE WIZARD’S PLOY

  CABE BEDLAM HAD GONE to Talak to speak with the queen, only to find her missing. None of the ministers and attendants could answer as to her whereabouts, but he quickly found that both her children had been left under the care of not only trusted personnel but extremely powerful defensive spells that indicated some sort of emergency.

  But before the wizard could find out, he had sensed his own daughter very near.

  Cabe had been to the necropolis before and knew Master Roe. Before entering, he had quickly located the groundsman—a term that hardly covered the sacred duties of the man—and pressed him for any information on the area where Valea appeared to be.

  “Part of the oldest section,” Roe had explained. Although far younger than the mage, Roe now looked slightly older. Still, he retained his earnestness. “If there’s any damage to those ancient places . . . the sacrilege . . .”

  Cabe transported both of them to the gates, only to discover that the guards had already admitted “Master Roe” and two others but a short time before.

  Both Erini and Melicard away when this happens . . . Cabe did not believe in coincidence anymore. That had happened shortly after the Dragon Kings had first tried to slay
him years ago.

  Master Roe wanted to go charging in first, but once they were within sight of the area, Cabe took the lead.

  The open gate into the crypt was an ominous image, more so because there were muted magical traces from below, ones that had a familiar signature.

  Shade was with Valea, but who was the third?

  Ordering Master Roe and the guards to remain aboveground, Cabe had entered. There, to his greater horror, he had confronted his daughter, Shade, and a mysterious bearded man.

  Only, the illusion had hardly fooled the wizard. A moment’s powerful focus had penetrated the disguise to enable him to see what lurked beneath.

  The Crystal Dragon.

  Cabe had encountered most of the drake lords over the years, including this most enigmatic one. In fact, in being forced to ally with the Crystal Dragon to fend off an invasion by the wolf raiders, the wizard had discovered the Dragon King’s deepest, most stunning secret.

  And seeing Shade next to the drake lord had revealed that it was a secret even the warlock did not know.

  There had been no time to deal with revelations. Cabe had reacted as best he could. The mage had tried to draw Valea to him, but some spell bound her to the vicinity of Shade. Before he could do more, the trio had vanished.

  Unable for the moment to locate the trail, Cabe had chosen to hunt Erini down and find out what had happened that would draw her from Talak.

  What he did not expect was to find the tragic scene before him.

  Melicard gently held his bride in his arms even as someone tried to deal with a severe wound in the king’s back. The area was saturated with magical residue and the aftereffects of some fire, though the scorch marks indicated the flames had been guided.

  Having only left the king a short time ago, the wizard was dumbstruck. “What happened here? Erini—”

  “She’s dead, Bedlam! Dead!” Tears streamed from Melicard’s real eye and to the wizard’s gaze even from the false one. “Those foul necromancers did it! Two men—two undead men—tried to assassinate me. Erini—Erini must’ve sensed it! She came here even though my men had them under control.” He choked. “Thought they had them under control.”