Frostborn: The Broken Mage (36 page)

“Ardrhythain’s staff can hold the shadow of Incariel at bay,” said Shadowbearer. “A useful trick, to be sure, but there are other forms of magic. This, for one, a simple spell I learned long ago.” He turned to face Ridmark, the red coat swirling around him. “The Keeper could break it. Either one of your pet sorceresses could dispel it. But the Keeper is dead, alas, and neither one of your sorceresses can act.” 

Ridmark heaved against the invisible spell, but it held him in place like a plank pinned by iron nails. 

“Do you wonder why I told you all that?” said Shadowbearer, stepping closer. Ridmark saw his reflection in the ancient archmage’s quicksilver eyes, the black veins pulsing and throbbing beneath the corpse-pale skin. It was not blood that flowed through Shadowbearer’s veins, but shadow, the raw darkness of Incariel, the same darkness the dvargir commanded, the same darkness that the Enlightened of Incariel wielded and spread through Andomhaim like a poison. “Did you wonder why I was so forthcoming, spilling all my secrets into your inquisitive ears?” 

Ridmark could say nothing, pinned in place by Shadowbearer’s magic. 

“Because this is the end,” said Shadowbearer, stepping so close that Ridmark could have struck with his staff. “Is there such a thing as destiny? Even I do not know, not after all these millennia. Yet if there is, you had a mighty destiny upon you, Ridmark the Gray Knight. Every step upon your path, your journey to Urd Morlemoch, the defeat of Mhalek, the death of your wife, your long quest in the Wilderland…all of it has brought you here, to bring back the Keeper to the realm of Andomhaim.” 

Shadowbearer leaned closer, his quicksilver eyes glimmering, shadow veins pulsing and writhing beneath his skin. 

“A destiny can be stolen, Ridmark of the Arbanii,” said Shadowbearer in a quiet voice. “Subverted. Perhaps God ordained a destiny that you would bring the Keeper to Andomhaim again. Instead you have brought about the Keeper’s death, carried the soulstone into my grasp, and supplied me with a means of empowering the stone.” He waved a negligent hand in Morigna’s direction. “Such good work you have done me.” Shadowbearer strode away, gesturing with his free hand, and blue fire, harsh and stark, burned to life over his palm. “But you are too dangerous to leave alive. Far too dangerous. Such havoc you have wrought, and the chaos you bring might turn against me once more.”

“Ridmark!” shouted Morigna, forcing the words through the shadowy tendrils binding her. 

“As for your companions,” said Shadowbearer, “the Mhorites think that I am Mhor, their precious little sham of a blood god. They have done me good service. Should they not offer up blood sacrifices to Mhor?” He smiled again and turned back to Ridmark. “Let us set an example for them.”

He pointed, the blue fire brightening, and Ridmark struggled one last time against the invisible force. A lance of blue fire burst from Shadowbearer’s free hand, bright and harsh.

It shattered against a dome of pale white light.

Suddenly the force holding Ridmark vanished. He lost his balance and fell, rolling to one knee. The dome of pale light spread through the Vault, shattering the tendrils of shadow, the cords of darkness snapping and unraveling like overstressed ropes. Ridmark got to his feet, the staff in both hands, and prepared to attack. Yet Shadowbearer retreated backwards, his eyes narrowed, the blue fire shining harsher and hotter around his free hand. His attention was not on Ridmark, yet Ridmark was nonetheless certain that Shadowbearer would kill him in an instant if he moved. 

He saw the others get to their feet, saw the Mhorites recover themselves, Mournacht growling and lifting his axe as his wounds closed. Ridmark moved towards Morigna and Kharlacht, and the others followed suit, drawing together in a defensive cluster. 

As they did, a woman walked from the archway leading to Dragonfall. She wore a green cloak and tunic over trousers and sturdy leather boots. A bronze diadem rested upon her blond hair, and she held a long wooden staff in her right hand. She did not look that old, no more than a few years younger than Ridmark, yet her expression was confident, her blue eyes calm. 

It took Ridmark a moment to recognize Calliande. She looked exactly the same, seemed exactly the same, yet something about her had changed. 

She was the Keeper of Andomhaim once more. 

Shadowbearer’s lip pulled back in a snarl, all trace of his mocking confidence gone.

“You,” he spat.

“Tymandain,” said Calliande, her voice ringing off the walls. “The apostate of Cathair Solas. We meet once again.”

Chapter 21: Reunion

Calliande’s Sight swept the hall, noting the magical flows throughout the vast Vault. 

She saw her companions, her friends who had helped her in time of need. Great power shone in the soulblades of Gavin and Arandar, roused in response to the shadow of Incariel gathered within Shadowbearer. Elemental fire waited at Antenora’s call, and Calliande saw the scars upon the ancient woman’s soul, the curse she had brought upon herself in Old Earth long ago. Earth magic simmered around Morigna, tainted with dark magic, and Mara watched Calliande with green eyes, her altered soul unlike any Calliande had seen before. Kharlacht and Jager and Caius waited with weapons in hand, looking back and forth between Calliande and Shadowbearer. Ridmark himself stood closest to the archmage, staring at Calliande with surprise. Mournacht was a few yards from Shadowbearer, his aura tainted and armored with dark sorcery. 

Calliande looked at her friends and smiled, a wave of affection going through her. Relief, as well, that they were still alive, and a swell of gratitude. She had been vulnerable, so vulnerable, when she had awakened. She had almost been killed on the first day, and if she had fallen into the hands of lesser men than Ridmark and Caius and Kharlacht, any number of dire fates might have befallen her. 

Ridmark, especially. 

She was relieved, so relieved, they were still alive.

But they might not be for long. 

For Shadowbearer held the bulk of Calliande’s attention. 

Her ancient enemy stood a few yards from both Ridmark and Mournacht, his shadows billowing behind like a long black banner. In his right hand he held a leather pouch, likely holding the empty soulstone Calliande had taken from the Mhalekites on the day she had awakened. In his left hand brilliant blue fire snarled and hissed, killing fire summoned with all the skill of a high elven archmage and all the dark power of Incariel’s shadow behind it. 

His shadow began to rotate around him, faster and faster, and his quicksilver eyes narrowed with hatred. 

And, perhaps, a trace of fear.

“You,” said Shadowbearer in his double voice. One half of his voice belonged to Tymandain, the high elven archmage who had forsaken his people.

The other half of his voice was the shadow of Incariel itself. 

“Eloquent as ever, Tymandain the apostate,” said Calliande. “Perhaps your allegiance to Incariel has eroded your rhetorical skill?”

Morigna let out an incredulous laugh. 

Calliande considered the power gathered around Shadowbearer. He held enough power gathered to kill everyone in the Vault in a storm of fire, or to bring the ceiling crashing down upon their heads. She didn’t expect him to fight. As his title implied, Shadowbearer preferred to work from the shadows, manipulating puppets and dupes, and fled from direction confrontation unless victory was certain. 

So why was he still here? 

“You were not so bold,” said Shadowbearer, “when last we met.” 

“I didn’t know who I was then,” said Calliande. “I do now. You had your chance, Tymandain, but you squandered it. You could have killed me on the Black Mountain, but you failed. Your servants have failed to kill me ever since.”

Shadowbearer laughed. “Do not boast of your prowess, Keeper of Andomhaim. You have not the strength for it. You only live because your allies have kept you alive.” 

“Of course,” said Calliande, taking a step closer to him. “I am alive because of their help. Do you expect me to be ashamed of that? I could not have come this far without them. Who stands with you? The Mhorites? Your duped slaves in the Enlightened?”

His mirrored eyes narrowed, and the shadow spun faster around him, seeming to hiss and snarl. Again she wondered why he did not flee. He had the soulstone, and surely he could find some orcish shaman or kidnap a Magistrius to empower the stone for the gate. 

“Do you really believe you can stop me?” said Shadowbearer, both his voices soft. “You are an interloper, Calliande of Tarlion. This is not your world. Your predecessors brought humans here a thousand years ago, but that is only a blink of an eye in the depths of time I have seen. I came among the high elves and turned them to the worship of Incariel, and the dark elves were born. I walked among the dwarves and the dvargir arose. Now I have corrupted your kindred as well, and the Enlightened of Incariel stand ready to serve me…”

“No,” said Calliande, interrupting his boasts. “The shadow of Incariel did all these things. You, Tymandain, are merely its latest vessel. A tool to be used and then cast aside. You are not my enemy. You are merely the vessel of my enemy.”

The shadow lashed around him like a banner caught in a gale.

“Foolish child,” said Shadowbearer. “I shall be free, and this world shall burn…”

“You?” said Calliande. “Or the shadow of Incariel? Is there a difference any longer?” 

Shadowbearer said nothing, the fire in his hand blazing brighter. 

“Why don’t you flee?” said Calliande, a realization starting to come to her. “You have the empty soulstone. Take it and travel away. You can likely use it before Ardrhythain finds you again.”

Still Shadowbearer said nothing, his shadow stirring around him like a restless serpent. 

“But you can’t, can you?” said Calliande, certain at last. “You can’t travel with magic while holding an empty soulstone.” Mara had given Calliande the answer. After the fall of the Iron Tower, Mara had tried to travel while holding the soulstone, but was unable to do so. She had claimed the soulstone felt too heavy to move, which Calliande had not understood at the time. Now, with the knowledge of the Keeper restored to her, she understood. Mara’s power allowed her to cut across the threshold, and the soulstone was too magically powerful to enter the threshold.

The same limitation, it seemed, bound Shadowbearer so long as he carried the soulstone. 

“So you have a choice,” said Calliande, striking the end of her staff against the ground. It flared with brilliant fire as she drew upon its power. “Leave the soulstone and flee, and wait another two or three centuries for the proper conjunction of the thirteen moons. Or stay…and we shall settle this now.” 

“Such pride,” said Shadowbearer. “Such confidence. I almost brought your realm of Andomhaim to its knees once before, and I shall do so again.”

“Perhaps,” said Calliande. “Or maybe your hundred thousand years of war will end today. Perhaps all your countless thousands of victims who cry out to the heavens for vengeance will receive it today.”

Shadowbearer started to answer, and then his left hand snapped up. A blast of blue fire and writhing shadow burst from his palm and hurtled towards Calliande, a spell of dark magic strong enough to kill a hundred men in a heartbeat.

Calliande was ready for it. 

She called on the power of the Well, channeling it through the mantle of the Keeper, and cast a ward around herself. Shadowbearer’s spell struck the ward and shattered into nothingness, breaking like glass against the Keeper’s granite-hard power.

For that was the secret of the Keeper’s power, the secret of how the Keepers had defended Andomhaim for five centuries before Ardrhythain had founded the Two Orders. Calliande was not stronger than Shadowbearer. She did not have his skill and knowledge. Yet the power of the Keeper was unlike any other magic upon this world, and no magic of this world could resist it, just as an iron nail could not resist the pull of a lodestone. That secret had allowed the Keeper to defy orcish warlocks and dark elven wizards and the fury of the urdmordar. 

And perhaps that secret would allow Calliande to put an end to Shadowbearer’s evil at last.

She cast another spell, this one of elemental magic, similar to the ones her predecessor must have taught Antenora centuries ago. Calliande called elemental fire to her hand, fed it through the mantle of the Keeper, and focused it into a tight beam. The shaft of fire leapt from her hand and arced towards Shadowbearer. It would have sliced through his wards and ripped him in half, but the corrupted archmage gestured with his free hand. One of the stone tables leapt from the floor and intercepted Calliande’s spell. Her beam sliced the table in half, its glowing halves falling to the floor with a thunderous crash, the cut edges smoking and white-hot. 

“Kill them!” screamed Shadowbearer, both his voices thundering through the Vault of the Kings. “Kill the Keeper! Kill them all! Kill them all now!” 

He began another spell, and Calliande summoned more power as chaos erupted around her. The Mhorites charged, likely believing that Mhor had commanded them to kill. Mournacht sprang at Ridmark, his black axe a blur of dark steel and bloody fire, and Ridmark barely got out of the way in time. Calliande would have aided him, but she dared not turn her attention from Shadowbearer. 

Either she would kill him, or he would kill her.

She cast another ward as Shadowbearer unleashed his power at her. 

###

Mournacht charged, and Ridmark fought for his life.

He was tired and wounded, his limbs aching, his chest and stomach battered and bruised beneath his dark elven armor, which he supposed better than having his guts split open by a Mhorite axe. But his exhaustion and pain did not matter, not when the battle still hung in the balance.

Not when there was a chance of final triumph.

So he ducked Mournacht’s next attack, spun, and put all his strength into the blow. Again his staff struck Mournacht’s face with a loud crunch, the orcish shaman’s head snapping back. Mournacht had healed the previous damage Ridmark had dealt to him, but the blow still hurt, sending the shaman reeling back. Ridmark hit him again, and again, trying force his advantage home before Mournacht recovered.