Legends of the Dragonrealm: Shade (37 page)

“You cannot—you could not—leave your cavern! To do so . . . would mean you would lose . . . lose yourself . . . lose what was left of . . . a Tezerenee! You would be as the—the others . . .” Shade managed to raise his head higher. “But to accept a gift from the Lords? Madness—unless—”

A mirthless grin spread across the helmed visage. “Yes . . . again, the
eternal. His unique energies will enable me to manipulate our cousins’ ‘gift’ long enough for me to accomplish what I desire.”

“It will . . . not work! This is not what the . . . mechanism does—”

The Crystal Dragon turned from him. “Do not bluff a Vraad, brother.”

“L-Logan—”

“Not now . . . but soon again, I will be.” One hand clenched tight. “After so long, I will be.”

The Dragon King pulled at his chest. Shade could not see what he did but assumed that the drake lord had removed the Lords’ token. The drake lord raised one palm high.

“Now, we summon the eternal and—”

“All comes to fruition as I planned it,” said Kadaria, her voice coming through the Crystal Dragon.

Shade felt the spell on him ease. At the same time, he saw the glitter of the Dragon King’s hide fade. A dark dullness swiftly spread across the mail armor.

The Crystal Dragon’s body withered. Despite the silence, Shade could sense his agony.

Little more than bone and hide, the drake collapsed. A stubborn spark of life remained, but not enough to do more than keep the onetime Vraad barely breathing.

We are a family of fools,
Shade bitterly thought as he fought to rise.
Always assuming that we can betray the other first . . .

A shadow formed over the stricken drake. Kadaria, her face half-hidden, smiled at Shade. He knew that this was but a projection yet still could sense the incredible power now at her command.

“My darling cousin,” she cooed. “Did he treat you badly?”

Perhaps Kadaria thought that she spoke seductively, but Shade only wanted to recoil at her voice. He knew better than most what the necromancers had become and what they would make of the world. More important, Shade understood that this particular Lord had a dread fascination with him.

“We knew that he planned all along to use Darkhorse’s singular energies. He thought that he could keep the truth from us. We let him toy with the talisman all he wanted so that he would believe that he understood it, but poor Logan, he didn’t.”

Managing to stand, the hooded sorcerer stared at what had once been his brother when both had been mortal. The spark still persisted, the fanatical determination of Clan Tezerenee keeping the drake lord from properly accepting death.

“Better he pass this way than lose himself, don’t you think?” Kadaria floated toward Shade. “Repulsive creatures, the Dragon Kings. He’ll be grateful in the end.”

“Your plan is no less mad than his.”

Kadaria chuckled, then faded away.

Shade hesitated. The Dragon King lay dying. The dwarves were still frozen.

The mechanism beckoned.

“They are fools,” he murmured. “The land has this all planned.”

And as Shade spoke, the phoenix—wings wrapped tight—formed before him.

It is time to accept your fate. It is time to serve as you were meant to,
the guardian said.

“As you must?”

He had not expected his simple retort to have any effect, but the phoenix drew back, the avian eyes briefly glaring. Only then did Shade think what it must have been like for this glorious creature to serve for so long in this hidden place.

The fury passed. The phoenix raised his beak and sang. Fiery tendrils of magic played about the chamber.

Shade felt something else come into play that had nothing to do with the phoenix or its unseen masters. He looked down at the body again.

The malevolent dullness covering the Crystal Dragon spread rapidly throughout the chamber. It caught the phoenix unaware. The guardian tried to rise above the floor, but too late. The same dullness covered it.
The phoenix folded its wings together and lowered its head as if going to sleep.

Kadaria’s laughter rose high again.

VOICES WHISPERED IN
Valea’s head. At first, she wanted to ignore them, but as they insinuated themselves deeper and deeper, the enchantress realized that she
wanted
to wake up.

What the voices said remained beyond her ken; she only knew that they were demanding. Valea was not certain that she wanted to acquiesce to whatever their demands were but used their presence to push herself closer and closer to true waking.

Then, another voice, a quieter voice, broke through.
He needs you, Valea . . . he needs you . . .

“Er—Erini?” Cabe’s daughter opened her eyes to see the pale queen leaning over her. The blond woman wore a gentle if melancholy smile.

Erini vanished. Indeed, Valea could not even say if the queen had ever been there.
How could she have,
the enchantress wondered.
Surely she was back in Talak.

Wasn’t she?

The words came to her.
He needs you
 . . .

“Shade!” Valea concentrated—

But it was not the main chamber in which she materialized. Instead, Valea discovered herself far beyond the tower and facing a familiar figure.

“King Melicard?”

Although clad for war, the king of Talak no longer carried any weapon, not even a sword or dagger. He looked gaunt, almost a ghost. Even as she thought the last, Valea sensed other things flitting past the edge of her vision. She quickly shut her eyes and observed her surroundings through other senses.

There were hundreds of ghosts, hundreds of spirits that only the necromancers could have gathered. Small wonder that they had been
able to strike at the tower’s masters. The Lords of the Dead had planned well.

“She . . . calls me,” Melicard rasped, eyes hollow. “She showed me the way here . . . wherever here is . . .”

Valea looked at him again. “Who?”

He raised a hand to touch the elfwood portion of his face. “My Erini. They killed her . . . but she still called me.”

“They did
what
?” Valea gripped the king by his arm. Only up close did she see his terrible wounds. “Your Majesty! You need help!” Valea knew that the elfwood made Melicard resistant to magical aid. He had clearly been given some mundane medical treatment but required much more.

The king, gaze still focused inward, muttered, “She wanted me to protect the children . . . but I can only protect them . . . from here . . . or everything’s gone . . .”

His words did not make complete sense to her. Valea only understood that Erini was dead—
dead
—but that the king claimed she had brought him here. That reminded her of her brief belief that Erini had awakened her. Perhaps it had been no delusion after all. There
were
ghosts everywhere.

She remembered again what she had thought the queen had said. It was not Shade whom the enchantress needed to help, but rather King Melicard.

But why, Erini? Why?

The stricken monarch abruptly lurched forward, heading not toward the tower but somewhere south of it. “This way. I’ve got to go this way.”

She followed after him, her mind already trying to calculate what their purpose was. It occurred to her that this might merely be another foul trick by the Lords, but something felt different.

“There.”

Peering past Melicard, Valea gasped. A haze spread across the land, one with no natural cause. She knew even without seeing them that the necromancers stood just ahead. They would have formed their matrix in
order to amplify their spellwork. Their concentration would be on the tower and its masters.

Valea pondered. Erini had been a powerful enchantress. She had retained some will even while coming here at the command of the necromancers. The queen had realized that there was one last thing she could do and had used her husband to guide Valea to the spot so that the enchantress could disrupt the spellwork at some critical juncture. That had to be it, Cabe’s daughter believed. Even now, Valea could feel the Lords’ effort building up. As powerful as the land was, it could not hold against the might the necromancers had gathered.

Whatever the threat the land itself presented, to Valea it paled before the horrifying world the Lords of the Dead would create. There would never again be hope for life, only an eternal damnation of all that existed.

But as she prepared to sacrifice herself, Melicard suddenly lurched in another direction. Before she could stop him, the king stumbled into the growing mists.

Aware that she still had a few moments, Valea rushed after him. For her final, selfless act, Queen Erini deserved for her husband to be saved, if that was possible. Certainly, Valea had to try.

Before he could completely vanish, the enchantress followed. She dared not call out, but Melicard’s erratic path enabled her to close the gap. Valea reached him just as he finished descending a small hill.

“Your Majesty,” she whispered. “You have to stay back!”

Melicard suddenly reached to where his sword would have hung. His entire body stiffened and his gaze narrowed at something ahead.

Valea squinted, then raised her hands in preparation of a spell she knew that she would not have time to finish.

Jaws wide, the dragon loomed over them.

THE FACELESS FIGURES
gathered on a hill not far from the tower. From their vantage point, they observed without eyes the efforts of the necromancers to seize control. The ghosts continued to flow through the tear into the pocket world, adding to the Lords’ might.

The dullness that marked the necromancers’ spell spread over the last parts of the tower. At that point, there came a shift in the magical energies, as the Lords sought to begin their manipulation of the mechanism within.

The faceless ones watched without eyes but with immense satisfaction.

THEY HAVE DONE
it . . . they have taken it!
Shade could not believe that the tower would fall to the Lords of the Dead so readily and yet, the evidence was all around him.

Shade’s focus suddenly shifted in a direction he once would have never expected. Valea filled his thoughts. He felt the urge to return to her and flee the tower.

But Shade did neither. He looked to the Crystal Dragon, then to the dwarves.

The hooded sorcerer cast over his head. A faint blue aura spread across the chamber, enveloping the area that included the mechanism
and Shade. The Lords of the Dead still controlled the tower, but for the moment, Shade believed that he had at least isolated the area from the necromancers’ hearing.

Shade gestured at Edrin. Despite some initial hesitation, the Dragon King’s spell finally dissipated.

Edrin grunted. The dwarf glared at Shade.

“Can you do anything with the device?”

The dwarf nodded. “They’ve got a hold, but we know its innards! I’ll need my brother, though.”

Shade released Magron. With an identical glare at the sorcerer, the other dwarf joined his brother.

“You know what I want,” Shade said to them.

They did not look pleased but went to work.

Shade knelt by the Dragon King—by his brother. He put his palm on the general spot where once the necromancers’ talisman had been set and concentrated.

Under his palm, the area glittered again. Unfortunately, at the same time, Shade saw his hand fade slightly. Trying to ignore it, he continued to feed energy into the ragged form.

The drake lord’s body filled out slightly and his breathing grew less hesitant. The change was temporary, but Shade prayed that it would last long enough. He needed this one ally, however untrustworthy.

The Dragon King inhaled sharply, then stirred.

“Why sssave me?”

“Because what happens if we do not stay allied will be worse than anything you desire.”

The Crystal Dragon cocked his head but said nothing. He waved away Shade’s offered hand and rose. The drake stood unsteadily, but he stood.

“What do you plan?”

“First, we must bring Darkhorse to us.”

Despite clearly being very weak, the Crystal Dragon nodded. He leaned toward Shade and the pair melded their senses together. Shade
could not prevent shivering briefly upon feeling the other presence. Deep within, it was still Vraad, still so much a reminder of the Clan Tezerenee, a memory Shade preferred forgotten.

“Away from him, Shade!” the eternal’s voice abruptly thundered. “I would teach this fiend what it means to twice entrap me!”

“No!” Shade kept himself between the two. Near the mechanism, both dwarves stared with saucer eyes at Darkhorse. Few creatures there were in the Dragonrealm who had not at least heard of the Child of the Void. As powerful as their masters were, Edrin and Magron had to be aware of what Darkhorse was capable of.

The ebony stallion had reared the moment that he had materialized and remained so even after the warlock’s decision to stand against him. The ice-blue orbs fixed on the Dragon King, but Darkhorse’s words were for Shade. “Your decisions are questionable.”

“Questionable but necessary.”

“He is
Vraad
! Beneath that scaled hide is Vraad!”

“Still asss volatile asss ever, isssn’t he, brother?” the drake lord commented unnecessarily.

“
Tezerenee
as well?” roared the eternal. Though not a true equine, Darkhorse still had no trouble keeping on his hind legs. “‘Brother’?”

His frustration mounting, Shade was tempted to let the pair take on one another, but that would only serve the Lords. To Darkhorse, he proclaimed, “Forget all else! The lives of many are at stake, including Valea’s!”

That brought the stallion around. With an echoing crash, Darkhorse dropped down onto all fours. “Very well. What is it you need?”

“What he wanted,” Shade replied, indicating the drake lord. “Your essence fused with the power of this device.”

The two dwarves had just restarted their work, but now they halted again in shock. Darkhorse was not much less surprised. The eternal studied the mechanism, then, in a tone surprisingly measured for him, asked, “Is this necessary?”