Shadow Mage (Blacklight Chronicles) (23 page)

But Talis didn’t feel like changing back. A massive desire to stretch his wings and take flight washed over him. He tried to control it but found himself powerless. After all, he’d always wanted to fly by himself. He resented the fact that the wizards of the Order refused to teach him the spell of flight. So why should he resist now?

Palarian shook his head vigorously in disagreement. “No, no, you mustn’t, not here in the Netherworld. There’s far too much risk… Please, change back, just picture yourself as a human.”

Talis ignored the sorcerer’s words and flapped his wings, relishing in the wind currents he was creating inside the chamber. Despite Palarian waving his arms, trying to contain Talis, it was useless. Talis pulled in his wings, aimed his snout towards the tunnel leading outside, and scurried up towards the light.

“Come back!” Palarian shouted after him. Talis could hear the sorcerer’s footfalls recede into the distance. Soon the tunnel opened up to the stark bone sky of the Netherworld and the strange, haggard trees, their weird leaves blowing listlessly in the wind.

Suppressing reason and ignoring caution, Talis arched out his wings full and stretched them wide, taking in the feeling of the wind racing up the rocks. He shook his head in delight and opened his jaw wide, feasting in the sensation of the air churning around inside.

Flight.

That was all he could think about. With one confident step he leapt off the rock ledge, flapped his wings, and fixed his eyes on the distant horizon.

Talis felt his stomach sink to his knees as he swooped down the rocky hillside, catching speed as he dove towards the banded-tree forest. His dragon instinct pushed him faster, flapping his great black, glassy wings in a mad rush, his snout snuffling against the gushing wind currents. He was free. Nothing about the alien landscape of the Netherworld seemed to bother him; there was wind, there was flight, he was free.
 

His dragon mind took over: to fly, to feast, to build a hoard. Some thoughts far in the distant recesses of his mind fought to be heard, but at the moment, those thoughts sounded like the tiny squeaks of a raving lunatic. The forest rushed past underneath, a wash of green and blood-red. Then he dove towards a field of golden grass, giant boulders littered amongst the expanse, nearing a long, snaking sea of emerald-green.
 

From what Talis sniffed in the air, flesh lurked below. His dragon jaws opened in anticipation and delight, eyes scanning the rocky landscape for movement. His stomach complained. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of something moving slowly in a field of rocks. He stared at the place of movement and spotted an enormous rock-beast waddling along, camouflaged in the color and shape of a boulder. When Talis dove from the sky, in pursuit of the creature, the rock-beast froze so that it was nearly indiscernible from the rest of the boulders.
 

Talis landed in a great flapping of wings and scraping of claws against the rocky landscape. He could smell the blood pumping through the creature’s body, and that made his own dragon blood pulse in a fury of expectation. But the rock-beast remained perfectly still, so Talis prodded the creature’s hard, scaly side with his snout.
 

Still, no movement.

This time Talis opened his jaws, exposing his glistening, obsidian teeth, and scanned the creature’s body for an opening to its soft flesh. But all the way around the creature was scaled down to the ground like a turtle retreated into its shell. A wild rage possessed him at the inability to find flesh to devour. He flapped his wings, raising himself up and slammed against the rock-beast. When the creature refused to move, he scraped his claws against the creature’s scaly surface, finding purchase between a gap in the scales.
 

With a rush of wind and flapping wings he heaved the rock-beast up and over on its side. This time the creature bit the bait. The rock-beast slithered its long, snake-like neck out and around and snapped its jaws at Talis, but his dragon-reflexes were too fast for the creature. Talis kicked the beast and catapulted himself away from the rows of spiny teeth trying to sting him.
 

The rock-beast pushed itself up, six scaled and clawed legs digging into the ground, its spiny head swinging around, gazing at its attacker. When Talis shot himself forward, trying to sink his jaws into the beast’s soft neck, the creature sent a black mist spiraling from its snout. The smell was rancid and acrid, like ruined eggs and vats of poison. Talis flapped his wings and hurled himself away from the poison, sneezed ten great explosions, his body trying to eject the toxic fumes.
 

But Talis could feel the poison working its way into his body. His blood pumped furiously, speeding the path to his death. He tried to control himself, control his dragon desires to fight and maim and devour the rock-beast now chattering its way towards him, a look of hunger in the creature’s eyes. Prey turned predator.
 

He would die out here, even his dragon mind was surrendering to the crippling poison working its way towards his heart. In a mad rush, Talis seized his moment of weakness to gain clarity of thought. He would
not
die out here in the alien landscape of the Netherworld. The words of Palarian came rushing in,
Just picture yourself as a human. Do it now!

So he did, and the agony of transformation felt worse than death, with the poison magnified in his now human body. He clenched his chest from the pain as the rock-beast mauled the ground in pursuit, the ground shaking, the beast’s yellow eyes puzzled at his transformation. What was a meal was now only a morsel.

Talis knew he had to get away from here but the pain in his heart was so great he couldn’t lift his hands to cast a spell. Then the lesson he’d recently learned from Palarian flashed in his mind’s eye. He felt the energy fibers circling out wildly from his stomach, and remembered how to feel and find the shadow strands. He grabbed ahold of any he could find, desperate to escape. His eyes landed on distant, dreary mountains, and in a flash, he felt his stomach tugged as he blinked a vast distance away.

Thunder rumbled around him as the red rain poured down, soaking the ashen ground. Peals of lightning like the thousand fingers of the gods cascaded across the grey and bone horizon. The pain sunk deeper into his heart, so horrible that he clenched up his face, biting down on his jaws until his mouth felt numb.
 

He was dying. Alone and in a foreign wasteland. His mother and father and sister were probably captives of the Jiserians, his city fallen to their enemies.
Or maybe Viceroy Lei has made a pact with the devil,
Talis thought. No matter how he looked at it, he’d failed. Failed to help save his city, failed to help Mara, failed to even help himself.

A surge of terrific pain pulsated through his heart, and he screamed, the sound echoing across the rocks. He whimpered, sinking down to his knees, and curled up like a sleeping dog. One more attack like that and his heart would stop for good. For all his knowledge of magic, for all his power, when the time he’d needed saving the most, he was helpless to heal himself.

Out of the wind and storm and rain a whorl appeared in the sky, a whorl of silver and black. Where the silver light was tinged with hope, the black was stained with death. Light and darkness, the living and the dead. Talis feebly lifted his head, staring into the whorl as lightning condensed around the form; he expected tortured faces, expected death—here before him—to summon and guide him down the journey to the Underworld.

To his death.

But only one face appeared through the whorl, a face wrinkled and hideous from years of tampering with the dark arts, a face that stared with curiosity and cruelty at Talis’s broken form.
 

“Despite all I’ve seen over the many thousand years of my miserable existence, nothing exceeds this pathetic sight.” Aurellia stepped onto the swamped soil, twisting the long, curly hair sprouting from the mole on his nose.

Talis tightened his jaw as he pushed himself up to sitting position, determined not to give Aurellia a reason to mock him any further. He would face his enemy and stare death down, riding a wave of shadows to oblivion.

“How is it that I find you here, amidst the Hills of Carrion?” Aurellia bent closer and sniffed Talis. “And you’re wounded, poisoned even! How very strange… How did you manage to escape from Palarian?”

A small cough escaped Talis’s mouth, and he leaned over to suppress the pain that raged through his chest. He could only allow himself shallow breaths, otherwise the agony would be too much.

“Unable to talk? Well, I suppose I have no choice but to care for you…can’t have you dying on me like this…would be foolish of me.” Aurellia sighed morosely. “Although, why should I help you? You don’t offer anything in return, do you?”

Once again the pain seethed through Talis’s heart, this time worse than before, like long needles piercing his chest. He closed his eyes and scrunched up his face, thinking of Mara, thinking of his family, thinking of the Goddess Nacrea.

 
“Absolute loyalty is generally expected at moments like this…an oath binding one’s soul to mine, a blood pact, eternal consecration to my will and my power. Or do you prefer dying? You do remember the Underworld, don’t you?”

Talis grimaced as he stared at Aurellia, images of Zagros and his vast horde flashed before him, the Grim March, the endless dance of war and death.
 

“What do you want from me?” Talis muttered, refusing to lock eyes with the dark lord.

“Everything. I want freedom.” Aurellia managed a small smile, an expression of hope flickering on his face for a second. “I want to return home. I’ve waited long enough. And you, young royal, can help me get what I want. I’d hoped you’d come sooner, but your loyalty to your city was stronger than your curiosity and love of adventure. So I commanded Rikar to lure you. When that didn’t work, I summoned an old friend, Palarian, to join me on my return trip home.”

“And he kidnapped Mara, forcing me here….”

“After the one you love.” A coy expression crossed Aurellia’s face. “I set everything up for you, I even supplied your friend with the Tandria Scroll. I had faith that you of all wizards could master the portal spell. And here you are!” Aurellia spread his crooked arms wide.

The pain in Talis’s heart flared white-hot, and he clenched his eyes close, thinking,
Just let me die!
He didn’t want to give in to Aurellia, he refused to think what life would be like swearing a blood-oath to this hideous sorcerer. And yet he knew Mara and Nikulo were still here, trapped on this world, they’d be prisoners of the dark lord for life. Naru would permanently fall to the Jiserians, and his family…enslaved or killed?

When he opened his eyes to stare at Aurellia, the world had changed. Instead of the grim, wet scene of the Netherworld, he was inside a massive subterranean cavern, kneeling in front of the guards of the Underworld. Izria and Ishtia. The hooded wight-like figures stood guard at the entrance to the world of the dead, golden glyphs blazing atop the square stone entrance. Talis’s mouth hung open as the guardians’ eyes stared in his direction.

The pain in his heart was gone. A sick feeling twisted his stomach. He was dead.

Talis felt a leathery hand on his shoulder. He spun around and glimpsed the pale eyes of Aurellia staring sadly at him.

“Your heart has stopped. You stand at the threshold of the Underworld. As a royal, upon your death, your parents have the sacred right to offer a blood sacrifice to Zagros, Lord of the Dead, and secure your place amidst the Fair Seas, free from torture, a life of eternal bliss.” A wry smile wrinkled Aurellia’s lips. “But alas, your parents have no idea you’re dead. And I doubt Zagros would hear your plea in here, not after your last journey into the Underworld.”

Morose laughter escaped Talis’s mouth as he hung his head in disbelief. Not only would his friends and family suffer all their lives, but Aurellia made it clear that he’d suffer for eternity.
The Grim March, everlasting war and pain.
He had no choice but to swear an oath to Aurellia. But wasn’t that what he wanted anyways? Ever since the Order of the Dawn had disintegrated after Master Viridian’s death, he lacked a true master, one who could teach him both the ways of light and darkness. Aurellia was that master.

“Choose now,” Palarian said, his voice somber. “The guardians of the Underworld are coming to steal your soul.”

“I choose life.”
I choose to make my own fate.
“I swear fealty to you.”
Until I find a way to let death eat your soul and free me from my oath.

A wide grin spread across Aurellia’s face. “A wise decision. We must act quickly, else Izria and Ishtia devour your soul.” He retrieved a curved, ornate dagger, rubies embedded on the hilt, and aimed it at Talis’s hand. “A drop of royal blood and your life will be restored…forever. I am the immortal-maker, the time keeper, the assassin of the gods.”