Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. III

VI

As a child, Aurim had enjoyed being frightened. He had constantly encouraged his father, the Lord Gryphon, and even Darkhorse, to tell him stories that would fill him with delightful fear. He always knew that there were happy endings to the stories, but that made the images of nasty Dragon Kings, cunning Seekers, and brutish Quel no less spine-tingling.

But nothing had stirred him so much as tales involving the enigmatic warlock, Shade.

Yet, Shade was supposed to be dead. His father said so, Lord Gryphon said so, and even Darkhorse had finally, after years, reluctantly agreed. Still, the hooded sorcerer with the murky face whose curse constantly sent him swinging from good to evil and back again had become for Aurim a symbol of the unknown, the unexpected.

Now the unknown stared him in the face . . . so to speak.

Shade slowly and calmly led him through the rain-drenched landscape, moving as if Yssa would be just over the hill and not, as the golden-haired wizard suspected, miles away. The hooded figure appeared to be looking for something, but just what that something was he had so far not said to either Aurim or his other self.

This Shade was far different from the one in the stories. He did not appear either good or evil, but trapped somewhere in the middle for the time being. Aurim did not like traveling with him, but if he could find Yssa, that was all that mattered.

“We were dead,” rambled Shade not for the first time. “So dead. Peacefully dead.” He shifted his head to the left. “And we were quite furious when we no longer were.”

Aurim noted the rising bitterness in the tone, the first emotion he had heard from his dire companion. He wisely kept silent, knowing that Shade would continue on.

The hood turned right. “I remember . . . I remember her name was Sharissa . . .”

To the left. “No . . . her name was Galani . . .”

To the center. “And she thought she could help me . . .”

He grew silent for a time, now and then inspecting various bits of the land around them. Aurim pondered the names, but they meant nothing to him. His sister and father had a better knowledge of the history of the Dragonrealm; perhaps they would have made more sense of the ramblings.

Shade paused without warning, nearly causing Aurim, who hunkered low in his cloak since he dared not cast a spell, to collide with him. The hooded sorcerer leaned down. “Aaah . . . Here it is . . .”

He pulled up what at first Aurim thought a peculiar white stone. Only when the gloved hand thrust it closer did he realize that it was more.

A bone fragment.

“I knew it had to be near . . .”

A shift to the right. “Of course it would be near! We’re the reason it’s here in the first place!”

Shade leaned over again, digging into the wet soil with gloves that got neither moist nor muddy. Within seconds, he had removed another, larger object from the earth.

A skull.

Overcoming his initial dismay, Aurim studied the skull. The jaw bone was missing, but enough remained identifiable. What he had at first taken for a small dragon was, in fact, something quite the opposite. Instead of the broad, toothed muzzle of a reptilian creature, this had a squat, almost noseless appearance that reminded the young wizard in some ways of a rodent whose muzzle had been crushed.

Shade set the mud-covered cranium on the ground, then drew with his finger a circle around it. A faint, sickly green aura arose from the circle, swiftly enveloping the skull.

“They will be warned, but it doesn’t matter,” the warlock commented.

Aurim paid scant attention to the cryptic statement, his gaze fixed on the astonishing display before him. As the aura covered the skull, the latter began to rise from the ground. However, no longer did it lack a lower jaw. Instead, a new one composed entirely of the green glow filled the empty space. As the skull continued to rise, other magical bones rapidly replaced those missing, building the entire macabre structure a piece at a time.

The creature, whatever it was, had surely been grotesque in life if this unearthly skeleton was any indication. It towered over the pair and would have stood even taller if not for the fact that it seemed designed to lean forward at almost a right angle. The legs bent as if the creature had to constantly run or else fall. Odd bones that Aurim eventually recognized as forming wings stretched forth from the sides, ending in horrific, clawed appendages capable of grasping or tearing a victim apart. Had someone taken the worst from a human and bat, it surely would have resembled something akin to how this horror had looked when flesh had covered it.

When the skeleton was complete, the undead creature bent low and opened its mouth as if to make some sound, but only the wind whistling through its naked bones reached Aurim’s ears.

“The Necri will take us where we need to go.”

“Necri?” The word sounded vaguely familiar, like something out of the old journals his father kept.

“It served the Lords of the Dead,” Shade remarked offhandedly. His head shifted to the right. “And once sought to serve us to our cousins . . .”

The Lords of the Dead. . . . What had his desire to see Yssa tossed both her and Aurim into? He recognized that name, of course. Some saw the Lords of the Dead as the gods of the underworld, but they were both more and less than that. Darkhorse explained them as ageless necromancers seeking dominion over the world of the living by commanding the plane of the dead. However, they were not immortal. They could be destroyed, if only at great cost.

It did not surprise Aurim that Shade and they had crossed paths, even battled against one another, for surely he was a prize they desired to add to their macabre collection.

But-had the warlock just said that he and they were . . . cousins?

Shade gestured to the glowing skeleton. The Necri flapped its empty wings, ascending into the air. It fluttered around the pair once, then came down behind them.

Long, splayed feet with huge, savage claws cautiously seized the two around the waist and drew them up.

They flew high into the dark heavens, the fleshless creature somehow able to carry both with ease despite a lack of any muscle or membrane in its wings. The monstrous feet kept Aurim and Shade almost completely vertical, making the flight only somewhat harrowing.

As unnerving as both the journey and those who accompanied him made the wizard, Aurim reminded himself that they brought him closer to Yssa. In the end, she was all that mattered. It had been by his entreaties that she had agreed to cross the border into Wenslis. What a fool he had been to think that even they could keep their clandestine meetings hidden from the Dragon King. His parents had always warned him that the Storm Lord watched everything that went on in his realm.

That thought made Aurim frown. If so, then the drake should have even known about Shade’s presence . . . which made it curious that he had evidently done nothing about the warlock.

But then, could even a Dragon King plan for Shade?

“AND WHY WOULD we slay one another, especially for you?” Gwen asked defiantly. She had reached her limits. Even despite the Dragon King’s obviously threatening presence, the enchantress could not believe his audacity.

“Because we wish it so,” the reptilian figure boomed. “Because the consort of so glorious a being as us must be the most powerful, most capable.” The Storm Lord steepled his fingers. “And because if you do not, we will make you fight, anyway.”

Yssa eyed him contemptuously. “I will never fight for the right to be yours.”

The arms of the Dragon King’s throne suddenly broke free, seizing the Storm Lord in a suffocating grip. The back of the throne stretched high, then folded over as if to swallow the master of Wenslis.

A black aura immediately surrounded the drake. Without the slightest effort, the Storm Lord rose, the arms pinning him cracking to pieces. The back of the throne instantly solidified, then retracted to its original state.

Gwen frowned, but not only because of the failure of Yssa’s spell. When the aura had formed around the Storm Lord, the enchantress had sensed a peculiar-and yet somehow familiar-style of sorcery, one she had never noticed used by any previous Dragon King.

“You prove yourself worthy,” the Storm Lord told the Green Dragon’s daughter as if nothing had happened. “It is time to begin.”

He raised his hands palm up and lightning crackled between them. Twin bolts shot forth, striking both women in the head. Gwen expected pain, but instead a frightening numbness took over her body-and once again she sensed something different about this Dragon King’s spellwork.

Suddenly she found herself against her will turning toward Yssa-who already faced her. The half-drake’s expression was emotionless save for her eyes, which radiated an intense apprehension that matched Gwen’s own.

The enchantress’s body moved. Gwen felt the summoning of power even though she herself had attempted no such thing. Across from her, Yssa radiated raw magical energy, but her eyes still held the same anxiety.

“Memory will serve,” the Storm Dragon informed the two unwilling combatants. He almost seemed distracted, as if he had other, more significant matters to which to attend. “Memory will guide. Your bodies will recall what they must, when they must. They will determine your fates.”

Gwen’s hands suddenly clapped together.

From them came a swarm of black, buzzing insects that immediately encircled Yssa. They bit into her flesh, tore the skin free.

But despite the ordeal, Yssa quickly countered. A fearsome wind tossed the swarm about, then fiercely slapped them against one wall of the immense cavern. As the dead insects dropped in clusters, the same wind tore free a part of that wall and sent it hurtling at the enchantress.

Gwen’s left hand made a cutting motion. As if tossed into some vast invisible grinder, the huge chunk of stone vaporized bit by bit as it neared her. In seconds, all that remained was a sizable pile of dust.

But Gwen leaned forward and, borrowing from Yssa, pursed her lips and blew. The dust poured over the younger spellcaster, choking her.

This must stop! I’m sure to kill her! Yssa might have her own astonishing skills, but Gwen had the experience of two centuries, in which time she had been trained by both the Green Dragon and Nathan Bedlam, Aurim’s great-grandfather, and done battle alongside the Dragon Masters. Yssa had not lived long enough to experience all she had and that, in the end, would surely be the deciding factor.

She fought against the Storm Lord’s will, refusing to become his tool of death. Gwen felt his control over her slip ever so slightly. The spell her body had been about to cast dissipated before it could harm Yssa. The enchantress managed a slight smile of triumph-

But in battling the Dragon King, she left herself open to the other sorceress. A chilling cold swept over Gwen. Her movements slowed to a halt and even the blood in her veins felt as if it had begun to freeze. She opened her mouth to scream-and it remained caught in that agonizing position.

Yssa blinked as if waking, then dropped to her knees in exhaustion. Eyes wide, she stared into Gwen’s own. Unable to move, the cold sapping her will further, Gwen could say nothing to assuage the horrendous guilt she read in the other’s gaze. Yssa had only done what she had because the Storm Dragon had forced her to, but it made the outcome no less monstrous. With each passing second it proved more of a strain for Gwen to remain conscious. She was well aware, though, of what would happen when the cold finally took her. There would be no waking, no life. Yssa’s spell would turn her literally to ice.

“How interesting,” remarked the Storm Lord, approaching Gwen. “An unexpected outcome. We thought surely that the Lady of the Amber would prevail . . .” He touched Gwen on the chin, the arm. “Interesting.”

Even despite her mental struggles, the enchantress could not help meeting his fiery gaze-and in that moment she had the odd sense that she stared at someone other than the Storm Lord.

But the Dragon King turned away before she could discover more. At his unspoken command, Yssa rose and went to his side. Yssa took his arm in her own, holding him as one would hold the arm of a mate.

Her eyes continued to radiate horror over what she had accomplished.

The Dragon King stared again at Gwen. “Now we shall see what the bait draws . . .”

And with that peculiar comment, he led Yssa away, leaving the enchantress standing helpless, her thoughts growing hazier . . . and her death growing nearer.