More and more, Mal Quorin bothered her. There were times when he moved much like the creature he resembled and others when he made more noise than a full honor guard. He was also her enemy, that much was now completely evident, and she did not doubt that he might even turn to violence. The counselor had no desire for the king to marry, likely because he feared Erini’s influence might some day overshadow his own.
Despite her lapses, the princess had no intention of folding up like the heroines of the storytellers. Come an endless army of demons and Mal Quorins, she would still mend the rift between Melicard and herself and, in the process, find out what had truly happened behind that garden door.
If it also meant giving in to her own curse, so be it.
IN THE ETERNAL darkness of what had once been the throne room of the Dragon Emperor, a searing light burst into life, flooding the entire chamber in its bloodred brilliance. Things that were not entirely of this world, things that had once obeyed the will of the Gold Dragon, scurried back into the safety of cracks and fissures where the light did not reach.
Like a wisp of smoke, Shade uncurled out of nothing and stepped forth into the ruins of the Dragon King’s lair.
This had once been the chamber in which the Dragon Kings met in council. There had been thirteen of them until the end of the Turning War, when Nathan Bedlam had succeeded in destroying the regal Purple Dragon who had ruled Penacles before the Gryphon. The council—and the unity of the drakes—had broken up for the final time with the madness caused by the discovery of Cabe Bedlam, Nathan’s grandson and successor, who carried a part of the spirit of the great Dragon Master within him. In this chamber, where some of the huge effigies of creatures long dead still stood despite all the violence that had passed through here, two drake lords, the battle-hungry Iron and his ever-present shadow Bronze, had paid for their rebellion against Gold. In this chamber, Shade had learned, Cabe Bedlam had defeated the Dragon Emperor, tearing his mind apart. Here also, it was said, Cabe and the Lord Gryphon had battled young Bedlam’s mad father, the sinister Azran.
Death is so very much a part of this place still, Shade thought uneasily. If there was a place that could unnerve him, it was here. As Madrac, he had forgotten that fear briefly, coming here and using the Dragon Kings themselves to further that incarnation’s goals.
Shade stood and scanned the cathedral-high ruins about him, marveling at the carnage for several seconds before finally deciding that enough time had been wasted. The warlock took two tentative steps toward what had once been the throne itself—
—and paused.
Though no one but the warlock himself would have been able to tell, Shade blinked. He studied the cavern again—and then for a third time. When that no longer seemed to satisfy him, he sought around for a safe place to sit. There, he stared into the darkness of an adjoining cavern and wondered…
… wondered why he had come here and why he had suddenly forgotten that reason.
V
DARKHORSE BURST FROM the portal at full gallop, all defenses ready. He did not stop until he was certain that Shade was nowhere near. It never paid to be too confident in the Dragonrealm, especially with the warlock, but still, he could sense nothing hostile within immediate range and decided it was safe to come to a halt.
A wave of sulfur drifted past his muzzle. Had he been less than he was, the treacherous smoke would have left him choking on the ground. Being Darkhorse, he noted it only for its pungent scent.
“The Hell Plains! How aptly titled!” the shadow steed muttered. It was actually more of a shout than a mutter, for even he found it difficult to hear his normally stentorian voice in a land where few minutes went by without some sort of volcanic eruption. All around him, the ground shook. Hills formed, burst open as molten rock was spewed forth, and then collapsed as some new crater redirected the flow. The very earth beneath the eternal’s hooves cracked wide and lava began to rise to the surface.
Darkhorse glanced down at the burning, liquefied rock and laughed. The lava licked at his forelegs, but it might as well have been the touch of a blade of grass. Mocking the power of the land with a swish of his thick tail, the phantom horse trotted to stable ground, the better to think.
He had been over a hundred places that Shade might choose to visit and none of those had been sought out by the mad warlock despite more than a day passing. More than a dozen times, Darkhorse had found himself tricked by false or old trails. Darkhorse did not feel defeated yet, but his options were diminishing.
The earth shook, alerting him to yet another crater forming beneath his hooves. Annoyed, the shadow steed began trotting north, toward the more stable regions of the Hell Plains. There was yet one place nearby that Shade might deem to visit. A place hidden from all during its master’s reign, but likely to be unprotected now.
Darkhorse kicked up the ash in frustration. He was running blind. He had no idea what Shade planned, where the warlock was, or if the spellcaster had already struck. His only hope was to come across his former comrade in a place of power such as the one he neared even now. Perhaps this time… he dreamed.
The birdlike skull of a Seeker went bounding into the air, kicked high along with the soot it had been buried under. Startled, Darkhorse came to a halt—but not before kicking up a mangled pile of bones that had come from more than one creature and more than one race.
The bones were jumbled together, the result of continual tremors and eruptions. Treading softly, the shadow steed discovered that they literally covered the earth, hidden from view only by a blanket of ash that had accumulated over the years. Memories of the past stirred. He recalled bits of news picked up concerning the fates of his friends and foes. It was as if time had not passed, for he had been battling the new, deadly incarnation called Madrac when these creatures had died fighting one another. Drake bones mixed freely with Seeker bones. The Seekers, the ancient avian masters of this land, had fought, not for themselves, but for the lord forced upon them, Azran Bedlam. They had died defending his citadel and, when even that was not enough to keep the hordes of the Red Dragon from his walls, Azran had destroyed the fiery legions and the Dragon King with his accursed demon blade. Darkhorse eyed the remains with clinical interest. This, then, was part of the battle site. He was closer than he had thought. The shadow steed puzzled over the remains and then looked up, openly curious.
This had to be the region where Azran’s sanctum was located—yet—it was nowhere to be found.
He stirred up more ash and bone as he searched the ground. There were a number of jagged hills and craters, but none massive enough to be what Darkhorse sought, unless… unless all that remained of the tower was—its foundation. The ancient structure, supposedly built by the Seekers to withstand time and the Hell Plains had to be no more than a ruin. It was the only answer and, if true, yet another failure on his part. Shade would never come here.
“Darkhorse, you are a vain, unmitigated fool!” He brought a hoof down on some unidentifiable bone, sending fragments and dust flying. He had been determined to do this alone because he felt the responsibility his. Shade was—had been—his friend. Shade’s exile had been the eternal’s doing and the warlock’s escape had been Darkhorse’s failure. Pride ruled the shadow steed as much as, if not more than, it ruled humanity.
A touch of latent power disturbed the edges of his mind.
“What have we here?” he rumbled. That which touched his thoughts was not living, not by any stretch of the imagination. It had the stink of death—no, it was death!—and it lay not too far from where he stood. Darkhorse, having few options of his own, followed the chilling trail.
Soon, Darkhorse found himself standing before a long, wide mound some two or three times the height of a normal man. The jet-black horse stepped up to the front edge of the mound and dug away at it with his hoof, not daring to unleash a spell in the vicinity of such a dark power. Darkhorse had no fear for himself, but he knew that careless action might very well rob him of his only possible chan
ce to find and stop Shade. That, of course, depended on what had sought him out. There were things in the Dragonrealm that even he hoped never to meet.
After a few moments, he uncovered the edge of a wall. It was true, then. Something, perhaps Azran himself, had stripped the ancient castle of its preservative spells. Age and the primitive fury of this cursed region had caught up to the citadel. From what he could see, Darkhorse guessed that an eruption had taken place not too far from the once magically protected grounds. In a few more decades, there would be little or nothing remaining of the lair of Azran.
Somehow, Darkhorse could not bring himself to weep for the loss of such a place. If the Hell Plains buried the evil memory of Nathan Bedlam’s treacherous foal, so much the better.
The touch of death returned. Shaking his head to remove the foul feeling, the stallion followed the trail left by the magical contact. Ash, mortar, and yet more bones flew as Darkhorse used the slightest touch of his own power to clear a path. One never knew what might be lurking beneath. The ground rumbled ominously; perhaps decades was too long an estimate. There might be nothing remaining in mere minutes.
He came across what had once been stairs leading down to a room, a room still protected by sorcery though the physical structure itself was no more than half a wall and several loose stones. Darkhorse paused only for a moment; then, spelling the ash away, he descended. The protective measures here were bound together with the same unearthly power that had reached out to him, which was why they still remained. Even if the entire region exploded in one massive eruption, this spot would go untouched. Darkhorse laughed, his challenge to what awaited him. He knew with what he dealt now.
His form passed through a spell that would have killed any mortal creature and several entities of lesser ability than he. As the tip of his tail passed beyond the deadly trap, the violent land of the Hell Plains ceased to be.
“I am unimpressed,” was his first comment as he surveyed the chamber he now stood in. “Typical of your masters, who have no imagination!”
How the room had looked before Azran’s death was questionable, though, knowing the necromancer’s madness, it had probably been much the same. Without Azran’s physical influence, however, control of this place had slipped back to the oppressive rulers of the Final Path, the beings known to men as the Lords of the Dead and other, in the eternal’s estimation, overly pretentious titles.
I wonder what humans would think if they knew that even these Lords must die at some time!
The odor of rotting flesh filled the chamber. Decaying forms, human and otherwise, littered the place. A pool of some brackish liquid—definitely not water—bubbled ominously. Darkhorse laughed again.
“Save your show for those who believe in it, Lords of the Overacting! You know that I have no fear of you! If I should ever perish, my ultimate destiny lies elsewhere, not in your slime-crusted fingers! If you have something to say to me, then do so! One who has cheated you over and over for millennia threatens the mortals—mortals who have not yet lived the lives that are their due! Well? Do I need to start dumping this refuse into your little puddle?” He prodded an unidentifiable mass covered with black flies toward the pool.
The bubbling grew violent, creating a green froth that swelled high. The pool became more agitated, waves lapping the floor. Something long, large, and blacker than Darkhorse briefly broke the muck-covered surface before disappearing again. The shadow steed watched all in total disinterest.
In the center of the pool, a new form slowly rose. Accurate description failed, save that it was a hodgepodge of rotting limbs, torsos, and heads combined in impossible ways. Eyes dotted its form, all of them staring at the phantom horse with more than a touch of fury. Several limbs pointed in Darkhorse’s direction.
“I feel no more pleasure in seeing your lovely face—faces, I suppose I should say!—than you feel in seeing mine! Come! Speak and we can be done with this—or are you going to pass along some unmanageable riddle like those you foist upon mortals who seek your—fools that they are!—guidance!”
“Child of the Void.” The voice grated, scratched, pierced—it did everything as far as Darkhorse was concerned. Despite the irritation it caused him, however, outwardly he revealed nothing. Let them play their little games out as long as they told him something of importance.
“Dweller Without.”
The shadow steed kicked the fly-covered corpse into the pool, which caused a flurry of bubbling as the scavengers sought unsuccessfully to escape their sinking home. Darkhorse focused an ice-blue eye on the guardian of the pool.
“Yesss, I have earned my share of pretentious titles as well! Second move to you, my pretty friend! Now, unless you concede this idiotic game and tell me what is so important, I will depart this godforsaken hole forever—but not before sealing it so that no one else has to put up with your stench!”
“Kivan Grath.” The guardian of the pool spit the name out, along with a number of tiny, vague pieces of matter that Darkhorse did not bother to try to identify.
“Kivan Grath?”
“The Seeker of Gods, demon horse.” It was the first understandable reply the thing had given him.
“I know what it is, but why—”
“Kivan Grath. Now.” Each of the numerous mouths formed into what Darkhorse could only vaguely accept as a smile. A smile of triumph. “Do not lose him again, unwanted one.”
The jet-black stallion met the guardian’s multiple gaze. “And how many times has Shade departed your domain without more than a nod of his head?”
The guardian did not respond to his retort, instead choosing that moment to sink back into the mire. Up to the very moment its head submerged, all eyes remained fixed on Darkhorse.
He bid the guardian, who may or may not have been little more than a puppet through which his masters had spoken, farewell with a mocking laugh that echoed throughout the chamber. Turning, the shadow steed kicked yet another moldering form into the grisly pool as he burst back through the magical veil and out into the Hell Plains.
Ascending to the surface, Darkhorse scanned the area with renewed interest. “Not so bad a place after all! Almost pleasant!”
His gaze returned to the stairway and the ruins of the chamber. Azran’s pool lay in some space between the mortal plane and the lands of the dead, a brilliant piece of sorcery. Almost indestructible, too.
Almost.
“Some doors are too dangerous to leave opened,” he finally decided.
The black emptiness that was his form melted, changed. Like the molten rock flowing from the craters, the inky darkness streamed down the broken steps, pressing with purpose toward the magical doorway. As it enveloped the physical portal, a brief touch, a brief moment of protest, tapped at the edges of Darkhorse’s consciousness. He ignored it and, as the magic which had created the portal was absorbed within him, the protest faded.
The shadow steed re-formed himself at the top of the stairs. At the base of those stairs was now a clean, flat surface. Other than the steps, there was no sign that there had ever been a portal. Indeed, there was not even a trace of the room remaining.
Kivan Grath. Most majestic of the Tyber Mountains. The name was familiar to Darkhorse and he cursed himself for not having searched there earlier. Lair of the Gold Dragon, long dead. The caverns within Kivan Grath were endless and they predated even the Seekers. Was it possible that one of Shade’s rediscovered memories had sent him searching in those caverns?
Darkhorse paused. The rot-riddled masters of human mortality had given him a clue, but did he dare trust it? They cared nothing for him and that feeling was returned to them twofold. Why, then, were they aiding him? Was there something greater they feared, should the warlock remain free?
Again, he contemplated seeking out Cabe Bedlam, the one mortal who might be of help, and again the painful belief, that he was responsible for Shade, kept him from doing so.
The guardian had indicated that speed was of the essence and Darkhorse, knowing
he had already stalled longer than he dared, opened a path through reality. This time, he would find Shade. This time, there would be no exile.
ONLY ONE SENTRY guarded the room where Erini guessed Drayfitt had been deposited. He stood at the doorway, a bored look on his rough features, his hand on the pommel of his sword. In the palace royal of the king of Talak, no one expected trouble. That, despite what had happened to the old sorcerer.
What exactly she planned to do, the princess could not say. Her ideas had gone no farther than locating Drayfitt and she was chagrined to realize she had no notion as to how to proceed now. Of what use would sneaking past the sentry be, always assuming that Erini could do even that, if success only meant confronting the unconscious spellcaster?
She was turning away, defeated for the moment, when she heard the sound of a door opening and the voice of the guard raised high in surprise. Erini, positioned down a side corridor, glanced back in time to see the sentry’s face glaze over as a determined Drayfitt stared into his eyes. The sorcerer had an odd look in his own eyes, a fanatical gaze that somehow did not fit the elderly man’s appearance. It was almost as if he, like the soldier, were under a spell.
Drayfitt wasted no time. Like a man possessed, he hurried down the hall—toward the corridor where Erini still stood. Quickly, she looked around for some place to hide, not wanting to chance the same fate as the hapless sentry. Sighting a stairway leading downward, the princess scurried over to it. She rushed halfway down and paused, hoping to hear the sorcerer as he passed.
A horrible thought occurred to her. If Drayfitt was returning to the garden, his quickest way to reach it was the very stairway she was standing on. Erini took several steps down and then paused. By now, Drayfitt should have been descending behind her, yet, his footsteps were growing fainter. She waited a moment longer and then slowly made her way back up. No sorcerer barred her way. The princess reached the top of the stairs and looked around. The elderly man was gone.
Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. II Page 6
