Legends of the Dragonrealm: Volume 04

by Richard A. Knaak

  The bulky corpse began to drag him toward the hall. Wellen forced himself to touch the hand again and struggled to free himself. "Yalso! Listen to me! I've mourned the deaths of all of you and I wish I could bring you back, but you can't trust the Lords of the Dead to keep their promise! They've only resurrected you because they know I feel guilty about what happened!" It was true; he had still not forgiven himself for ever having put together the expedition. "They know I won't fight you as much as I can!"

  Small cracks had materialized in the mariner's hands and face while Bedlam had talked. They reminded Wellen of the sort of cracks a badly formed clay pot might develop on hardening. The sight made him nauseous. Yalso did not bleed as living people did. Even as the unnerved scholar watched, a dark, thick substance began to drip from the wounds. What was slowly seeping out of the corpse was blood, he realized, but it had long ago congealed.

  The undead captain did not notice what was happening to him. "I can't take that chance, Master Bedlam! I'll not stay dead if I have a choice about it! C'mon, man! You'll be okay! They've promised to give you to your lass! Ya can't call that a fate worse than death, now can you?"

  "Where is Xabene?" Had she really betrayed him? It seemed reasonable to suppose that she had to have been their key to the protected realm of the Green Dragon. Like the tragic figure before him, Xabene had been made an offer that encompassed all she could ever want. Life without power was as horrible to her as being dead was to Captain Yalso.

  "She's fine," the corpse replied in what was supposed to be soothing tones. The cracks had spread so much that the mariner was now covered with dripping wounds, none of which he had yet noticed. Yalso's visage was taking on a less-than-pleased expression. "Now, come with me, Master Bedlam, so that what needs to be done will be done!"

  "I cannot, captain!" Wellen lifted his knees into the stomach of his undead companion.

  The sailor shook his head. Bedlam's kick had not even slowed him. "You shouldn'a fought me, Master Bedlam. Now, I'm afraid I'll have to take you more forcible like."

  Yalso's eyes turned up, becoming pale white orbs. More and more the scent of death permeated from his body. "I'll have to make you more agreeable. I'm sorry, lad, but it's me life I'm talkin' about!"

  This is not the captain! Wellen told himself. Yalso was never this way in life and he'd not be this way in death! This was a shadow of the man, manipulated by the soulless necromancers Shade claimed were his kin.

  The scholar fought the rage that welled within him. What the Lords of the Dead had done to Captain Yalso was unforgivable. "Captain, if I could give you what you desire, I would!"

  A brief spark of the old mariner resurfaced. Yalso's horrific visage twisted into a look of genuine sadness at what the two had come to. "I know ya would. I . . . I really can't help meself! They promised me, though!"

  "They promised Xabene many things, but I've seen that they like to take back those promises! Think of how they've treated her!" Wellen was gambling that the enchantress had not been so willing to return to the fold as the corpse had said. Perhaps she had been tempted, even almost succumbed to their offerings, but if she had accepted, why send Yalso, then, instead of her? Xabene was not one to leave something she had started to others. She would have gone after Wellen, if only to erase her earlier failure.

  "I—" Yalso froze, caught between whatever he had been told and what his mind argued might be the truth. Wellen's spirit rallied, although not for his own sake. That Yalso hesitated meant Bedlam had been correct concerning the raven- crested sorceress. Xabene had not betrayed him.

  "I have to . . . " Though the captain's loyalties, enforced or otherwise, tied him to where he stood, it was all too likely that the necromancers' power would prevail in the end. Wellen could not hope that the undead mariner would decay away if stalled long enough. The Lords of the Dead surely had that contingency covered.

  Power within, if there was ever a time for you to come forth, it's now! He wished with all his might for some spell to save him from the clutches of his rotting captor, but nothing happened. His mind still screamed uselessly of the danger he was in, yet no other bit of sorcery sought to free him of that danger.

  For that matter, he wondered why no one was rushing to his aid. With the arguing, it would have made sense for a guard or two to come bursting in . . . unless the forces behind Yalso had taken care of that beforehand.

  Staring at the entranceway, Wellen abruptly spotted his one chance for salvation. It would mean risking all, however, for if he failed, his plan would only serve to turn his late comrade against him.

  "I know it's hard, Captain Yalso," he said in his most understanding voice. "You still have time to consider everything. I could be wrong. Perhaps if we start on our way to wherever it was you were trying to lead me to? By that time, you might be able to think clearer."

  Yalso's now blank eyes stared his way. "What are you trying to do, Master Bedlam?"

  "Help you."

  "Help me . . . all right."

  Wellen had banked on this shambling parody being less than the living sailor or else his plan would have failed in that instant.

  As the captain turned them both toward the entranceway, Wellen stared at the torches that were still burning on each side.

  Yalso only held him by one arm, too.

  His captor was silent, either still engaged in mental battle with himself or simply deciding that speech was an unnecessary drain on his false life. Wellen walked almost beside him, trying to keep up his show of support until the end. "It's always possible that there's another way, captain. Shade is a masterful warlock, perhaps he—"

  "He'll be dead, lad, like I've been."

  Wellen almost gave himself away at the announcement. Just how great an attack was this? Did the Lords of the Dead seek to take on all of their adversaries while they slumbered under the mantle of false security? Was even the Green Dragon in danger? If so, it only made %lien's need to free himself that much greater.

  The torch on his side was almost in his grasp. Another two steps. Then, it was only one. Still Yalso did not notice. Would he react as Bedlam assumed?

  The final step. The burning torch was within reach. Wellen lunged for it.

  "You shouldn'a had, Master Bedlam!" a sad Yalso announced. He pulled hard on Wellen's arm, nearly yanking his prisoner off the floor. His strength was enough that the explorer could not help but fall toward him.

  Which was what Wellen had wanted. Prepared, he added his own strength to the zombie's. The two crashed into one another and, despite Yalso's dead weight, both living and unliving were sent stumbling into the torch on the captain's side.

  The horse that Xabene, or rather the Lords of the Dead, had provided had been a cold, lifeless thing like the unfortunate Yalso. It had felt like a dry, long-dead corpse, although at the time the realization had not sunk in. Wellen had wondered just how dry both the mount and the unliving captain were.

  The answer was . . . very.

  Yalso's back and far side burst into flames like kindling.

  "Put it out!" roared the sailor. His visage, already crumbling, was half ablaze. He released his charge without thinking, trying desperately to beat out the flames. Bedlam did not pause, backing quickly to the other torch and taking it from its stand. With it, he confronted the macabre figure.

  There were tears in his eyes. If he had thought there was actually a way to resurrect his friend . . . "I'm sorry, Yalso, I am."

  "You will come to us!" a chorus of voices decreed. What was left of the sailor's face no longer resembled him. Yalso was gone; the Lords of the Dead had taken complete command. One of the corpse's hands was completely burned away. The other, flames wrapped around it like a glove, reached for the waiting human.

  Wellen thrust the torch at the horror's midsection. The flames rushed up the length of the torso, turning the entire top half of the ghoul into an inferno. The furnishings and curtains behind it were also ablaze. Bedlam, sweating from the head and half blinded by the light
, backed out of the chamber. The thing that had once been Captain Yalso tried to follow, but the flames had spread to its legs and, being so much dry timber, they easily crumpled under the combination of sapping flame and the creature's still-bulky form.

  He watched the corpse burn for a few breaths, his face tear-streaked and his mind recalling Yalso as he had known him in life. Wellen had no doubt that a part of the captain had been there, but at the same time, it had been the necromancers who had guided the strings.

  No one should make a mockery of life like they do!

  There was no time to mourn Yalso and, he reminded himself, he had done so before. It was the living who were important now. Falling back to the cavern corridor, Wellen started to throw the torch away, then remembered that Shade and Xabene might face attacks similar to the one on him. The torch might prove handy. The enchantress, he suspected, was in less danger. If he understood correctly, the Lords of the Dead needed her to maintain penetration of the Dragon King's lair. He was under no misconceptions about his chances of trying to free her on his own. He had only escaped because the necromancers were probably concentrating their power on their most dangerous adversary. Shade.

  It was Shade who represented Wellen's best, possibly only, hope of freeing Xabene, yet, he found he could not bear the thought of rushing to the warlock first. He had to see if he could help her.

  The tunnel was dead silent. tie heard neither drakes nor battle sounds. Either all were killed or they were unaware of what was going on. Likely the latter, for the disarrayed explorer doubted that the death lords could defeat the hooded warlock and destroy the combined drake clans.

  Benton Lore had placed all three outsiders within only a few minutes from one another, yet Wellen saw nothing. Had Shade been caught unaware or in the throes of his madness? Wellen started down the tunnel, still trying to convince himself to rush to the warlock first. What if they had acted against Shade as they had against him? It was the one area where Bedlam held the advantage. The Seekers had struck at the shadowy spellcaster, successfully releasing his memories and using them as distractions. Could the Lords of the Dead have utilized the same trick, only more effectively?

  Riming a corner, he stumbled to a halt.

  There were two human guards standing in the tunnel, facing one another. Human guards for human guest, Bedlam decided. They looked neither ensorcelled nor dead. Both of them looked his way and one brandished a short sword.

  "Identify yourself!"

  "Master Wellen Bedlam! What are—"

  "One of the outsiders brought in by the commander," the other sentry, an older man, explained to his compatriot. To Wellen, he said, "You should not be wandering the system, Master Bedlam. Those unfamiliar can get lost very easy. It's sometimes hard to explain to the drake's young that they shouldn't have eaten a guest of His Majesty."

  "Haven't you heard anything?"

  "No, should we have?" The sentries looked skeptical. Wellen knew he looked like a wild man.

  "I was just attacked by a man who I last saw dead at the claws of a dragon!"

  "Then, he couldna been much trouble, could he?" the younger one asked, chuckling.

  "Your master—"

  "Save your breath on these blind ones," came a voice that was doom incarnate. Wellen was reminded of the tones a judge used when sentencing someone to death . . . or perhaps it was the voice of the executioner himself.

  It was all and neither.

  It was Shade.

  He stood in the midst of the tunnel, directly behind the two guards, who whirled and readied their weapons. Shade raised a finger and the two soldiers fell against the sides of the corridor. They were conscious, but they could not move. Not even speak.

  "Shade! Were you—" He stopped as he caught sight of the warlock's tattered garments. Even the cloak and hood had been torn. The ancient spellcaster still wore the hood over his head, but it failed now to hide the burning rage in those jarring, crystalline eyes. Shade teetered on the brink of an insane rage and it was possible that he had even begun plummeting over that brink.

  "They have gone too far this time," the warlock muttered. He did not seem entirely focused on Wellen. "They chose the one they thought I could not deny in the end, the one most likely to bring me down."

  Memories of the two phantasms floating around mad Shade's head returned. Sharissa and Dru Zeree. Had it been one of them? The woman? Had they used her?

  "They, of course, had never defied him until then. They would never have believed that I could have defied him so." Shade turned to the elder guard. The man, unable to move anything but his eyes, could only stare back in fright. "You. Tell your commander . . . tell your liege . . . that the necromancers have invaded his domain. Now!"

  Suddenly free, the sentry ran. Wellen fell flat against the wall as the man sped past, obviously under a geas or some similar magical compulsion.

  Shade recalled the other sentry. "There may be risk. You had better go with him."

  Compelled, the wisecracking soldier hurried off to join his compatriot.

  "I will not sacrifice any more lives to them," the hooded sorcerer commented coldly. To Wellen, he said, "I come to save you, but I find you coming to save us."

  "I was . . . " Wellen could not get his tongue to work for him. Listening to the sorcerer speak, he had been reminded of Captain Yalso.

  A bit more rationality, but perhaps even more chilling anger, returned to the warlock. "Yes, my cousins no doubt sent someone they thought you might hesitate to resist. Like myself, however, you found that you could." At the shorter man's unasked question, Shade added, "What they sent me wore the shape and form of my dear, unlamented father, but it was not his spirit. I know. That was their fatal mistake. They could re-create the form, but they could not imitate the spirit of the Patriarch of the Tezerenee. It would be unmistakable to me." To Wellen's surprise, Shade actually shivered. "I cannot say what I would have done if it had been him . . ."

  "Shade . . . "

  "They will pay for this debacle . . ."

  "Shade!" Bedlam stepped directly in front of his companion and forced the warlock to look at him. The expression he received almost made him regret his action, but it was too late. Besides . . . "Shade, Xabene needs us! She's the way they were able to pierce the Dragon King's defenses! She's their key!"

  A grim smile stretched his dry skin to its utmost. "And ours. Come."

  Without preamble, the two of them materialized in the enchantress's chamber. Wellen barely noticed this time, his concern for the pale sorceress far outweighing his dislike for teleportation.

  She lay on the bed, almost serene.

  "Xabene?" He started to go to her, but the shadowy warlock stayed him with an arm.

  "They would hardly leave her like this without another trap."

  "Are you certain?"

  "We are kin. We were Vraad. Worse, we were all Tezerenee."

  The names meant nothing to him, but if Shade understood the necromancers, Wellen would bow to his judgment.

  "What could it be?"

  Given a task, the master warlock once more gained a stronger foothold in reality. He took a tentative step toward the motionless figure. "Something surrounding her, deadly to the touch, would be the obvious way."

  Wellen's head, which had been screaming danger since his awakening, somehow succeeded in becoming even more adamant. The danger seemed much closer than a spell surrounding Xabene, almost as if a great physical threat was lurking . . . above?

  Hanging from the cavern ceiling, motionless until Wellen's glance upward, were the Necri.

  "Shade!" was all the harried scholar had time to shout before the winged horrors were upon them. Four dove at Shade, while only two found Wellen of interest. He held up the dying torch, a pitiful thing by now, and wielded it like a sword in the desperate hope that it would have sufficient flame to ward off the oncoming pair that had chosen him for their meal.

  His torch became a sunburst, swelling upward in size yet never so much as sing
eing his fingers. It caught the first batlike monstrosity by surprise, turning the creature into a living fireball that squeaked once and dropped to the chamber floor. Wellen jumped back, but did not lose track of the second horror, which had now grown much more cautious.

  An explosion shook the furnishings and forced Wellen to fight for balance. He was pelted by a rainstorm of stench-ridden gobbets of white flesh and a sickly sweet liquid he did not care to identify, although he had his suspicions. The Necri above was also showered by the ungodly rain, but where the human shook in disgust, the demonic creature was aquiver with rising fury. It hissed.

  Wellen's protective flame winked out of existence.

  The Necri dove, claws bared and maw wide open.

  He fell to the floor and rolled aside. Claws raked his backside, causing him to scream. Fortunately for the scholar, the winged terror had either overestimated the width of the chamber or its own ability to maneuver in closed spaces. As it turned to finish its prey, it caught one winged arm against the rock wall. The sudden loss of the one wing forced the Necri into a short-lived spiral that ended with the monster colliding fully with the wall.

  Panting and wincing from the jagged cuts, Wellen leaped up and charged the Necri's backside. He raised the dead torch above his head, then brought it down as hard as he could. Not once did he consider the creature's skull, suspecting that it was solid as it looked. Instead, Bedlam utilized his momentum and weight as much as possible and focused the head of the torch onto the less protected neck.

  The monster's neck did not crack; Wellen had never thought it would. The blow did, however, send the Necri to the ground, shrieking in agony. Wellen struck again and again. The batlike creature twisted in frustration and confusion, succeeding at last in throwing the scholar from its backside. Still, even free of the human, the Necri could not rise at first.

  An inhuman roar filled with agony overwhelmed Bedlam from behind, but he had no time to see what had caused it. The torch was beyond him now. That left only his knife. Wellen wished he had asked the Green Dragon for a new sword, but doubted that the drake lord would have given him one so readily. After all, what reason had there possibly been for Wellen needing a sword while in the safe claws of Dagora's monarch?