The Shadow Realm

by James Galloway

  But then the foot changed direction and came down towards him, and he had to swerve to avoid getting trampled. It outguessed him! He did manage to stab his blade into the top of its huge foot after he jumped out of the way, feeling his heart pound harder and harder in his chest and his ribs ache from the incredible strain the spell was putting on his body. He glanced up and saw the wings unfurl, realizing it was going to kick up another storm of ash and dust to blind him, further reducing his current advantage. Tarrin took the sword in both paws and released the spell of acceleration, and before the strain of it could hit him, he called forth Sorcery once more and again wove the spell of Teleportation.

  Much to the dragon's eternal shock and dismay, Tarrin suddenly appeared about ten spans in the air over its head. He landed on its snout, a snout wide enough for him to stand upon easily, and then drove the sword in his paws down into the scales beneath his feet, plunging more than half his blade down into the dragon's nose. The sword caught in bone or cartilage or something hard in there and became wedged. The dragon roared in sudden pain and whipped its head from side to side as it turned in place, swinging them over the inner lava pool, but Tarrin refused to let go, getting snapped back and forth as his body began to feel the effects of the speeding spell, as his muscles burned and throbbed and his heart raced like a rabbit in his chest, but he gritted his teeth and kept his grip, despite the wild, punishing ride. Those two huge eyes looked down at him in sudden baleful hatred, chilling his blood, and he sensed the oncoming paw well before it reached him. It would be the dragon's automatic reflex to something stinging it on the snout. Swat it.

  Tarrin let go as the dragon ducked its head to get it within reach of its forepaws, and couldn't help but feel a grim satisfaction when the dragon slapped at its own snout, driving the sword even deeper into its own nose. He plummeted nearly eighty spans from the dragon's snout to the pool of lava beneath and had the breath knocked out of him as he splashed into it. This lava was much hotter than the lava on the outside, and was much more fluid, lacking the rubbery consistency of the cooler lava. It was thicker than water, but he found that he could almost swim in it. He was about twenty spans from the nearest rock, but that would be too far in any case. The weariness of the spell he had used left him weak and disoriented, but he couldn't stay in one place too long. He reached within, through the Cat, and it became very hard to him now. He was getting tired, losing his edge, but he couldnot stop. He barely managed to gain communion with the All, and he again called forth the power of the Weave from within it. Weaving the spell of Teleportation once more, he moved himself to the far side of the rock spire once more, as far as he could get from the dragon and still be on the ring of rock.

  He left his sword behind on purpose. He wanted the dragon to think that now, he was unarmed. And he doubted he'd have the strength to Summon it out of the dragon's snout in any case. He was breathing so heavily that his breath rattled in his throat. His heart hammered in his chest, and his muscles all felt like they were made of water. All he could do was bend over and pant like a winded runner, feeling the blood rush though his veins, feel and see it pound behind his eyes, feel the pulse in his neck and wrists, even in his legs. He hadn't exerted himself like this since he was in the Desert of Swirling Sands!

  "Oh, you are a clever one!" the dragon called, sounding amused. "I never dreamed a biped would give me this much trouble. But I can hear your heart, Were-kin. You don't have much left, do you?"

  Maybe he didn't, but he only had to have enough left for one more spell. If only he could get into a position to use it.

  Rising up, not showing his weariness, Tarrin first started walking, then jogging, then he was running around the ring, his ears back, his eyes glowing green, and showing this titanic adversary that he would not go down without a fight.

  Far away from the great battle that was taking place in Sha'Kari, far from the small island, far from everything, there was a tiny village settled in the mountains of Nyr, along the Spine of Gold. It was a very rural place, where the common Nyrians cultivated their golden fields, taking advantage of the rain that the mountains above them wrung from the sky as the wind blew the clouds over them. Nestled on a small plateau along the windward side of the low mountains, it was a place of peace and happiness called Shora Myrr, which meant Child's Gold in the Nyrian language.

  It was a place where nothing exciting ever happened. The four hundred villagers scattered across the plateau spent their days working in the fields, and then they would come home and enjoy the rewards of their labor. It was a dull place, if not a happy one, but most of the villagers much preferred dull over exciting. There were no raiders that far out, no Goblinoids in the mountains, only an occasional rock lion or bear intruding on the humans' chosen range. A place of peace and security, a good place to raise children.

  But today was a day of excitement for Parl and Kiki Shon, a young couple only a year on their new holding, a small farm on the very edges of the community. They were newlyweds, only a year together, and today Parl paced nervously along the wide porch on the side of his cottage, a place that remained dry during the daily rains that were common during the summer. The rain came down this day, as it did every afternoon around that time, pattering the wooden slats of the roof and dripping to the grassy lawn, where ducks and geese waddled up from a small artificial pond dug for them in the barnyard.

  His wife was pregnant, and right now she was in labor, trying to give birth.

  He had been waiting for hours and hours, as he heard his wife groan and shout within with the village matrons. She had been in labor too long! He was growing worried that there were complications. Childbirth was never an easy thing, and sometimes it could be threatening to the life of the mother. His excitement and happiness at the impending birth had become dark worry and despair, for he feared that something was terribly wrong, and he would lose both his wife and his new baby. It had been too long!

  And then someone touched him on the shoulder. He whirled around in surprise, and found himself staring at the strangest woman he had ever seen in his life. She had white skin. He had never seen that before! The merchants that visited said that the people on Arathorn and Draconia had pale skin, like parchment, but he never believed them. But here she was! She was tall and statuesque, this woman, much taller than a Nyrian. Her hair was wild, a clash of seven different colors that were arrayed in stripes on her head, and her eyes actually glowed with an amber radiance that hid the pupils and irises. She was beautiful, this woman, something out of a man's wildest fantasy, a kind of beauty that any race, any culture, any society would appreciate. She wore a shimmering gown that sparkled as she moved, clung to her curves in a very appealing manner. And she was smiling at him, a most wondrously gentle and reassuring smile that it caused him to immediately relax, despite the fact that never before in his life had he met someone quite like her.

  "Easy, my friend," she said in perfect Nyrian. "All goes well with your wife and daughter."

  "D-Daughter?" he stammered. "How do you know? Who are you?"

  "See? Here she comes now," she said distantly, raising her head to the sky and closing her eyes. "She's about to open her eyes," she said in a dreamy tone. "That's the moment, you know. When they take their first look at the world and discover their place in it. That is...the moment."

  "Parl! She's come through!" Matron Vila called from inside the cottage. "It's a girl!" she said with a relieved laugh.

  From inside the hut, there came a slight smack, and the sound of a baby crying.

  "Open your eyes, my darling," the woman said in a strange voice, a voice that almost seemed to be more than one coming from a single mouth. "Open your eyes. Take your place, my daughter. Complete me!"

  Within the hut, the wet, birth-stained infant, dark of skin but with red hair, the most unusual thing that the mother and matrons had ever seen, slowly opened her eyes. They were blue, and within them was a comprehension, an awareness of things that seemed absolutely unnatural. They focused
on the first thing they saw, their sweaty, crying mother who looked up at her in absolute joy, and then they simply understood.

  Parl stared at the woman, and then to his absolute shock, she simply vanished into thin air.

  What a strange and exciting day!

  She was the seventh sui'kun, and her birth restored the last of the seven major Conduits, restored the final missing section of the Weave. The Weave was again complete, and the Goddess burst forth from the Heart as her power was completely restored.

  To again be free.

  Within the domed volcanic chamber, Tarrin felt the Weave around him suddenly began to writhe, as if someone has set fire to a cobweb. It was a Weavequake! The violence of the Weavequake struck him as hard as the dragon's blow ever could have, causing him to crash to the ground as his insides squirmed and wriggled like the weave, sending a shockwave of debilitating pain through him. The Weave had reached out and touched him in its throes, and Tarrin had been to weak and exhausted to prevent it! So intimately connected to the Weave, its turmoil was his turmoil, and the strain of the strands translated into a pain that shot through him unprotested. His claws scrabbling on the stone, all he could do was lay there and gasp for breath and find some way to marvel at the sheer power of it, the unmitigated violence of what was happening within the Weave. Was it another Breaking? Had Spyder or one of the other sui'kun somehow been killed?

  He could feel the enormity of it. Whatever it was, it was happening everywhere. Not just within their isolated section.

  The pain, it was incredible! Tarrin rose up on his knees and put his paws to his head as Magelight exploded from him, screaming out as it felt like his insides were being turned inside out, and pain blasted behind his eyes with every beat of his heart.

  The dragon too could sense the magnitude of the event. It looked around in confusion and fear, and then it suddenly gave out a great cry, dancing aside as a massive boulder dislodged from the ceiling and nearly struck it on the back. But its eyes were locked on Tarrin, and after it evaded that rain of rock, it advanced on the incapacitated Were-cat with designs to finish the battle.

  Tarrin struggled to find rational thought, and when he did, he sought to cut himself off from the Weave. It was because he was connected to it, that was what was causing the pain! He had to get away from it! Hissing with intense concentration, fighting through the massive onslaught that threatened to drown him into unconsciousness, Tarrin turned the power within him against itself, sought to use it to sever his ties that was making him share the Weave's turmoil, which caused the incredible pain. But it was too much. He was too tired, too weary, in too much pain to bring enough will to bear to fight against the avalanche. Defeated, Tarrin slumped to the ground, slave to the racking pains the Weave tore through him. He could feel the shuddering of the rock beneath him, knew that the dragon was within striking distance, but he could do nothing.

  The Weave itself had betrayed him at the wost possible moment, and now he was going to die.

  And then there was...peace. The pain eased. The throbbing behind his eyes stopped, even as he knew that it still continued in the Weave. An old power, long forgotten, washed over him, isolated him, protected him, a gentle power that had laid submerged in the depths of his soul, a power that cradled him as a child in its mother's arms. A power placed inside him by the gentle lips of a Goddess, a long time ago. It rose up and defended him from the power of the Weave, protecting him in his most dire hour of need.

  He became aware at the last possible instant. His writhing stopped and he scrambled forward even as the dragon's forepaw shattered the rock where he had been laying, leaving a rubble-filled crater in its wake. Panting from the aftereffects of the pain and his own weariness, he managed to get to his feet and ran right under the dragon, between its hind legs.

  The Weavequake reached even to the Sha'Kar. They screamed in fright as the da'shar among them distanced themselves from the Weave as quickly as they could. They had never sensed its like before, not even during the breaking.

  It reached through all of Sha'Kari. The spells causing the wind were torn asunder by the Weavequake, their ancient weavings undone. The void in the Weave that separated that within from that without suddenly bloomed with new strands, as the Weave mended the lingering areas of damage that still existed since the day of the Breaking. The strands grew out from the newest Conduit, which thrust itself directly into the heart of the void, main strands and feeder strands stretching out from that core of power like cracks creeping through a piece of broken glass.

  When the new strands reached the massive construction of the black dome of the Ward, they plunged into it to rejoin the strands on the other side. The weaving of the Ward reacted violently to the intrusion, and the Ward's delicate weaving was pierced in too many places at once for its monumentally complicated patterns to hold themselves.

  The black dome that was the Ward shimmered, the sheer featureless black boiling like great clouds within, and then, in a surprisingly fast motion, a blazing glow appeared low on its south side and quickly stretched for longspans in a diagonal line up its side. A hole in the Ward. The hole tore the weaving of the Ward like a man pulling on torn cloth, ripping it asunder. The entire Ward wavered at that fatal blow, and then all the millions of individual flows that made up its staggering construction suddenly lost their connection to one another as the core of the Ward's construction was compromised, the source of its power cut off.

  With no sound, no flash, no sign at all to those who could see it, the black dome that had enclosed the island of Sha'Kari simply vanished, evaporating like smoke before the wind, and then it was gone.

  The Ward came down.

  Dar was in awe of what was happening. It had to be another Breaking! It had to be! What else could cause something like this...unless it was Tarrin! But he couldn't do this, Dar could feel it. It wasn't just here. He could tell that whatever it was, it was massive in scale, affecting the entire Weave. What had happened? What could have caused such a violent Weavequake, if it wasn't another Breaking?

  He clutched at the chair in which he was sitting in Tarrin's borrowed room as Iselde, Allyn, and Auli held onto one another, fully aware of what was going on. Iselde was whimpering with terror, and Auli was looking up at tht eceiling like it was about to collapse on them at any moment. But there was no shaking of the earth, no violence being done in a physical sense. The strands were shaking and shifting with more violent action than he ever dreamed possible, but they could not affect the physical world. The land went on as it always had, and those who had not magical aptitude would not feel what was happening.

  It wasn't limited to Sorcerers. Kimmie held Sapphire very close to her as she looked around with wild eyes, fully sensing what was going on. The drake was hissing and squealing, as if in pain, and there was a desperation about her that Dar noticed even in his moment of terror.

  Even Zarina and Liza seemed to sense what was happening, clutching one another and bowing their heads, keeping their eyes tightly shut.

  The Weavequake began to ease. Dar could feel the strands slowly begin to settle down, but he was awed at how they had changed. If it was possible, they were even stronger now than they had been before. Some of them had broken, but those left behind were even more richly charged with magical energy. The Weave seemed to be almost alive, thriving with magical power, almost visible to him with their newfound vigor.

  Dar stared at them in awe. Now he understood. It wasn't a Breaking, it was the birth of the final sui'kun!

  The Weave was again whole!

  "O-Outside!" Sapphire gasped, keeping her eyes tightly closed. "Kimmie, take me outside! Quickly!"

  Sapphire? What's the matter?" she asked, putting her paw over the drake's shoulder.

  "Take me outside! Hurry! There is no time!"

  Kimmie didn't argue. She jumped up and, clutching the drake tightly to her, she ran to the door and raced out. Dar rose and raced after them, but he was no match for the Were-cat's speed. He knew where t
hey were going, however, so he wasted no time getting to the entrance hall and saw that the door had been left open. He reached the door and looked down the steps to see Kimmie kneeling on the lawn, putting Sapphire down on the grass, and the hurried down the stairs to find out what was wrong.

  "Back up!" Sapphire told Kimmie. "Kimmie, move away from me! Do it quickly!"

  "Sapphire, what's the matter? Can I help?"

  "No! Just move away! I can't control it much longer!"

  Fearful, Kimmie backed away, as she was told. Her paws to her chin in concern, she watched as Sapphire writhed on the grass, her scales shining with the morning dew. Wings beating, she put her four legs under her, and then raised her head to the sky and screeched, as if in pain.

  Her entire form suddenly radiated intense white light, a powerful magical brilliance that concealed her beneath it for a long moment. Then it exploded away from her forcefully, flowing over Kimmie, who shielded herself from it like it was some kind of physical attack. Dar rushed to her side as the drake began to back up, swinging her head from side to side.

  And she began to get bigger.

  Dar could see it, watching in awe as she grew from her small size to the size of a small dog. Then a large dog. Then the size of a small elk. Then she was the size of a lion, and still she was growing! Her growth became faster and faster as she grew, her claws tearing the earth as the elongation of her body skidded her paws across the grass. Kimmie grabbed him as they backpedalled furiously to get out from under her as she grew so large that they could have walked under her without their heads touching her belly, and still she grew! He had to look up higher and higher to look at her head, a head that grew as big as a horse, then as big as a wagon, then the size of a small cottage! Wings unfurled as the creature gave out an ear-splitting shriek, a voice so incredibly powerful! Wings that cast shadows over the entire front of the manor house!