The same spellwork that had fed the power to the necromancers and then seized it from them now worked against those who had believed they still controlled Shade. Having opened themselves up to receive the power, they now fell prey to the very plan he had used against the Lords.
Those founders who had sought his aid joined him against their brethren. Valea pulled free. For a moment, it appeared victory belonged to Shade and his allies.
But as he expected, the others quickly compensated. The flow halted. For the moment, Shade and his foes countered one another.
And that was when he came up against the one questionable aspect of his plan. That was when Shade reached out to the tower’s guardian.
Would you be free?
He could not see the phoenix, but he could sense the guardian’s shock. Shade had noted the hint of resentment in the elemental creature earlier and now hoped to play upon it. The phoenix radiated wariness at this offer, and although the sorcerer could not blame it, Shade still pressed.
Would you be free?
Despite her struggles, Valea suddenly looked past him. He could not see the phoenix, but she could.
I would, the guardian answered. I would.
Only because Shade was now part of the spellwork could the phoenix have answered so. Before, the control of its masters would have been absolute.
Come to me, then, Shade said. Come to me . . .
The phoenix’s presence filled him. They became one. The guardian’s masters felt the intrusion and fought against it. Yet, now not entirely part of the land, their effort was weaker, insufficient.
Shade fed the power into the phoenix. The guardian drew it deep within. The sorcerer could feel the guardian’s pain; being a thing of pure magic, the power affected it in some ways worse than it had Shade. Yet, for even a chance of freedom after so many, many millennia, the phoenix did not shirk.
But even the phoenix did not understand fully his intentions. Shade would do as the founders had done so many millennia ago. He would cast his self, his essence, into the land, forcing them out at the same time.
He would become the land . . .
The notion, however fantastic, suddenly held great appeal to Shade. He would be a god, his will dictating the course of the Dragonrealm and beyond! Certainly, the sorcerer thought in growing glee, it was the least he deserved. First, he would erase from existence all those who had threatened him. Cabe Bedlam and his wife. The Gryphon. Certainly all the Dragon Kings.
“Shade!”
The madness faded. Shade realized that he had nearly fallen prey to the darker side of his affliction. Only her voice had kept him from doing so. Only Valea’s voice.
He groaned as he was attacked anew. Even with the phoenix’s assistance, the final bond between the ancient race and the land would not sever and they were determined not to let it happen. Both the guardian and the sorcerer flagged. They began to lose ground.
Soft hands touched his cheeks. Valea brought her face close to his and immediately began to give her strength to him. Shade did not know what had happened to her captors but feared more what would happen to the enchantress if she continued to feed him her power. He tried to pull back, but Valea would not let go.
And the worst part was, her aid helped swing the balance in Shade’s favor again. The last tenuous hold of the founders to the land began to slip away . . .
A hand pushed Valea aside, sending her sprawling atop the mechanism. The link broken, the balance shifted again in favor of the founders. Shade gasped in agony and the phoenix shrieked.
The savage, reptilian visage of the Crystal Dragon filled Shade’s desperate gaze.
XXVIII
THE SORCERER, THE DRAGON, AND THE PHOENIX
TO SHADE’S SURPRISE, rather than attack him, the Crystal Dragon fed his power into the sorcerer.
The bond between the ancient minds and the land finally broke. Shade prepared to quickly plunge his own essence into the spell. To become part of the land, to guide it hopefully better than the founders, that was a better fate than he could have dreamed for after so long.
Yet, Valea still intruded into his thoughts. She was his one regret, the one last thing that made him desire to stay mortal. But if he did not quickly fill the void, the founders would return and he, Valea—everyone—would be lost.
No, it’s time you lived.
At first, he thought it was the phoenix that spoke in his mind, but that made no sense. Then, Shade stared into the drake lord’s burning eyes and saw not a Dragon King but his brother.
Using that surprise, the Crystal Dragon—Logan of the Tezerenee—insinuated himself into the spell in place of Shade.
The sorcerer roared as he was physically tossed free. He should have fallen off the mechanism, but some force threw him toward Valea. Shade landed next to her, then rolled over to face his brother.
The towering form of the Crystal Dragon glittered brighter than the sun. His glory outshone that of the phoenix.
Logan’s voice echoed in his thoughts. I have lived too long . . . I will not become as our brothers . . . a beast. This is better for me . . . and for you . . . Gerrod . . .
“Logan.”
The land will be better served . . . I promise . . .
“Logan!” Shade rose.
The Dragon King grew so bright that he blinded Shade. The sorcerer turned from the brilliance, his eyes falling upon a conscious Valea. The look she gave Shade revealed that she had heard everything that he had. She knew what—or rather, who—the Crystal Dragon was.
The light shone brighter yet. A tremendous heat now accompanied it. Shade knelt over Valea and covered both of them with his cloak. Simultaneously, he created a magic shield around them.
From behind him came the roar of a dragon.
Despite the searing light and the heat, Shade forced himself to look again. Through tearing eyes, he saw the gleaming leviathan. The Crystal Dragon reared up and continued his roar as he stretched his wings wide. The tips nearly touched the sides of the vast chamber.
And suddenly, the phoenix superimposed itself upon the dragon. It became difficult to see where one began and the other ended. The fiery colors of the guardian only made the dragon more brilliant, and when the drake lord roared once more, he did so with the phoenix’s song adding to the strength of it.
Manic whispering assailed Shade. The featureless beings formed around them again. Yet, barely had they done so than a change came over them. One stumbled, then limply fell from the mechanism. Others collapsed as if now rag dolls.
Another materialized right beside the sorcerer, but this one acted differently. It moved slowly but precisely, offering a hand.
Shade took the hand, only belatedly noting that the shield he’d cast was no more. He gripped the figure’s hand.
And once again, he saw the female founder. This time, however, she stared directly at him. She radiated satisfaction, even perhaps some gratitude.
That was it. The image faded. Shade found his hand empty.
The dragon/phoenix cried out again. A tremendous radiance swelled throughout the chamber. Edrin and Magron finally fled from the mechanism, then the room.
The dragon/phoenix peered down at Shade and Valea. Their bond is severed with the land, but they still fight . . .
“What can be done?” Shade asked.
This place must be forever sealed or they might yet regain that bond . . . they will need the tower . . . I will see that it is kept from being used again, but you must save yourselves . . . if I lose concentration before the tower is sealed, all may yet be lost . . . go now!
Whether it was the Crystal Dragon or the guardian or both speaking, Shade could not say. He knew, though, that it was not making a suggestion but issuing a command.
He clutched Valea tight. “We must do this together.”
She nodded, then grew wide-eyed again. “Darkhorse! We can’t leave him!”
The hooded sorcerer cursed himself for briefly forgetting the eternal. He looked down and sa
w that Darkhorse remained a pool of black energy—or perhaps a pit, for anyone falling into it would have fallen forever. The eternal had evidently lost consciousness or he would have at least moved by now.
Sweeping one hand across the area, Shade caused Darkhorse’s essence to flow together. No normal creature could have been compacted together so, but with effort Shade formed of the eternal a tight ebony sphere. He summoned the sphere to him, then secreted it in one of the mystical areas within his voluminous cloak. There, Darkhorse would remain safe, assuming that Shade did, also.
“No more time!” The warlock inhaled sharply. “It must be done!”
“I’m ready.” Her mind linked with his, her power with his.
They vanished from the chamber, materializing some distance from the tower. Even as they did, the radiance he had just seen swelled beyond the confines of the tower, magnifying the ancient structure’s iridescence so that the landscape itself began to take on the same myriad colors.
The ground shook, no natural tremor. Over the tower, the dragon/phoenix formed in the radiance. More and more, though, the avian shape dominated. The sorcerer was not surprised; if Logan—and now he could not help but think of him as the man, not the dragon—had done as Shade had intended, there truly was only the guardian left. Logan should now be the land.
The guardian, and perhaps its still-protesting masters?
Another violent tremor sent the pair tumbling. Shade sought out the tear with his powers and discovered that the dwarven twins were nearly there. Clearly, they had some magic of their own, but Shade was not concerned. Their fate was their own now; without the land commanding them, they were likely to eventually find themselves merely two dwarves among many, their immortality even in question.
The phoenix, now ascendant, trebled in size. The last vestiges of the dragon faded away, yet the violence of the tremors only increased.
The guardian swept over the tower, over the nearby landscape. With each movement, more forces gathered around it. The phoenix was preparing a spell that would leave nothing in this pocket world unchanged.
“What is it planning to do?” Valea asked.
“Seal off this place forever.”
“But it’ll be trapped here!”
Shade shook his head. “It has served—no, it has been enslaved—for longer than we can imagine! It will have no one enslave it again . . .”
It was not freedom as they thought it, but Shade could appreciate what the elemental had gone through. He could not argue with whatever choice it made here.
Shade had kept hidden from Valea that all the efforts thus far had drained him far worse than he had thought. He hoped to at least bring them near the tear, but beyond that . . .
“Ready yourself again,” Shade ordered. He concentrated, using only a small bit of her offered power. Hers had to be conserved at all cost.
The rip was not apparent to normal senses, but both could see it through their magical ones. On this side, it seemed a pulsating, oval hole in the air. Despite how simple it seemed to move through it, Shade knew otherwise. It would take a strong spell, something that he could no longer cast.
There was no sign of the dwarves. They had gone as they had come. Shade shrugged. Now was the time to concern himself with the one thing that mattered to him. He removed the sphere that was Darkhorse and handed it to the enchantress.
As she looked at him in confusion, he explained, “Valea, we must get you across first. Then, with one of us on each side, I can make certain that the way is sealed as I go through.”
Cabe’s daughter started to nod, then glared at him as the truth dawned on her. “You’re trying to send me through without you!”
“Valea.”
She tightened her grip on him. “We are going through together!”
Behind them, the phoenix sang. There was a new tone in its song, a tone of finality. Their surroundings rippled as if illusions fading away.
Shade summoned what strength he had left. If Valea would not listen to him, he would send her to safety one way or another.
But Valea cast first. Her grip unshakable, she pulled Shade with her.
And as they faded from the pocket world, the phoenix sang the end of its song. Its fire melded with the glory of the tower and the gleam of what had once been a Dragon King. Their majesty spread over the landscape and especially toward the tear.
VALEA AND SHADE landed harshly in the Hell Plains just beyond the way to the pocket world. Shade could barely breathe, but he saw that the enchantress suffered more. She had exerted herself too much taking both of them, and Darkhorse, back to the Dragonrealm. The heat was stifling and here, too, the land quaked, if for more normal reasons.
Forcing himself up, the sorcerer took Valea by the waist and pulled her farther from the tear. The radiance extended from the pocket world, adding a beauty to this area of the Hell Plains. With it came the last notes of the phoenix’s song.
With a crackle, the tear sealed itself, vanishing as if it never was.
Unable to push on, Shade rested Cabe’s daughter against a rock. He took a step away, then weaved as exhaustion threatened him. He put a hand to his face to wipe away sweat—and saw the baked crimson earth through his palm.
Only with effort was he able to hold back a cry. The curse had been a part of him for so long that even having been tied into the tower’s energies to so great an extent had not freed him from it.
A moan alerted him to Valea’s stirring. Shade studied the enchantress closely, his decision already made.
VALEA AWOKE TO the fear that the world was collapsing around her. Instead, she found herself in the Hell Plains. Alone.
“Shade!” Her first horrified thought was that he had been left behind, but she vaguely recalled arriving here with him. She looked around yet saw no sign of him. “Shade!”
Another presence stirred. Valea looked down at the ebony sphere. She pointed at it.
“Free! Free!” Darkhorse blossomed fully formed. Once again the ghostly stallion, he spun in a circle not possible for a true equine as he searched for the same person she did. “Shade! Where is he?”
“Gone.” A terrible suspicion overtook her. Could it be? Could he still be suffering?
After all he had been through, the thought that he was still afflicted made her want to sob. Yet, Valea held back. Losing control would avail neither Shade nor her. She would have to track him down, have to find him and help him.
But first, there was something else she had to do.
“Darkhorse . . . Darkhorse, can you take me to Penacles?” It was where she thought her parents likely were. Lochivar had been marching on the Gryphon’s city; they would be there.
Unless Penacles had fallen.
“I will take you there,” the eternal promised, creating two arms to pluck her up to his back. “And when all is well there, we will see to him, I promise.”
Valea silently nodded, her concern for her parents’ safety matched only by that for the sorcerer. Still, there was nothing she could do for him at the moment, while her parents might yet need her aid.
As Darkhorse charged off, she eyed the area where the entrance to the pocket world had been one last time . . . and brooded about what might have been.
CABE HESITATED WITH his next spell, still unwilling to believe the sight before him but unable to deny it. The seemingly unstoppable ranks of the undead had but a few minutes before begun to act oddly. They had moved as if without direction, swinging this way and that or simply wandering off.
And then they collapsed. As simple as that. They fell as one, their rotting body parts scattering along the marshy landscape, their weapons sinking into the ground.
The defenders, believing this to be the work of the Bedlams, let out lusty cheers and surged forward to take on the stunned enemy.
As that happened, the titanic struggle between Dragon Kings itself took an unexpected turn. Although still fighting to a stalemate with the lord of the Dagora Forest, the Red Dragon suddenly pushed h
imself away from the combat. He let loose with a wild plume of fire and magma and, as his elder counterpart dove aside to evade it, spun about and headed back toward the Hell Plains.
It was enough to crush what little morale remained among the Red Dragon’s servants. The front lines splintered. Those farther back began to retreat. The retreat became a rout as the other red dragons followed their master and abandoned the forces on the ground.
“What in the name of the Dragon of the Depths happened?” the wizard could not help finally blurting out as the Jaruu and the rest scattered over the horizon. The forces gathered by the Green Dragon pursued them, but slowly, in case of a trap. It was not wise to venture too far into Wenslis, even if its drake lord had not taken part in the battle itself.
The forest-green leviathan landed a short distance away. As he did, his body shrank and his wings shriveled until they vanished. The legs straightened, becoming the limbs of a towering, armored figure. The reptilian visage slid upward, not only becoming an elaborate crest atop a helm but also revealing a half-visible, more human face beneath the false headpiece.
“Sssomething hasss happened to the Lordsss of the Dead!” the Green Dragon hissed. “They would not abandon their plan ssso unless they had to!”
“But why would Lord Red still flee? With the Black Dragon allied with him?”
“Isss he ssstill? Can you contact your wife?”
Cabe did just that. Gwen! What happens in Penacles? Anything out of the ordinary?
Her response was immediate. Lochivar is in disarray! There is no coordination, little leadership! The black drakes are retreating from the field and their human warriors are milling about! There are pockets of resistance, but they’re fading!
He thanked her for the news and promised to be there shortly with a surprise, then relayed everything to the Green Dragon. The drake lord was equally pleased and perplexed.
“Something is wrong with Black,” Cabe said. “Red might be unseasoned enough to panic at the first hint of a plan gone awry, but Black would keep his teeth sunk into it until the bitter end.”
Legends of the Dragonrealm: Shade Page 31