“Accept it, princess. You have no choice.”
She didn’t. Erini wanted to destroy, to tear her own body apart and remove the cancerous thing from her soul. Shade’s commands prevented all but the weakest resistance. This was the essence of the power that the warlock’s kind had utilized in that nameless hell they had been—forced?—to leave. It was alien to the Dragonrealm, following different, twisted laws of nature that should not—could not—exist here.
There is a way around that.
The thought was not her own, but rather one of Shade’s imprinted instructions, rising forth, now that its task was at hand. It felt like something almost alive, as if it had been imbued with a tiny piece of the Vraad’s being.
There are points of binding, places where the two realities may be joined. You have only to look.
Joined. They had to be joined. Erini saw that now. It was the only possible way to keep herself from suffering a similar fate to that which Shade had suffered, if not something worse. Either force within her was capable of scattering her body and mind beyond the reaches of forever. If she was to have any chance to survive, she would have to do as her captor’s instructions indicated.
Of course you do, the piece of Shade reminded her. Erini wondered if it was her own mind that made it seem so much alive and, if so, was she going mad?
You have a task. Do it.
That was the only truth she did have at the moment. With growing disgust, she accepted the foreign sorcery completely into her being. In her imagination, it seemed to squirm like a worm trying to burrow deeper. Erini almost rejected it then, but knew that, by doing so, she would condemn herself. What sort of world had the Vraad come from, and how could they possibly be the ancestors of the humans alive today? There were hints of those answers now and then, vague, ghostlike images that danced around her, almost distracting her from the horrid task. None of them were distinct and Erini felt some relief at that. Despite her wonder, these were things she actually had little desire to learn about. They all bore the same stench as the sorcery.
See the points. Take them and marry them to their counterparts. Here. Here. Here.
This part of her task seemed almost laughingly simple now, though she knew that here was where Shade had originally begun his downward spiral to damnation. Erini could not see why. The points her mind saw met willingly with one another. Perhaps it was, as the warlock had indicated, only because she was the vessel—or rather the catalyst—and not the final recipient of the spell’s outcome. She had only one purpose, not several as he had had.
While a portion of her consciousness worked automatically, having no choice to do otherwise, Erini found a change occurring throughout her mind, throughout her very soul. The princess could no more deny the transformation than she could her earlier acceptance of the alien sorcery. After a few seconds—perhaps minutes or even hours, she could not say—Erini even began to welcome the change. Her perspective grew and grew and her comprehension of what her world was truly like expanded until Erini felt she was the Dragonrealm, the vast eastern continent, the smaller southern continents, the islands, the seas… everything.
Shade’s spell became a secondary thing to her, something that had to be done but that did not require more than a trace of her concentration. All events, all people, became known to her. Unconsciously, Erini focused on Talak and her betrothed.
It was there before her gaze, a thought came to life. The drakes were within striking range of the city. The princess gained some perspective on how much time had passed, for the sun was already high and it appeared as if the first blows had already fallen. There were dead, drakes on the landscape between the Dragon King’s host and the city walls, and settlements unfortunate enough to have sprung up near the northern wall were little more than splintered wood and scattered articles. The inhabitants, she remembered, had been ordered in at some point before her kidnapping. There was also damage to the city itself. An aerial assault, some corner of her mind told her. It sounded astonishingly like her grandfather, general-consort to her grandmother, the queen at that time. He had been dead for almost seven years. She studied the dragons. Something pierced their hearts. Something magic.
Melicard. Her view did not alter, for she saw all things at once, but the image of the king somehow was foremost among them. He was in the throne room, giving orders, caught up in the battle. A few of his men were injured and there was a sticky, dark fluid covering one of the walls. Erini belatedly noticed the sky where the ceiling had once been. A drake had nearly broken through all of their defenses. Somehow, though, the magical defenses of Talak—she could not recall if she had ever known about them prior to this—had been restored and, in fact, improved. The Dragon King would find Talak a costly victory.
Victory. It was still within the drake lord’s grasp. At the very least, Talak would be in shambles and most of its population would be dead. Another Mito Pica.
The two magics were nearly one now. Erini’s perspective altered again, this time in a puzzling manner. A bit worrisome, too, though that emotion was becoming less and less a part of her. The princess, despite the understanding of her world that she had gained earlier, could not fathom what was happening now. In some ways, it reminded her of how the world looked when the spectrum was visible to her. Like one image superimposed upon another. It was an apt comparison, she decided, but hardly one that explained what was overlaying the Dragonrealm and the rest like a shroud.
There were mountains where mountains should not have been. There were seas and rivers where only dry sand or lush forests existed now. Where Talak stood, another city, smaller in width yet stretching far higher into the heavens, also rose, ziggurats of Melicard’s kingdom fighting for supremacy with odd, twisted towers that ended in spearlike points. It was and was not the same world.
Though she felt life on this world, something warned her not to seek it out. Instead, she turned her inner gaze to the most fascinating and most chilling sight visible. The heavens themselves. The beautiful blue of her world had been replaced by a green of dark intensity. Not a green such as a leaf might be colored, however, but a green that reminded Erini of nothing more than rot. Decay. A world that was festering and had been festering for over thousands and thousands of years.
The world which Shade and the Vraad had abandoned for this one. A world they had made into this putrefying abomination.
This was the potential that Shade represented.
Without willing it, her view turned to the warlock himself. He knelt before her, enraptured by the progress of his spell, almost ready to accept the fruits of her forced labor. To her shock, she saw things about him she doubted even he had ever known. Not just his myriad incarnations, but what the distorted spell had done to his essence over the millennia. Shade was far from whole, far from untouched by the world to which his people had fled. He was possibly in a worse condition than he had been during the time of his previous incarnations—and he refused to see that.
She was astounded at his latent abilities. He had held back throughout all of this, the princess realized. In the hooded warlock was the potential to devastate a region larger than the Tyber Mountains themselves. Shade had hinted at the godlike powers of his kind, but the truth was far more overwhelming. It had only been his desire to complete his lifelong goal that had checked a madness that might have seen the Dragonrealm in complete ruins in less than a week. That and a tiny, nagging doubt—guilt, she correct herself—about what he was doing. There was more good in Shade than he realized. There had been more in the original, too. His own memories were playing him false.
This is a new form of incarnation, Erini concluded. Shade has not escaped his previous failure; he has become even more mired in it than before.
What would happen when his power increased a hundredfold?
Erini found she was growing beyond the point of caring. Her perceptions continued to expand. Soon, she would no longer be a part of her world, not in the true sense. This was the fate that Shade had su
ffered, but Erini would not be returning in any form. Shade’s variation on his original work would guarantee that. He would gain command of the powers he sought, but lose his vessel in the prospect.
What remained of Erini sought to fight that fate, but she lacked any weapon with which to do it. She did not have the concentration to strike back with her own insignificant talent—and what good would it have done, anyway? Shade would have dismissed any assault on a magical level with as much effort as what he needed to breathe.
Erini felt herself beginning to fragment. Her task was almost complete, but she would never see the outcome. The strain was too much.
She thought of Melicard, who would have no one to keep him from falling into the same darkness that he had lived within before her coming. His image, commanding his aides in the defense of Talak, flickered before Erini. She thought of her parents, who would never know what fate had befallen their daughter. Melicard seemed to fade as the king and queen of Gordag-Ai took precedence. Lastly, Erini thought of Darkhorse, a being she had known only for a short time, but with whom she felt a rapport, a bond.
Erini?
The image of Darkhorse strengthened. He stood, confused, in an area she recognized from its ungodly bleakness as the Northern Wastes. The cold and snow did not bother him in the least. Darkhorse remained where he was, his head cocked to one side, almost as if he were listening to-something.
Erini!
Had he sensed her? The novice sorceress was no longer certain she cared. Still, because of their bond, she acknowledged her presence to him.
Now he stood ready, seeking a direction in which to run. Erini! Where are you?
Where was she? “Everywhere” seemed the most appropriate response, but she knew that was not what the shadow steed meant. He was searching for her physical form.
A wave of urgency washed across her consciousness. Erini could not be certain whether it was a stray emotion of her own or one of Darkhorse’s, relayed somehow by their contact. Whichever was the case, she acted upon that urgency and allowed him to see, to experience, where she was.
The eternal grew very grim and shot back, I know where your are! Do not lose yourself! Keep a hold on your existence, Erini!
She lost track of him, then, for, to obey his instructions, on top of all else, the princess was forced to concentrate her remaining will on maintaining her essence. She was uncertain as to how long she could do this, for the intensity of the warlock’s spell was becoming more and more difficult to withstand. It would not be long, regardless of her efforts.
Erini wondered whether Darkhorse would find her in time—and whether even he now stood a chance against the powers of Shade.
In that part of her that was puppet to the warlock, the final binding was at last completed.
***
IN THE CHAMBER, below the watchful eyes of the effigies, a triumphant Shade, hood pulled low over his face, reached forth with those abilities at his command and prepared to at last accept what he felt was his due. The faces of Vraad he had known, most of them clan, others friends or, more often, foes, drifted in and out of his memories. He would have life eternal now, and power to make even those who watched over the Dragonrealm and the other lands, those would-be gods, acknowledge his mastery.
He would have a world to play with. No Vraad had ever had an entire world to play with.
Most of all, he would not die. The Vraad would not become a shadow of the past.
A presence oh so familiar to him forced the sorcerer from his dreams. He felt a barrier form about the princess.
“The last false trail has been removed, Shade! Come! Turn around and greet your old friend! Have you no words for Darkhorse—words that I may have them etch upon your crypt?”
The hooded warlock turned slowly toward his ancient adversary, his friend of old. “You took long enough getting here.”
Darkhorse stepped back anxiously, but not because he was frightened by the Vraad’s confident words. Of course, Shade had known the shadow steed would be coming. He would have expected nothing else. No, what disturbed Darkhorse was something that Shade from his angle, could not see—and, as a matter of fact, neither could the stallion.
Nothing met his gaze from beneath the deep hood save a blur that might have been a face.
XXII
THE DRAGON KING Silver hissed bitterly as he watched Talak fend off another assault. Somehow, the crippled vermin that fancied himself a ruler had overcome all obstacles placed before him, save the loss of much of his army. The drake lord glanced briefly to his right, where his human agent stood surveying the same scene with emotions that mirrored the Dragon King’s own. He had no idea why he was letting the creature Quorin live, save that he had a desire to prove to him, to prove to all of them, that he would take Talak if it cost every possible weapon and life at his command.
Shade was next. The alliance had been a fallacy, one the drake lord had thought he needed during a desperate moment and one that neither had followed from the first. The Silver Dragon wondered if the warlock knew yet that his curse had not been lifted. That had been obvious to him, but the arrogant warm-blood had been certain he was whole once more. The drake laughed, making those around him eye him discreetly while they tried to discern what it was their master found amusing at a time such as this.
Shade had taken his information from the mind of the sorcerer Drayfitt, knowing that the elderly spellcaster had studied the warlock’s book thoroughly. Unfortunately for Shade, Drayfitt had never seen some of the final notes. Though the drake lord had had to wait until the sorcerer’s translations of the other pages were passed on to him, that wait had been worthwhile. They had provided the dragon king with the basis of translating the remaining sheets, which were where he had successfully guessed the most valuable information had been written down. The pages contained clues to the foundation of Vraad sorcery and, by sheer coincidence, integral comments that the warlock had written about his original theories. Somewhere along the way, those notes had been forgotten by Shade. The Dragon King had ensured that they would remain forgotten until he could find some use for them.
Yes, Shade would be next… if there was anything left of him for the drakes to kill.
The Dragon King straightened and gave a signal to one of his dukes, a warrior whose clutch he himself had fathered. Most of those around him were his offspring, though none bore the markings of succession. They could never be heirs: All they could be were warriors who gave their lives for him—as they might do now.
The signal was what the main host had waited for. The Silver Dragon King knew what defenses were weakest now. He would throw everything he had at them. He had wanted Talak in one piece. A prize. Now, the drake lord did not care if one stone remained standing, even if it took the last of his force.
One of his offspring had argued that such an assault was madness, that it would only cost lives. His carcass was even now being digested by the Dragon King’s riding beast. No one else had dared speak out and no one else would ever dare hint that he was an incompetent ruler, that he had only thrived in the shadow of his more powerful brother, the Dragon Gold.
No one else would dare call him a coward.
There was no reasoning behind the last, but none was needed. A Dragon King was answerable to no one save himself.
They moved on Talak.
A BLUR.
The passage through the barriers between the Void and reality of the Dragonrealm had not reversed the spell Shade had unleashed. It had, evidently, altered it in such a way that there was no telling what would happen next. The period of sanity had been little more than a time of dormancy while the next phase of the warlock’s “disease” built up. From his manner, Darkhorse knew that his companion of old did not even realize what had happened. Shade still believed he was back to where he had started, that he was mortal, but whole.
What would this new spell do to him, then?
Erini, locked frozen in the final stage of Shade’s gambit, seemed to fade just a bi
t. Darkhorse turned his gaze back and forth, his fear for Erini, but his fury for the warlock. The female had little time remaining to her. Darkhorse’s quick action had bought her a delay, but how long that delay would be was questionable. He was forced to expend energy at a growing rate merely to keep the forces gathered within her in check. The ghostly steed had great doubts as to his ability to face Shade and still maintain that balance. He knew that, by rights, his first and foremost duty was to stop Shade at all costs… but that cost would include his benefactress.
Barely more than two or three breaths had passed since his arrival. Seeking to borrow time, he slowly replied to the warlock’s initial statement, “You expected me.”
“There was nothing planned that did not foresee your eventual success at tracking me down,” the faceless figure returned. Shade seemed entirely too much at ease. “Almost everything I have done was merely to maintain your curiosity and stubbornness until our final meeting.”
That caused Darkhorse to laugh. “There are few with the audacity to seek an audience with me—and you are foremost among them, my former friend and current nemesis!”
“That’s because I have nothing more to fear from you, eternal—Eternal!” Shade might have smiled; it was truly impossible to say. Watching him, Darkhorse actually pitied the warlock. To have come so close to escaping his endless curse… “I am one with you now, Child of the Void! I am immortal. I have succeeded at last.”
“Not yet, Vraad. The key is in the lock, but it has not yet turned.”
Shade said nothing, but Darkhorse suddenly became certain that the warlock did wear a smile.
Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. II Page 30
