“What is it this time?” shouted Lucan, stepping into the courtyard, his boots clicking against the black flagstones. “Shall you appear in the form of my mother, and castigate me for my failures? Or will you take Tymaen's shape, and blame all my pain upon my mistakes? Or perhaps you'll take the shape of Marstan, and mock my weakness?” His voice rose to a shout, echoing off the side of the mountain. “Or maybe you'll take my shape as a child, and I can reflect sadly upon my lost innocence and youth.” The rage bubbled in him, threatening to spin out of control. He had made mistakes, yes, but he had done what was necessary. He had already suffered so much, lost so much. Why must he suffer this, too? “Well? Stop hiding! Out with it already!”
The echoes died away.
“Have you grown so suspicious, Lucan?”
He turned, scowling.
Tymaen stood by the stone railing, clad in a gown of rich green with gold trim on the sleeves and hem. Her hair rippled in the wind, and her sad blue eyes watched him.
“Or perhaps,” she said, “your own guilt makes you suspicious, for you know that retribution is close at hand.”
“I am suspicious,” said Lucan, “because I am trapped in the spirit realm, and pursued by chattering wraiths that weary my ears with absurdities.”
Tymaen shook her head. “I remember when you were happy. When you were...”
“Shut up,” said Lucan. “You're not Tymaen. You're either one of the reapers, or one of those the shadows. Another servant of the Demonsouled corruption.” He flexed his hand, drawing more magical power. “Return to your master, and tell him to stop sending tattered wraiths to pursue me. I will escape from this place, and if he hinders me, I will destroy him.”
Tymaen smirked. She had never worn an expression like that in life, her mouth twisted with cruelty, her blue eyes filled with hateful glee. “Tell him yourself.”
Lucan spun.
His father stood in the center of the courtyard. Even his late forties, Lord Richard Mandragon was strong and vigorous. Lord Richard wore armor made from crimson chain and the overlapping red scales of a slain dragon. At the age of eighteen, Richard Mandragon had ventured into the dragon-haunted peaks of the Great Mountains and slain a dragon with his own hands, earning the name Dragonslayer. At eighteen, Lucan's elder brother Toraine had done the same, killing a black dragon, and men called him the Black Dragon.
When Lucan had been eighteen, Marstan had tried to possess him.
The Dragon's Shadow, men called Lucan. The skulking wizard, lurking in the shadows of his noble father and fearless brother.
“How terribly clever,” said Lucan. “A hooded shadow wearing my father's form. Have you come to lecture me about my failings? How I have disappointed you? How I am unworthy of bearing the name of Mandragon?”
Richard said nothing, his black eyes focused on Lucan.
Lucan sneered and stepped forward. “I am what I am because of you, father. You let Marstan teach me, even knowing what he was. And you used my arts and spells to fortify your power. Yes, Richard Mandragon is a generous and wise lord...but cross him and he'll send Toraine to rape your daughters and Lucan to work dark magic on your lands.”
Still Richard said nothing.
“Get out of my way,” said Lucan. “You're not my father. You're only another shadow.”
He cast a spell, his will hammering in a psychokinetic blast.
Richard made a twisting motion with his right hand, his eyes blazing with crimson fire. For an instant the air around him distorted, like the air rippling over the hot ground in the summer sun. Lucan’s psychokinetic attack collapsed, leaving Richard unharmed.
A warding spell.
“Ah,” said Lucan, flexing his fingers. “Another hooded shadow, I assume? I destroyed the first of your kind I encountered, and I shall destroy both of you.”
“You are a fool, Lucan Mandragon,” said Richard. It was his father's voice, the voice Lucan had endured all his life. Yet now it had a strange resonance, as if something darker and stronger snarled beneath the deep tones of Lord Richard's voice.
“Perhaps,” said Lucan, “but I know what you are. A hooded shadow, a servant of the Demonsouled corruption I brought into myself.”
“Do you not know who I am?” said Richard. The bloody fire in his eyes blazed brighter.
Lucan frowned. The fire in Richard Mandragon's eyes was the same color as the light that had flickered in the sigils of his bloodstaff. The bloodstaff that Lucan had forged in Mazael's Demonsouled blood...
“You,” said Lucan, “you're...”
“I am you,” said Richard.
“No,” said Lucan. “You're the Demonsouled power I pulled into myself, the corruption that...”
“No,” said Richard. “I am you, Lucan Mandragon. I am the Demonsouled power that fused with a portion of your spirit, creating this place.” He gestured with a red-armored hand at the mountain, the black city, and the dead forest spread out below. “You see me as your father, do you not? You always feared that you would become as cold and as ruthless as him. But now you fear what the Demonsouled power will make of you. You struggle against it, against me, even as it devours your soul piece by piece.”
“I will defeat you,” said Lucan.
Richard shook his head. “I am you. How can you defeat yourself? You fear me...but you should not. You have always desired power, and I have great power. I am what you are destined to become, what you were meant to be. Join with me. Let the sundered halves of our soul rejoin. And when we become one once more, no will have the power to stop us. Everyone who ever made us suffer will pay a thousand times over. And then, we will have the strength to cleanse the world of dark magic forever, to hunt down and slay every last necromancer. We shall make the San-keth extinct.” His voice hardened. “We will hunt down and kill every last Demonsouled. For they are the ultimate authors of our suffering. The Old Demon himself trained Marstan’s teachers. And the power in Mazael's blood did this to us, splitting us asunder.”
“Yes,” whispered Lucan. He did want that, very much. The power to end all dark magic. The power to make his enemies suffer, to make them beg for mercy...
No! That way lay madness.
“I am Lucan Mandragon,” spat Lucan, “not you. I am not the puppet of the Demonsouled, or the Old Demon, or the San-keth, or anyone else! And you are only a posturing shadow, a phantasm of the spirit world.”
“Do not be a fool.”
A new voice. Lucan saw his older brother Toraine, tall and slim in his armor of black dragon scales, walk to join Lord Richard and Tymaen.
“You could never defeat me,” said Toraine. “You were always too weak. Well, now is your chance to become the strongest. Are you too cowardly to seize it?”
“Oh, he has potential, certainly.” This time Marstan, an old man in black robes, strode across the courtyard. “But he was too weak to seize it.” He smirked. “Lucan is nothing more than raw material for those strong enough to use him.”
Lucan swallowed. Tymaen, Toraine, and Marstan were almost certainly hooded shadows. Lucan could take one of the hooded shadows in a straight fight, but three would almost certainly overpower him. And he did not know what kind of power the Lord Richard apparition wielded. If Richard drew on the full power the bloodstaff had possessed, then Lucan would find himself quickly defeated.
Richard held out an armored hand. “Join me. Let us become one, as we were meant to be.”
“No,” said Lucan. “I am my own man. Not a puppet. If I accept you, if I accept the Demonsouled power, I'll become the sort of twisted creature that Ultorin became. And I will not. I did not fight against dark magic only to let it devour me.”
Richard shook his head. “The end is not in doubt. We shall become one, and you shall become greater. The only question is whether you come of your own will...or I force you to do so. Take him.”
Tymaen, Toraine, and Marstan lifted their hands, casting spells, and Lucan felt the crawling tingle of magical force.
He struck
first.
Lucan's will lashed out, flinging a blast of psychokinetic power. But instead of one massive blow, he split his will, sending the force in a dozen different directions. The blast struck the chunks of broken statues scattered around the courtyard, sent them flying into the air.
Into Lucan's enemies.
Broken statues fell into Marstan, Tymaen, and Toraine, disrupting their spells and sending them crashing to the ground. Lucan cast another spell, unleashing a volley of sizzling blue sparks at Richard Mandragon. The air around Richard shimmered, and then flashed as his defensive wards collapsed. Lucan began casting again, hoping to land a killing blow on Richard.
Richard moved faster.
Blood-colored fire burned around his fingers, and he flung a bolt of crimson flame. Lucan cast a ward around himself, just in time. His ward screamed and shuddered under the strain of the blast, and he staggered back several steps. The attack had been hideously strong, and Lucan's strength had barely sufficed to turn it aside.
Tymaen, Marstan, and Toraine scrambled to their feet, and as they did, their human shape melted away, flowing back into the form of hooded shadows. Richard began casting another spell, more crimson flame dancing in his palms.
Lucan launched another blast of psychokinetic force, seizing more chunks of broken statues and flinging them at Richard and the hooded shadows. But the shadows cast wards of their own, deflecting the rain of debris. Richard gestured, and crimson flame devoured the rubble flying for his head, reducing it to dust.
“You're too weak, Lucan,” said Richard.
“Now you truly sound like my father,” growled Lucan.
“Join with me,” said Richard. “Let us become one. For we are one, already – you are merely delaying the inevitable. You struggle against what you might become, the power that is rightly yours.”
“You're damned right I struggle against what I might become,” said Lucan. “I will not become a man like Marstan or Malavost. Or a monster like Ultorin.”
“You already are a man like Marstan and Malavost,” said Richard, the hooded shadows waiting at his side. “They wielded dark magic to achieve their ends. You have done the same. What is the difference between you?”
Lucan opened his mouth to speak an answer...and found that he did not have one.
Richard used his hesitation to strike, flinging another blast of bloody flame, and Lucan barely deflected it. The hooded shadows began casting spells, their magic picking up broken pieces of statuary and hurling them at Lucan. He cast fresh wards about himself, trying to deflect both the blasts of fire and the rocky missiles. His defenses held, the wards sparking and flickering beneath the strain.
But he had no power left to attack, and his wards were collapsing...
A chunk of stone clipped Lucan on the shoulder. Another slammed into his thigh, and he staggered back several steps. A third struck his hip, and he collapsed to his knees, blood falling from his wounds.
And sinking into the earth.
The Demonsouled power flooded into him, strengthening him, his pain draining away.
For a panicked moment Lucan tried to keep the power at bay. He dared not use it. He would escape this place on his own, take vengeance on his foes on his own...
A piece of stone cracked into his chest, knocking him to the ground.
Lucan snarled and seized the Demonsouled power.
Crimson fire filled his hands, and he surged to his feet. A gesture, and the debris hurtling through the air disintegrated into ashes. Another gesture, and a volley of bloody flame slammed into Richard Mandragon, knocking him back. More Demonsouled power flooded into Lucan, and he felt the dark magic pulsing through the very stone of the mountain.
He felt the hooded shadows, the chains that bound them to Richard.
With a single spell he shattered those chains and remade them.
“Take him!” shouted Lucan. “Kill him! Kill him now!”
The hooded shadows attacked Richard. They swarmed over him, raking at him with dark claws. Richard staggered back, flinging out his hands. Crimson fire exploded, ripping the hooded shadows to shreds of smoke.
For a moment Richard started at Lucan, glowing eyes narrowed.
And then he changed.
The most powerful Demonsouled had the ability to change their forms. Morebeth Galbraith, child of the Old Demon and Mazael's half-sister, had possessed the ability to become a hunting spider the size of an ox, with a hide like steel plate and legs like sword blades. Richard Mandragon swelled, his skin turning to blood-colored scales, his red hair stiffening into spikes.
A moment later a great crimson dragon stood in his place, eyes ablaze with dark flame, sulfurous smoke rising from its fanged mouth. The dragon was as large as a mansion, a hundred feet from mouth to tail, and its wings could have blotted out the sun.
“We are one, Lucan Mandragon,” rumbled the dragon. “I will await you atop the mountain. You shall come to me, and you and I become one. It is inevitable.”
The dragon sprang into the air, vast wings unfolding. Lucan watched as the dragon flew away and vanished into the jagged towers of the black city.
“A dragon for a Mandragon,” said Lucan. “Such poor taste.”
But the glib words could not hide the fear. He had been able to command the hooded shadows, once the Demonsouled power filled him. But if he drew on too much of the Demonsouled power, it would consume him. He would turn into a creature like Ultorin.
Or he would turn into the manifestation of the Demonsouled corruption, the thing that wore the face and form of Lord Richard Mandragon.
He shuddered at the thought. Maybe the Demonsouled corruption wouldn't turn him into a twisted thing like Ultorin. Perhaps instead it would transform him into someone like Amalric Galbraith – a man of power and might, a terrible lord before whom men trembled.
And...would that be so bad?
“No,” whispered Lucan.
But the things he would do with such power! He could cleanse the world of the San-keth. He could hunt down the Demonsouled and destroy them all, free the world of their taint. And then he could kill his father and his older brother, make them pay for all the pain they had inflicted on him.
Lucan shoved aside the thought.
He would not take up the Demonsouled power, not again. He would defeat the manifestation of the corruption and escape this place. Then he would help Mazael defeat Malavost and save Deepforest Keep.
And then he could take his vengeance on those who had caused him so much pain...
“No,” repeated Lucan.
The moaning wind held no answers for him.
Could Lucan even defeat the corruption's manifestation, the thing that took the shape of Lord Richard Mandragon? It was part of his own soul. Lucan was fighting against himself.
Could Lucan even defeat himself?
And did he even want to?
He could not undo his mistakes. He could only ensure that he made no more.
But had they even been mistakes, really? He had needed the power to do what was necessary.
And taking that power had left him stranded here, stalked by horrors conjured by his tainted soul.
“I did what needed to be done,” said Lucan. “I did what was necessary!”
His voice rose to a shout, echoing off the mountain's slopes.
Again the moaning wind had no answer for him.
He could only go forward, to face himself in the black city. The Old Demon had been right – Lucan would not like the answers he found.
But he had no other choice.
After a moment, Lucan resumed the climb, the mountain's peak and the black city drawing closer.
Chapter 21 – Children of the Old Demon
Two days after the battle at Morsen, Mazael returned to Castle Cravenlock at the head of his men.
He saw women standing upon the walls of the castle as Hauberk clattered through the gates. The wives and mothers and sisters and daughters of the men Mazael had led to the west, waiting to
see if their husbands and sons and brothers and fathers would return. Most of them would see their men return.
Some would not.
Mazael saw Rachel standing in their midst, Aldane cradled in her arms. At least he could tell her that Gerald was safe.
For now, anyway. If Corvad transformed Lucan into a Malrag Queen, the Grim Marches would burn. Even Knightcastle itself might fall, if Corvad was not stopped.
Sir Nathan and Sir Hagen awaited him in the courtyard. Squires and grooms hurried forward, tending to the knights and their horses.
“Were you successful, my lord?” said Nathan.
“I was not,” said Mazael. “We held against the zuvembies and the Malrags, but Corvad got away, and took what he wanted from the San-keth temple. Sir Hagen, see to the men. I want a force of two hundred ready to ride at once. Sir Nathan, attend me in the chapel's library. I intend to ride east for the Great Mountains at dawn.”
Hagen bowed, while Nathan followed Mazael to the chapel.
###
Mazael watched as Timothy and Romaria squinted at the maps.
“Seventy miles south of Mount Drachgan?” said Timothy.
“Aye,” said Mazael. “That’s what Szegan said.”
He stood in the chapel's library, a small room lined with books. Timothy had recovered scraps of old maps from Morsen's San-keth temple, and taken them with him to Castle Cravenlock. The chapel's library also had a map of the Great Mountains.
He wondered how much more detail Molly's map contained.
“The Great Mountains are vast, my lord,” said Timothy, scribbling a mathematical formula in a notebook. “Perhaps six hundred miles wide, from the Grim Marches to the barbarian lands of the east. The wizard-lords of Old Dracaryl knew them all, but in the modern age they have never been mapped.”
“Why not?” said Mazael.
“They're too dangerous,” said Romaria, straightening up. “When Dracaryl fell, the conjured servants and wards of the high lords remained. And dragons still live among the peaks, and occasionally attack the surrounding lands.”
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