Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. III

XVIII

No part of Legar was left untouched by the sound, yet just beyond the interior edge of the peninsula, the region of Esedi and the kingdom of Zuu in particular heard nothing. Those who might have been curious enough about the fog to attempt an excursion into Legar would find themselves turning away in great unease. Even the agents of Lord D’Farany who attempted to return to the camp could not find their courage. Instead, they scattered northward, suddenly certain that it would be wise never to return to the inhospitable land of Legar.

Within Legar, the spell of the Crystal Dragon did its work. The Quel, whose hearing was far more sensitive than that of most other creatures, including humans, fell to the ground hooting in dire agony. The wolf raiders were unable to take advantage of their misery, for they, too, suffered from the terrible, piercing noise. Several Aramites simply stumbled off of the edge of newly formed cliffs and plummeted into ravines and craters. A few of the Quel did the same, but the pain was so great most of the tawny behemoths simply crouched on the ground and tried to block out the sound. Tunneling into the earth was no escape, for the vibrations collapsed passages with the ease that a foot could crush an ant. The shells of the Quel were strong, but not that strong, and even if they survived, they could only hold their breath for so long. In truth, there was no escape.

Cabe, almost oblivious to the world, still struggled to hold the Aramite talisman together. Ssssoon . . . the Crystal Dragon had promised. Ssssoooon it will be at an end.

There was something strange and frightening happening to the mind linked to his, but Cabe had little opportunity to pursue the matter. All that was important was to keep the tooth from being destroyed . . . and keep himself from being destroyed while he was at it.

Around the camp, the Quel began to die. The sound shook their very being, destroying them through their ears. Enhanced by sorcery, it was an inescapable hunter, for there was nothing on the surface of Legar sufficient to dampen its intensity.

On and on and on it went. The fates of the Gryphon and Darkhorse concerned Cabe, but by this point he knew that nothing could be done if it had not been done already. The Crystal Dragon had not warned him of the enormity of what he was doing and for that Cabe was angry. Recriminations would have to come later, however.

That was providing that later actually came.

The first . . . ssstep isss complete! Now, the time hasss . . . come to . . . clossse forever the . . . portal!

“Ungh!” Cabe Bedlam’s entire body shook as the flow of power suddenly reversed itself. He had thought that the strain had been great before, but so awesome was it now that he almost lost control. For a single second, the talisman was beyond his ability to suppress. Then, just before it would have shattered, the warlock succeeded in regaining control. Sweat soaked his body. The pain in his arm was laughable in comparison to what wracked his system now. He was certain that he was going to die, yet somehow the weary mage held on.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the vibrations lessened. The sense of wrongness in the air, the sense of Nimth’s intrusion, weakened.

Almost . . . Cabe thought, trying to encourage himself. Almost!

A long, spindly hand tore the tooth from his grasp.

Jerked back into full consciousness, Cabe’s first reaction was to scream as pure sound invaded his mind. He clamped his hands over his ears, which did little to lessen the agony, and turned to see what had happened.

Plool, looking not at all affected by the spell, scampered merrily beyond Cabe’s reach. The macabre figure held the tooth high. His broad-rimmed hat was pushed back, revealing a V-shaped smile and bright, crystalline eyes that flashed in triumph. Whether he had simply stolen the talisman for the sake of his own survival or had thought that he could use it to turn the Dragonrealm into another Nimth, only the Vraad knew. Plool finally stopped, folded his legs underneath him, and, floating, tossed the tooth from one hand to the other.

Cabe knew he shouted, but not even he could hear his warning.

The Vraad lowered the talisman and his unsettling orbs narrowed in intense concentration. Tendrils of fog stretched toward him like children seeking their father. An aura formed around Plool. The thing in his hand glowed so bright it blinded.

The tooth exploded.

No longer held in check by either Cabe or the Dragon King, the power filling the talisman had at last stretched the boundaries of D’Farany’s toy beyond its limits. Possibly the Vraad had not completely understood the dangers of the spell when he had stolen the talisman from Cabe. The sorcery of Nimth did not always follow the same rules as the sorcery of the Dragonrealm; the warlock’s sparse knowledge of the other world included that bit of information at least. Unfortunately, such knowledge was too late to save the eager Plool.

Raw energy flowed over the Vraad and for a short instant, Plool resembled a deflating sack. So horrified was the warlock that he almost forgot the pain shaking him apart. Plool did not scream; he did not even appear to have time to notice his destruction. The madcap figure simply collapsed into an ungodly heap that, thankfully, dissipated immediately after. The spell that the Crystal Dragon had begun had been designed to absorb and make use of Nimthian magic. Perhaps Plool had literally been too much a creature of that foul sorcery.

With the Vraad gone, the realization of what Plool had done occurred to the pain-stricken mage. The talisman was gone and there was no way of completing the spell. There might not even be a way of dousing the horrendous noise.

WARLOCK! the voice burst through the noise. YOURRRR POWERRR I MUSSSST HAVVVE! WE ARRRE ALMOSSST THERE!

He did not argue. To tell the truth, Cabe did not have the strength to argue. At that moment, the Crystal Dragon could have had anything he wanted from him. Cabe only wanted the screaming to stop.

It did. Just like that. The fog burned away before his very eyes, returning the rule of day to the blazing sun. The ground ceased vibrating. It just stopped. All was as it had been before the coming of the wolf raiders . . . save that now there were new ravines and valleys all over the peninsula and bodies decorated the new landscape wherever one looked.

Cabe Bedlam crumpled to the ground, suddenly very much drained. He recalled the shouted plea for his power, his strength. The Dragon King had borrowed power through him to finish what they had begun, but he had almost used Cabe too much. To draw so much sorcerous energy into the warlock and through him use it had nearly burned Cabe out in the process. He was thrilled that they had finished the grand spell, but he truly wished that there had been another way.

Still, whatever the human spellcaster had suffered, the Crystal Dragon must have suffered more. He had guided the spell throughout. It was his will more than Cabe’s that had been pressed. Knowing how fine a line the drake lord’s mind had treaded before this, the warlock wondered if there was anything much left.

Your Majesty?

Silence. It might be that the Dragon King had simply broken the link, but Cabe knew somehow that his hermitic ally had truly suffered. How serious the damage was, there was no way of knowing unless Cabe returned to the sanctum. For all he knew, that chamber, too, was now a memory crushed under tons of rocky earth.

All but a few residue traces of Nimth’s evil had vanished. Even without being there, Cabe knew that the hole had been sealed and that the power to seal it had been the magic inherent in the fog. Nimth’s own might had been used to force it from the Dragonrealm. The Dragon King had used Cabe’s added strength to force the alien magic to do his bidding, something only he, who alone understood both powers, could have done. All of this the warlock understood even though no explanation had been given to him. He simply knew because he had been a part of it.

Gryphon! Darkhorse! The images of his two friends formed in his mind. How could he have forgotten them? Thanks in part to him, they might even be dead, for the Crystal Dragon had never revealed to the warlock whether he had actually protected the two from the killing sound as he had Cabe. Cabe did not trust the Dragon King enough to have faith in their well-being. He turned, intending to head back to where the shadow steed had been held.

Lord D’Farany stood before him. Yet another thing that Cabe had forgotten. He silently swore and prepared to do battle even though he doubted that he had enough will to raise a feather an inch from the ground much less fight to the death with the keeper.

D’Farany, however, merely stood there, his blank eyes staring in the direction of Cabe but not at him. The spellcaster took a tentative step toward the raider and noticed that his mouth was moving. Lord D’Farany was muttering, but only when Cabe stepped even closer did he understand anything of what the Aramite commander was saying.

“Gone . . . tooth . . . empty . . . so . . . empty . . . cannot . . . cannot . . .”

The keeper had survived one loss of power, but only after madness had claimed him for a time. Cabe, staring at the shell that had once been a man to be feared, was fairly certain that this time madness had staked a permanent claim. The warlock looked around. The other raiders were gone; a sinkhole larger than the Manor and its grounds combined revealed the fate of both the officers and the horses their spies had bought or stolen for the never-to-be-released invasion of Zuu or whatever it was the Aramites had planned. Of the two groups, Cabe felt much more sorrow for the horses than for the raiders.

He turned back to the keeper and reached out a hand. As much as he despised the man, Cabe could not leave him out here, not in this condition. “Come with-”

Slapping his hand away, D’Farany, the pale, marred visage twisted into a look of suffering and loss, cried, “Empty! It can never be filled! I can never be whole! I can never be . . . be . . .”

The raider commander slumped into Cabe’s arms. Under his weight, the warlock fell to one knee. After a short struggle, he managed to lay the still form on the ground. Cabe looked into D’Farany’s ravaged countenance, then felt his neck. He uncovered the Aramite’s wrist and checked there, too.

Ivon D’Farany, whose name had meant terror for almost a decade to those fighting against the wounded empire, was dead. He just could not stand the loss a second time, Cabe concluded. No man so in thrall to his power could have. The Gryphon will be pleased, at least.

That returned him once more to the fate of his companions. Leaving the corpse where it was, the warlock worked his way back to the camp. Compared to now, his first crossing had been the simplest of tasks. Legar was now a ruin and parts of it were still in the process of collapse. He came across no life in the areas he first wandered; most of this part had sunken into the underground kingdom of the Quel, taking all with it. A few bodies, both human and otherwise, still littered the place. A little beyond, though, Cabe could see hundreds of silent, unmoving forms. On a rare occasion, he spotted a few human figures, wolf raiders, but there was no fight left in them. They either ran if they saw him or simply walked on, ignoring him as they ignored all else. He doubted whether the latter had much left in the way of sanity. Not everyone had died because of the piercing noise, but looking at the survivors, he was not so certain that the ones who walked were the more fortunate.

Of living Quel, Cabe saw only signs. Burrow holes dotted the ravaged encampment; at least several score, probably more, of the diggers had made it back to the safety of the underworld. Several hundred more, both above and below, would never threaten Legar or the Dragonrealm. The survivors would certainly not, either, at least in his lifetime. He crossed his fingers on that score, but judging by what he had felt earlier and seen now, it would take the Quel several generations just to repair the damage. It would take them several more to rebuild their population, if that was at all possible. True, as long as one existed, they would be dangerous, but not nearly as much as they would have been if nothing had stopped their return.

So no one will ever truly understand the threats that so briefly rose here. It was ironic. The Quel sleepers had been a legend to many and a true danger to a few who knew. The Aramites, in as great a force as they had brought, could have brought the western part of the Dragonrealm to ruin even if they were finally defeated. The hole that had been opened, the hole that had allowed so much of poor, decaying Nimth in, spreading its sickness . . .

He did not want to even think about what would have happened if that had been left unchecked.

To his great relief, Cabe suddenly detected a familiar presence not too far off.

Darkhorse? he sent out.

For a moment there was no response. Then there came a slow, hesitant touch, followed by an equally hesitant response. Cabe? Do you really live?

I do! Where are you?

Follow . . . follow the link. Cabe, Lord Gryphon is injured.

The eternal sounded none too good himself. Summoning what will he had left, the warlock immediately teleported.

The devastation that greeted him was even worse than what he had already seen. The carnage brought on by the battle alone was sickening. For all their ferocity, the Quel had met a foe equally matched. Their size and armored bodies had not given the subterraneans the great advantage it should have. At the same time, the swiftness and well-honed battle skills of the wolf raiders had not saved them, either. It was a wonder that there had been any left to perish in the collapse of the surface.

Yet, it was Darkhorse who stunned Cabe even more than the horrible sight around them. Instead of the valiant black stallion the dark-haired mage was familiar with, a grotesque thing with primitive appendages and a vague, animallike shape flowed before him. Only the ice-blue eyes were still there, but they were so pale they now seemed almost white.

“Darkhorse?”

“What is left of . . . of me, friend Cabe.” Even the voice was subdued. “With . . . aid from . . . Lord Gryphon, I was just . . . just able to free myself . . . but it was almost too much . . .”

Cabe could not think of anything to do for the eternal, but he was willing to try. “What can I do? Is there anything?”

“I am beyond your help, Cabe. It will be up to . . . to me to recover . . . that will take . . . time. Best that you see . . . see what you can . . . do for the Lord Gryphon . . .”

“The Gryphon? Where is he?”

“Within me . . .” The murky, shifting form flowed to one side and as it did, the outline of the lionbird’s form appeared. Cabe swallowed hard when he saw how still his companion was. “Is it too late?”

“He lives . . . but like me . . . he has been drained . . . drained of nearly every . . . thing. I protected him from the . . . the sound, which did not . . . harm me as it . . . did him.” The eternal grew silent.

The warlock knelt beside the Gryphon and felt for a pulse. It was there, slow but steady. Then it jumped a bit. The Gryphon suddenly opened his eyes.

“Cabe?”

“It would be nice to meet under better circumstances once in a while,” returned the warlock, smiling.

The Gryphon tried to rise. “The Aramites!”

Cabe eased him back down. “Dead or scattered. The same holds true for the Quel. Most are dead, I think.”

“My son . . . his murderer . . .”

“Demion?” Neither Darkhorse nor the Gryphon had made mention of this terrible news before. “When? Who did it?” Fury rose within the spellcaster. If the lionbird was beyond avenging his only son, Cabe would try to find the strength to do it.

However, the lionbird shook his head. “No, Cabe. Demion’s murderer . . . Orril . . . D’Marr . . .” The look of disgust on that avian visage spoke volumes concerning the wolf raider. “He lies in that crater there . . . buried under several tons . . . of earth.” The Gryphon pointed at the gaping hole with his maimed hand. “D’Marr never did find out . . . the great Quel secret . . . was the Quel themselves. I would have liked . . . to see if that would have cracked that . . . mask of his.” He laughed very briefly, then sobered. “My son can rest. I can rest . . . but only for a time. Lord D’Farany-”

“Your son, you, and Troia can all rest, Gryphon. The keeper is dead. I know. He died right before my eyes.” In response to his companion’s questioning stare, the warlock explained the Crystal Dragon’s spell and the use of D’Farany’s talisman. He also spoke of Plool and the Vraad’s swift and foolish death. The very end of his tale he reserved for Ivon D’Farany’s inability to suffer so great a loss twice in one lifetime. Addicted to his power, he could not survive a second withdrawal. “He collapsed in my arms and when I studied him close, I saw that he was dead.”

“A-a fitting way for him. I thank you, Cabe.”

The warlock shook his head. “I was only a part of it. The one who guided me through much of this, albeit not always with my approval, wa-”

“Cabe!” Darkhorse suddenly called, sounding more like his old self. He was still a shifting, near-formless thing, but the eyes seemed a bit brighter . . . and now very concerned, too. “I think I see . . . see soldiers approaching!”

With the Gryphon too weak to be of use, Cabe tried his best to make out the shapes in the distance. It was not noon in Legar, a fortunate thing, but the sun was bright enough already to force him to squint. He would have to create copies of the Dragon King’s eye protectors when he had the opportunity. That is, if he had the opportunity. The figures did resemble soldiers and their high helms, at least from this distance, were shaped akin to the wolf’s head helms of the Aramites.

“Some surviving officer must have . . . have reorganized survivors,” the lionbird added, becoming exhausted by the continual task of trying to talk coherently. “We’ll have to fight . . . them.”

Glancing at his friends, Cabe was not particularly hopeful. He might be able to get off a spell, but he was not certain as to its potency. If the wolf raiders had any sort of magical protection, then the three of them had little chance. Their greatest hope, Darkhorse, did not even have the strength to reshape himself.

The figures were still too distant. “Could they be soldiers from Zuu?”

“Are they leading horses?” asked the Gryphon in return.

“No, they’re on foot.”

“Then, they are . . . not from Zuu. A soldier of . . . Zuu always has . . . his mount with him. And they . . . do not . . . wear armor at all resembling . . . resembling . . . that of the raiders.”

That was true, but Cabe had hoped. He continued to watch, thinking that maybe the soldiers would not see them, when he noticed a newcomer. It was a rider on some beast not a horse. Cabe’s brow wrinkled. Then, the rider turned a little in the saddle and abruptly became a blinding, glittering beacon. The other soldiers, turning, also seemed to suddenly blaze with the glory of the sun.

“They’re not wolf raiders,” he informed the others. “They’re allies.” I hope, he added to himself.

The gleaming warrior astride the riding drake might have been the same one that Cabe had mistaken for the Crystal Dragon, but the warlock could not be certain until the warrior spoke.

“Master Bedlam. I am Gemmon, my lord’s first duke. Pleased I am to have found you and yours alive in all this ruin.”

“You were looking for us?” The perfection with which the drake spoke did not really startle Cabe any more than the interesting fact that the dragon men were not using the forms they had been born with, which would have made searching Legar swifter and easier. The Dragon King’s human tastes had no doubt spread to his subjects.

“For you and survivors of both abominations. My lord leaves nothing to chance, although the humans will have scattered eastward and the cursssed Quel will burrow very deep. We lack the strength to hunt them down, but there are those lying among the dead who must still be dispatched and others wandering about that must be rounded up and dealt with in some manner.”

Cabe was not certain whether the drakes were putting the badly wounded to death out of pity or their need for further satisfaction. The warlock knew that he did not have the strength to fight for those lives and, in truth, he was hard-pressed to find a reason to spare either the Aramites or the Quel. Still, it did bother him . . .

“I have been instructed,” the drake continued, “to assist you and yours across the border into Esedi. Servants of the Green One will be there to help you return to your loved ones.” He eyed Darkhorse with some confusion. “Although as to what-”

“I will make do,” retorted the eternal. He sounded even stronger, but Cabe was not certain whether that might just be a front before the minions of the Dragon King.

“You have our gratitude,” the warlock interjected, not desiring a confrontation. “But there is one thing I must ask.”

“What is that?”

“I’d like to speak to your master. I insist upon it.”

The warrior looked uncomfortable. “He . . . hasss secluded himself from all for the time being. The sssspell was taxing, even for him.”

Cabe noted the nervousness, but would not be put off by the drake’s fear. “Tell him I will make my visit short.”

“I can tell him nothing. He will not even sssspeak to me, human.”

Glancing at the Gryphon and Darkhorse, Cabe said, “Then see to my friends. Help them on their way to the border. I’ll join you all when I can.”

The Gryphon stirred. “Cabe, surely you do not . . . intend to simply . . . simply materialize before a Dragon King . . . especially this Dragon King.”

The warlock was already rising. “I do. Call it concern.”

“Concern? For the Crystal Dragon?” Even the drake warrior found this a bit incredulous.

Shrugging, Cabe replied, “If not for him, then maybe a little concern for a man who once called himself Logan.”

He vanished while the others were still puzzling over that last statement.