Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. III

by Richard A. Knaak

  “Very well . . .” The ebony stallion almost sounded disappointed with the turn of events. “Hold on as well as you can, Cabe! I will take us to safety!”

  The warlock gripped the saddle tight and forced himself to look up. Darkhorse had abandoned the fight and was now clearing a path through the attackers. Several went down, but there always seemed to be more. Arrows struck both warlock and eternal, but Cabe’s spell still held and Darkhorse was Darkhorse.

  In the midst of the fog and chaos, the weakened spellcaster caught sight of a truly peculiar figure squatting atop a rock formation. The Aramites, who streamed past his very location, took no note of him. The mist partly obscured the figure, but Cabe made out long, spindly legs and arms and an obscenely round torso. The head was mostly covered by a long, wide-rimmed hat that fell down over the face . . . if indeed the odd parody had one.

  A spider, was his first impression. A human spider.

  The entire scene wavered then, but not because of Cabe’s condition. Rather, a wave flowed over the area, shaking rider and mount and throwing the pursuing raiders into new turmoil.

  Cabe recognized it although he had rarely experienced the sensation before and certainly not of the magnitude of this ripple. Wild magic. The term was not quite correct, but it was as close as any description could come to explaining what was happening.

  One of the rock formations nearest to them melted. Flat ground began to rise. The warlock heard a scream and located the source just in time to see one of the raiders fold into himself and disappear. Several of the Aramites were struggling to free themselves from ground that had become liquefied. An empty suit of armor, half corroded, indicated that something else had happened, but Cabe was not in a hurry to discover exactly what that was.

  “What . . . what . . . what . . .” Darkhorse was shivering. The demon steed appeared caught in some sort of fit. He was changing, too, becoming stretched out like a true shadow. Cabe felt the saddle move. He looked down and saw that it was sinking into his companion.

  The spellcaster threw himself off. The saddle disappeared within Darkhorse as if it had never existed. Wild magic. Once in existence, it could create earthquakes, fires, anything. The very fabric of reality would be turned about for the time it existed. Literally anything that magic was capable of doing might happen depending on the intensity of the wave. It could also concentrate in one area, become a well of sorts where anyone who entered became subject to its insanity.

  Sometimes it was caused by an irregularity in the natural forces of the world. Most often, it was because some mage had been too careless. Reckless spellcasting could pull and bend those forces beyond safe limits. Sometimes the world repaired itself, but other times it tried to adjust to the new patterns of force and then would come the ripples or waves of pure energy. Pure, unfocused energy.

  There was nothing that could be done. Cabe only hoped that the wave would play itself out and leave them alone.

  “You! Keeper!”

  He realized the voice was directed at him. The warlock twisted around. A gruff, bearded Aramite wearing the cloak of an officer was moving toward him, battle-ax in his huge hands. Cabe felt a buzzing in his head, then saw the small crystal hanging around the soldier’s neck. A Quel talisman and one evidently designed to deflect sorcery.

  “Stop what you’re doing to my men, keeper, or I’ll save the inquisitors the trouble of questioning you!”

  The title by which the raider called him puzzled Cabe Bedlam until he recalled that to the Aramites the only mages were all of the keeper caste. “This isn’t my doing!”

  “You lie!” He swung the ax, coming within arm’s length of the anxious warlock’s chest. “Your last chance! Do it! Don’t think you’ll be able to take me, either! Your spells won’t even touch me! I’m protected!”

  “Are you now?” came a singsong voice. Cabe recognized it as the one he had heard only moments earlier. “Or aren’t you?”

  To Cabe, the voice cut through all else, demanding his complete attention. Not so for the Aramite, who still waited for the warlock to obey. Then, both of them looked at the crystal, which had, without warning, begun to glow with an internal fire.

  The officer snarled. “What did you do?” He reached for the crystal with one hand. “You can’t have-”

  The Quel talisman melted through his breastplate before he could even finish the statement. He dropped his ax and tried to take hold of the crystal, but it was already too deep for him to reach that way. The raider’s eyes widened. He scrambled to tear the chain from his neck but his fumbling, gauntleted hands were too slow.

  Cabe tried to help him even before the screaming began, but the man would not hold still and the warlock’s spells would still not affect him. There was the smell of burning flesh.

  It was over relatively swiftly. The crystal burned through his chest with rapid, unchecked success. When the end came, the Aramite literally had only time to stiffen and gasp before collapsing in a limp heap on the inhospitable ground.

  “Not very strong it was. Strong it definitely wasn’t.”

  “Who are you?” Cabe searched for the owner of the singsong voice, fairly certain that it was a strange creature with a round form and long, spidery appendages.

  “Cabe . . .” At first he thought that the voice was mocking him, but it was not the same one. Turned about by the sudden series of events, it took him several seconds to recognize the demon steed.

  Darkhorse still stood where he had been, but now he was able to move his head a bit. Cabe rushed over to him and would have taken hold of his companion, but Darkhorse vehemently shook his head. “No, do not touch me! I am not yet stable. You might be pulled in. I could never forgive myself for that!”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Not by far, Cabe! Now I recognize this madness! I thought it impossible. I thought the last traces had perished with Shade, but this is too real. This has the taste of Vraad about it . . . the taste of a cursed realm called Nimth.”

  They both knew of Nimth, the place from which, countless millennia ago, a race of sorcerers called the Vraad had fled into the Dragonrealm. Humans today were the descendants of the Vraad, although from what he had unearthed of them, Cabe would not have cared to call the dark race ancestor. They had flourished briefly in this new world, but had disappeared as a culture, if arrogance and indifference could be considered a culture, before the first generation finally died off.

  Yet it was said their world still lived despite the damage they had done to it with their careless, godlike attitudes toward sorcery. Shade had hinted that and he, it had turned out, had been one of them. Darkhorse had even known them, although he refused to speak of that time and could not or would not remember much of it. Some Vraad, it appeared, had had a penchant for torture.

  The ground rose under them again, but not much. There were fewer shouts now. Most of the wolf raiders had either vanished back into the mists or were dead. Only a few, either stubborn or trapped by the ever-shifting reality, still remained. At the moment none of them was very concerned with the horse and rider. They were either trying to help fallen comrades or simply trying to survive. “It can’t be Nimth, Darkhorse! Nimth is lost, sealed off from everything!”

  “Not so sealed. Shade always had a link with it. I tell you it is Nimth . . . or a taste of it at the very least.”

  “But how?”

  “That, I cannot-”

  A thing like a nightmare hodgepodge of plant, animal, and mineral formed from empty space. Without preamble, it charged the warlock before it was even fully solid. It had hundreds of vinelike tendrils for legs, reptilian forearms that ended in claws much like those of a crab, and an oval body that resembled a simple hunk of granite. Carved into the center of that was what at first glance appeared to be a crude image of a human face, but the jade eyes that stared with hunger at the warlock and the huge maw that opened and closed, constantly revealing row upon row of sharp teeth, looked real enough. It moved at an incredible speed, consid
ering that each tendril had to push forward to give it momentum. It spattered a greenish slime about as it traveled. Cabe noticed with dismay that the trail it left behind it burned into the hard ground beneath as the monster passed. There was no doubt that it was a magical construct; no creature could have been born so.

  “Stand away, Cabe!” Darkhorse demanded, putting himself between the monster and his friend. “I will deal with this abomination!”

  The warlock stepped aside, but not to protect himself. There was no way that he could prevent Darkhorse from trying to defend him, but he was also not the kind of man who would let others do battle while he stood by watching.

  The magical abomination slowed as it neared Darkhorse. It shifted to one side, as if trying to get around to the eternal’s flank. Darkhorse kept the monster before him, which resulted in Cabe ending up behind the shadowy stallion. The warlock started toward the left, but then the abomination moved again and Cabe once more found himself standing to the rear of his companion.

  The two leviathans continued to square off. Darkhorse, Cabe knew, was trying to evaluate the thing’s abilities. Where anything associated with Nimth was concerned, the demon horse was unusually careful. He had a long and bitter memory of things spawned from that sorry realm.

  The warlock once more tried to join Darkhorse and once more the madcap abomination shifted also, again leaving Cabe where he had started. Things were going from bad to worse, for in addition to the beast, the fog was thickening further. Already, both Darkhorse and his adversary were half-hidden from his view and that with the warlock only standing two or three yards from the ebony stallion’s backside. If they had to battle this thing blind, there was no telling what the outcome would be. Darkhorse was not invulnerable and Cabe thought even less of his own chances.

  Despite his wishes, the foul mist continued to thicken . . . no, at this point, solidify almost seemed a more fitting word. The magic-wrought beast was already little more than a shape. Not wanting to suddenly find himself alone against a threat that might be able to see when he could not, Cabe decided to risk the danger and come up on Darkhorse from behind. If he could not be at the shadow steed’s side, he would at least remain close enough so as not to lose him.

  As he took a step forward, however, the abomination backed away an equivalent distance. Darkhorse, needless to say, followed his monstrous adversary. Like Cabe, he had no intention of losing sight. Unfortunately, each step he took seemed to make him fade a little more.

  “Darkhorse . . . Darkhorse! Don’t follow it! Wait for me!”

  Either Darkhorse chose to ignore him, which was not likely, or he could not hear the warlock, for the eternal not only did not reply, but also trotted even farther ahead. Now, not only could Cabe not even make out the vague shape of the magical monstrosity, he could barely even see the outline of the massive stallion.

  Dignity aside, the anxious warlock shouted more frantically, “Darkhorse! It’s a ploy! We’re being separated! Come back!”

  He tried running, but for every step he took, his companion took four. Little by little, Darkhorse became a thin shadow in the dank mist. Cabe’s shouts went unheeded. Even when he tried to send a burst of sorcerous energy in the shadow steed’s direction, the magical fireball only made it halfway before fading to nothing in midflight.

  Something tangled in his legs and sent him falling. He rolled around for several seconds, trying to untangle himself from whatever had snared him. Whatever it was, though, it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Swearing to Lord Drazeree, the spellcaster rolled back onto his feet and turned his gaze quickly in the direction he had last seen Darkhorse.

  Neither the demon steed nor his adversary was in sight. In fact, Cabe could see nothing at all, not even the ground just beyond his feet.

  “Darkhorse!” He did not think that the other would hear him and so when there was no reply, it did not surprise him in the least. He was, for all practical purposes, entombed as good as if he had been buried miles beneath Legar’s surface.

  As dangerous as it might be to teleport in such a magical mire, Cabe knew he had to risk it. He would return to the hills of Esedi and hope that Darkhorse followed suit once he discovered that the human was missing. Then they could decide what to do about Legar.

  He was careful and deliberate as he teleported in order to ensure that there was no mistake. A spell that normally would have taken him only a swift thought became an elaborate series of mental exercises, each designed to create success. Although all of that only took him the blink of an eye to complete, to the mage it was an eternity.

  What made matters worse was finding himself still lost in the deadly reddish green mist when all was said and done.

  “Tsk,” came the singsong voice from behind him. “Not one of my better. One of my better it certainly was not.”

  He spun around, seeking the source. “Who are you? Where are you?”

  “Good enough, though. Enough to be good.”

  Cabe squinted. Was the visibility just a bit better? He saw that it was, for now he could at least make out a few patches of ground beyond arm’s reach. The fog continued to thin even as he watched. It was becoming too obvious that whoever had spoken must certainly be the reason behind his separation from Darkhorse. The warlock clenched both fists and carefully turned in a circle, seeking with his eyes, ears, and magical senses some evidence of where the culprit was located. This could not be the work of the Crystal Dragon, at least he thought not, and it did not seem the kind of weapon the wolf raiders appreciated.

  That only left . . .

  Then he saw the rock, a vague, miniature hill just off to his left. Atop the rock, spindly arms and legs bent, squatted the same outlandish form he had noticed earlier, the form he was certain had been responsible for the raider officer’s gruesome death.

  The fog parted slowly but certainly from the rock and its lone inhabitant. Cabe saw that the figure was more or less human, but as oddly shaped as anything he had ever seen. The bizarre figure was clad in a strangely patterned courtier’s suit of purple and black that would have looked clownish on any other person but somehow was perfect for its present wearer and not just because of its shape. The hat’s flap still covered most of the face. All he could see was a chin that ended in an almost extreme point.

  The head lifted a little, allowing him then to see the curved line that was all there was to the mouth. “I am Plool the Great,” the spidery figure abruptly said. Other than raising his head, he did not move, not even to remove his hat. “The Great Plool I am.”

  Cabe Bedlam shivered as he became aware of what it was he was facing here. Plool was at home in the foul mist. He manipulated it to his own desires in the manner of someone long accustomed to the practice. Yet Darkhorse had called the fog a thing of twisted, decaying Nimth, the hellish place from which the mage’s own ancestors had fled.

  He had never thought to wonder if perhaps some had not fled Nimth. He had never wondered what they or their descendants might have become, living as they did in a world where the natural laws had all been torn asunder and wild magic flowed forever unchecked.

  Plool could only be a Vraad . . . and now he was loose on the Dragonrealm.

  The missive from Cabe in no way calmed Gwen. She paced the floor of their bedroom, cursing the fact that she could not be with him. It had been her own idea to have one parent remain behind. Her own parents, long, oh, so long dead, had instilled in her the need for someone to be there for the children. Cabe was of the same mind, although the enchantress did not doubt for one moment that he would have also raised a protest if it had been her task and not his.

  None of which made the waiting any easier. The magical message that she had received had given her a brief rundown of Cabe’s time in Zuu, but knowledgeable as she was where her husband was concerned, the Lady Gwen knew there was more to the story than what he had written. His tale of King Lanith’s rather heavy-handed recruiting of mages reminded her too much of the days when Melicard had sough
t out spellcasters, talismans, and even demons in his quest to eradicate the drake race. Lanith’s ambitions would have to be looked into and not just by her. Toos and Melicard probably knew all about this already, which somewhat infuriated her since they had not seen fit to pass on that bit of knowledge. One was never certain just how much information was being held back at the “councils” she and Cabe attended with the two monarchs.

  It was not the gathering of mages that bothered her, though. It was the thought that more had happened in Zuu. She could not help feeling that perhaps Cabe and Darkhorse had not simply entered Zuu, stayed there for a time, and departed. Because of that feeling, she wondered what else her husband might have left unsaid and what dangers he might still have to face.

  Worry doesn’t help him, she angrily reminded herself. It made her feel no better. Gwen sighed. There were other things that needed to be taken care of. Perhaps, she hoped, they would be enough to keep her from dwelling too much on what might be happening to the man she loved.

  As she departed the bedroom, she almost walked into a figure just beyond the doorway. The other caught her in his arms and held her just a second too long for her tastes. She freed herself and backed a step away before realizing that doing so only added to the newcomer’s amusement.

  He was tall and lean, with arrogant but striking features that had many females, human and drake, eyeing him with speculation that he often encouraged. His eyes were narrow, burning orbs that could snare a person and almost make one kneel. He wore a tight-fitting, emerald and gold suit reminiscent of those of the royal court of Gordag-Ai. Gwen knew that he had chosen this particular one in part because it appealed to her tastes. Kyl and the younger drakes wore real human clothes, not magical constructs formed from their own skin, which was what the elder drakes often did. It was not quite the same color combination as his skin, which was a more elegant mixing of the green and gold, but it was still eye-catching. Still, Kyl could have probably created a perfect duplicate if he had wanted to do so. His skills were much more advanced than those of his older counterparts. Sometimes, the Lady of the Amber thought that they were too advanced.