The burning eyes looked confused, yet the mouth was twisted into a triumphant smile.
The smile was followed by a hacking cry that could not have been from Ravos, but rather came from the Black Dragon. The armored figure shivered—then fell face forward.
RAVOS FELT HIS LIFE fade away, but he also felt the satisfaction of having struck the blow against his sire. The Black Dragon could not free himself quickly enough. His mind was trapped with Ravos’s. The Dragon King railed against the inevitable, but because he had chosen to so insinuate himself into his heir’s body, he could not separate in time.
Ravos grinned wider . . . and died.
MELICARD SHOOK. All his energy seemed lost now. He slumped next to the dead drake. His gaze went past Valea, who peered over her shoulder to see what so caught his attention. She could see nothing but was not surprised when he murmured the name of his beloved queen.
An eerie moan arose from all over the landscape. At first, Valea thought it the ghosts, but then she sensed that the source was something else.
It was the land itself moaning.
So . . . you are the cause . . .
She swung around to face one of the Lords of the Dead. What she could make out of his face left no doubt as to his anger. He gestured.
The enchantress’s surroundings altered. Suddenly, Valea stood in the midst of the necromancers’ matrix. As one, the Lords glared at her.
She is the cause of our troubles, Kadaria, the male informed the central figure.
“Yes, she is, Zorane.” The lead necromancer smiled. “And now, she will be the cause of our ultimate victory. Won’t you, my child?”
XXVII
LORDS OF THE DEAD
SHADE KNELT BESIDE the drake lord, the Crystal Dragon, his brother, and checked for life. As before, the thing that had once been Logan Tezerenee refused to die even when it should have. Shade had to admire that part of his heritage, even if the Lords of the Dead shared it also.
He planted his hand on the chest, forced what little power he could into the body, then again rushed toward the mechanism and Darkhorse. Even from some distance, Shade could feel the eternal’s agony. That Darkhorse had so readily believed in the need to do as Shade asked struck the hooded spellcaster hard. As with Valea, the stallion believed more in Shade than Shade himself.
But that has to change . . . and now . . . , he thought angrily.
The faceless ones had not yet reappeared. Shade hoped that their absence meant that they did not suspect his true intention. He had no doubt that they believed he was doing exactly as they desired. They wanted him to use the device as he had hoped to so many lost lifetimes ago.
Shade, however, had another choice in mind. It would mean his end, but it might also mean an end to the land’s incessant and insidious manipulation of those creatures inhabiting it.
“Is it ready?” he shouted at Edrin.
“Aye!”
The dwarves knew no more than the faceless ones what he intended. The final part of his spell he would have to cast from within the arcane device itself.
The final part . . . and his final act.
His insides began to curl, as if his body were turning in on itself. Shade paid no mind to his hands, certain that they had less solidity than before. Even aware of the greater damage that he would do to himself, the sorcerer levitated himself toward the top of the mechanism. He moved as if walking up an invisible stairway.
The top was an onyx platform upon which several words in the glowing script coursed from one end to the other. Staring at them, Shade abruptly recalled the last time he had stood here. The spell he had cast then had been for what he believed his end, but that would have been a simple fate compared to what he planned now.
“I cannot bear this much longer!” roared Darkhorse from every part of the mechanism.
“Just a few moments more!” Shade began to formulate the spell. He tried not to think about anything but the spell, yet a female face intruded. Not the one that had haunted him for so many, many existences, but that of Valea Bedlam.
Oddly, thinking of her brought him back into balance, enabling him to better concentrate. He delved into the spell.
Kadaria’s voice echoed in his head. I have something for you . . . She seems so sweet . . .
A vision flashed full-blown in Shade’s head. Valea. Valea surrounded by the Lords of the Dead. She stood in the bloom of life near the center of their matrix, while the necromancers revealed their ghastly selves to him to remind their cousin what could become of Cabe’s daughter.
She will become part of this matrix, bound to it, unless you do as you are told . . .
Shade hesitated. Valea stood quietly among her captors. He could tell that she could not move, but he could also tell that she was not frightened. Her concern was all for him.
All for him.
Give us access to the device and its power, Kadaria said. Give it freely and she will be released. I give you my oath.
Whether or not she would keep that oath meant little to Shade. If the Lords of the Dead gained the tower, then soon all in the Dragonrealm—and in every other realm across the world—would suffer under their yoke. Even the oblivion promised by the mind of the land would be a better fate.
“I will give you what you wish,” he replied, aware that she would still be expecting some trick, but hopefully not the one he intended.
When we are together, she will go free.
The last statement both startled and dismayed him, the thought of Kadaria and him being one in any way revolting. Shade hid this from her as best he could, although he suspected that she knew and did not care. Kadaria was obviously certain that with great power anyone, even him, would bend to her desire.
The device trembled. Or rather, Darkhorse did. Shade gently touched that part of the surface that was the eternal, thanking him for all his sacrifice.
Now it was the sorcerer’s turn.
He concentrated, letting the spellwork already set in place commence. Despite the dullness that represented the necromancers’ control, the tower’s iridescent beauty briefly shone through.
Whispers filled his head. The mind of the land, the combined minds of the last of the founders, urged him to the only choice he supposedly had. Taking one last glance below, Shade saw the dwarves working feverishly to maintain the entire process. They did not look complacent, but rather grave.
Shade opened himself up to the energies of the tower. Those energies filled him, began to transform him. He accepted them as part of him.
The whispers grew louder, if not distinct. The essence of the founders now bound with him, working to create of him the tool that they had always desired, the physical shell that would enable their master plan to proceed a thousand times more swiftly.
The urge to struggle against the spell took hold of him. Yet, as he surmised, the land then made its own promises to him. We will protect her, it/they swore. We will protect her if you serve . . .
Shade could not help thinking how much they sounded just like Kadaria. He stretched his arms wide. They knew what he intended, knew that it fulfilled their desires. The Lords of the Dead were clever, but the land was even more so.
The power comes to you, Kadaria, Shade thought. He felt her triumph, her confidence.
He let the tower’s gathering energies flow from him to the necromancers. They welcomed the bounty, adjusted their matrix to contain it. The gathered forces brought by the spirits and the now-lost Black Dragon paled in comparison to what Kadaria and her comrades received.
Through his link with Kadaria, Shade saw the Lords of the Dead themselves transform. Bone reknit and expanded. Veins and sinew spread over the bones, themselves draped after by flesh. Withered lungs filled, pulsated. As the flesh finished stretching over bodies, armor formed over the flesh.
We are whole! We are masters! declared Zorane.
“Use your tongue to speak!” Kadaria said, encouraging him. “Maintain the matrix, Zorane! I will finish with our cousin!�
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“The girl stays here!”
“Naturally.”
And even as she agreed, Kadaria appeared within the tower. She stretched out a hand to Shade.
“You have what you want!” he shouted to her.
The female Lord smiled. “All but one thing, my dear cousin! Come, you know what I truly want.”
He hid the strain he was going through just to physically keep together. “You need to give me the link.”
She suddenly stood next to him, the energies dancing around the mechanism making her long, lush hair fly about. Kadaria held out her arms. “Come, then. Embrace me.”
Before he could react, she moved forward. Shade waited until her arms wrapped around him, then gripped her similarly.
He altered the flow of the spell. Their physical contact enabled him to multiply the effect as needed.
“It’s happening,” he quietly informed her.
In response, Kadaria kissed him hard. Shade did not pull away.
And in his head, he saw the other Lords of the Dead more alive than ever.
“HE’S HERS NOW,” rumbled Zorane, leaning much too close for Valea’s tastes. His crystalline Vraad eyes glittered eagerly. “But you needn’t worry about being left alone.” One gauntleted hand caressed her cheek. “The embers are stirring. I’ve just realized how long it’s been.”
The enchantress could not move save to look back at her captor. If the necromancer attempted anything, she would be helpless to stop him.
Valea only prayed that she was right in hoping that Shade would do whatever had to be done, even if it meant her life.
“So pretty. So delicate,” Zorane said. “I will use you well, I promise.”
“Damn your lust, at least for now!” roared another Lord. “Keep your focus on the matrix! There’s something—”
“Calm yourself, Hirac. I have everything under control on this end. Why the wide eyes, my little one?”
Valea could not speak and thus her eyes were her only way of transmitting her horror at the sight before her.
Bits of Zorane’s face had begun to peel off.
At last understanding that she was looking at something on him, the necromancer put a hand to his face. As he did, patches of dried flesh flaked off onto his metallic glove.
“By the dragon!” he rasped. He brought his other gauntlet to his chin, where more skin broke away.
Zorane spun from her. His turn enabled Valea to see past him, where other Lords stood in shock as their recently rejuvenated flesh began to fall away. Gone in seconds was the full ripeness of life that they had gained from the tower. The facade crumbled away, leaving lurching horrors wrapped in swiftly rusting armor and deteriorating sinew and bone.
Zorane whirled back to Valea, who wished that she could scream. His jaw now hung at an angle and his eyes had sunk into the sockets. A horrific sound that the enchantress belatedly recognized as his attempt to speak assailed her ears.
What has that damned son of Barakas done? he suddenly roared in her mind. Make him stop or else!
The hand that had just caressed her cheek now went for her throat, but the gauntlet proved too much weight for the bones beneath and the hand snapped off at the wrist. Valea wanted to flee but still could not move.
Kadaria! Zorane looked to Valea’s side, staring off with his ghoulish, empty gaze as he sought the lead Lord. Betrayer!
He raised his other hand and it, too, broke off. Zorane stumbled back, leaving a crumbling boot and one foot in his wake. The necromancer lost his balance and fell on his back.
The force of the collision shattered his left arm. Zorane’s helmet went askew.
Betrayer . . . The voice in Valea’s head grew fainter, more desperate.
She watched the other Lords as they, too, crumbled. No longer able to articulate, they shrieked in her head as they struggled against the inevitable. The weight of their armor—armor rapidly disintegrating—proved too much for several of the necromancers. They tumbled forward, some of them in monstrous heaps. Hands still gloved crawled a few inches, then stilled. Fleshless skulls rolled free of helmets.
Someone grabbed her arm. Although she could suddenly move, Valea was certain that she was still prisoner of some surviving Lord.
But the hand belonged to Melicard, who looked almost as dead as her former captors. Just behind him, Valea thought that she saw a slim, blond figure, but the image vanished so quickly that the enchantress was not sure if it had been there in the first place.
“She said . . . our children . . . need me. Please.”
Valea understood what he wanted. With the Lords of the Dead no more, the spirits were fading away. They were free to move on. Erini’s spirit might have brought Melicard here, but it could do nothing more for him now.
Steeling herself, Valea quickly cast. Despite the circumstances, she was certain that when Melicard disappeared he would reappear safely in Talak. It was almost as if whatever power Erini still retained had been given to her to help the king return to what remained of his family.
But the moment that she was finished with Melicard, Valea recalled just how terrible the situation still was. Zorane’s last, silent words came back to her.
Kadaria. Betrayer.
One necromancer remained, the most devious of all . . . and she was with Shade.
KADARIA LEANED her head back and laughed. “I feel it all drawing to me! All their power, all their very essence!”
She held Shade tight and he did the same to her. The female Lord grinned at him, then finally relinquished her hold.
“I’ll keep it, too, if you do not mind, dear cousin! So much power at my . . .” She faltered. Her expression changed to one of confusion. “I severed the link! I broke the connection between us! Why is the power continuing to flow to you?!?”
“It isn’t. It flows into another.”
A great, avian cry filled the chamber. The dullness of the necromancers’ spell faded from the tower’s interior.
The phoenix spread its wings and peered at the tiny figures.
It shall be done, the guardian announced.
“Gerrod?” gasped Kadaria, looking from the phoenix to him.
He said nothing.
Outrage overtook her. Shade felt her casting.
But before the necromancer could complete her spell, she grew faded. Kadaria grabbed for him, but her hand went through.
Gerrod? Shade? she called in his thoughts, no longer able to make a sound.
Shade could see the chamber through her. Now almost entirely pure magical energy, thanks to her brief absorption of her comrades’ power and essence, she had no hope of stopping the tower’s relentless transference of both to a more dominating vessel . . . the phoenix.
Gerr—
Kadaria dissipated, the last hint of her a silently shrieking wisp that the guardian absorbed without the least difficulty.
Shade, the conduit throughout the entire process, fought to keep from following Kadaria and the Lords of the Dead. He had one last thing to do and it had to be done now, before the land found out that it, too, had been deceived.
Shade!
The sorcerer shivered, then recognized the voice as not Kadaria’s but Valea’s. He did not reply to her for fear of her uncovering the truth of what he planned. She would try to stop him and, worse, try to save him, something that he was far beyond.
Gerrod! What are you doing?
Both Kadaria and she had called him by that lost name, but while it had repelled him when the necromancer had used it, Shade felt some comfort whenever Valea spoke it. Yet he could not let such feelings touch him now, not at this critical juncture.
Instead, Shade focused his attention on Darkhorse. The eternal strained to maintain his hold on the mechanism, thus forcing all energies going into and out of it to flow through him. By doing so, Darkhorse inherently altered those energies in a manner Shade needed.
You can release your hold now, Darkhorse. Release it.
The eternal melted away from
the device, flowing into a vast puddle below.
Shade howled as the now unchecked forces magnified their effect on him. He wanted to simply let himself dissolve, become a mere part of the raw power, but knew that if he did, he would leave the Dragonrealm at the mercy of the land.
They still did not know. He prayed that they would not understand what he was about.
“Shade!” Valea materialized in front of him on the platform, her expression full of fear for his life.
He cursed, knowing that she could not have come up here without some secret guidance by the land. Even as Valea tried to reach for Shade, the faceless figures began to gather behind her.
They know, the sorcerer thought, struggling to keep from panicking. They know . . . something.
Shade had assumed that his face remained blurred, but from Valea’s sudden change in expression, she must have seen something in it. The enchantress looked over her shoulder and discovered the featureless beings.
She whirled back to Shade. “Do whatever you have to! Do it!”
There was no doubt that she understood that in some ways her fate at their hands would be worse now than what the necromancers had planned. The land would brook no interference with its master plan.
They converged on Valea again. But in doing so, they sparked an unexpected anger in Shade. Twice, Valea had been used to force his hand. Part of him was furious at them for their presumptions, and another part was outraged at himself for having let her be so used.
He quickly started to feed the power to them, just as they desired. With it, they would at last be able to make him into their perfect tool for eradicating the present world and creating yet another new one.
The oncoming figures hesitated, thinking that he had surrendered to their will.
Shade smiled darkly and used their own device to suddenly pull that gathered energy, and the essences of the founders themselves, from both the creatures and the land.
The foremost faceless ones on the platform still managed to seize Valea, who struggled in vain. Nevertheless, she continued to meet Shade’s gaze steadily and he in turn drew strength from her trust. She did not know yet his full plan or she would have looked less confident.
Legends of the Dragonrealm: Shade Page 30