“You are here to confront your destiny and choose. Malcor, before you lies a path of sacrifice, pain, perhaps insanity. You know what the Kell Conflict was. Strong as he was, as he is, Kell went insane for years before recovering with Cor’tanos’ help. Cor’tanos is here. He will help from the beginning, where Kell had to find and convince him to care. Dar Rojo nears the end of his reign as king. Will you Malcor become Rojo the Second? Will you join Cor’tanos shadow clan and help gather the shadows back to the Queen of All Dragons? Will you write your name in the Book of Kings and begin the Book of Shadows?”
“Yes, yes,” Cor’tanos whispered moving forward. “You shall. You can. You will be mighty and you shall be my son.”
Kell looked at Verit, “And you, I name you Dar Verit, will be the guardian, protector, and lord marshal to fight in Malcor’s name when the shadows take him. Will you?”
Without hesitation, Verit clasped his fist to his chest and cried out, “As the Queen wills. My life. My soul. I serve!”
Malcor presented the dragon statue to Cor’tanos. It was an exact likeness. The blurred and darkened human took it from him leaving his hand numb with ice from the brief contact. In that moment, and on a whim, Malcor stepped out of the River. There on the banks, the beings before him were stupefying massive. He could barely comprehend his own smallness next to them.
Verit clad in glory and burning with religious fervor gleamed brightly. Dar Kell and Cor’tanos clad in shadow looked beautiful and dark. He recognized Cor’tanos as the shadow lurking in his past experiences. Over and above it all, he felt, then saw from far away, and closer as a dragon and then a human female walked forward from the mists. Immediately, he recognized Takhissis and he fell to the River’s banks. She stepped over the River and Alerius, Cor’tanos, Kell, and Verit all paid obeisance to Her Majesty.
Where Alerius’ presence had made Malcor and Verit tremble, the Queen shook them to the core as every possible emotion and passion hit them at once. The shock of it threw them both back into the River and they collapsed barely aware on the floor in Alerius’ throne room. The last thing they heard was a purring voice so beautiful so terribly feminine that they would die for it call out, “Alerius, you have our trust regarding the Heretics. Bring them back to me.” There was a pause and then Her voice faded into the distance. “Make them pay dearly for their betrayal so that they remember this trust is earned."
When the awe of Her Presence faded, Alerius pulled them back into the real world. "R’Dar Malcor, I would name you Paladin of the Order of Water. Will you pledge your soul, your faith, your fury, your heart and life to the great Goddess Takhissis, to me as your emperor, to Morbatten?"
Malcor pledged he would. "Do you swear on your paladinhood that you be my sword against the enemies of Morbatten's innocents?"
"I do," Malcor said boldly.
Cor’tanos and Alerius placed their hands on the other’s shoulder and then touched Malcor’s shoulders to bid him stand. "Arise," they said in unison. "Stand forth Knight of Water, blessed child of dragons!"
Amidst the noise of that command, Malcor felt a woman's lips kiss his and bring with it the mantle of a paladin's duty. When they let him go, he drew his sword, which ignited in dark grey flame. He turned to the throne audience and raised it. "I am Malcor Kell’Tayris, paladin of Morbatten!"
In the sudden and still silence, Alerius spoke a repeat of the questions from earlier. “You accept the mantle of paladin, but we would have your answer about the kingship and the shadow dragons.”
Malcor swallowed sensing all eyes on him. He dropped even lower in his bow almost prostrate on the River’s surface. “Dread lords and great Goddess, I will serve in any way you require, with all my heart.”
Alerius quietly replied, “But you question your worth, when you sparkle and shine like a world star?”
Malcor shook his head, praying in his heart for strength and to not offend, “I ache in battle. I question my ability to be a king when I am still not even a year out of Klenna’s forge. I do not question the prophecy, but surely I am not the only one that sees I am not well-matched for kingship, or even as a shadow dragon.”
Cor’tanos began laughing and through that laughing dragon roar, Alerius and the Queen spoke together, “Even a sword must be melted, hewn, and tempered. You are not king yet Malcor Kell’tayris. Not yet. We accept your heart’s best efforts in being what is required R’Dar Malcor.”
Chapter Seventy Two - A Shadow through My Heart
Malcor, Tembri, and Dar Verit stood alone in an empty and barren valley. The sun obscured by clouds barely held back the bitter chill. Around them, the high mountain peaks covered in winter snow teased the still green valleys and plains below them. Their escorts, Ancients from the Griffin Tribe, stood behind them. Except for the wind, everything lay silent.
“It’s going to start soon, I can feel it,” Malcor said. His arm scar had begun to itch, a feeling he recognized near the terrifying, or creatures from the Shadow Realms.
Tembri pointed south and they saw a red dragon, dark and silhouetted against the sky crest a mountain peak. The clouds above swirled gold and red from the heat of his passing. Then another dragon, hardly visible for its pale grey skin followed. A faint trail of frozen vapor and cloud trail helped them see it. Ynt’taris no doubt.
The Ancients bowed and signed them good fortune. They turned and loped off, running naturally and quickly. The three figures waited.
Alerius struck first. Fire trailed the dragon and dragonterror swept over them even at a distance where they could not yet make out clear details. A moment later, Alerius vanished as a column of fire burst from his mouth. From so far it looked slow, but then it struck the ground a hundred paces in front of them. The shockwave and molten splash of vaporized ground washed over them and then the flames were upon them. When it cleared, Ynt’taris breathed ice vapor down in a sighing fan of mist. It hit freezing the molten ground and crystallizing the air around them. When it passed, they stood – unscathed.
Malcor’s arm spasmed and agony wracked his arm. From far above the dragons circling back on them, a shadow twisted through the clouds darkening them with its passage and then from all around them, the shadows cast by burning and molten rock cast against the columns of ice, the shadows crackled twilight grey energy like black snaking lightning from all directions. It was like nothing they had ever seen or felt before. Their vision went blurry and then their skin went numb as a vitality-draining cold edged into them. Eternity seemed to pass and then the dark cold withdrew.
The three dragons stood in a triangle around them. Cor’tanos roared and his terror dropped the three of them to the ground. When they regained their footing and stood, the shadow dragon teased them saying, “You did better than last time, but WHEN Malcor dragonshifts you need to shrug it off the way you did the fire and ice. Shadow dragons attack from the shadows. As such, our breath weapon manifests from ANY shadows near our prey. The shadows to me, to Malcor, are real.” So saying, he lifted a claw and flicked Malcor’s shadow. It knocked him just hard enough that fell back to his knees. “If you feel my breath, my presence at all, Malcor when enraged will tear into that weakness and then you are his. You must do better. All of you. Malcor, you will never retain self-control if you have any weakness for the shadows in you. I am annoyed that you dismiss the fire and ice but are affected by shadow. I would expect better from the three of you.”
Ynt’taris hissed, “It took Kell YEARS to master what you seek to teach in days.”
Cor’tanos bit back and roared, “Kell is a human! He was alone. My presence is enough. Again!” He leapt into the sky and bereft of shadows in the air, lost his form entirely. Alerius and Ynt’taris shrugged their mighty wings and flung themselves into the air.
Suddenly, without warning, the shadows around them struck. It caught them completely by surprise and the three dropped to their hands and knees as their lifeforce collapsed through their bodies’ shadows. “No,” Malcor screamed. “To the River!”
The River around them boiled black as a whirlwind of dark energy seethed into it. Malcor stood against the pain and reached up with his right arm. Where he touched the darkness, his arm shredded into shadow and for the first time, he felt his skin first, then muscle and bone, slice apart into razors of darkness. He leapt into the sky and attacked Cor’tanos.
Somewhere, in the real world, the shadow patriarch chuckled and as Malcor attempted to blast the clouds with shadow, a giant claw materialized above Malcor and grabbed him. It seized his wings and then dropped him to the ground. In a fit of rage, Malcor thrashed about trying to escape to kill to find freedom.
Tembri and Verit recovered to see Cor’tanos materialize above Malcor. By size, Malcor was like a kitten next to a war horse. “I am the shadow at the end of light and you are my son! Behave!”
Malcor went still and limp the way a dog does when submitting to an alpha. Gingerly, Cor’tanos let go of Malcor. He flexed his wings and tried to step back but his non-human legs tripped and he stumbled in a pool of half frozen half molten lava. He began to fall back and flailed. He then completely lost it. Tembri and Verit made note that frustration triggered the berserk. Again, that massive claw pulled Malcor to a better footing and commanded good behavior. “You are a paladin of Takhissis. But, you serve me in this form. I am your god. Obey me and control yourself!”
Malcor calmed and his eyes, which refused to make contact with Cor’tanos, alighted on Tembri and Verit. “Good, good. Take the fury in your belly and expel it at them, unleash your breath weapon!”
Trapped inside the dragon, Malcor watched his body writhe and twist trying to break free of Cor’tanos without doing anything that would challenge the patriarch. He saw Tembri and Verit steel themselves for the inevitable breath attack. At Cor’tanos’ words, he tried to feel the fury but instead of fury, he felt a singular apathy that pulled at him. These were his friends. He thought about it as Cor’tanos urged him to attack. A voice came to him in that moment of thought, it was Dar Kell’s. “Malcor, as humans, we do not feel the fury Cor’tanos feels just by virtue of being here in the real world. I felt the same way. Your breath weapon is your most powerful attack. It is devastating. Find a different reason for it. The Queen. Your dreams. Some frustration. Surely there is something you can hold onto to channel. For me, it was and always shall be the memory of my wife and children’s deaths.”
Malcor thought and then it struck him. In his memory, he had been kicked to the ground at the king’s feet. The king, the high priestess, and how many dread lords along with the entire village of Klenna? He felt the humiliation and his sword cutting through R’Dar Tor’s side. Malcor’s breath weapon exploded from his mouth in a stream of grey dust from which clawed hands pulled the stream forward and mouths open and screaming shrieked. In a instant, the ray of twilight claws and gnashing mouths slammed into his two friends. It seemed to last forever. The release pulled Malcor out of his apathy and for the first time, he became the dragon. He felt claws instead of talons and his mouth filled with lethal fangs and the smell of the world crashed in on his senses. Gone was the dullness of seeing things through twilight and in came the bright lights, the exquisite detail of viewing the world in reverse. Shadows appeared bright as day and suggested the form of the real world. Smell and taste and touch almost burned with their overwhelming detail.
Cor’tanos let go of him and he flexed his wings and jumped back, but his jump carried him hundreds of paces away. Tembri and Verit had risen up from the breath attack and he saw their shadows tinged with the cracked and fragmented blasts of three shadow breath weapons. Other things lurked in the shadows and then he saw Alerius and Ynt’taris. The two dragons gave off trails of red and silvery light as they circled overhead. The shadows along their bodies as they turned in the faint sunlight gave him a sense of their size and power. Both appeared full of power, where Cor’tanos and his own self felt empty. No, not empty. Full of void.
A shadow rose up behind Tembri and took the shape of Dar Kell. Like Cor’tanos, Kell’s void appeared full and potent but within its center curled the devotion and worship of the Queen. Malcor put his head back and blasted his voice at the sun. Doing so made him feel stronger, more present. He turned his gaze back to the humans. They seemed so small but like Kell, the heart of their devotion and worship glowed, twirled and danced in their hearts. The magical armor and weapons and gear they bore gleamed duly compared to the normal things that hardly passed his gaze. The magic glowed softly in his gaze creating multi-colored shadows, but its beauty did not hypnotize the way Tembri’s faith or Verit’s sense of purpose did.
Malcor walked forward wanting to look more closely. As he did so, he heard Cor’tanos speak to him in a serpentine hiss. He had heard the patriarch make these sounds before, but now he understood them. “The treasure of the Tehran world Malcor. Look at them. Revel in being a dragon and work to control this. Let us return to human form now. Claw at the scar on your arm and try to remember the feeling of being human.”
It took a while but Malcor finally pulled back to himself. His first breath after the transformation felt as if he had been suffocating. He rose to his feet and found the dread lords and the other humans looking at him with curiosity and concern.
“You did it,” Kell said. “You’ll learn the rest on your way to Bloodstone. Make ready and be prepared to leave when snow falls on the city.”
Epilogue: Court of Dragons
The Temple, at Alerius’ command, had been cleared. This rarely happened but the priestesses considered it their sacred duty to let the Temple dedicated to dragons to be used by the dragons at a moment’s notice. Inside the great central chamber and before the massive statue of the Queen, Alerius folded his wings and leaned back against the obelisk he had raised in the time of Dar Tania, his first priestess. Sometime later, Ynt’taris entered and took his place by his column. Looking around, the white hissed, “Will he be joining us?”
Alerius nodded, “Patience brother. Spark brings us a gift.”
Ynt’taris sharpened his claws and waited. To pass time, he asked Alerius, “How many sceptres do we actually hold brother?”
“We have secured the thirty-seven sceptres mentioned before Ynt’taris, yet we have another one hundred and seven lesser hellhound wands.”
“Worlds removed from the Jade God’s dominion. But this last one was different.”
“Yes, not just a copy but an original. We only have ever seen one other like it. Bomoki wields that one still.”
A gate opened by the unoccupied column and Spark stepped through it. “Apologies brothers, but I have taken great pains to ensure my involvement remains hidden from the Jade God. We came too close to a cascade in Khasra.”
The form of the Apprentice washed away as Spark humanshifted. On the ground in front of him, the lich’s soul gem pulsed. “I have returned the souls of our people to their hosts in prison. We did lose two and that was when the lich tried to pull Daryx’s physical form through. The lich’s name is Talai. Do you know it?”
When both Alerius and Ynt’taris said nothing, Spark continued, “I checked the Darkhold and it confirms our guess. Talai went adrift and froze so far from the River that he never experienced Time the way we did. He appeared here out of Time. Such things, they are not coincidence.”
Ynt’taris questioned, “You suspect Orcus or perhaps Set?”
Spark shrugged, “One of the plagues of Time’s flow is that we may never know until this has played out, but only the Jade God would benefit from Talai appearing when he did. Tell me Alerius, did you know that from Bloodstone, Dar Ana’s reports describe several ancient mineshafts re-opening in the same timeframe as Talia’s arrival in Khasra?”
Alerius answered, “No, but I will ask for more detail. To make this happen, it does not feel like the Jade God. Though that one thinks itself crafty and patient, all hellhound incursions are marked by tactical shortsightedness, impatience, and a drive to a clear objective. No, the Jade God would have simply taken
the lich or pulled it to Bloodstone.”
“Bomoki,” Ynt’taris hissed. “How I yearn to devour that one.”
The others agreed biting at the air. “We must be careful. The Order of Water will command the Nineteenth Legion. Dar Verit shall lead. We will make preparations for readiness, including the other nations,” Alerius stated.
Ynt’taris spoke after a period of silence. “It has been too long since I found one of your humans that I liked. Malcor, he reminds me of Alaura so many ages ago. Have you found the mother?”
“No, not yet. She defies scrying and divination as well.” Alerius dug his claw into the stone floor.
“We will know soon enough,” Spark said. “In the meantime, we must consider all of these pieces together. Talai, Bomoki, ancient mines recovered, Cor’tanos, an original sceptre, and Rojo’s impending Ascension. Taken together, it means we are on the verge of another great Cascade.”
Alerius and Ynt’taris both nodded their agreement. The first “great” cascade nearly sixteen hundred years ago had slain his beloved Dar Tania and forced Alerius to push the cascade from Tania to Bloodstone. It changed the empire, and in unpredictable ways. “I cannot lose most of my treasured peoples again,” Alerius said after a long pause. “The first was too painful to endure.”
“She was our treasured friend and sister too,” both said near in unison. Ynt’taris continued, “She affected us all that way. Unlike that time, we are ever more ready, and you - brother Alerius, will not face Orcus alone. The other patriarchs are ready.”
“Green, black, purple, all the other colors, they’ve all agreed to join us at last?”
“Yes. When they heard Cor’tanos had come crawling back from shadow, they all pledged.” Ynt’taris crooned. “If they only knew the truth about that one!”
Malcor's Story Page 51