One foolhardy male accepted the challenge, diving at Darkhorse with all four sets of claws ready. The shadow steed reared up and caught him in the chest with both hooves, smashing the creature’s rib cage with that single blow. The Seeker squawked and collapsed to the ground. Darkhorse looked up at the others and laughed mockingly at them.
Slowly, the Seekers began to organize. Several older ones flew up above the rest and, as Darkhorse watched suspiciously, they formed a small circle. The shadow steed smiled grimly. Think you that the air is safer?
Other Seekers tried to form a protective wall in front of the circle. Darkhorse allowed them to organize no further, leaping into the air and soaring toward the avians at a velocity that sent the defenders scattering in sudden panic. One slashed wildly with its claws, sinking its hand into the eternal’s body. Darkhorse absorbed him without noticing. Nothing would keep him from the circle.
He was halfway to them when, as one, they cocked their heads to one side and stared. Darkhorse knew then that he had underestimated the speed and ingenuity of the avians. That knowledge did him little good, however, as force buffetted him aside. He tried to counter it, but was then buffetted from another direction. One blow after another threw him back and forth across the sky. The constant battering made it impossible to think at all. Darkhorse cursed his own overconfidence and bravado. While he was struggling just to maintain some sort of defense, he knew that other Seekers would be preparing an attack of far more lethal measures than this.
A brilliant flash illuminated the heavens, sending all the Seekers into renewed confusion. Darkhorse heard shouts from below. Human and drake voices. The assault against him dropped abruptly as the members of the circle joined their retreating brethren. Darkhorse righted himself and gave chase, furious beyond the point of reason and more than ready to strike a few blows out of pure frustration.
He picked out one of the avians who had formed the circle and was probably one of the rookery elders. Even as he closed in on the creature, an image leaped to life in his head. Shade was in it, a tall and ominous monster whom the Seekers feared even more than they did the stallion. Darkhorse caught hints of a promise made and the results that failure would bring. There were random images of renewed glories and a land that the avians would have ruled again if they had succeeded.
I wonder what his draconian ally would say about such promises, Darkhorse thought as his prey continued its desperate, but seemingly hopeless escape.
The shadow steed slowed abruptly, soon letting the Seekers fly off into the night without further battle. For their failure to the rookery, many of them would pay dearly. For their failure to Shade, who had instigated this entire ploy, those who had sent this flock would also pay dearly—to the warlock himself. Darkhorse could think of no better justice than that. He turned, descending to the ground at the same time.
“Darkhorse!” a familiar and welcome figure cried out. Reforming himself into something more earthbound, the shadow steed touched earth just in front of the lord of the Manor.
“I’m glad you’re safe!” Cabe wrapped his arms briefly around Darkhorse’s neck, something that unnerved the eternal more than a hundred avenging Seekers would have. So open a display of affection for him was a rarity that he could count on one hoof. Several humans and drakes, who talked among one another like old friends, looked at their lord with renewed awe. After a decade they might be used to seeing many startling things, but how often did their great and powerful master greet a demonic horse with a simple hug?
Lady Gwen’s greeting was cordial, but far less affectionate. “You have our gratitude, Darkhorse. When you broke their spell and woke us with your voice, we realized what had happened to us. My only regret is that we could not capture or kill a few more of those arrogant birds! They sometimes make the Dragon Kings seem pleasant in comparison!”
“And make my company acceptable, is that it, Lady Bedlam?”
She grimaced, then nodded her head slowly. “Sometimes, dark one. Sometimes.”
“What happened to you, Cabe Bedlam?”
The young warlock scratched his head. His open honesty was a great contrast to the secrecy and moodiness of Shade. After a moment’s thought, Cabe smiled sourly and replied, “We’ve been living an idyllic life, thanks to the Seekers. They’ve had us taking walk after walk in the garden, playing with the children, relaxing, and,” Cabe glanced at his bride and reddened, “doing whatever else gave us pleasure and took our minds off of the world.”
Darkhorse laughed, but not at that. “What a fool I was! Never did it occur to me that the Seeker I pursued briefly might have some purpose for being so near! Now I see why I failed to find him, too! With my ‘self’ diminished and my impatience guiding me, I never noticed what they were about! They must have freed you briefly and in a subtle manner so that you would not be aware of what games they were playing! Tell me. Do you remember everything?”
Both humans nodded. Gwen added, “I can’t help feeling that Shade had something to do with all of this.”
“He did.” Darkhorse explained what he had picked up from the Seeker’s mind. There were benefits to the avians’ method of communication, but there were disadvantages, too. Seekers, when in dire straits, often emitted their thoughts so powerfully that spellcasters of some ability could pick up the images in their own minds. For Darkhorse, it had been even easier.
“What now?” Cabe wanted to know. “Somehow, I don’t think our original plan holds.”
Darkhorse nodded. “I would say not. If only I knew where Shade was and what he now intends to do! Drayfitt is dead, Cabe, and his final words, if they were not another ploy engineered by the hooded warlock, are a mystery that I must solve before very long! Shade was never one to be inactive!”
“One thing,” Lady Bedlam interrupted, “that we should still do is contact the Green Dragon. He may have some information for us or, at the very least, some suggestion.”
“You do that, then,” her husband suggested. “I want to check the area out. I want to make certain that there are no other surprises.”
“That leaves only myself.”
“What do you plan on doing?” Cabe asked the shadow steed.
“Return to Talak. If I am incorrect, things will be as they were when I—departed. If, however, things have gone the way I think they have,” Darkhorse stared at them and his eyes glittered coldly, “it may already be too late to save the city.”
XVI
SHADE STOOD STARING in open contempt at the putrefying column of mixed body parts and dripping ichor that was the guardian of this opening to the realms of the Lords of the Dead. He was not impressed. Not at all.
“Shoddy. I would’ve expected better of your masters. It appears that they, too, have fallen from the ranks of pure Vraad.” He waved his hand and the guardian, with a wailing sound, crumbled into its component parts. “Is that the best you could do?” he called out to the mire-filled pit. The cavern around him echoed his growing annoyance.
Tendrils of thought reached out to him, some contemptuous, some defensive, all of them a bit fearful. What had he accomplished in all his existence? What had he accomplished other than creating an endless game between the opposing poles of his existence?
The warlock smiled coldly. “Too true. That changes now. Your existence changes now. You have a bauble of mine that I require.” Protesting thoughts bombarded him, but he shook them off like droplets of water. “Don’t bandy words with me! Return to me the tripod. Now.”
Open fears now. Fears of control lost and rifts opened.
A sigh. “This world has changed you. Like all the rest. You are not worthy of the name Vraad. You are especially not, my cousins, worthy of the name Tezerenee.”
A breath, perhaps two, passed before a dark and unprepossessing object formed at the warlock’s feet. He picked it up and examined it thoroughly. It was, as he had termed it, a tripod perhaps a hand’s length high. A black sphere, no bigger than one of his pupils, rested securely on the top. Fin
ally satisfied, Shade thrust the artifact into the voluminous confines of his cloak.
“Thank you so very much,” he acknowledged with a mocking bow. “Having taken such great care of it, I can almost forgive you for stealing it from my workshop after my—death just doesn’t sound right, does it? My temporary displacement.” He started to fold within himself, then changed his mind. “I did say ‘almost forgive you,’ didn’t I?”
Panicked protests went unheeded as the warlock struck out.
When Shade at last left what remained of the cavern—and the now-ruined island that had once housed it—his thoughts turned immediately to the culmination of his millennia-long dream. Time was running out for him, he knew that. In two, maybe three centuries, his forcibly extended lifespan would reach its limit, but not with the normal aging results. The shadowy warlock knew what awaited him would be far worse, a last fifty or so years as a withered, decaying creature, a consciousness trapped alive in a dry husk. Only when the last vestiges of his earlier, more desperate spells dissipated would he be freed—freed to a death he had no desire to embrace. The others had given in to this world, let it master them, but not him.
He reentered the world in the emperor’s cavern, only to find it abandoned. The Silver Dragon had moved on with his campaign, likely fearing that whatever Shade had in mind for Drayfitt would upset his carefully laid plan. He had taken everyone with him. The Dragon King’s ideas had merit; planting a loyal human among his kind’s worst enemies and then manipulating that man into a position of great authority had been a plan worthy of a Vraad—and why not?
He dropped that line of thinking, deciding it was hardly worth his time now that his dreams were nearing fruition. He had mapped things out carefully in his mind, seeing where he had made his mistakes, reassuring himself of those results with the memories taken from the sorcerer Drayfitt. It had to work this time!
With the tripod returned to him, there was only one other item he needed, but it was the most integral component of all, outweighing even the artifact that he had taken back from the Lords of the Dead. The tripod was the means of summoning, something Drayfitt could never have known since it had not been in the notes, but it could not function as the focus, the means by which the powers would be drawn together, bound, and turned to his will. His prior mistake had been making himself that focus. Forced to both contain and bind them simultaneously, even he had failed. No, the only way for the enchantment to succeed would be to find something else to serve as a focus.
Something? Someone. It had to be a living entity, one with the open gift that made one a spellcaster. As untrained as possible and young, for the spell would tear at the lifeforce, eating it away. Untrained and young also because those minds were more susceptible to the sort of commands he needed to ingrain upon them. A child would be perfect. A child was malleable.
A child with the potential he sought would also be nearly impossible to find. Since the days of the Turning War, when the human mages had almost defeated the Dragon Kings, the latter had tried very thoroughly to assure that there would never be a second such war. They had missed Cabe Bedlam because of his grandfather’s interference. Likely they had missed others as well, since their control had slipped harshly after that near disaster. A long search might prove fruitful, but Shade knew that searching for an infant with latent abilities might very well consume more time than even he had.
There was one possibility, likely more, but he had found himself strangely reluctant to consider it. Memories of his addled past, the centuries of swinging back and forth between one mind or another, invaded again. A curse escaped his lips and a fissure suddenly burst into being in one of the cavern walls to his right. He paid it no mind. Breathing deeply, the warlock buried the alien thoughts and memories. It was not the first time he had done so, but he swore silently that it would be the last.
He had sworn so more than a dozen times this one day alone. Each time, they had returned stronger than before. Care. Guilt. Friendship. Unbecoming memories for one of his stature. Feelings for those who were not Vraad.
That settled it. He would hesitate no more. Not with so perfect a focus awaiting him. One whom the family would not even notice was missing, if he could help it. The last thought gave him a feeling of benevolence, like a master taking good care of his pets. For their sacrifice, they deserved that much. It would be as if the boy no longer existed.
Still, a tiny shadow of guilt lingered on.
MELICARD.
Erini stirred, her eyes slowly focusing on the darkened corridor. Her mind, a sluggish mire of self-disgust and defeat, refused to clear. She closed her eyes again. Melicard’s visage was the only thing she could think about with any success. Her image of him had a strange quality to it, almost as if he were actually before her, propped up against the opposing wall. She saw him as unconscious. Dirt and blood streaked his face and—Erini choked—someone had torn the elfwood mask from his face, revealing the torn and burnt flesh that would never heal. She did not have to see his arm to know that the false one had been removed as well. It was a wonder he was still alive.
Still alive? The odd thought brought clarity to her clouded mind. Why would she think such a thing about her own imaginings? Why would she subscribe reality to delusion? Yet, there was something about the images, a continuity that seemed too real to be her own doing.
Could it be?
Erini tried to concentrate on his face, but that only made it less substantial, more that of a phantom than a living person. The princess thought quickly, recalling her state of mind. Leave her mind open? Let it happen naturally? Melicard’s features were already almost invisible, little more than a true memory. Erini settled back and dreamed of Melicard the man. Where was he and what was he doing? She thought about him, but not at him. That, she hoped, was the key. If Drayfitt had only had the chance to teach her…
Melicard’s face, which had been solidifying, dwindled away again. The princess quickly dropped all thought of the dead sorcerer. It was all to easy to let one’s imagination turn to other things, even in times of a crisis.
Slowly, the picture of her betrothed returned to full clarity. It was almost as if, with her eyes closed, she could actually reach out and touch him. She saw the blood from his wounds, the bruises on his face and body. Mal Quorin’s ogres had not been kind to him. Another thing the counselor would be called to account for—if Erini survived this terror.
She had, without thinking, reached out in an effort to ease his pain. The Melicard in her mind suddenly stirred, as if waking. The princess, startled, lost her concentration. Melicard’s image faded away, this time permanently. Try as she might, Erini could not make it return.
He was alive! Battered and wounded, but Melicard was alive! New life surged through the princess despite all that had happened. As long as he was alive, there was reason to hope. Erini straightened into a standing position and gazed around her, finally realizing that more of Quorin’s men might come pouring down one end of the hall or the other before very long. It was a wonder they had not already—unless there were other things on their minds. Like Captain Iston. Possibly loyal guard units, too. The suddenness of this coup could not have been completely planned. Despite the counselor’s attitude earlier, there was too much evidence that all was not well in hand. Another sign of hope, as far as she was concerned.
What mattered now, Erini decided grimly, was to find Melicard. She could not draw Iston and his men into this. Two of them had already died on her behalf when she could have saved them. Her powers, the princess was slowly coming to realize, were as potentially beneficial as they were detrimental; it was her own attitude that determined which way she went. If she could turn her abilities to finding the king and overwhelming the rebels… The thought of a stunned and grovelling Quorin made her smile with dark pleasure.
How do I find him? came the unbidden thought. What little she recalled of the image had revealed a place far from the elegant rooms of a mighty king. More likely, he was in the lower dep
ths of the palace, a dungeon or something. Unfortunately, Erini had a fair idea of how immense that network of underground passages and chambers was. She did not have the time to search everywhere and her attempts to recall Melicard’s presence had, thus far, failed miserably.
There remained one option, then, that promised hope. It was the only possibility her mind could dream up. Given rest and some peace, the princess might have been able to devise something less daring, less risky. Time, however, was something she had already used up too much of. No, her only choice was to follow through with her decision.
She would simply ask someone where the king was held.
Drawing herself together, Erini stepped quietly down the corridor in the direction opposite that of where her loyal defenders had wanted her to run. Iston’s stronghold—she wanted to know more about how that had come about—was probably watched by too many of Quorin’s men. What she wanted was a lone sentry or two left to guard some secured hall. She would probably find such a place deeper in the sections of the palace that the treacherous advisor had under his control. Erini also suspected that, given Quorin’s way of doing things, it was where she would be nearest to Melicard.
The nagging fear that her plots were all askew never left her during the entire nerve-wracking journey.
In the dark, Talak’s royal palace proved to be quite a maze. Matters were not helped by her own lack of familiarity. Erini only hoped that by trying to keep a parallel course as much as possible, she would not lose herself in the vastness of the ancient structure. The palace of the king and queen of Gordag-Ai seemed almost like a cottage in comparison to the monstrous creation the princess was now forced to wander.
When she finally found what she sought, Erini hesitated. There were two of them, tall, ugly, and armed with blades longer than her legs, it seemed. The princess cursed herself for being so stupid as to not have taken one of the weapons scattered on the floor by her unfortunate attackers. Better still, a sharp, thin blade like the one the elder of her two defenders had utilized. That was a weapon she could use properly.
Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. II Page 22
