Darkhorse vanished again. He materialized in the last position he had hoped Dwar would go and quickly cast the two final portals one behind the other.
From within the collection of blink holes, Dwar screamed as he reached the swirling mass. He regained a modicum of control, but by then several of the servant segments had reached him. They swarmed him, pushing him into the huge black shape.
The mass instantly absorbed him. Darkhorse sensed Dwar’s agony long after his audible screams ceased.
He had assumed all along that Dwar would betray him. And even if Dwar had not, Darkhorse had already planned to betray him. Darkhorse had noted Dwar’s comments, Dwar’s actions. In them, he had read the same dangerous nature he had experienced from Yureel. The shadow steed had come to the sorry conclusion that he could not allow Dwar to exist. Yet, he had also needed the other’s aid to deal with the central mass. Darkhorse could not have created all the portals so quickly himself.
His sacrifice of Dwar also served in one more way. Focused on capturing Dwar and controlling its other segments, the mass ever so briefly lost its concentration where Darkhorse was concerned.
The ebony stallion created the last portals.
Glimmering blink holes utterly surrounded the shadow steed and the monstrous form. The thoroughness of Darkhorse’s plan meant that no matter where one turned, there would be only a portal.
Darkhorse peered around. He had done all he could. He prayed that he had calculated correctly.
I am Dwar...
The voice thundered in his mind. The mass pulsated harder with each word.
I am Dwar...now...
Darkhorse backed toward one of the portals. “Yes, you are Dwar now!”
And I will be Darkhorse, too...
“No, I think not!” The shadow steed backed into the portal.
As he expected, the mass sent out a tendril toward him. It followed Darkhorse into the portal.
The shadow steed’s surroundings shifted. Suddenly, he was in the midst of the second portal behind him...and then in the midst of one of the other portals Dwar had created. Even as that registered, Darkhorse found himself then flung through another...and another...and another.
Darkhorse had shown Dwar how to focus just where a portal opened. Many thought of the magical gaps as methods by which tremendous distances could be traveled almost instantaneously, but they could just as easily be designed to cover very short distances. Each of the ones that he and Dwar had created had been tied to previous ones that they had cast.
The tendril passed through with him. It in turn passed through on to the next...and the next...and the next...and the next...
And as it passed through each, it dragged more and more of the mass through with it. Portals, especially the large blink holes, were designed to cast the entire object through them. The portals were attempting to oblige, with the result that the mass was quickly being stretched through every hole.
Darkhorse struggled to slow his own continuous shift from one portal to another. As the one who had cast most of them, he had some limited control. When he materialized in one of those of his creation, he finally made one last desperate spell.
A tiny portal no larger than a human hand formed within the vaster hole. Darkhorse barely managed to pour himself into it. He dismissed it the moment that he passed through. Even then, the stress of maintaining the smaller portal within the other all but ripped him apart. He had never tried to do it before but had believed it should work.
A sudden rush of raw energy washed over him. Darkhorse cried out—
“By my grandmother’s beard!”
Darkhorse spilled onto a solid surface he could not see as a puddle of black ink. He had no mastery over his essence. Indeed, with each passing second, he faced a greater chance of utterly dissipating.
“Come on, damn you! Tell me what I can do!”
The shadow steed belatedly recognized Master Thurn’s voice. That stirred a memory. Something he had arranged for just this moment. He had known that he might face horrific stresses even if his plan worked—
“Is it this thing? You said I should mind the ax! The one you made from you! Does it do somethin’?”
The ax. That was it, Darkhorse realized. The ax had been his safety measure. His tie to the Dragonrealm. To survival.
Ax...he thought to the dwarf. Darkhorse could not only not form a mouth; he could not even create an audible voice. The eternal could only hope that he could project his thoughts to the dwarf. Had Master Thurn been a spellcaster such as Cabe Bedlam, the odds of him hearing would have been great. The dwarf, though, was a warrior, not a wizard—
“Stop that buzzing in my head! What’re you trying to say? Slower, damn it!”
Darkhorse took heart at even that much success. Despite the increasing danger of his dissolution, he forced himself to think as slowly and as calmly as he could.
Ax...set in middle...set in middle...
“The ax? It does do something? Sit? I should sit? That can’t be right, damn it!”
Darkhorse tried again. Ax...set down in middle of me...set it down in middle of me...
He felt himself beginning to slip away. His mind felt as if it were in a hundred places at once.
“I think...I think I understand! Damn, I hope I understand you right!”
Darkhorse could no longer respond. He could only try to keep himself together a little longer.
Then, a sense of stability filled him. He grasped hold of it with all his will. His mind began to collect together again and with that came the ability to focus his power.
Master Thurn gasped. As grateful as he was, Darkhorse could pay the dwarf no mind. It still remained a battle to use his power just to pull himself together.
When he had first separated a part of himself to create the weapon, he had also considered another aspect of the ax. Being a part of him so recently, the two would still have greater affinity to one another then either Dwar or the central mass. Once Darkhorse had dealt with the immediate risk of it quickly becoming sentient, it had become his best hope of also circumventing the very trap that he had devised.
Slowly, very slowly, he regained strength. When he was finally able to, he shifted into his preferred equine form.
Master Thurn stumbled back as he did. The dwarf let out a grunt of relief. “It’s done, then? You’re all there?”
“I am...nearly whole. It will take some more time.”
“Do we have that? When that ax—you—started glowin’, I knew you were up to somethin’ big! Did you destroy that huge thing floatin’ in that emptiness?”
“No...but it will not be a danger.”
The dwarf did not look convinced, but nodded. “And that other? What did you call him? Dwar?”
“He is no more.” Darkhorse scuffed the ground, easily creating a great gap. “You are well? You will be able to safely reach your people?”
“Aye, I’m good, but you—”
“Then, I shall leave you! Farewell, Master Thurn! Forgive me for having accidentally drawn you into this!”
“Just a minute!” the dwarf began. “Are you certain—”
But with a simple turn to his right, Darkhorse raced off at such an astounding speed that Master Thurn found himself trying to finish his question to empty air. The dwarf slammed his mouth shut and peered after where Darkhorse had run.
After another grunt, the dwarf shrugged, then headed for the sanity of home, his lingering thought the unsettling one that he was still concerned for the welfare of the infamous Duhn Tromu of all things.
It was not a story he planned on telling the young ones of the community.
For three days, Darkhorse remained in seclusion in the eastern Tyber Mountains as he forced himself to wait until his full strength returned. Three days of growing wariness and concern.
Three days of expectin
g to be dragged back into the Void by the monstrous mass.
But that never happened and at last the shadow steed determined himself powerful enough to finally face what he had done.
Ignoring the worried mental summons of Cabe Bedlam, Darkhorse stepped out into the open and focused.
A gap opened in the air before him.
Without hesitation, Darkhorse charged into it.
Silence filled the Void. Not merely a physical silence, as was to be expected, but an internal silence within Darkhorse that he had not experienced in some time. It added further evidence that he had succeeded with his plan, but still he pressed on. There had to be no mistake.
After a brief hesitation, the shadow steed transported himself to the nexus of the Void.
The fury that greeted him at first startled Darkhorse. Yet, he quickly came to recognize the violent energies as just what he had originally expected to find.
So near one another, the many portals had, by a combination of their magical nature and his design, become one great construct. By doing so, they magnified their strength...guaranteeing that there would be no breaking down of the spell matrix.
Darkhorse watched as his creation surged with active energy. As the shadow steed had planned, his spellwork now fed off of the power flowing into the Void just as the mass did. As he had hoped, that meant that the spell would forever be potent.
It is done, then... Relieved, Darkhorse began to create a portal out of the infernal realm. However, as it formed he heard a faint but awful sound in his mind.
It was a scream. A constant scream. There was that in it that was very reminiscent of Dwar, but more primitive.
It was, Darkhorse knew, the never-ending cry of the mass as it was constantly torn between one portal after another, never able to collect itself enough to stop its torment.
“It had to be done...” Darkhorse muttered to himself. “It had to be done. There was no choice...none...it would have been worse than a thousand Yureels...a thousand Dwars.” Unspoken, he added, and perhaps, yes, a thousand Darkhorses...
The shadow steed shook his head, his mane flying. With the utmost haste, he finished the portal out and rushed through.
Behind him, the silent cry continued unabated.
END
FOUNDERS AND FOOLS
THOSE WHO DO NOT LEARN
FROM HISTORY...
I
The hooded form leaned over the heavy, black leather tome, eyeing the pages that had been reread thousands of times in search of something new. Despite so many readings, each time, a little bit more revealed itself...but just never what was truly needed.
A hand reached out...a scaled, clawed hand akin to that of a reptile. The dim light of the silver sphere of energy floating above the book and the aged marble table upon which it sat also revealed a hint of mauve in the otherwise green scales. Despite the claws, the hand moved with grace as it gingerly turned another page.
Suddenly, male and female voices arose from the page, several strong, arrogant voices that grew louder as the hand began tracing along the jagged script. Each time the index finger reached a new set of symbols, the voices would shift.
It had taken the figure countless centuries to decipher the written part of the language and several more to realize that the pronunciation of each word by the voices was important to the true meaning of each sentence.
Midway down the page, the reptilian hand abruptly flattened hard on the page. The voices ceased. An angry hiss escaped the shadowed figure. It looked up at the silver sphere, the face at last revealed in the illumination.
A face that was a twisted version somewhere between man and dragon.
It was not the face of one of the drake people, the race of dragon men who still ruled much of the continent. Those were flat, lipless and with only slits for a nose, all half hidden beneath a scaled helm that was actually a part of their living form. Instead, the features had hints of humanity, such as the eyes. Although a burning red like those of a dragon, they were shaped as a human’s or an elf’s might be.
Yet what was not quite dragon and certainly not human was the short, wide muzzle, the mouth of which was filled with sharp teeth and long but rounded tongue that darted out in frustration.
“The words I know...the spells I know...” He spun from the book to face a darkened chamber the only hints of which were rock walls just barely visible at the edge of the sphere’s illumination. “but all of that means nothing...nothing...”
He waved his left hand. The sphere went flying from its spot to hover just ahead of him.
The dragon man glared at something ahead of him. “Nothing...I made a mistake killing you then, thinking that I had the solution to the agony you caused me. I made the mistake of killing you because I thought I would have your power to change what you twisted! I made a mistake killing you before I had the complete solution!”
He gestured sharply before him. The sphere shot forward.
“I made a mistake killing you then...” he repeated, stepping with what was clear strain toward the opposite end of the chamber. The sphere dutifully floated on, brightening the way until it revealed the last wall. “but once I rip what I need from you—once I have what will finally give me access to what—I will take the very distinct pleasure of granting you an even more painful death than last time.”
He stared up at a skeletal figure dangling from the wall. Dangling, because the entire body had been pierced in more than a hundred places by long needles formed from the stone behind. The skeleton’s contortions gave clear indication that the death had been long and painful.
“And then, too...” the dragon man bitterly added as the sphere shifted to the right of the skeleton. There, frozen in a layer of translucent stone was a figure who had clearly been writhing in agony when the stone had covered him. The arms were spread wide and the legs were twisted underneath. The hooded head was bent away from view, as if the neck had been broken at some point. “Too soon, again...just as the infernal Elem said would be the case, damn them...”
The second body wore what were clearly garments identical to those of the first. Remnants of the same gloves and voluminous cloak still hung from the skeleton. The high leather boots, weathered but whole, were exactly the same as those of the first corpse.
“But with both I learned. One last time, I will tear your power from you! One last time is all I need! I will reverse what has been, despite what the Elem claim! I will escape this infernal loop and be as I once was despite the cost to all else!” The not quite human tongue darted out and the eyes literally blazed with hatred.
A sudden transformation overtook the features. The snout grew more akin to the nose and the eyes shifted to crystalline ones. A groan escaped the figure as this happened, a groan ending in a strong epithet.
“Whatever the cost,” he managed. “Even if I must unmake time itself...”
II
The world was filled with ghosts.
There had always been such things in the Dragonrealm, Valea Bedlam knew, but ever they had been sights very rare. Now, they were much more common and much more of an influence on the living world. It was not right. It was clearly an imbalance, so Gerrod had said to her on several occasions. The only problem was, no one yet knew how to solve the problem.
And so ghosts continued to gather among the breathing, some of them harmless, some of them not.
Most living creatures did not realize the change in the world yet. Even Valea would not have noticed it had not Gerrod pointed out the telltale signs. Unfortunately, he had insisted that they not share that information with her family yet...not, at least, until they had the opportunity to see to what depths it had spread over the continent.
It had said much that she had chosen to listen to his suggestion rather than tell her parents and brother. Valea sighed. She had never planned on falling in love with Gerrod, but th
en she doubted that he had ever thought he would fall in love with her.
After all, what hope had there been of anything even remotely normal for the cursed warlock still known to most as Shade.
“No hint of them anywhere. The Lords are either very cunning or they are, as they should be, no more.”
He looked no older than she did, both of them seemingly only a few years past their second decade. For Valea, that was near the truth. For Gerrod, though...two decades was not even the blink of an eye for someone actually thousands of years old.
Gerrod smiled briefly at her, a smile meant to reassure but that both knew failed. He had a handsome face—so she thought with prejudice—with slightly sharp features that gave him a brooding, thoughtful look. His ever stern brow added to that impression, but what was most arresting to anyone were his eyes. His crystalline eyes.
The eyes of a Vraad sorcerer.
Those eyes flashed. Literally flashed. “You can see my face.”
“Things haven’t changed, Gerrod. It stays revealed as long as we’re very near one another. I can’t explain how that works, but it works. That’s enough.”
“It works because of you, Valea. It works only because of you and your faith in me.”
“Faith and love.” She leaned forward and kissed him. He was as hesitant as ever, but not, the enchantress knew, because he did not care as much for her. Despite his thousands of lifetimes, he had not been much among his fellow men...unless he and they were trying to kill one another. There had been no creature more hated or feared even by the Dragon Kings than him.
Valea brushed some of her thick, red hair aside as she backed away. She had long been aware that she was considered beautiful by most men—a strong reflection of her mother, also renowned for both her mastery of the arts and her appearance—but she considered her nose too tiny and her lips too full. As an enchantress, she could have altered everything, but from her parents had learned the risks of focusing spellwork on herself. Such magic had its dangers, Gerrod being the ultimate proof. His curse had begun at the dawn of humanity—even before it, actually—when he had sought to escape what he considered a fate worse than death by seeking a spell that would preserve him exactly as he was.
Legends of the Dragonrealm Page 24