Shade Cursed: A Druidverse Urban Fantasy Novel (The Shadow Changeling Series Book 1)

by M. D. Massey

  24

  “Um, mate—a little help here?” Hemi asked, after spending the better part of a minute trying to free himself.

  Initially I’d offered to release him, but he’d insisted on doing it himself. After I dismissed the spell, Hemi appeared to be fine, but Ollie had been injured during the battle. My poor wyvern was laying on his side, moaning and hugging a foreleg to his chest.

  Although Griff would certainly have heard the sounds of battle, I couldn’t tear myself away from Ollie until I’d attended to his wounds. Healing magic wasn’t one of my strengths, but I knew the basics. I could at least patch him up until his constitution took over and he healed naturally.

  When I was halfway across the floor on my way to help Ollie, a portal opened up beneath me, and I dropped directly through. I landed in a heap a split second later inside a large, circular stone room with a domed roof and a single, round exit at the very top. I recognized the place immediately, as I had spent many long days and nights here during my childhood.

  I was in The Pit, or one of them at least, as every keep and castle Mother owned had one. This was a place where Mother often sent her subjects for punishment. Here she forced her experiments to fight each other, gauging their performance and worthiness for further breeding and research. It was the first place she took me after she mated me to my shade.

  I stood quickly, knowing that anything could be lurking here—one of Mother’s constructs, a bevy of undead, or some other unfortunate creature placed here for experimentation or punishment. My eyes scanned the darkness, searching out every nook and shadow in the large, arena-like room. As far as I could tell, I was alone and saw nothing but the bones and detritus of those who’d perished here. No sooner had I made a careful sweep of the room than Griff’s voice echoed from the opening overhead.

  “So, you escaped and followed me here. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised—I’d have been disappointed if you hadn’t, actually.”

  High above, Griff’s grinning face stared down over the edge of the Pit’s single entrance and exit, an escape hole in the ceiling’s center. Now that I knew who’d brought me here, I surmised that I wasn’t alone in The Pit after all. Ignoring the wizard’s taunts, I scanned the gloom with my mage sight as I took a rapid mental inventory of my current situation.

  The greatest disadvantage I currently faced was magical exhaustion, having expended most of my innate magical energies in defending my wyvern from the fachan. Add to that how I hadn’t rested since my arrival in Underhill, and the situation worsened. Without adequate rest, it would be some time before I regenerated those energies. I would not be relying on conventional magic until I slept or performed several hours of meditation.

  I still had access to the shade’s powers, but I was loath to use them in my current, weakened state. The last thing I needed was for my shade to engage me in a battle of mental and spiritual dominance right now, as I doubted I had the mental fortitude to prevail. If I did lose such a contest, I’d be trapped inside my own head with the shade in control, watching helplessly as it wreaked havoc on everyone and everything around me.

  Well, I seem to have stepped into a pit of defecation of significant depth. Time to stall and devise a plan.

  “I killed the keep’s garrison,” I yelled. “I hope you don’t mind. They didn’t seem worthy of breathing good oxygen, so I corrected that situation. Mother can always hire or make more expendables, after all.”

  “I see what you did there,” Griff replied. “You’re insinuating that I’m disposable. We’ve already established that, so why waste your time rehashing insults?”

  “Come down and join me, and I assure you I’ll think of something better.” I said as I ran a thin tendril of shadow along the wall, hidden in the darkness where he could not easily see. “There’s more than room for two, after all.”

  “Thanks for asking, but three’s a crowd.”

  Damn.

  I rolled to the side as a wet, slimy tentacle brushed my cheek. Its trajectory had obviously been meant for my neck, and fortunately I moved in time to evade it. That confirmed the star vampire was down here with me, looking to make a meal of one very tired shadow wizard.

  Zigzagging across the floor, I utilized every bit of dexterity I had at my disposal in order to avoid the star vampire’s attacks. However, this strategy would only last for so long, as I was already tired and the star vampire was not. Furthermore, it was a creature of the Void, possessed of unknown depths of stamina. It might be able to continue its attack indefinitely, for all I knew. I would have to come up with a better answer for defending myself against it—and quickly.

  While I evaded the star vampire, I focused the remainder of my concentration on continuing to stretch that single, shadowy tendril of magic up the wall, up to the edge of the opening where the wizard stood. It took an epic effort of will to keep the casting alive as I jumped, dove, rolled, and sprinted in random patterns to prevent my early termination by exsanguination. Thirty seconds later, I remained untouched, and the ropy bit of shadow was no more than ten feet from the edge of the opening.

  Suddenly, my progress halted when an invisible tentacle wrapped around my arm, yanking me off balance with such force it felt as though my arm had been pulled from the socket. Being weaponless and low on magical energy, I cast a simple cantrip to surround my other hand with faerie fire. Then I struck repeatedly at the invisible tentacle, watching with alarm as it visually materialized due to the blood the creature extracted.

  The pain in my shoulder was excruciating as the creature continued to tug me closer to it as it fed. While my blows appeared to be causing it pain, faerie fire wasn’t hot enough to cause serious harm. Thus, ultimately my attacks had little if any effect on my adversary.

  Yet somehow, I’d managed to hang on to the small, rope-like tentacle of shadow that clung to the ceiling above. As the star vampire latched onto my other arm and my left leg with two more tentacles, I focused on stretching the magic further. Now I was in a race to complete my plan before the creature pulled me into its mouth, a mere ten feet away from me.

  I tried to summon an elemental spell to attack it, hoping that I could perhaps fire a small fireball or lightning spell directly into its mouth—but I hadn’t the reserves to do so. Meanwhile, the small amount of shadow magic that I had allowed myself to cast was stretched to its limits. Clearly, I could do no more without releasing the shade’s abilities to the full.

  As they say, Néit favors the bold.

  Reaching down deep inside me, I tore down the walls of the shade’s prison, all except for a single bond of psychic restraint.

  -Release me, wizard- it hissed, sensing freedom was near.

  Although there’s a powerful creature trying to kill me, I will only let you go with certain conditions in place.

  -You’ll be dead momentarily anyway, wizard. Why should I care? I will just wait for this thing to finish you off, and then feed on it once I’m free.-

  You have forgotten something. We are bonded, you and I. If I should die, what will then happen to you? Neither of us knows. Are you willing to risk your life on the gamble that you may be free if I lose mine?

  The creature’s glowing red eyes narrowed even further as it considered my words. We had lived together for some time—decades, perhaps. That was a long time for me, but in this creature’s eyes, it was only a sliver of its lifespan. Despite that, I knew that evil creatures often feared death, for who knew what remained beyond for them? And immortals often clung to life more dearly than any short-lived human ever would.

  The wraith’s fate was sealed before I had spoken.

  -What are your demands?-

  I will release you and allow you to feed on this creature from the Void. Meanwhile, you will allow me to draw on your powers so I can battle its master. Once the battle is complete and your hunger has been sated on the creature, you will return your cell, and I will retain my dominance in this symbiotic relationship.

  The shade’s eyes burned with
hate as it considered my offer. Feed and remained caged, or risk death for a small chance at potential freedom? Finally, those glowing orbs narrowed as it responded.

  -I will do as you say. But mark my words, wizard—one day the advantage will be mine, and then our détente will end.-

  Perhaps—but not today.

  Immediately I released the shade’s bonds, allowing it free rein to wreak havoc on the star vampire. When I opened my eyes, shadow magic was pouring forth from my mouth, eyes, and even my pores, coalescing into the great shadow wraith that inhabited the deepest parts of my soul. Now the star vampire’s mouth was mere inches from my face, its beak clicking open and closed as it eagerly anticipated sinking its teeth into my neck.

  By the time it realized what was happening, it was too late—my shade had wrapped itself around the Void creature like a constrictor. In a panic, the star vampire freed me from its grip as it released a shriek, the likes of which I had never heard. I reflected that there must only be a few creatures in the known universe that could make a star vampire feel fear, and my shade was apparently one of them.

  Stumbling away, I put as much distance as possible between myself and the battle that now unfolded before me. The match was one-sided at best, as Griff’s familiar was not equipped to do battle against a literal creature of darkness. I watched in horrified fascination as my shade enclosed it completely in its own shadow substance, feeding directly on its prey’s energies without constraint.

  Tearing my eyes from the grim spectacle, I shifted my attention to the opening above. Drawing on the shade’s power, I extended the tentacle I had cast earlier further up the wall, whipping it over the edge to wrap around the wizard’s leg. Then I yanked hard, pulling him off the edge to tumble to the ground some forty feet below.

  25

  The wizard was resourceful and quick on his feet, I’d give him that. As he fell, he managed to cast a spell that slowed his fall by changing the gravity field around him.

  Drat.

  A free-fall spell wasn’t that uncommon a casting for a magic-user to know, nor was it difficult to cast. Yet something about Griff’s casual manner gave me pause as I watched him drift down to the flagstone floor below. I pulled more magic from the shade as the wizard floated to the floor, wrapping myself in shadow magic in preparation for the coming battle.

  My preparations allowed him time to recover himself, which was a shame. At least now, no one could say I had defeated him through sheer subterfuge, which was also regrettable. That old saw about honor among thieves certainly applied to wizards—and doubly so to me. I’d much rather have killed him cleanly with the fall and spared myself the trouble of engaging in a wizard’s duel.

  Yet, my victory would be all the sweeter having been earned and not stolen. Even better, winning this battle would enhance my reputation as a killer of mages. Reputation was not such an important thing to the other professions in The World Beneath, such as hunters, alchemists, enchanters, and the like. But for a wizard, it was everything. Your reputation was how you got work, and it also discouraged other wizards from challenging you. Thus, I did what I could to keep mine intact, as it had helped keep me alive this long.

  “Well, you are just full of surprises,” Griff said as he landed lightly on the ground. “In your current weakened state, I thought for sure the vampire would destroy you. Guess I was wrong.”

  He glanced at my shade and shook his head. Through our connection, I knew the wraith was now nearly finished with Griff’s familiar. The star vampire’s body would now be nothing more than a translucent, shrunken husk. Yet, Griff’s disappointment was seemingly muted, despite the loss of a powerful resource.

  “I expected you to be a bit more broken up about the loss of your familiar, wizard,” I said, probing for some hint of information that would explain Griff’s nonchalance. “Are such creatures so easy to come by now?”

  He laughed humorlessly. “Oh, it’ll be a pain in the ass to replace the thing, that’s for certain. But replace it I shall. That is, as soon as I deal with you.”

  And with that, Griff shot twin lightning bolts out of his hands without speaking a trigger word or making any gestures to release the spell. I brought my shade’s magic up in time to block the attack, but not quickly enough to completely brunt the effects. When the spell detonated, the concussive force of the thunderclap blasted me off my feet and into the wall some fifteen feet behind me.

  Somehow, I managed to cushion the impact at the last second, using the momentum to roll up the wall by linking my tentacles into a polyhedron. Rather than bouncing off to land on the floor, I clung to the wall instead. It might give me some small advantage to skitter around where I had the high ground, and based on the force of that blast, I would need every advantage possible.

  Griff gave me no time to recover, and I soon found myself dodging a barrage of devastatingly powerful spells—fireballs, meteors, telekinetic blasts, ice spikes, and more. With the shade’s full power at my command, I was able to dodge away from or deflect most of the damage, but not all. In under a minute, I was bleeding from several small cuts, I had sustained burns on my left arm, and my right leg was numb due to a partially successful stun spell.

  Still, such injuries were of little consequence compared to what I’d suffered under Mother’s tutelage. I paid them no heed as I prepared to launch a counterattack—one that hopefully would put the wizard on the defensive.

  “Give up, Crowley!” Griff shouted as he hurled flaming balls of molten lava at me. “You can’t keep this up forever.”

  “And you can?”

  The wicked smile he flashed in response indicated what I’d refused to acknowledge, because it was such a remote possibility as to be unbelievable. Griff’s confidence came from more than simply his ability as a wizard. Certainly he was skillful, but no more so than any middling magic-user of his background. No, what he was hiding was the fact that his magical reserves appeared to be much greater than what he should normally be able to access.

  That told me Griff was somehow accessing Underhill directly, using it as a magical battery—just like a high fae wizard or one of the Tuath Dé. It was such an impossibility, I’d written it off before even considering it. The fae guarded their magical advantages like a dragon guarded its hoard, and once that genie was out of the bottle, it would theoretically be difficult to put back in the receptacle.

  Thus, they would never give an impure, half-fae mutt like Grythelias the means to directly access Underhill’s magic. Not unless they considered the work he was doing for them worth the risk.

  How unfortunate... and intriguing.

  I decided to keep up some banter while I formulated a plan to deal with the now supercharged Griff 2.0. “You know I can’t do that,” I said as I dodged another blast of lightning. “You’ll surely spare my life in order to collect your paycheck, which would be most disadvantageous for me. She’ll keep me alive while she tortures me—for centuries, perhaps. I will die the slowest death imaginable, living each passing moment in the fullness of my own agony and regret. No thank you.”

  Below, Griff’s scowled in frustration as he hurled spell after spell at me. “Fine then. I’ll just kill you and blame it on one of the underlings.”

  “You’re welcome to make the attempt, but I must caution—better wizards than you have tried and failed.”

  That apparently incensed the wizard beyond his capacity for restraint, and he opened up with every bit of magic at his command. Suddenly there was no dodging, no evading, and no way for me to avoid the onslaught that he sent. I was fully inundated by destructive elemental spells that struck in a thirty-foot radius around me, leaving the only means of escape to be the opening overhead.

  Formulating a plan on the fly, I used the shade’s abilities to create a bubble of shadow magic around me, one so large it encompassed the opening above. The shield would only withstand the onslaught for a few seconds, but that was all I needed. Hiding within that bubble of shadow magic as Griff’s spells ate away at
it, I used my tentacles to slip out of the opening above.

  Once I’d escaped to the observation room above The Pit, I took a moment to ensure I was alone. Then, I concealed myself while I waited for Griff to figure out what I had done. Seconds later, I felt the shadow shield give way, and shortly thereafter Griff’s angry voice echoed from below.

  “Crowley, you coward!” Griff shouted. “I can’t believe you ran. And to think I once stood in awe of you.”

  Rather than answering the insult, I remained in the shadows, where I focused on preparing a spell that stretched the limits of my abilities. I was a fine magic-user, but I had relied on my shadow magic a bit too much over the years. Therefore, high-level spells such as this one were a bit harder for me to cast these days. Besides that, I was using conventional magic in a desperate ploy to quickly defeat the dangerous and overpowered wizard who stalked me below.

  “I’m coming for you, Crowley,” the wizard shouted. “If you think that climb is going to stop me, you’re sadly mistaken. You can’t understand the power that I have now, here in Underhill. A mudblood like you could never understand, not in a million years.”

  Mudblood? How rude.

  I waited silently as Griff floated up through the five-foot-wide hole in the floor. The wizard wasn’t stupid, as he had enveloped himself in a glowing cylinder of energy, one designed to disrupt any spell that might be cast at him.

  But I had more than conventional magic at my beck and call. As I dropped the cloak of magic around me, I filled the room with a mist of pure darkness that chased all light from the space. This completely blinded Griff, leaving his ability to target his spells at a distinct disadvantage.

  He lashed out blindly with spell after spell, piercing the darkness and shattering the walls, floors, and ceiling around us. While I was now at more risk than ever, this was exactly the reaction I desired. Every time he cast an offensive spell, he had to lower his anti-magic shield.