Legends of the Dragonrealm: Shade (38 page)

Shade nodded.

“Very well.” The sudden shift came as no surprise to Shade. Darkhorse was a being of absolutes. If he trusted another’s choice, that ended all hesitation on his part.

The sorcerer was glad for that more than ever, for he felt Kadaria’s probing. The necromancers’ spell had come to some new juncture and now she needed something of Shade. Only the fact that she was part of their overall spell had prevented her from already piercing his shield.

“Can you cover it completely?” Shade asked the eternal.

“It will be difficult, but it will be done.”

The Crystal Dragon let out a hiss. “You have sssomething different in mind.”

Now Shade was glad that his face was out of focus. “No. Just what’s necessary.”

The drake did not look convinced but did not protest. Shade hoped that what remained within of the Logan he knew would continue to be as obedient in the face of action as when they had both served their father.

Edrin turned to the trio. “Now just a minute! If that thing comes in contact—”

The Dragon King raised a menacing hand, silencing the dwarf.

Even as Edrin protested, Darkhorse flowed toward the device. As he neared, he started to lose definition. More and more, the eternal became as he had originally been when first discovered long ago in that endless, empty place called the Void. Even the eyes disappeared, leaving only a massive, shapeless blob that swelled as it closed on its objective.

At that moment, the tower shook. Shade knew it had nothing to do with the founders.

Kadaria had discovered what he was doing.

“Naughty, naughty!” called the female necromancer, her partial image re-forming. The half-visible face broke into a mocking smile. “Ah, both my dear cousins side by side! Brothers together, though both of you have changed a little, haven’t you?”

“Not nearly so much as you,” Shade retorted. “At least we still live, so to speak.”

Beside him, the Crystal Dragon managed a chuckle.

“But soon, we will be whole again! Soon, I will be full flesh and blood . . . with all that promises the one I choose . . .”

She concentrated too much on Shade when she said the last. Kadaria as a Vraad was no more tempting to him than as one of the ghastly Lords, for whatever her outward appearance, her soul was a dark one. Still, Shade hoped to buy time. Darkhorse was nearly upon the mechanism.

“Oh.” With a casual glance, Kadaria placed a wall of grey energy between the eternal and the device. The dwarves, situated next to the arcane device, battered futilely at the barrier. “There. Now that we’ve settled that, all can proceed as I planned.”

Shade noted the last with interest. “As you planned? Not as the Lords planned?”

“I am the nexus of the Lords. What I plan is our plan.”

But there was something more, the sorcerer realized. So near to victory, Kadaria had let slip that she had ambitions beyond those of her comrades.

Powerful the necromancers might be, but Shade understood them well. They were still Vraad, just as he had once been. Moreover, he had been the son of Barakas Tezerenee, the cunning and ambitious ruler of his clan.

Now, for once, Shade needed to be his father’s son. He briefly reached out and ever-so-carefully touched the drake lord’s mind, at the same time asking Kadaria, “And do all your plans include your partners? Or do you have a different fate intended for them as well?”

“The tower is ours. That’s all that matters at the moment.”

“And what of us?”

For a moment, Kadaria stood fully revealed. There was no denying that she was beautiful even for a race that could adjust its appearance
at the slightest whim. She pursed her full lips. “For you . . . everything awaits. For them . . .”

With a roar, the Crystal Dragon lunged toward her. As he did, he began to transform. His arms stretched forward, the hands twisting into claws. The legs bent backward and the feet also grew longer. A tail sprouted and from near the shoulders emerged vestigial wings that swiftly spread wider and wider.

The most unsettling change was that of the drake lord’s visage. The savage dragon’s-head crest slid down over the helmed area, melding into it. The snout stretched longer, wider, becoming the Crystal Dragon’s true face.

And as all those changes occurred, the drake lord grew several times greater in size. Barely the blink of an eye had passed, but the Crystal Dragon was already large enough to tower over the others.

Kadaria involuntarily recoiled even though the teeth and claws could not rend her projection.

Shade threw his power into dissipating the barrier. Spells such as the barrier required a continued level of concentration. Kadaria had had to make certain that Darkhorse would not pierce it before the Lords fully secured the situation, something that Shade had counted on.

What he had also counted on was that vestige of Logan that would act as a trained, loyal son of Barakas. All Shade had said in that short link with the Crystal Dragon had been two words.

Distract her.

He had left the means of that to his companion . . . and the Dragon King had done far more than Shade had expected.

The barrier faded.

Darkhorse draped over the founders’ device. The glowing script burned through him, became part of him.

The device took on the eternal’s essence.

The Crystal Dragon let out an agonized cry. The half-grown dragon tumbled to the side as his body again withered. A furious Kadaria continued to glower at the drake lord.

Shade started toward the device but then turned back to the Crystal Dragon. Gritting his teeth and feeling as if his body were tearing apart, he nevertheless decided to help his companion. It was what Valea would have done, Shade knew. It was something he even recently might not have.

It was something—a weakness, any of his brothers would probably have said—that would probably mean the ruination of his plan.

I fail to live up to you again, Father
 . . . Somewhere he felt the foul spirit of his father laugh at his weakness, his humanity.

But still he went to the aid of the Crystal Dragon . . . and knew that he would pay for his folly with more than merely his life.

Shade only prayed that somehow Valea would survive.

CABE BEDLAM’S DAUGHTER
managed to stifle any audible hint of her shock. She knew she was doomed but still attempted a spell.

Yet, at the very last second, before the spell could come to fruition, she suddenly dismissed it. The dragon, Valea saw, was not lunging. It was frozen in place, its mind ensorcelled, no doubt, by the Lords of the Dead.

But why is it here?
Valea could see no reason for the necromancers to keep what the enchantress now saw was nothing more than a particularly savage-looking riding drake.

A riding drake with black scale.

Valea looked up and through the haze saw the rider. The fearsome mount paled in comparison to the menacing drake warrior before her. His helm was topped by one of the most elaborate dragon’s-head crests that the enchantress had ever seen. For a moment, Valea thought it the Black Dragon himself, but then she saw the markings, unique even among all the higher-caste drakes throughout the Dragonrealm.

“Duke Ravos,” she blurted. Valea fully expected the rider to attack, but, as with the mount, Ravos appeared to be frozen.

But there was more. With all the magic at play, the enchantress had
not at first sensed the power channeling
through
the duke. It flowed from somewhere beyond this world into the drake warrior and then out again . . . to the Lords of the Dead.

First the ghosts and now this. Small wonder, she saw, that the necromancers had strength enough to take the tower. As much as Valea feared the land, she feared what the Lords would make of the world. They dealt only in death and worse. All that mattered was their dark desire.

She stared at Ravos. He was a conduit. If she could shatter the link, then it might disrupt the necromancers’ work. The Lords appeared entirely engrossed in some aspect of their work, so much so that if she acted fast, there was hope of success.

Valea had never taken a life, but if that was what it took now, she was prepared. She felt some guilt because Ravos appeared to be a victim here, but he also had much blood on his hands.

Steeling herself, Valea pointed at the drake.

Ravos’s crimson gaze suddenly flickered, then focused on her. The spell that Valea had cast faded just before it struck him.

And in meeting that gaze, Cabe’s daughter recognized that the one staring at her was
not
the duke, but something far more sinister.

Fire nearly engulfed her, only the enchantress’s quick reflexes enabling her to shield herself from the attack. The malevolent presence of the lord of Lochivar radiated from Ravos as the duke dismounted.

“I will have my body, my power, ressstored!” Ravos hissed. “I will not allow any Bedlam to interfere with that!”

Valea was not surprised that the Lords had offered such things to the Dragon King. She knew of his obsession but had not expected that he would fall prey to the promise of their false gifts.

“My control is already growing even without their final spell!” The Black Dragon flexed his fingers. “I will tear your flesh from your bones for the simple enjoyment of seeing how this body will soon utterly obey me! I will—”

Without warning, the drake howled and toppled forward. He managed to keep on one knee but swayed back and forth in agony.

And no wonder, Valea saw. Ravos’s own blade had cut a swathe across his back, a blade wielded by none other than a grim Melicard. Still not entirely in command of his son’s body, the Dragon King had not noticed Melicard slip the weapon out of its sheath.

“He’s how—he’s how they can call the ghosts into here,” muttered the stricken king. “He gives them . . . that much power. He gives them . . . her and the rest.”

Valea expected to see Erini appear, but the late queen did not. Still, she had made her presence felt.

Melicard hefted the huge blade, somehow finding strength despite his own wounds. He brought it down on the drake—

Without looking up, the scaled figure cast. Melicard went flying back, the sword dropping near the drake.

Valea made the ground liquefy under the Black Dragon. The armored warrior sank down nearly to his waist. Yet, with one hand, he managed to grab the sword while with the other he caused a quake near the enchantress that sent her falling onto her back.

“Vermin!” said the Dragon King mockingly through Ravos. “You are nothing to my power even now!”

A gurgling sound ended his tirade. Valea pushed herself up to see what had happened. She assumed that Melicard had somehow succeeded in reaching his foe again, but the truth was much more astounding.

“You have . . . nothing . . . now . . . Father!” rasped the drake. “We die together . . .”

The drake warrior used the sword to cut his own throat.

The burning eyes looked confused, yet the mouth was twisted into a triumphant smile.

The smile was followed by a hacking cry that could not have been from Ravos, but rather came from the Black Dragon. The armored figure shivered—then fell face forward.

RAVOS FELT HIS LIFE
fade away, but he also felt the satisfaction of having struck the blow against his sire. The Black Dragon could not free himself quickly enough. His mind was trapped with Ravos’s. The Dragon King railed against the inevitable, but because he had chosen to so insinuate himself into his heir’s body, he could not separate in time.

Ravos grinned wider . . . and died.

MELICARD SHOOK.
All his energy seemed lost now. He slumped next to the dead drake. His gaze went past Valea, who peered over her shoulder to see what so caught his attention. She could see nothing but was not surprised when he murmured the name of his beloved queen.

An eerie moan arose from all over the landscape. At first, Valea thought it the ghosts, but then she sensed that the source was something else.

It was the land itself moaning.

So . . . you are the cause . . .

She swung around to face one of the Lords of the Dead. What she could make out of his face left no doubt as to his anger. He gestured.

The enchantress’s surroundings altered. Suddenly, Valea stood in the midst of the necromancers’ matrix. As one, the Lords glared at her.

She is the cause of our troubles, Kadaria,
the male informed the central figure.

“Yes, she is, Zorane.” The lead necromancer smiled. “And now, she will be the cause of our ultimate victory. Won’t you, my child?”

SHADE KNELT BESIDE
the drake lord, the Crystal Dragon, his brother, and checked for life. As before, the thing that had once been Logan Tezerenee refused to die even when it should have. Shade had to admire that part of his heritage, even if the Lords of the Dead shared it also.

He planted his hand on the chest, forced what little power he could into the body, then again rushed toward the mechanism and Darkhorse. Even from some distance, Shade could feel the eternal’s agony. That Darkhorse had so readily believed in the need to do as Shade asked struck the hooded spellcaster hard. As with Valea, the stallion believed more in Shade than Shade himself.

But that has to change . . . and now . . . ,
he thought angrily.

The faceless ones had not yet reappeared. Shade hoped that their absence meant that they did not suspect his true intention. He had no doubt that they believed he was doing exactly as they desired. They wanted him to use the device as he had hoped to so many lost lifetimes ago.

Shade, however, had another choice in mind. It would mean his end, but it might also mean an end to the land’s incessant and insidious manipulation of those creatures inhabiting it.

“Is it ready?” he shouted at Edrin.

“Aye!”

The dwarves knew no more than the faceless ones what he intended.
The final part of his spell he would have to cast from within the arcane device itself.