Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. III (90 page)

The past few minutes had left him encouraged in that respect. It was difficult to be certain, but Aurim almost felt as if the web Toma had spread over his mind had weakened a little more. It
felt
different.

“Are you all right, Aurim?”

“Yes.” He dared not answer further. At the moment, the tiny magical probe he was guiding was slipping past one of the multiple safeguards Toma had planted. This was his first
major
triumph over the spell. The warlock felt the pressure in his head ease just a bit more as he removed the safeguard and weakened the spell further.

Images flashed in his mind. Ssarekai, a look of shock on his face that even the dim light of night illuminated all too well. A figure halfway between two forms, and although neither had been recognizable, he had known that one of them was Toma.

There was something more, but it remained just out of his mental reach.

“I’ve broken through,” he whispered, glancing up briefly at Ursa. His throat felt astonishingly dry. “Just a little, but I’ve made more progress than they did the other day.”

She clapped her hands together. “How
wonderful
!”

“It gets harder here, though. I think that I might need for you to—” Aurim was interrupted by a knock on the door. The sound shattered his concentration, which, in turn, shattered his probe. The warlock was frustrated, but at least he had forged further than anyone else. Once he dealt with the interruption, Aurim intended to try a stronger probe in an area near the location he had just freed. If the safeguard Toma had planted there also fell to him, Aurim suspected that he stood a good chance of completely dismantling the spell before it was time for dinner.

“I’ll see who it is,” offered Ursa.

Aurim was glad to let her. The moment he tried to rise, the room began to whirl.

The drake opened the door. “Yes? Scholar Traske!”

Aurim glanced toward the door to see the huge tutor waiting in the hallway. A shiver went down his spine as he met the eyes of the man.

Now why
—he started to think, but then Benjin Traske spoke, interrupting Aurim’s train of thought.

“My apologies. I expected to find you alone, Master Aurim.”

“Ursa was just helping me with something.” He hoped that the scholar would not ask what it was with which she had been assisting. Aurim was fairly certain that Traske would not have approved. Likely the tutor would have reprimanded him and then informed his parents.

“I see.” Benjin Traske took a step closer. “May I enter?”

Ursa quickly darted aside. Aurim slid over to the edge of the bed, lowered his legs, and started to stand, but Traske raised a hand to stop him. “Sit, please. There’s no need to stand, boy.”

Ursa started to move for the open door. “I should leave you two alone. If you will excussse me, Scholar Traske, then I—”

“No, I think it’s best at this point that
you
stay also. Yes, that would be for the best, indeed. Why don’t you close the door and sit down next to Aurim. That will make everything much
easier
for me.”

Puzzled, she nonetheless obeyed his suggestion, closing the door, then settling down beside the curious warlock.

It seemed to Aurim that Benjin Traske was apprehensive about something. There was just the slightest hesitation in his movements and his breathing was a bit fast. “Are you all right, Scholar Traske?”

“Sssome decisions had to be made at the proverbial spur of the moment, Master Aurim. They are not decisions that I am comfortable with, but there really is no other choice that I can see at this time.”

“What do you mean?”

The tutor advanced so that he was within arm’s reach of both of them. He looked down at the two with what Aurim believed almost fatherly concern. Why not? Benjin Traske had watched all of them grow up. Surely he must sometimes think of them as his own children?

Putting a hand on each of their shoulders, the tutor sighed, a sound that was almost a hiss. A slight smile peered out from within the beard. “I mean that I can take no chancesss.”

Aurim felt the power swelling within Benjin Traske, but the comprehension was too late in coming. A thick malaise suddenly enveloped his mind. Somewhere distant, he heard Ursa gasp. Traske himself seemed to shift, becoming something else briefly, something that stirred memories.

The warlock
remembered.
It did him no good to do so, but nonetheless, he remembered. He remembered seeking out with his power and, through it, discovering something terrible happening. Ssarekai, his mind pleading, had been put under some spell. The other mind, that of the caster of the spell, had been two minds. On the surface, it had been Benjin Traske. Below, it had been a creature most vile.

Toma. Aurim had discovered that Benjin Traske was Toma.

He managed to rise to his feet, but that was all. Even that made the false Traske hiss in surprise. Then, however, the golden-haired warlock’s strength gave out and he fell back onto the bed.

Consciousness fled.

ALTHOUGH SHE HAD
no control over her movements, Valea found that she could still shed a tear. Her world was in tatters. Benjin Traske was—possibly had always been—Duke Toma, the deadly renegade. He had listened to her as she had revealed all her deepest secrets to him. He had betrayed the trust her entire family had placed in him. Now, evidently in part because of her, Traske/Toma was going to seize control of the Manor by making one last use of his false identity. The drake intended to use the face of Benjin Traske to get close enough to each member of the family, whereupon he would catch them unaware with his power.

She had no idea why he did not kill them all outright. She did not even have any idea as to why he had left her frozen like a statue in Kyl’s room, her mind still very much functioning.

None of that completely explained the tears. Valea was well aware that much of the reason for her crying concerned Kyl. Kyl and his betrayal of her.

The other drakes remained in the room, awaiting Duke Toma’s return. They were all highly anxious, especially the traitorous heir himself. Valea hoped that Kyl was feeling pain. She hoped all of the drakes, Grath, Faras, and Ssgayn included, were feeling pain and remorse, but most of all she hoped that Kyl did. The enchanted witch wanted him to feel so much pain that it would make his heart burst.

“Where isss he?” muttered Kyl as he paced.

“You know very well where he is,” responded Grath, looking up from a book. The younger drake sat in one of the chairs, hands steepled, eyes keeping track of his brother’s movements. “If the spell on Ssarekai has failed, then it stands that Aurim, too, is near recalling. That hasss to be the first thing that is dealt with and the duke must do that on his own. It would look too suspicious for all of us to go with him.”

“I want them handled with care, that isss all.” Kyl glanced rather guiltily at Valea. “They dessserve that much.”

“I know that. Our brother only does what he has to do. They would kill him instantly if they knew he was here, Kyl. Do you think
that’s
fair? Toma will fight to preserve his life, that is all. Look how long he has lived among us, yet never has he tried to harm anyone.
That
more than anything else, isss proof of his intentions.”

He’s killed no one here because that would mean chancing discovery. It was enough just risking the spell on Aurim and Ssarekai. Toma wants Kyl to give him a place at his side, one where the Dragon Kings can’t touch him!
She wondered how long Kyl’s reign would last once the renegade had a secure power base again. With the confederacy of the dragon clan survivors to back him, the duke would have enough influence to perhaps alter the law that said he could not be emperor himself.

Despite her bitterness over Kyl and all else, Valea could not help but admire Duke Toma’s incredible patience. All those years of masquerading so that he could be an influence on the life of the young emperor-to-be. He had helped mold Kyl—and Grath, too—had learned the innermost secrets about his greatest enemies, and prepared the way for his return to power.

She tried to speak, but, as before, Valea might as well have not even made the attempt. There was no movement whatsoever. She could see, blink, swallow, and breathe, but nothing more. The witch remembered the stories her mother and father had told her about her mother’s imprisonment by her grandfather. Azran had left her sealed in amber for . . . what? One? Two centuries? At least Gwendolyn Bedlam had not entirely known what was happening around her. The few minutes that Valea had been helpless were already driving her close to the edge.

Concern for her family was what kept her going. She knew that Toma had no intention of letting any of the Bedlams live. Kyl and even Grath might believe otherwise, but she knew too much about the history of the renegade to think he would do otherwise. The Bedlams would always be a threat to him.

There was a quiet knock on the door. Faras, who stood nearest to the door, unbolted and opened it.

Aurim stepped through. Valea’s spirits rose, then sank. Behind Aurim came Ursa, but behind her followed Toma, the renegade once more clad in the form of the tutor.

“You see,” said the duke after the door had been closed. “As I promised, my lord, here are your friend and your sissster, both unharmed.”

“Why did you bring them here?”

With no warning, Traske melted into Toma. The transformation continued to both fascinate and horrify Valea. “If anyone saw them after I had bespelled them, they would have realized something was amiss. I could not simply make them forget. As I said earlier, Your Majesty, things must now be resolved with ssswiftness.” Toma looked properly upset, an expression Valea knew was as false as his words. “Thisss is hardly the way I wanted it. I would have preferred your transition to the throne to be peaceful. If you like, I will sssurrender myself to the Bedlams and take their brand of justice. If you think it will benefit your ascension, that isss.”

Accept his offer!
Valea wanted to shout. It was not that she believed that Toma would follow through on his promise, but rather that she wanted Kyl to understand the dark creature with whom he was dealing.

Kyl, however, shook his head. “No, I know what will happen. Jussst . . . jussst ussse care.”

“That I will, my brother. I have promisssed that from the beginning, have I not, Grath?”

The younger drake looked at the heir. “That he has, Kyl. Toma has only worked to serve you for all the time I have known him.”

“Now that I have the opportunity to prove myself to you persssonally, I dare not fail to live up to your ssstandards.”

Kyl stepped away from the others and out of Valea’s view. “What will you do with them?”

Indicating the emperor-to-be with his hands, the draconian knight returned, “As I sssaid earlier, it isss my hope to capture them all and, once that is accomplished, place the entire family under a more subtle, more thorough forgetfulness spell. Already, the children—and, regrettably, sister Ursa—are mine. As Benjin Traske, I should be able to approach both Lord and Lady Bedlam and take them without warning.”

“And
kill
them? I’d imagine that you hate them dearly.”

Again, Toma looked properly subdued. “My hatred hasss dwindled away over the years here, Your Majesty. I’ve seen them doing both good and ill. Now, I hold no grudges. I cannot say that I have come to love them; I simply understand them better. If they can be convinced to leave me be, then I shall leave
them
be.”

“And if they won’t?”

“I would rather not think about that unlessss it becomesss necessary to do so.”

“There is no time to discuss this further,” Grath interjected. “We must deal with Lord and Lady Bedlam asss soon as possible.”

“There is a piece of news that I have not informed either of you about yet.” As Toma spoke, he began to shift once again to the scholarly shape of Benjin Traske. This time, Valea clearly saw that the belt blade, the only item true to both Toma and Traske, glowed. She was fairly certain that it was what allowed the renegade to so well retain the form of the tutor. Drakes generally had two shapes. The first was the dragon form that they were born with, the latter was most often the reptilian knight, such as how Duke Toma looked when he was not being Traske. While the renegade was, by her parents’ own admissions, more versatile, there were still limitations. The enchanted knife was apparently a way around those limitations.

“And that news is?” asked Kyl. His tone was so matter-of-fact, so calm now, that Valea wanted to scream. He was, in her opinion, worse than the rest of them, for Kyl, as heir to the emperor’s throne, should have been strong enough to withstand Toma’s ploys. Instead, he had accepted every word as easily as a sheep would have accepted a handful of grass. It made the imprisoned witch furious, which only served to fuel her frustration.

“The master warlock is not in the Manor nor is he on the Manor grounds. He has gone to speak to Lord Green. It seems that the monarch of Irillian will be here in only two, at most, three days.”

Valea, unable at the moment to think of any drake save dear Ssarekai as trustworthy—and Ssarekai might be dead, although no one had told her so—did not see the visit as any buffer against the renegade’s plans. Toma knew the Dragon Kings well. They would be easier to fool than her mother or father.

“Ssso sssoon? I’m not ready for him!” Kyl stepped back into her field of vision. The veneer of confidence had been stripped from his face. He was openly nervous.

“You will be. Grath and I shall see to it that Blue himself will become one of your most ardent supporters by interview’s end.”

“Have
we
failed you so far, Kyl?” asked Grath, almost mimicking Duke Toma.

“You know that
you
have not, Grath, however—”

“Much of what I did, what suggestions I made, originated from Toma, Kyl. He has guided you more than anyone else, both as Benjin Traske and as himself.”

Traske/Toma moved toward the door. “We will have time to talk later. For now, I mussst locate and deal with the Lady of the Amber before her mate returns home.” He bowed. “With your permission?”