Good Ogre (20 page)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE UMBRAVERSE

T
HE PLACE REMINDED MAX OF
the tube he used to run through at the carnival fun house—a spinning tunnel that turned on its axis as giggling kids tried to keep from losing their balance, the barbershop pole–like stripes making it appear as if the walkway was spinning and not the tube. Max had that same disoriented feeling as he watched the spinning layer of clouds churn around him. A part of him knew that he'd climbed
inside
the tornado that fed the storm around the town. It was an unsettling thought.

He made it through the spinning vortex and found himself in a strange place. A black castle rose in the distance, floating on a great island of ice. It glowed with strange blue and green lights that seemed to be reflected in the boiling clouds overhead. Max was good at sensing
magic by now, and the waves of power that rolled from the castle made him feel sick.He had found the Maelshadow.

One by one the others crawled through the portal and joined him. Moki rode on one of the wrestlers' shoulders, while Ricky held Puff in his legs and pulled the pair of them up using only his arms. The others used the technique Ricky had shared and were able to climb to the top as well. Dwight struggled a bit in his armor, but he refused to take it off and eventually climbed through.

“This place is crazy,” Dirk said, looking around. They were all gathered on one of the frozen islands. Around them, mounds of icicles rose like frozen jellyfish. And at the top, shafts of ice rose into the air like a wall of sharpened stakes. There were other ice islands adrift in the air, defying gravity as they floated within the eye of the storm. They made a path of sorts from the Shadric Portal to the castle, but it would take an Olympic-caliber jump to get from one to the next. Too far for Max and his friends to make it. Too far even for Ricky and his band of wrestlers.

Suddenly a great horn blared, and two huge doors at the front of the ebony castle opened. Then came the sound of marching as a tremendous column of creatures
funneled from the castle and made their way down a wide ice path.

“That's an invasion,” Melvin said solemnly.

“The Maelshadow's army,” Dwight added, watching as the column, some six men wide (if they could be called men), continue to advance. “This is the future if we fail.”

Without thinking Max spun around and grabbed hold of the Shadric Portal. It had grown since he'd first opened it. He pushed with all he had, but it would not close. In fact, he felt it grow wider beneath his fingers.

“Remember, only somebody who's evil can close it,” Dirk said. “Because only someone good could open it.” Max let go of the portal with a groan.

“I had to try something,” he said.

“Our path to closing the portal leads through the Maelshadow,” Dwight answered, his voice heavy.

“And now his army too,” Melvin added.

Max turned to look at the black ribbon of soldiers moving away from the castle. Eventually they'd have to cross the gaps between the floating islands. But armies were good at that sort of thing—bridging rivers was a common enough problem.

“I might be able to make the jump,” Ricky offered.

“Maybe we should try and build a human chain or something,” one of the wrestlers suggested.

Max considered it, but it felt too risky.

“You could always toss the dwarf,” Glenn suggested.

Everyone turned to Dwight, expecting an angry rebuttal. Instead Dwight shrugged. “Might work.”

Dirk shook his head. “No, you're supposed to say ‘nobody tosses a dwarf!'”

Dwight lowered his axe. “Says who?”

“Says everybody. It's like against your code.”

Dwight harrumphed. “My cousin Brohimir Stone­garden was tossed over the wall at the battle of Elyshiem. Did a full somersault in the air, just for dramatic effect, then broke past the elf lines and opened the gate.”

Dirk frowned, not liking the idea of dwarfs being tossed around in strategic ways.

“Any other ideas?” Max asked, getting back to the problem at hand.

“We could build a snowman,” Moki suggested, eagerly.

“Any
good
ideas?” Glenn asked.

“I might have one,” Puff said stepping forward. He
turned to Max. “Ever since you cast the Prime Spell on me, I haven't felt right.”

Megan stepped forward. “What's wrong?”

“Not ‘wrong' so much as . . .”

Dwight approached the fluff dragon—they had become friends despite their rocky start in the Magrus (and a long-standing mistrust between dragons and dwarfs). “What do you mean by that?”

“I think Max's spell broke through my scales. I've been feeling things I've haven't felt in years—magic, for instance.”

“Wait, what are you saying?” Max asked.

“Perhaps you should give me some room,” Puff said. Max and the others took several steps backward. “Farther,” Puff coaxed until they had moved a good distance away.

“What exactly is going on here?” Melvin asked.

“Hopefully it's snowman related,” Moki offered.

Puff took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Suddenly a blue light formed on his chest. Then it grew, tracing a line along the edge of the serpent's escutcheon. The light hesitated for a moment, then split, racing around the fluff
dragon and forming into the image of a great serpent.
No, not a serpent,
Max realized.
A dragon.

The blue light turned red as a thunderclap rang out overhead. The red light became so bright that Max and the others were forced to turn their heads. They heard what sounded like old leather unfolding, and then a wave of magic rushed over them, causing Max's entire body to tingle. When they were able to look back, they saw a full-sized dragon stretching his wings and raising his head. The beast gave out a tremendous roar, full of raw and ancient power. Max recognized the dragon as the one in the dream world—the dragon that Puff truly was!

“I am myself again!” Puff exclaimed, his voice deep and cavernous. He lowered his great head and regarded Max. “Do you recognize me?”

The dragon looked nothing like a fluff dragon, but there was something in his eyes that reminded him of his friend. “I think I'll always recognize you,” Max said.

“That pleases me, but we have no time to tarry. Now, I can carry three of you on my back, so come and we will go and meet this army. I am eager to show you what a dragon can do.”

Max activated his armor so that it flowed back around him. He took his sword from Ricky and addressed the others. “Dwight, I need you to stay here to organize a defensive line. Dirk and Melvin, you two come with me.” Puff lowered his wing and allowed the three adventurers—the wizard, the elf, and the bard—to climb on his back.

“Go and save the world again, kid,” Dwight called out to Max.

Max nodded as Puff leapt into the air, a powerful stroke of his wings propelling them skyward. The tendrils of black mist from Max's armor spun in the swirling currents before dissipating across the ice.

“I guess it's up to them now,” Rick siad.

They watched as the dragon flew toward the castle.

“Yeah,” Dwight replied after a moment. It was all he could think of to say.

Max decided that riding a dragon was pretty cool. They passed over several floating islands as they made their way toward the castle, and Max began to make out familiar forms within the ranks of the Maelshadow's army.

“Shadrus necromancers,” he announced to the others.

They watched as the necromancers gathered at the edge of the ice to perform some kind of an incantation. As they wove their spell together, Max could feel the sickly sensation that accompanied Shadric magic. Suddenly new ice formed, muddy and grayish in color. It flowed outward until it spanned the gap to the next island, hardening into a bridge. The necromancers fell in line with the others as the army moved to march across it.

“What are they?” Melvin asked, pointing his bow at the long ribbon of soldiers still marching from the great castle gate. “They don't look human.”

“The necromancers are their spell casters, but their soldiers are called Shadekin,” Puff answered. “Undead.”

“No way,
zombies
?” Dirk asked excitedly.

Max studied the orderly march of the heavily armored troops. “I don't think so,” he replied. “Not enough lurching.”

A blast of flame suddenly ripped toward them. Puff reacted at once, turning in to the blast and managing to shield the others. Nightmare-Princess raced by, her wings beating as she circled around.

“So you brought a dragon for me to play with,” she called out. “How thoughtful.”

“You'll have to do better than that,
horse
!” Puff roared back.

Max prepared himself for another attack (the one thing you didn't call a unicorn was a
horse
), but instead she turned and flew toward something large and monstrous rising above the castle. A wave of sickly tainted magic crashed over Max, and he felt Puff shudder beneath him.

“Witness the coming of my master,” Nightmare Princess called to them.

“The Maelshadow!” Puff exclaimed, seeing the monstrosity.

Max saw it too as it rose into the sky. It appeared as if it were a colossal collection of sharpened antlers, woven together and erupting from a foul black cloud. The Maelshadow's head was a series of outstretched spikes, like long taloned fingers and almost indistinguishable from two similarly shaped claws, attached to limbs long enough to engulf the entire island. The thing before them was unlike anything Max had ever seen.

It took Melvin's voice to bring Max out of his stupor. “Hey, that's Sarah!”

Max blinked and focused his attention where Melvin was pointing. Near the top of the castle was a single spire, and Sarah was there, chained to a post. Max had flashbacks to the cruel games where she'd been similarly bound before the Machine City. Standing over her was Wayne, and at the sight of him Max felt a cold rage begin to build. The supposed protector was now her guard.

“Your time is nearly over, Max Spencer,” the Maelshadow said. There was no mouth as such, only the sound of the words and an unwholesome presence that filled the air. Puff drew back and hovered, keeping his distance from the horror in front of them. “Am I what you thought I would be?”

“You mean a giant twig?” Dirk called back. Max shushed him—there was no sense getting a destroyer of worlds more irritated than necessary.

“You have surprised me,” the Maelshadow continued. “And that does not happen often, mortal. You are adorned in the armor of Rezormoor Dreadbringer—fitting that his destroyer wears such as a trophy. You were more powerful and clever than he anticipated. Or
perhaps he did not sense the strength of Sporazo's blood in you—too strong to be centuries removed. What are you to him?”

“His son,” Max called out, seeing no reason to hide the fact now.

“Yes . . . it explains how you command the
Codex
so easily. Blood is the key to everything, isn't it? Blood is why I ordered Dreadbringer and the unicorn to hunt you.”

“Just so you could retrieve the Shadric Portal?” Max shouted at the entity in front of him. “All the things we've gone through, everything . . . just for this?”

“Why else? You were the key that opened the lock. And now that you've done so, the key must be destroyed.”

“Not if I destroy you first!” Max shouted back.

“I am honored by the attempt,” the Maelshadow replied. “I will await you in my temple. We shall fight eye to eye, as it were, as was done in ancient times. That is, if you survive long enough to get there.”

The Maelshadow began to descend, his body of thorns retreating into the mass of smoke and shadow.

“He thinks highly of you to challenge you so,” Puff said.

“Funny way of showing it,” Melvin said.

“Max,” Puff called back to him. “Do you know where the Prime Spells came from?” Max remembered reading about that in the
Codex
:
The origins of the Fifteen Prime Spells are unknown, having not so much been created as found.

“My father found them somewhere,” he replied.

“The legends of my kin say that the World Sunderer found them here, in the umbraverse.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that the spells may be even more difficult to control—or less. Or that they will not work as you think. The Prime Spells have always been affected by the realm you were in, and this realm is like no other.”

“So Max may not have his magic,” Melvin said.

“It's possible.”

“Then we'll have to figure it out as we go,” Max said. Suddenly the sky around them exploded in shafts of green light. Below, dozens of the Shadrus necromancers had taken aim and were attacking.

“Doom's breath!” Puff shouted. “Poisoned magic!” The dragon dove, giving Max and the others barely a chance to hold on. “Careful! A single touch will destroy you!” Puff roared.