Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. III

XI

“The Wyr stone . . .” Ephraim’s ghoulish countenance darkened. “Or, rather, a pathetic fragment of it . . . the Zeree cunning has not been watered down either by endless generations or incarnations . . .”

“Has it disrupted our work?” asked Zorane anxiously.

“A hesitation, nothing more.” The lead necromancer thrust the chain through his rotting belt. “It will be remedied-”

“Ephraim . . .” the imprisoned female suddenly uttered. “This is madness.”

The Lord performed a mock bow. “My Lady Sharissa . . . so good of you to join us . . . in the flesh.”

“I am the only one here in any sort of flesh,” the voice from Valea Bedlam’s body snapped back. “If you could see what your obsession’s made of all of you . . .”

“Spoken like the daughter of the self-righteous Master Zeree,” smirked Zorane. “Ever the voice of temperance among those with no need to be . . .”

“And the result of not listening was the devastation of Nimth.”

“But leaving Nimth brought us to power undreamed,” returned Ephraim. “Enabled us to become gods.”

“Demons, perhaps, but never gods . . .”

The towering necromancer waved away her comments. “This conversation is superfluous. You are bound to our will. You will do as we demand. Now there is only one other we await.” Ephraim looked to his right. “And he comes now.”

As one, the other sorcerers looked to the far end of the chamber, where what seemed black light flashed briefly.

In its wake, a bent, hooded form unfolded the voluminous cloak that surrounded him.

“Our dear cousin, Gerrod. How appropriate a moment. Come. Let the two of you gaze upon one another alive again. Look upon one another’s sweet faces . . .”

“Yes, Ephraim.” But as he straightened, he revealed that he had no face upon which any of them could look.

Zorane shifted out of position. “That’s not possible! Gerrod taking over should-”

Sharissa’s pleased laughter erupted from Valea’s mouth.

“Gerrod Tezerenee loved you, my lady,” Shade murmured.

The captive’s expression became sad but proud. “I know.”

The warlock struck.

A shimmering, red field surrounded the Lords of the Dead, a protective spell cast at the last moment by them. Yet, the chamber still shook violently and several of the necromancers teetered from their chosen places. The field flickered on and off and on again.

But in the end, it held.

“Whether he took you or you took him does not matter!” hissed Ephraim. “You will find us more than before! You will bow to us this time and fulfill the role we have arranged for you, cousin!”

The Lords of the Dead stared at Shade . . . and with them stared Cabe, Darkhorse, and Sharissa.

The warlock drew his cloak around him.

From the walls, from the floors, erupted monstrous, winged fiends of yellow energy. They immediately clawed at Shade, ravaging his garments, ripping through the protected cloak. Some scored cuts on his arms and torso, but he never once cried out.

He opened his palm and a wind scattered to pieces the nearest. Shade spun about and the wind followed, whipping across his tormentors and decimating them.

But no sooner had he deflected the first horrendous assault when a new and more horrific sight surrounded him. They were ghosts, pained spirits-and all were victims of his past darkness. Worse . . . they had all been friends, close friends, whom he had betrayed.

“They haunt you every waking moment . . . and you never sleep, do you, cousin?” mocked Ephraim. “Now see their true sorrow, their true anguish . . . and know that it is all your doing!”

Although his hood lay in tatters from the first assault, nothing of Shade’s head or face could yet be made out with any definition. His voice, though, spoke well of the emotions boiling within. “No! They are not my doing! I would never have willingly done such evil!”

“But you did, time and time over! You would happily do so again! Your own miscast spell ensures that!”

They crowded around Shade, pressed him close. “No! It’s the Land that ensured it! The Land that twisted my work!”

Several of the necromancers laughed.

Xarakee bellowed, “Are you still on that? ‘The land is alive! The land is out to change us into monsters!’ Ha!”

“As it did the rest! You know how the drakes came to be! Their kings were my brothers!”

“Those were fools who used the dragon-based golems,” Ghan returned. “The inherent traits of the flesh and blood taken from the beasts simply demanded their natural design! It was poor sorcery, not some malevolent plot by a thinking world!”

“If the land was such a horrific foe,” Ephraim concluded, “we would not be as we are . . . masters of it, not its pawns . . .”

Despite the horrible memories surrounding him, Shade straightened. He no longer stared at the ghosts around him, only the eleven figures standing so confidently. “No? Perhaps you should see yourselves as others do, then, cousin! Perhaps you should see the truth!”

Grunting from agony and effort, he cast.

It flared like a silver beacon, spreading across the chamber. Its presence was so tremendous that the ghosts haunting the warlock fled from what it revealed to them. Shade ignored them, although the pain of their faces remained with him. He only cared that he make the Lords of the Dead see.

See themselves.

It was a mirror like no other. Perfect in reflecting in brilliance what the dank, still lands and the minds of the necromancers sought to hide. The chamber where the Lords worked their foul deeds was not the glittering, elegant room that they imagined. Instead it was a crumbling, dust-enshrouded tomb barely lit, with unimaginable shapes rotting in the corners or dangling from the cracked ceiling.

But none of that registered for long upon the necromancers-for they now stared at their individual forms. Each saw only him or herself in that mirror, saw revealed by Shade the truth.

“No . . .” gasped Zorane. “That can’t be-that can’t be-”

“’Tis a trick!” shouted Delio. He broke from his position with the intention of charging the mirror and smashing it, but the moment he saw his reflection move in turn, he froze again.

“My-my face!” Kadaria cried. “Serkadian Manee! My face!”

“This is your glory?” countered Shade. “This is your godhood? The Land has made of you the greatest jest of all! There is nothing deader in your realm than you yourselves!”

“Not possible . . .” Zorane insisted weakly. “Not possible . . .”

But among them, there was one untouched by the revelation. Ephraim gestured-and the mirror exploded.

“It changes nothing! My plan will go on!”

The warlock might have frowned. “You . . . knew.”

“I know everything! I am-”

A shape fell upon him and two hands clasped tight against the sides of his helmet. A bright flash from each enveloped the necromancer’s head.

Ephraim cried out-first in agony, then in anger. He swung with one gauntleted hand at his attacker, sending the figure flying across the massive chamber.

Valea’s body crashed hard against the ancient stone.

“Sharissa!” Shade involuntarily called.

“As dead to you as we are,” Ephraim said with loathing. He raised his hand into a fist and the other necromancers suddenly straightened as if they were puppets whose strings had been tightened. “But not nearly so dead as you’ll be . . . cousin.”

But instead of Shade, it was again the lead sorcerer who was attacked, this time nearly crushed to the floor by a powerful, invisible force.

“If my daughter is dead,” Cabe Bedlam uttered, “she’ll be a far luckier person than you when I’m done.”

Among the other Lords, chaos broke out as Darkhorse reared and kicked at them in rapid succession. Thunder cracked and each necromancer fought hard against tiny but furious showers of glowing spheres.

Rising, Ephraim rubbed his fleshless chin. “Focus! Regain focus and the wizard and the beast will be ours again!”

But while some of the Lords did attempt to obey, others moved awkwardly, even listlessly. The revelation wrought by Shade had left them dumbfounded. They could not accept their deaths, but neither could they deny the truth.

The wizard closed with him. “We’ll never be yours, whether in life or in death!”

Fire covered Ephraim, a fire hotter than any natural one. It was pure white, so intense was its heat. The necromancer battled against it, but Cabe’s fury fueled it as nothing else could.

THE EMPTINESS WITHIN which Valea’s spirit drifted became stifling. She did not need to breathe, but the heat threatened to burn her to nothing. She struggled to find a way out, but there was none.

Desperately, she called out, seeking the only one she thought might hear her.

Galani! Galani!

But instead, a far different presence touched her own.

You are . . . Valea . . .

With each passing moment, the heat grew more intense. The enchantress knew that she would not last much longer. Please! The stone! It’s-

But the other presence had already vanished.

There had been few beings that Cabe had ever truly wanted dead. The lead necromancer had joined that select band and the wizard knew that in a few more moments the monstrous sorcerer would see the afterlife as it truly was. Nothing would stop Cabe from avenging Valea.

Nothing, that is, save the hard blast of pure force that tossed him several yards to the side.

The flames instantly faded. Ephraim stumbled back, recovering.

Shade hovered over him. He grabbed at the necromancer’s waist.

At which point, a black hoof capable of shattering walls nearly crushed the warlock into the floor.

“Traitor or friend, friend or traitor, one can nevermore tell with you, Shade!” rumbled Darkhorse. “A base attack on one who was ever your comrade!”

“You’re being a fool!” gasped the ragged figure.

“I am being observant!”

Shade managed to shield himself enough to turn. “Then be-be observant of the pattern! The Lords are-are regrouping!”

“Eh?” Sure enough, six of the necromancers had pulled themselves together enough to reform part of the pattern. Two others looked near to joining them.

“I can save Cabe Bedlam’s daughter, but they must be stopped! Look! In the center! That crystal!”

“What of it?”

“Smash it! Go now!”

The eternal laughed. “And turn my back on you?”

Shade lifted his blurred face toward his oldest companion. “Darkhorse . . . would I ever desire the Lords of the Dead to triumph?”

Darkhorse started. The ice blue orbs glittered. “No . . . good or ill, you never wanted that.”

“Then, please . . . go!”

With a laugh, the black stallion whirled about. Letting out a gasp, Shade stumbled away from the still-stunned Ephraim.

In the hand pressed against his chest dangled the chain from which swung the piece of the Wyr Stone.

The body lay motionless. The chest did not rise and fall. A chill coursed through Shade like none he had ever experienced.

No . . . he had. When another who was the same as this one had died. Died because of him.

Just as Valea Bedlam had.

She looked so much like Sharissa, like the elf maiden Galani, like the witch Tyrnene . . . like so many others. Yet, she also was in herself distinct.

For reasons he could not explain to himself, Shade hesitated, lost in the spectacle of her face. He finally reached a hand to her cheek.

Her eyes abruptly opened. A slight, sad smile crossed her lips. Even though her chest still did not rise, her throat did not move, from her mouth came a single word.

“Forgiven . . .”

The warlock pulled back, stunned. Valea Bedlam’s eyes closed again and her body went limp.

“No!” He brought the stone to her chest, placing it gently there. Shade knew no words would do what he sought, but trusted that the stone would do what it should.

The bit of the Wyr Stone, a thing he had once coveted more than love, briefly glowed.

At that moment, Ephraim’s voice echoed throughout the chamber. “The pattern is still set! Focus your wills through me!”

Shade rose, knowing that if the Lords of the Dead had organized themselves, then all could yet be lost. Where was Darkhorse?

There! The shadow steed sought to reach the crystal, but the necromancers had already steeled themselves enough to keep him at bay. Cabe Bedlam aided his good friend, but although with time they might have won, such a precious commodity was not theirs.

He saw Ephraim come alive with the power the others fed him. All the lead necromancer needed was a moment more.

Shade glanced down at the figure by his feet. Her chest now rose and sank and he caught the gentle movement of her breath at her mouth. The warlock sensed the life rushing within her, a life so very young and yet, as he well understood, so very old-like his own.

Without hesitation, he turned and charged the Lords.

Caught up in their battle against the wizard and the eternal, they did not at first focus on the new threat. Zorane was the first to notice his approach, by which point Shade had reached the edge of the pattern.

“There! Stop him!”

Leaping, Shade collided with the necromancer. A monstrous shock went through him as he touched the ghoulish figure. Shade bit back a scream. Zorane clutched at him, but the warlock struck him a solid blow. The fleshless figure wobbled back, somehow maintaining his place, but now unable to grab at his foe.

Pushing past the Lord, Shade summoned all the strength he had and plunged toward the crystal.

Off to the side, he heard Ephraim cry out to Cabe and Darkhorse, “You will be ours! Your world will be ours!”

And then Shade fell upon centerpiece of the necromancers’ work, pouring every bit of power he could against it.

The pain, when the crystal exploded, was mercifully brief.