by Dragonlance
My power, Maladar thought, furious. He’s just a vessel with no more innate sorcery in his blood than either of his parents. He uses my own strength against me!
He had to concentrate, center himself, make the anger abate. Let the boy wield the magic. Let him think he had the power. He would see, soon enough. They would all see. And they would weep to wish they hadn’t.
He stood before the throne, watching the doorway, waiting for them to emerge. It was strange to think it had come to that—not armies clashing upon a battlefield, or a violent battle with a legion of wizards, just three wretched people, winding their way up an almost endless stair, alone, and him waiting for them, to make himself whole again, to come into his full power and begin his reign anew.
He felt Hith’s presence, a cold wind rushing through the room of solid flame. He saw the god watching him, the red-skinned creature in its black armor, eyes smoldering like coals. Hith said nothing, only nodded slightly, then turned to shadow and vanished. Even the god refused to meddle in what was coming. Destiny hung thick in the air.
My empire, Maladar thought. Oh, beautiful Aurim, kingdom of kingdoms. Soon your glory will return. You will soar, and the whole world will tremble before your might. Who will stand against you? Who?
No one.
Time passed. The second heartbeat in his breast grew stronger. His whole body tingled. He licked his lips and brought his fingers up to them, steepled together. He could hear footsteps upon the stairs … slow, halting, tired. He trembled as he stood before the throne.
Then the doors swung open, and the boy came in, his companions by his sides. The two heartbeats became a single pulse. A smile of triumph curling his lips, Maladar stepped forward to greet his other half.
My son. My son. My son.
Forlo felt his mind tearing in half. The figure at the far end of the throne room was no boy, not even a young man. No, he was old, older than Forlo himself, older than his father had been when age and a bad heart killed him. His long hair ran to gray and was moving on to silver. Lines creased his face, and he moved stiffly, his joints troubling him.
His boy, less than a year old, his life run almost to the end of its course.
There, too, were Hult and Shedara—both weary and soot-smeared—staring in shock at him, Maladar, with Forlo’s face and body. That they had survived their long quest, only to die there, broke Forlo’s heart.
Essana wasn’t there. Either she was dead, as he feared, or she had decided the road to him was too dangerous. He didn’t know what to make of her absence, and he couldn’t ask. He forced his mind away from her, back to the three who were, even then, crossing the floor of the throne room. They stopped on the far side of the ornamental pool, with its darting flame-fish.
“Welcome,” said Maladar, sweeping his hand to encompass the whole chamber. “You are the first to seek audience in my rebuilt hall. I trust it is to your liking?”
“I would rather be in a swineherd’s hovel,” Hult replied. He folded his scarred arms, looking around. “It would not stink so badly.”
Maladar nodded. “Defiant to the last. You Uigan never change. This time, though, your kind will not best me.”
Hult frowned. Shedara stepped forward, her chin held high. “You won’t win this fight, Maladar,” she said. “We’ve come a long way to find you. We’ve watched a lot of good people die along the way. And you won’t be—”
She moved so quickly, Forlo didn’t even realize it until it was done. In midsentence she flicked both wrists, slapping knives into her hands and hurling them as part of the same motion. The two blades spun end over end, directly toward Forlo’s heart, each a killing throw.
Yet no sooner than Shedara started moving, so did Maladar. His hand came up, fingers splayed as the daggers left her hands. He spoke a word, and Nuvis’s power flowed through him, then out his fingertips as a glowing green orb. It flashed toward the whirling knives and made a metallic, shrieking noise when they met. With a flare of foul light, both the orb and the daggers vanished, leaving only a puff of dust hanging in the air.
Shedara stared, her hands still extended from the throw. It took a moment for what had just happened to sink in; then she slumped, sighing.
Maladar sneered. “Stupid girl. You really thought that would work?”
“No.” She shrugged, a trace of a smile ghosting her lips. “But I had to try, didn’t I?”
Maladar’s hand rose again, his fingers working quickly. Black moonlight shot out in a torrent that spilled through the air like ink through water. Shedara had time enough to open her mouth and let out the beginning of an alarmed cry before the spell engulfed her.
It was a spell of torment, devised to cause extraordinary agony before death. When the flow ended, Shedara ought to have been nothing but a mummified corpse, twisted on the fiery floor. But she wasn’t: the black magic broke around her, and when it cleared, she stood in the same spot, unscathed, the air around her shining like mist in the sunlight. Forlo’s son stood beside her, one hand touching her shoulder. The mist swirled around him as well, slowly fading into the air.
“That didn’t work very well either,” Shedara said, still smiling.
Maladar uttered a wordless snarl, eyes flicking from elf to Uigan. Hult drew his curved sword and held it low, a stance Forlo knew well. Shedara shook her head, waving him off.
“Not yet,” she said. “You won’t get near him.”
Hult gave no reply, except for a deepening of the crease between his brows. But he didn’t move, either. It was enough to satisfy Shedara; planting her hands on her hips, she turned her attention back to Maladar.
“Face it: what we have here is a stalemate,” she declared. “We can keep playing this game if you want until we’ve all run through every spell and trick we know. Or we can work this out another way.”
“What other way?” Maladar demanded. “There is only one thing I want from this. Him.”
They all looked at Forlo’s con. He met Maladar’s gaze, and the air blazed like lightning. Forlo felt Maladar shudder inside him and sensed the force that bound the two parts of his soul together. It was like an invisible cord, running from his body to his son’s and back again, back and forth and back and forth without end.
“This body will not avail you, Maladar,” the old man said. He held his arms outstretched to either side. “It fares worse than the one you now wear.”
Fury shot through Forlo’s mind: Maladar hadn’t expected the boy to be so old, so decrepit. After a moment, however, the anger subsided, yielding to cold, glittering malice.
“The body does not concern me. It is only a shell,” Maladar said. “I will take another—the Uigan’s, perhaps. You know full well what I desire. It has nothing to do with the flesh in which it dwells. Now … come.”
The cord between Maladar and Azar flared bright, then tightened. Forlo felt it yank at his flesh as it drew taut, but the pull on the old man was stronger. With a grunt of surprise, he stumbled forward. His eyes widened as he tried to resist but found he couldn’t. The power was too great. He took a second step, then a third, and soon he was on the bridge that led across the pool to the dragon-horn throne.
Maladar smiled, pulling him forward. “Yes,” he said. “You will obey me. You have no choice. Come closer. There is so much we must share.”
“Azar, no!” Shedara shouted, reaching for him. When she touched his arm, however, a noise like a thunderclap filled the throne room, and she fell back, staggering and dropping to her knees. Her hand smoldered.
So that’s his name, Forlo thought as his son was jerked toward him like a Thenolite corpse-warrior, no longer in control of his own body. Azar: it was a Rainward name. The cord brightened, tightened, pulling him on. The old man who was Forlo’s son fought and struggled, but couldn’t keep from moving.
Hult made his move, scimitar rising for a hard cross-stroke as he charged. He wasn’t aiming at Maladar, though, but at Azar. The sword rose high, then came hacking down toward the old man’s neck.
It whistled toward flesh, a blow that surely would have taken off his head, but it didn’t. Instead, Azar twisted at the last instant and clapped his hands, catching the blade between them. Then he and Maladar both spoke a single, mind-piercing word, and Hult flew through the air as if a catapult had flung him. He hit the floor thirty feet away and lay there, clutching his ribs, too stunned to move.
Azar still held Hult’s sword, pressed between his palms. He stared at it, his brows knitting.
“This was how you thought to best me?” Maladar scoffed. He glared at Hult, who was trying to push back to his feet, and Shedara, who was nursing her injured hand and had a look on her face as if she’d just been run through with a spear. “You brought him to me! You have handed me my victory. It is over, and nothing any of you can do will stop it!”
“Nothing?” Azar replied. “Do not be so sure.”
He smiled … and drove Hult’s scimitar through his own throat.
No! Forlo thought.
“No!” Shedara cried.
“NO!” shrieked Maladar.
Only Hult stayed quiet, watching in grave silence as bright red blood shot from Azar’s throat. Already the light in the old man’s eyes was fading. He pulled the sword from the wound and released it, letting it clatter onto the bridge. His leather breastplate turned crimson.
Forlo felt his body moving, Maladar driving forward as his son dropped to his knees. The cord between them turned the color of rust and began to fray, faster and faster. Maladar dragged himself along its length, trying to reach the old man before it came apart altogether … and made it, just as the last withered strands were straining, ready to snap. He seized Azar by the shoulders, pulled him up, shook him. Blood splattered everywhere.
“No, you won’t,” growled Maladar, pulling in Nuvis’s power and forcing it into Azar. “You won’t rob me so easily.”
He yanked on the cord with all his might. It pulled taut, and something started to emerge from Azar’s dying form. It was a glittering apparition, a shadowy ghost without a face. Maladar’s soul. He was ripping it out of Forlo’s son, by force.
Azar looked up, his eyes dull amid a face so white it might never have seen the sun. Forlo’s heart broke to see that face, then broke again at the sound of his son’s raspy voice, ruined by the scimitar’s blade.
“I am sorry, Father,” Azar said. Blood spilled from his mouth in a long, thick strand. “I did what I could.”
My son, Forlo thought, shaking with rage and grief.
“Father,” Azar gurgled. His head drooped, his knees buckled. At the same moment, Maladar’s soul tore free, and Azar’s body toppled into the pool.
“I have it!” Maladar howled, pulling the specter of his other half toward him. “I have it! Aurim will rise again! All Taladas will—”
Rage came over Forlo, such a fury as he’d never felt before: not when the dragon took Essana, not when he killed Rekhaz, not even when he fought the Faceless Brethren. Their child was dead. His son was dead. His only son was dead. And Maladar was to blame.
With all his might, he pushed.
Distracted by what he was doing to the part of him that was Azar, the part of Maladar’s soul that dwelt in Forlo didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late. It howled, tried to push back, and clutched and clawed at Forlo’s mind, but Forlo’s anger and sorrow were too strong. With a lung-bursting bellow, he shoved Maladar out of his pitiful body.
He saw them together, twin ghosts linked by a frayed cord of magic, floating in the air between him and the place where Azar had fallen. Then, mercifully, blackness crawled over him and made it all go away.
Chapter
36
HALL OF EMPERORS, THE CHALDAR
Hult had guessed, the moment Azar took his talga, what he would do. He understood and he mourned, but he did nothing to thwart him. Azar knew what he was doing, knew it was necessary. There was no other way out, not with Maladar so close to uniting his soul. What Azar did was as noble as any sacrifice a man could make. It tore Hult apart, but he forced himself to watch as the blade went in and the blood flowed free.
Then Maladar ripped his soul from Azar’s body anyway, and the hope that had swelled in Hult’s heart began to die. He dashed forward, hands clutching. Maybe if he reached the cord, he could tear it apart.
His eyes met Maladar’s, just for a moment, and he saw Forlo, his old friend looking back at him, eyes brimming with pain. Then Forlo looked away, at something no one could see. Then his face contorted, and he made a sound like a wounded animal, a sound that hurt just to hear. It was a strange moan—of frustration, of anger, of grief beyond anything Hult had ever heard. And Forlo flung his arms wide, falling back as another spirit burst out of him, twin to the one he’d torn out of Azar.
Hult stared at the two ghosts as Forlo tumbled, senseless, against the dragon-horn throne. There they were, Maladar and Maladar, divided, weak without bodies to inhabit. They were both beginning to fade, but at the same time they were moving, dragging themselves toward each other along the cord of magic that bound them. They put all their effort into it, pulling hard, shrieking in rage as they tried to become one again.
“Cut it!” Shedara yelled. “Split the cord!”
He glared at her, over his shoulder. “I don’t have a sword!”
But one was already flying toward him—her short, elven blade, spinning end over end from her outstretched hand. If not for his warrior’s reflexes, it might have plunged straight through his chest, but instead he reached out and caught it, the hilt smacking into his palm. He spun the blade in front of him, getting the weight of it, then turned toward the two Maladars.
They were close, only a foot of air separating them. The one that had been inside Azar was so pale, so faint, he was barely visible; the one Forlo had pushed out was in little better shape, a dwindling shade of what he’d been. They struggled, inching toward each other along the cord.
Hult ran, sword held high. He saw the two ghosts turn toward him and knew they were going to try to kill him. Magic seethed in the air, pouring down from Nuvis like storm rain. He bellowed a defiant battle cry.
Jijin, he prayed. One last favor, I beg you.
He hurled himself onto the bridge, still shouting. Magic exploded around him, black fire erupting on all sides. The air grew hot, but the flames didn’t burn him, and he felt other sorcery, power drawn down from Solis and Lunis, surrounding him like a babe’s swaddles. He heard a female voice, chanting.
Shedara, he thought. I love you.
Maladar and Maladar reached for each other, only inches apart, fingers trembling as they strained to make contact. Hult leaped, the elven sword coming down in a swift arc. The blade sliced right through the cord and shattered. Hult stumbled and fell, slamming up against the dais beside Forlo. With a groan, he turned to face the ghosts, the hilt of Shedara’s weapon still clutched in his hand. An inch of jagged steel was all that remained of the blade.
The Maladars kept reaching, their fingers almost touching.
Then, in a flash of silver light, the cord snapped.
Cold wind filled the throne room, blowing outward, making the windows explode and the waters of the pool overflow. It knocked the throne over and flung vases and statuettes to shatter against the walls. Hult threw up his arm, as if that might somehow protect him from the tempest, and saw the ghosts fly away from each other, flung through the air like autumn leaves. Maladar made a terrified, helpless noise, and the half that had come out of Azar vanished, torn apart like smoke.
The other half remained only a moment longer—long enough to turn its gaze on Hult. Hate blazed in its eyes; then it, too, unraveled, torn to pieces by the magical gale. When the wind finally faltered and died, it left the throne room blasted to pieces.
Shedara lay against the far wall, stunned and bruised. “Mother … of all … the gods,” she gasped, and spat blood on the floor. “Is he gone?”
Hult looked around. Pain shot through his bruised body. Still, he managed to push h
imself back to his feet. The room was disturbingly quiet. He knew he was surrounded by nothing but flame and illusion, and suspected that the room’s form ought to have collapsed the moment Maladar disappeared, but it hadn’t. That baffled him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Are you hurt?”
“All over,” she replied, and struggled to her feet. “You?”
“The same. What do we do now?”
“Get out of here—and fast.” She nodded toward Forlo, lying beside the throne. The dragon-horn seat had broken in half, smaller pieces scattered around it. “Go check on him. I’ll have a look at Azar.”
Hult staggered to where his friend lay. His knee was wrenched, and one of his ankles throbbed, probably sprained. Still, he managed to lower himself down beside Forlo’s body. He reached for the man’s throat, fingers trembling, afraid of what he might find … or not find. When he laid them over the artery, though, he felt a pulse beneath his touch.
“He’s alive!” he called. “Out cold, but … I think he may survive.”
Shedara didn’t answer. Hult turned to look, then stopped, his breath catching.
She was crouched on the wet floor by the side of the pool, among the flopping flame-fish, blown out of the water by the wind and slowly dying in the air. There, before her, was Azar. He was sitting up, water dripping off him, mixing with the blood that still flowed from the ghastly wound in his throat.
“Yagrut!” Hult swore, ignoring the various aches and pains as he rose back to his feet. He reached for his scabbard, but of course his talga wasn’t there. He wasn’t sure where the sword was; the wind had blown it away.
Azar looked around, his eyes searching the throne room. He saw Shedara, then turned to behold Hult and Forlo. Hult half expected to see Maladar’s shade glimmering in his gaze, but there was no sign of him. It was just Azar, nodding so that the gash in his throat opened and closed like a second mouth.
“You’re—” Shedara said, then stopped, shaking her head. “Why aren’t you dead?”