Legends of the Dragonrealm: Volume 04

by Richard A. Knaak

  What, indeed. Only ghouls and savage horrors from beyond!

  Wishing there were another way, for his own sake, Wellen pulled out the knife and attacked the slowly rising Necri.

  The demonic servant of the Lords of the Dead turned to face him . . . a moment too late. The blade, intended for the neck, caught the beast in the snout. Wellen was startled but relieved to discover that the Necri did not have impossibly thick skin near that region. The knife sank all the way to the hilt. A thick, brackish fluid covered both the hilt and the scholar's hand. It stung terribly, making Wellen release the blade without thinking.

  The Necri was squealing, trying to grasp the slick hilt and remove it. It took a halfhearted swipe at its human target, but the knife insisted on attention. The batlike terror clawed futilely at the moist blade, only doing more damage to its snout. Wellen fell back against the edge of the bed and looked around in desperation for something to finish the beast. Even wounded as it was, the Necri would soon enough come for him . . . and now it partly blocked the only way out.

  Benton Lore, wielding a falchion, chose to materialize in that selfsame entranceway, followed closely behind by at least two or three guards bearing similar short swords. He looked in horror at the necromancers' servant, then immediately brought the wide blade down on the neck of the wounded monster. The falchion sank deep into the Necri, splattering more of the foul liquid over the area.

  The Necri shivered once . . . and collapsed.

  The commander quickly wiped the blade off on one of the cloths decorating the nearby walls. Disgusted, he looked at the battered and worn outsider and demanded, "What is happening here?"

  Wellen did not answer him, but turned instead to Shade, who he feared might already be a victim of the other Necri.

  He was not. The shadowy warlock glanced his way as he dropped the tattered remnants of a Necri arm to the ground. Shade appeared tired, but the fury had not left him. The course of the battle had knocked his hood back and Wellen heard Benton Lore and the other soldiers mutter at the sight before them. If anything, Shade seemed almost as much a demon as the savage beasts he and the scholar had fought.

  "You took your time getting here, Lore." In contrast to his appearance, the ancient sorcerer's voice was almost nonchalant, as if Benton Lore had been a few minutes late to a noble's party.

  "Not our fault. We were barely more than two or three minutes . . . and that because a barrier of some sort blocked our way in this hall until moments ago."

  No or three minutes? Wellen blinked. Had it only been that long?

  "Two or three minutes in battle with these can seem like an eternity. Fortunately, they prefer tooth and claw to their magic, else they might have utilized the latter to better advantage. Typical of the lack of thought that their creators suffer from." "Xabene!" Mention of the Lords of the Dead brought the disheveled explorer to his senses. He rushed to the still enchantress's side and reached for her.

  "Stay!" Shade was suddenly there on her other side, his gloved hands gripping Wellen's wrists with such strength that the mortal grunted in pain. The warlock pushed him back. "The link must stay intact. I need it."

  "I cannot let her stay like that! Not even for you!"

  Shade's smile was mocking. "Would it make a difference, Master Bedlam, if I told you that breaking the link would not return her?"

  "What does that mean? Who is responsible for this transgression?" asked Lore, coming up to the foot of the bed. He glanced down at the unmoving Xabene. "What has happened to her?"

  "Always this need for infernal explanations," Shade mocked. "She is the link that the Lords of the Dead used to invade your liege's kingdom. Her body and mind are here, but her spirit, her ka, now resides in their domain."

  "She's dead?" WeIlen paled.

  "I did not say that. I said that her spirit resides in their kingdom, though I cannot say how long before she does die. I sincerely doubt her former masters will have any use for her once they realize they have failed."

  "I should think they would know by now," Benton Lore commented, pointing at the still sizzling remains of one of the Necri the hooded warlock had destroyed.

  The smile creeped onto Shade's face. "I have seen to it that they do not . . . for a time. Time enough, if there are no more interruptions, for me to do what I must."

  Wellen looked the warlock in the eye, not an easy thing to do even now. "You have to save her!"

  "If that is possible; my hands will be filled . . . with my cousins. Now if someone joined me . . . " He stared pointedly back at the scholar.

  Wellen nodded without hesitation.

  "We shall come, too." Lore snapped his fingers. The guards quickly lined up in two columns.

  Shade winked at the scholar, such a disconcerting sight that Wellen almost thought he had imagined it. "I think not, Commander Lore."

  He seized the explorer's hands again.

  The world twisted in and out . . . and so did Wellen.

  It was so dark that his first thought was that someone had doused all the torches in Xabene's chamber. Then the terrible stench of sulfur and rotting flesh informed him that he was elsewhere.

  A blazing light formed in the air only a yard to his right. In its glow, he saw a wretched landscape. The few things that resembled plant life were twisted and black. The scholar was reminded of terrain after a horrible battle in which the only true victors were the carrion crows and their ilk. Things, frightened by the intense light, scurried into holes. A few did not move fast enough and were swallowed up by less frightened, much larger monstrosities that failed to resolve into any distinct shapes when Bedlam tried to see them better.

  "I once knew a place like this," came Shade's voice. Somehow, he had not seen the warlock. Wellen finally made out. the shrouded form standing an arm's length from the floating light. "In some ways, I have never left it."

  The tone was all too familiar to the younger man. It was the same one that the ancient spellcaster generally used as he was slipping into madness. Wellen rushed to prevent that. "Where are we?"

  His spectral companion, seeming almost as much a part of this nightmare world as the things that had hidden from the illumination, quietly responded, "We are in the reflection of another place, a world that long ago died yet still is . . . and only they would think to re-create such despair." A cloak- covered arm rose and a gloved finger pointed ahead. Wellen followed with his eyes and saw something, some structure in the distance. "And there is where they wait."

  The warlock began walking, the ball of light ever floating ahead. Wellen kept pace, knowing that to lose Shade and the light was to lose more than his life, for here were things that fed on souls as well.

  Here were the Lords of the Dead.

  Chapter Thirteen

  In the field abandoned by the gnome, there occurred a strange thing. It happened when no one seemed to be looking that way, curious since, until that point, countless prying eyes had studied the land in a futile attempt to understand what the citadel's master had done.

  The pentagon rematerialized . . . but not quite in the same place.

  Then it disappeared again.

  Wellen and Shade stood at the front gate of the twisted castle that served as the meeting place of the Lords of the Dead. The magical ball of light that the master warlock had summoned was their only illumination, but it served to give the anxious scholar some idea of how the bizarre structure looked.

  What it looked like a hodgepodge collection of many places all fixed together by insane craftsmen. Towers jutted at impossible angles and the style of architecture in one region sparred with an entirely different style next to it. The only thing they all had in common was a presence of despair and decay . . . and madness, too, Wellen corrected himself.

  "Shall we go inside?" the hooded figure asked rhetorically.

  And just like that, they were.

  Shade looked up into the darkness. "Come out, my cousins, and let us speak of family!"

  Save the scattering of tiny
, hideous forms at the silence- shattering call, there was no response.

  As willing as Bedlam was to save Xabene, he wondered what his companion thought he could do against the ageless necromancers. His own abilities were too unpredictable, too reluctant. They had saved him from one of the Necri, but seemingly abandoned him to the other. The only skill he trusted was his ability to sense oncoming danger and that was of no use to him now, for the screaming in his head only told him what his normal senses had from the beginning. This was not a place for a living mortal.

  "We shall have to go to them," Shade informed him. "I would recommend staying near my side for now."

  Where else would I dare go? the explorer wanted to ask. Too many larger things moved about at the edge of the sorcerous illumination, as if biding their time. Wellen tried not to contemplate what would happen if the light spell failed.

  Shade began leading him through a moss-covered hall. The stench was, if anything, worse within the walls than without. Now and then, a large mass lying sprawled on the floor required them to step carefully. The entire place seemed orchestrated to emphasize what it was the Lords of the Dead were. The scholar whispered so to his dread ally, not so much out of fear of discovery, but because the silence was so absolute that any noise was an intrusion that struck to the soul.

  His words did not surprise the shadowy form beside him. A dry, sardonic chuckle escaped the mass of cloth. "There has ever been in my family a sense of the theatrical. Still, I doubt this world we see is the one that they perceive. It has been said that the one most susceptible to an illusion is often the one who has cast it, for he of all people must believe in its worth."

  Rolling the last past over in his mind, Wellen dared ask, "Who said that?"

  "I did."

  Somehow, Wellen found that the answer did not surprise him.

  The hall abruptly ended at a flight of stairs leading up . . . and up. Even when Shade expanded the ball of light, they could see no end.

  "I see they are expecting us." Shade raised a gloved hand. In the extended brilliance, Bedlam noted that his clothing and that of his companion had been repaired. It was a bit consoling, he admitted to himself, that Shade was powerful enough to deign to reclothe them while still concentrating on the danger at hand. Wellen knew he himself would have been hard pressed to conjure even a good glove, if even that much was possible for him.

  "Enough of these childlike games." The warlock's hand folded into a fist as he called out, "By the dragon banner, I demand a confrontation!"

  "The banner is torn," mocked a whispering voice.

  "The staff is broken," said another.

  "And the clan is dead," uttered a third.

  The staircase was gone. For that matter, their entire surroundings had changed, though Wellen would have sworn it was the room that had come to them, not the other way around. They stood in a chamber where an immense pentagram had been etched into the floor. A dark circle marked each point and corner of the pentagram, eleven circles all told when the one in the center, one fairly close to the duo, was counted, too.

  "We are all that remains of the glory," said yet a new voice from almost behind them.

  Bedlam whirled, but Shade seemed not at all put out by the sudden intrusion. He stood his ground and Wellen, trusting his judgment in this case, relaxed, but only a bit. They were, after all, in the sanctum of the Lords of the Dead.

  A shape began to coalesce in the region where the last voice had originated. Basically manlike, but in the way a cloud can look like a person. Temporary. Always shifting, as if the memory was hard to recall. Wellen had an impression of a fully armored figured wearing a cape. The more he stared, the more the impression became clearer. The necromancer, for it surely had to be one of them, wore a helm with some sort of intricate design. Much of his countenance was covered, which the scholar thought was probably a good thing.

  "What do you see?" Shade whispered.

  Wellen hastily described it.

  "You perceive memories. To me, there is a walking cadaver, a thing less alive than the false father I confronted in my chambers. It wears the armor that you mention, but it is rusting and ill-fitting on so emaciated a torso. All of them look so. Yet, even I see only memories."

  "All of them?" He looked around and discovered that there were ten other murky figures around them, each one standing near a darkened circle. When they had appeared he could not say. "Are they . . . dead?"

  "For all that they should be, they are not."

  "We are immortal, cousin," said the one nearest to them. "No more than I."

  "We have become the gods we once were and more."

  "Gods?" Shade laughed. "We were never gods. Just spoiled children with godlike powers, children who did not know how to use those powers." The warlock pretended to look around. "And I see you have learned nothing in that regard."

  "Our kingdom is a paradise." As the leader spoke, the others moved to the center of their respective circles. "We have re-created the Nimth of old."

  "True . . . you have re-created the twisted, sick child we left behind."

  The air crackled with barely suppressed power. Despite their air of indifference, Wellen could see that the Lords of the Dead were very much disturbed by both the intruders and the words of their cousin. He wondered why Shade did nothing. Surely his companion saw what was happening around him?

  "We have mastered life and death."

  The hooded warlock purposely turned away from the speaker and addressed Bedlam. "They think that because they can steal a piece of a dying person's ka, that they have captured the entire thing. They think that a scavenger stealing a morsel is the same as a hunter catching his prey. Have you ever seen such naivety?"

  "You demanded confrontation and we have given it to you!" The necromancers grew larger. The nauseating stench they raised made Wellen's eyes water.

  "The female is your responsibility, Master Bedlam," Shade remarked quietly. "Follow her trail. You cannot miss it from here."

  "His words are ensorcelled," one of the other necromancers commented. "He hides something from us."

  "To little avail," intoned the leader. He took his place in the center and faced the warlock. "To little avail, cousin."

  Shade wrapped himself tightly in his cloak and turned around to stare at the thing that claimed kinship. "Nothing I do is to little avail, Ephraim."

  The ball of light circling above the duo's heads became a nova.

  It was as if the necromancers' world itself screeched in agony. A howl rose among the Lords of the Dead as the blinding illumination revealed to all what they truly were. Wellen swallowed hard. Neither the image he had seen nor the view Shade had described left him ready for the dark mages' true forms. Wellen found it hard to believe that these things could be alive in any sense.

  A hand caught his shoulder and a voice, Shade's voice whispered, "Now is the time, scholar. Find her and take her from here. Go!"

  Propelled in part by the warlock's hand, he ran blindly toward the only exit he could see.

  The light died. Not faded away. Died. Wellen felt it, just as he felt the summoning of great strength by the Lords of the Dead. The running explorer stumbled, then discovered that despite the absence of illumination, he could still see the arched exit. WeIlen increased his pace, regretting for the thousandth time that he had not been able to secure some sort of weapon, such as the falchion that Lore had carried. His knife was gone now, too. Now he only had his sorcerous skills to trust, not a great consolation in this dismal place.

  It occurred to him that he was running without thought, that Xabene could be on the opposite side of the necromancers' citadel. For some reason, though, the novice mage was almost certain he was on the right trail, almost as if the two of them were linked to one another.

  A hiss warned him of approaching danger. Wellen came to an abrupt halt and flattened himself against the nearest wall. He tried not to think of the things he had seen crawling around on other walls in the castle, reminding hi
mself that they could be nothing compared to what moved ahead of him.

  Whatever source, be it Shade's doing or some stirring of his own power, allowed him to see in the darkness, he was hard pressed to make out what shambled slowly toward his location. Wellen was reminded of a beehive with tentacles, but that was all the detail he could make out. He thought that something, some sort of slime, dripped from it, but that was based purely on the sounds the horror made as it moved slowly along.

  Wellen was certain that it was coming for him, until it suddenly turned and went through one of the walls without so much as a second's hesitation. An illusion? With great care, the curious explorer stepped over to where the monstrosity had disappeared. Just before the wall, he stepped into something moist, certain evidence that what he had seen had not been the product of overtaxed imagination. The scholar within could not help taking a moment to study the phenomenon.

  Tentacles burst from the wall, seizing him by the arms and throat.

  Crying out, Bedlam tried to pull back. The thing proved stronger, however, and he found himself slowly but surely edging toward the wall. Wellen wondered what would happen when he and the stone met, then decided that it was a question better left forever unanswered. Frantically, the would-be warlock tried to summon up some sort of spell.

  Nothing happened. He cursed his premonitions; the ability was so overwhelmed by the necromancers' kingdom that the warnings had become one constant headache, with no definition between near and not-so-near danger. Such was the trouble of becoming too accustomed to sorcery; one could forget it had limits.

  In desperation, Wellen gave up attempting sorcery and tried the only thing he could think of. Bracing himself, he kicked the stone from where the tentacles projected.

  If anything, the tentacles pulled with more fervor.