Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. III

IV

Gwen awoke not in chains, but the enchantress was no less imprisoned. The soft, silver cushions filling the high, white oak bed upon which she lay went on to the glistening, ivory walls-or rather, wall, since her chamber appeared perfectly round. The bed, perfectly matched to leave no space between itself and the wall, adjusted to her movements with such efficiency and care that she almost thought it alive.

There was no door, no window. The ceiling rose to a point some ten feet above. The illumination radiated from the wall itself, but Gwen could detect no magic in it.

At the far end of the bed, a square, gleaming tray held two bowls-one filled with fresh fruit, the other, well-cooked meats-and a glass flask of some red wine. Gwen felt the rumbling in her stomach and the dryness in her mouth. Despite her predicament, she climbed over the pillows and partook of the offered meal. Both the tray and bowls were of pure platinum and finely crafted. The flask and the small cup accompanying it had been molded from flawless crystal, not glass as she had first supposed.

As she ate, the enchantress inspected herself. Not so much as one scratch marred her pale skin and her garments looked as if they had just been cleansed. There was no trace whatsoever of the storm’s wrath on her. In fact, the only thing she noticed wrong at all was that her travel cloak had been taken.

Pushing away the tray, Gwen leaned toward the wall, touching it gingerly. To her surprise, she found it not only incredibly smooth, but neither hot nor cold. In fact, the temperature of the chamber seemed just perfect to her and she suspected that to be no coincidence.

What is he up to? Gwen had expected much worse in the captivity of the Storm Dragon. Thus far, she had suffered more on diplomatic journeys to some of the obscure kingdoms. The pillows and sheets had a silken touch; the fare, the enchantress had to admit, would have done even Penacles or Talak well.

Running her hand along the wall, Gwen searched for some hidden doorway or window. She reached out with her higher senses, seeking to understand the nature of her prison. Where had her captor placed her? In the depths of his mountainous retreat? Amidst a raging volcano?

She let out an uncharacteristic gasp as the blank wall suddenly became a wide, distorted face that wrapped completely around her.

Atop the helm that covered much of the face, one of the most fearsome dragon heads she had ever seen peered down at her. It was flanked by massive, curved wings stretched as if in flight and under those wings clouds had been set. Both helm and crest were a deep gray with a combination of silver and blue hints.

The lower jaw of the dragon extended down to the nose guard. The helmet’s rounded eye holes revealed within two miniature red suns that burned hotter when they met the enchantress’s startled gaze.

“Our Lady of the Amber . . .” thundered the Storm Lord, using one of Gwen’s older titles. The narrow slit of a mouth opened wide in what apparently was a smile. The jagged teeth and flickering, serpentine tongue did nothing to accentuate that smile. “You are most welcome here with us.”

He spoke flawlessly, none of the oft-present sibilance of his kind noticeable. He also spoke as if to an honored guest, not one whom he had seized by terrible force.

But then, the actions of those who were mad were never predictable.

“Why am I here? I meant no threat to you, Dragon King! I had, by necessity, to travel along the edge of your domain, but surely you could sense there was no malice in my actions!”

The huge face shifted around, disconcerting her. The Storm Dragon chuckled harshly, then replied, “No, Our Lady, there was no malice in your actions! We simply saw the opportunity we had long desired to welcome you to our company . . .”

Gwen did not quite know what to make of his words, but that hardly mattered. “There is a peace between us-if not an easy one-my lord. If you’ll let me be on my way, it shall remain peace.”

“But you have only just graced us with your presence, wonderful Lady of the Amber! We would know you better first . . .” A hint of a frown escaped. “The meal was not to your liking? It was drawn from your memories . . .”

She stirred. Gwen had not even noticed that. Small wonder that she had enjoyed it so. In fact, the enchantress now recalled the wine being a rare vintage from Gordag-Ai.

“Were they not conjured to your satisfaction, Our Lady?” he asked, his dark visage giving more hint of menace.

“They were excellent,” Gwen replied quickly.

“And your bed? You slept well?”

Again she answered with swiftness so as not to allow his anger to rise. “A more perfect sleep I couldn’t have had.”

The inhuman mouth twisted into a smile again. “We are so pleased by that.”

He always speaks of himself in the plural . . . his insanity grows . . . That meant that everything she said the enchantress had to consider before the words left her mouth.

“Lord of Storms, I would be more than happy to visit officially, if that’s what you would truly desire, but I fear that other matters press most urgently at this time-”

“You speak of your son,” he interjected casually.

Gwen bit back her concern. That he knew of Aurim should not have surprised her. “Yes, my son. He may have errantly entered your domain and I wanted to make certain that you did not mistake said error for anything but what it was.”

The great head bowed once. “You may be assured, Lady of the Amber, that we understand exactly what it was.”

His words gave her some slight hope. “I can promise you that he’ll not make the same mistake again. When we leave-”

“But you are in error yourself, Our Lady, for your time to depart is not yet now.”

“But my son-”

A huge, gauntleted hand cut across the massive head as the Storm Dragon dismissed her protest without concern. “Enchantress, he is dead. We need no longer concern ourselves with his trespass.”

She gaped. He could have told her nothing more horrible-and in so uncaring a voice.

Seemingly unmindful of her horror, the dread master of Wenslis continued, “Let us instead concern ourselves with a more pleasant subject now . . . your probable role as our glorious consort.”

Gwen could barely comprehend his words, her mind still torn by the declaration that Aurim had been killed. Rage and confusion overwhelmed her. She rose atop the bed and tried to summon the power needed to shatter both the wall and the monstrous, arrogant face.

But nothing happened. She could sense no source of power upon which to draw. It was as if in this place magic did not exist.

“We have searched for those most worthy and found all lacking,” he went on, oblivious to her fury. “No drake dam wields the might we deemed appropriate for one who would be the mate of a god. But fate offered us another choice, a far better one. We need not seek merely among our own kind, but among those where a proper companion for our august personage already existed.”

The enchantress could not believe, could not imagine, that she heard right. The same monster that had so indifferently announced her son’s death-at his hands, no doubt-believed she would become his mate? In the face of all else, the idea was so absurd that Gwen almost laughed.

“You will be our consort, our mate! You shall bear us offspring like no others, Lady of the Amber,” the horrific visage declared, mouth wide and upturned. “And with you at our side, at last we shall began to spread our glory over the rest of this benighted world . . .”

“I would never-”

He vanished before she could finish, leaving in his place not the ivory wall, but something that left the enchantress frozen in shock. Perhaps the Storm Lord thought to impress upon his chosen bride the depths of his might. He certainly left the protests Gwen had been about to utter unspoken. She stood there, staring in horror, realizing that at every turn her captor stripped her of more and more hope.

Aurim was dead . . . and she . . . she now saw where her cell lay. Not in the depths of a live volcano, as Gwen had supposed, but the very opposite.

The storm raged around her, savage bolts crashing much too near. Black clouds collided violently and thick, pounding rain coursed earthward.

Coursed to a world far, far below.

The cell floated by itself amidst the clouds, amidst the terror of the unnatural storm. Pressing her face against the now invisible wall, Gwen barely made out the hazy form of a huge mountain peak flanked by two smaller but no less sinister siblings.

The lair of the Storm Lord.

Aurim lay surrounded by darkness and the odd feeling that the world had been turned upside down. He tried to push himself up, but a crushing weight kept him pinned in place.

“Shall I help him?” asked a quiet voice.

“Why?” asked a second one that sounded identical to the first.

“It might be amusing. It might be something to do.”

What Aurim took for the second voice mockingly replied, “So would letting him die horribly.”

“Yes, but that would take too long and I don’t have the patience.”

“Neither do I.”

As the wizard tried to make sense of the conversation, something suddenly grabbed his ankles.

Aurim rose feet first into the air, a layer of earth falling away from his face and chest. A huge rock tumbled to the side, the crushing weight he had felt.

Belatedly he realized that a faint blue glow surrounded him. At first the blond wizard thought that his rescuer had created it, but then a hazy memory stirred. The blue glow was his own work, the last vestige of the shield spell he had cast just as the Dragon King’s storm had plunged him into chaos. Aurim vaguely recalled being tossed over the landscape, landing here and there and everywhere as one bolt after another had ripped apart wherever he landed. An entire hill had collapsed upon him, all but smothering its intended victim. Only the strength of his own spell had spared him from the Storm Lord’s wrath.

But had Aurim survived all that simply to still be captured by the scaly ruler of Wenslis?

Whatever held his ankles shook him so violently that he had to cry out.

“You see? He’s still very much alive.”

“That can be rectified.”

“Wh-” Aurim choked. He spat out moist, congealed dirt from his throat. “Who’s there? Who are you?”

“We were trying to decide that,” answered what might have been either the first or second voice; the wizard could not say which. They sounded absolutely the same, down to each inflection.

Twins?

Then he realized what the last voice had said. They were trying to decide who they were?

“It’s a matter of choice, you see. The decision to turn one direction or another. A name would be simple, then. Until that happens, though, the indecision splits us terribly.”

But Aurim no longer listened to the babbling. Given the chance to breathe-even if he did so dangling upside down in the dark-the wizard now recalled a matter far more important to him than his own dire situation.

Yssa . . .

He tried to struggle free. “Where is she? What did you do with her?”

Suddenly he found himself falling. Aurim acted as best he could to strengthen his dying spell. Despite that, he still hit the ground with a harsh thud. Every bone in his body shook and vertigo nearly made the hapless spellcaster pass out.

And where a moment before he had only been able see a few feet around him, now Aurim’s surroundings blazed with light. He had to blink rapidly several times before his eyes adjusted and even then he was not at first certain at exactly what he stared.

It resembled nothing more than an empty cloak and hood set by someone to loom over him. There was the outline of shoulders, yes, but Aurim could see nothing within the low-hanging hood or the rest of the earth-sweeping garment. Yet, something lurked within, that his higher senses could tell, but whether it was human or otherwise was still an enigma.

Then, from the shadowy depths of the hood came the voice he had heard so many times. “The armored ones took the female.”

“The Storm Dragon’s warriors have her?” Aurim vaguely recalled something of the struggle and how one soldier had used a curious device to render his love unconscious.

“If the armored ones are the the warriors of this Storm Dragon then they’re logically the ones who took her,” the hood remarked somewhat impatiently.

“He seems to lack much in the way of sense. Perhaps he was better buried head down in the earth.”

Aurim’s eyes widened. The second voice had also come from within the hood.

The shrouded head shifted as if looking to the right side. “Being a little addled in the head can be forgiven under the circumstances. . . .”

Now it turned to the left. “A little . . . not a lot.”

“We’ve our own quandaries, remember.”

“Compared to ours, his are moot. Dispose of him.”

As he watched the hood switch back and forth, Aurim’s concern magnified a hundred times. He had been rescued by some demented creature with an obvious skill for magic. Despite his own respectable abilities-which Aurim felt gradually capable of using again-he knew that he had to be wary.

“Forgive me,” the wizard dared say. “And thank you for coming to my aid.”

The hood shifted right. “See? He has manners.”

To the left. “He has fear . . . and that is a good thing, too.”

From the ground, Aurim finally gazed up at what lay beyond his macabre companion-and received yet a further shock.

The storm still blew. Lightning flashed; rain fell in torrents. Aurim had noticed none of this earlier because of more than simply his slow recovery from the horrendous attack. No, the reason he had paid scant attention to the elements had been because nothing had touched either him or the hooded form. Even the sounds of the storm had failed to reach the wizard’s ears. They stood completely cut off from the rest of the world by an invisible force that no doubt could be blamed on the mysterious figure with the dual voices.

And that spoke of a spellcaster of tremendous skill.

“I-thank you for rescuing me.” He repeated. Determined not to remain in so vulnerable a position, Aurim struggled to his feet. “But I must be on my way. I must find Yssa . . . wherever they’ve taken her.”

“We know where she’s been taken,” the hood responded to the right. “Should we show him?”

To the left . . . with a shrug of indifference. “As you wish . . . this time.”

The hooded figure raised its head and, looking straight at Aurim, quietly said, “We will lead you . . . if you dare come with.”

But Aurim did not answer at first, staring at what little he could see at last of the face. What there was visible filled him with an anxiety that eclipsed all else. Now he understood just how powerful this other was . . . and how at any moment that power might be wielded against him.

What could be seen was but a blur. Try as he might, Aurim could not bring the hooded visage at all into focus. He knew why, yes, he knew why. His parents still spoke of the faceless warlock, the hooded sorcerer-friend and foe together in one deathless, resurrecting form.

“You-you’re dead . . .”

The hood shifted left and right, then settled in the center again. His macabre companion finally nodded. “Yes . . . yes, I suppose we are.”

Aurim had been rescued by Shade.