Legends of the Dragonrealm Volume 2

XVIII

The warlock Shade haunted the halls and chambers of the vast imperial palace of Talak undetected amidst the chaos commencing around him. Sentries rushing to and fro-whether loyalists or traitors Shade could not say and did not care-did not so much as glance at the hooded figure they passed, even those within an arm’s reach of him.

Unfolding himself at his destination, the warlock knelt down in the midst of the garden. Here, in such an excellent, centrally located area of the palace, he would release the last and largest clutch.

When emerged from his sleeves they were little more than amorphous shapes that flittered and darted about, as if in silent impatience. Unlike the bizarre searchers that he had summoned that other time, these were not living creatures in any sense of the word, merely bits of magical energy shaped to do a particular task. Shade counted out an even dozen before he broke off the spell. His head throbbed briefly, but he assured himself that it was only a headache this time. There had been no further losses of memory-as far as he knew-and his personality had been stable for days. He was himself at last and nothing would change that again.

Without a word, he sent the tiny shapes out and about. They would spread through the palace. No corner of the massive edifice would remain uninvaded.

He drew back into the shadows then, wondering how long it would take Darkhorse to detect him once the masking spell that had protected him thus far was removed. Not too long, he supposed, but long enough.

The warlock smiled to himself as pictured the scene to come.

Retaking the palace was child’s play, as far as Darkhorse was concerned. Melicard found and freed a number of the prisoners the counselor’s men had captured in the cells surrounding his own. Though still outnumbered and without weapons, they were a force to be reckoned with, even forgetting that the king also had a sorceress and a “demon” to aid him.

After a thorough search through more than half the building, it became apparent to all that the palace was, for the most part, deserted now. Only a few stragglers, looters generally, were uncovered. Melicard’s men rearmed themselves quickly on weapons left abandoned in the corridors. The reason for the abandonment soon revealed itself to them, thanks to a looter caught trying to ransack the king’s chambers. Staring up at Darkhorse all the while he spoke, the prisoner informed them of how Quorin’s men knew now that Melicard had unleashed his personal horde of demons that he had saved just for this moment. Allowing the traitors to seize the palace had only been a ploy to discover who was guilty and who was not. Even now, men were fleeing for their lives from the monsters they knew were following them relentlessly.

Darkhorse understood. Seeing him and knowing that he had come for their master, Quorin’s underlings had panicked. In their haste to get as far from the shadow steed as possible, they had likely rushed past their fellows without pausing, spouting out garbled warnings as they ran. As was always the case with fear, the stories had grown, each man shouting some tale of a demon come to get them. Panic escalated.

The eternal chuckled as he told Melicard, “Apparently, I was too pessimistic about your chances of quick success! You have my apologies, King Melicard!”

“We have you to thank for our easy victory. Let us hope that those at the gate surrender so easily.”

“Shall I go there and see to it?”

The king shook his head. “I am grateful, but your appearance may panic people near the gate. I need as much order as possible.”

Erini, who had vanished momentarily from the throne room, returned at that moment with another man, an officer in the dress of Gordag-Ai. Melicard knew him, but the princess introduced him to Darkhorse, who learned the man was a Captain Iston or something. Iston seemed in awe of the ebony stallion, but his military training succeeded in keeping him from making much of a spectacle of himself.

Captain Iston apologized profusely to the king for his failure to keep the princess safe. From the look on her face, Darkhorse hazarded a guess that Erini had heard the same thing only moments earlier.

“I’ve already explained to you,” she said, interrupting his fourth apology, “I am a sorceress, captain. I transported myself out of the room by accident. There was no way for any of your men to keep watch over me.” Beneath her calm tone, the eternal noted some bitterness. Erini had still not forgiven herself for the men who had died trying to rescue her.

While they talked, rather too idly in Darkhorse’s opinion, something nagged at the corner of his mind. Something obvious that they had all been missing, something about the crooked counselor…

Of course! Darkhorse cursed himself for not thinking of it sooner. He turned immediately to King Melicard, who was engrossed in a discussion concerning the chameleon cloaks Iston’s two men had worn. “Your majesty!”

When a tall, pitch-black stallion demands attention, he receives it instantly. Melicard fell back under the glittering gaze. “What is it? Is Shade within the palace walls?”

Darkhorse snorted. “I doubt I would be able to tell even if he was, but that is not what I wanted to say! I have a request of you!”

“Name it. I owe you too much to deny you anything.”

“Mal Quorin’s chambers. I want to see them.”

Erini’s face darkened. Melicard nodded grimly and looked rather irritated with himself. “I should’ve thought of that long before. He’s the link, after all, to the Dragon King-and likely Shade, too.”

“Yes! It was he who provided Drayfitt with the book that the drakes had uncovered! I wonder what else remains hidden in his rooms?”

“I’ll have someone drag him back up here!” Melicard rubbed his chin. “He’ll show you everything even if I have to remove a few fingers and toes to get him to do it.”

The eternal disagreed. “Mal Quorin is the last creature I would want in that room. From the tricks he has already played, I would not put it past him to have a few more ready and waiting for him. No, I think I would prefer to probe his room on my own. Your good counselor is best left admiring the cobwebs of his new abode.”

“There’s much in what you say. Do you need someone to lead you to it?”

“It is not a place I think I would care to enter without some prior inspection. I am not impervious to everything.”

Melicard smiled. “I was beginning to think you were unstoppable. However, if otherwise is the case, I can have one of my men show you the way.”

Darkhorse dipped his head in the closest he could come to a bow. “That would be appreciated.”

Little more than a few minutes passed before he was being led to the ex-advisor’s personal sanctum by one nearly panic-stricken soldier. Even knowing that the great leviathan trotting next to him was an ally of the king did not stop the man from shaking and stuttering. It was an amusing sight, a soldier who was obviously a longtime veteran shaking in his boots, but Darkhorse forbore from saying or doing anything that would shame the human.

At last, they came to a set of doors that somehow arrogantly proclaimed power even though they were as plain as any Darkhorse had seen here. He was interested also to note how far they were from the king’s chambers. Quorin had set up his own tiny little kingdom in the palace. It was a wonder that he had, according to Erini and Melicard, always seemed to be around when you expected him least.

Darkhorse dismissed his guide, who happily departed at the quickest walk he could manage while still seeming to keep his dignity. The ebony stallion waited until he was alone and then began to inspect the entrance for traps or tricks.

The first was simple yet devious. There was an intricate triple lock in the door. A normal key would merely cause one lock to be exchanged for another, all without the one turning the key realizing it. He would then find that the door was still locked. Trying again would set the third lock into play. It was an endless cycle. The secret, evidently, was a special key that Quorin had no doubt carried on his person, one that caught all three lock mechanisms simultaneously. A very impressive piece of work, the stallion decided, but not one that would give him any trouble. Darkhorse did not need a key and, in fact, could have ignored the lock altogether. The door was so reinforced that nothing short of a raging, full-grown bull would have been able to break it down, and that only after several painful attempts. That meant nothing to the creature who could create fissures in a mountain with the mere tap of his hooves. In respect to King Melicard and Princess Erini, however, Darkhorse decided to forgo splintering it into so much scrap. Instead, probing the locks again, he caused all three locks to open at the same time, as if the key were actually in there.

After that, it was an even simpler task to make the door open up by itself. Darkhorse laughed silently at the picture he knew he must have made. Not once, however, had he considered giving himself hands and arms, useful though they might have been. The form he wore was more his own than the shapeless mass he had originated with. With his abilities intact, it would serve him as well as any other.

The shadow steed peered inside.

“Curious,” he finally muttered before stepping into the room.

Mal Quorin’s personal chambers had an odd feel to them, as if the rooms, at least the front ones, were more for display than actual use. Things were just too perfect, too much what one would have expected, almost as if even the placement of the chair by the fireplace had been choreographed. This was not the sort of room a man like Quorin would have been happy with. This was a place where he spoke in private to the king or pretended to do work.

Moving swiftly to the next doorway, he noted that the bedroom was the same. Again, everything seemed appropriate for a man of Mal Quorin’s rank and position. Too appropriate. The fixtures were just too gaudy to be believed. The bed was large, well-built and expensive, but hardly right. A row of well-preserved tomes on a shelf revealed the typical books concerning politics and history, including, ironically, several by the late Drayfitt.

Darkhorse laughed, his tone somewhat bitter, wondering if any of them had been read.

These were not Quorin’s personal quarters, he concluded. These were the ones that the traitor had made up for the sake of appearances. Where then…?

He backed out of the room and looked down both ends of the corridor. One would take him back toward the Princess Erini and the others. The opposite direction ended in a cul-de-sac and included two other doors on one wall. Darkhorse stared at the blank wall across from those two doors. Elegant paintings and intricate sculptures adorned it. Nothing seemed amiss… from the hallway.

Darkhorse reentered Quorin’s chambers, heading straight into the bedroom. Probing with his mind, he soon discovered what he sought. There was a spell masking it, a strong one that even he had not noticed at first, caught up as he was by the general wrongness he had felt upon first arriving.

Not so clever, dear one! Someone, perhaps Mal Quorin, perhaps not, had sealed the other rooms on this side of the corridor, making it seem as if they had never existed. The only true way to enter them now was through the counselor’s chambers. He found a switch of sorts hidden in the back wall of the bedroom. Darkhorse wasted no time, tripping the switch and immediately stepping back. After so many mishaps, the shadow steed was trying to be cautious. His senses had proven too little too often in the past few days.

The wall slid open without the slightest hint of any danger. Searching, Darkhorse detected nothing potentially threatening in the walls, ceiling, or floor. There was, though, a subtle spell emanating from the secret doorway that tried in vain to turn his thoughts to anything but the desire to enter. A human would have been affected and would have likely walked away, suddenly caught up in some other notion. Darkhorse overwhelmed the spell easily, eliminating it so that the king’s men would have no difficulty entering at some later time. That done, the stallion nosed the secret door open further and slowly entered. Before he was even halfway in, he already sensed that here, indeed, was the true domicile of the traitorous advisor.

It was dark in here, as dark as the former inhabitant’s life. Adjusting his physical senses, Darkhorse brought the world of Mal Quorin into focus. It was not a place he would have invited the Princess Erini.

“And they call me demon when abominations such as this roam freely, advising heads of state!”

The room he stood in was filled with grisly trophies. Skulls adorned one entire shelf, all of them polished smooth. Darkhorse wondered if each had died at the hands of the counselor himself. Possibly, they had all been rivals for power at one time or another. Hanging from the opposing wall, as if to allow the skulls something to gaze at, was an array of sinister and unusual weaponry. Most had not been designed to bring about a quick and painless death. Mal Quorin seemed to have a fondness for serrated edges.

Perhaps I should have let Princess Erini erase his existence from this world! Better yet, perhaps I should have done it myself instead of preserving his foul life!

Death had come freely to this room many times, he noted. The stench assaulted him on many planes. The room beyond emanated even worse. Darkhorse did not even bother stepping toward it. He knew what he would find. Quorin’s playroom.

Does this truly fall under the definition of humanity? Darkhorse wondered. He knew there and then that he should have let the princess have her way with the fiend while they were in the cell. When this was over, Mal Quorin would pay… and pay… and pay. Darkhorse was not like humans; he had no qualms about the rights and wrongs of punishment. Mal Quorin had now forfeited any right he had to a continued existence. Whatever use he might have been, it was not worth it. Not now.

None of what he discovered so far, however, had any bearing on the reasons he had come here. Quorin’s personal atrocities aside-though not too far aside-the man had left little other trace of his double side. Darkhorse had expected charts or something that would give an indication of what had been planned. There seemed to be nothing. His search would need to be more thorough. Frowning, the shadow steed concentrated.

Drawers slowly opened. Cabinets doors freely swung forward, revealing their contents. A panel hidden in the wall snapped into existence. Even the secret door through which he had entered opened wider.

“Show me what you have,” he whispered to the room.

Parchments, maps, talismans… everything that had been stored over the years in one place or another came flying out into the air. One by one, they flew past the gaze of the eternal, who studied each with eyes that saw more than the physical. As each piece was dismissed, it would return to its point of origin, even placing itself in its original position. The last was not due to any courtesy toward the treacherous counselor, but rather because Melicard might find reason to inspect these belongings himself. What might have been of no significance to Darkhorse might prove vital to the king.

The speed with which he inspected each and every item would have horrified Erini or the others. Things flew by as little more than blurs, depending on what they were. Time was of the essence, true, but that in no way meant that Darkhorse was being careless. If there was something of importance to him among Quorin’s effects, he would find it.

He did, though it took him more than half the search to find even that one item.

A tiny box, quite ordinary in appearance. To most, it would have seemed the sort of thing the man might have kept a keepsake or two in, save that the imprisoned counselor was hardly the sort of person to keep remembrances. Moreover, the box was not quite what it was supposed to be. Power had been infused into it; so much, in fact, that the lid refused his first attempts to open it, something that impressed upon him the abilities of the creator. There were few entities alive now with such power. A Dragon King would have the ability.

Darkhorse cursed and set the box aside. It would require his full concentration and that was not something he had command of, not, at least, until he was through with his search. Impatience was eating at his thoughts and Darkhorse knew he was going to grow more and more careless if he was not careful. So much to do and, despite what seemed an endless night, dawn was fast approaching. If the Silver Dragon and his host were not within sight of Talak already, they soon would be.

His search progressed with very little else to show for his efforts. Even the items of these rooms revealed little of Quorin’s misdeeds or what the plots of his master still entailed. It was as if the man had only started his life a short time before joining the lower ranks of the city-state’s government. Possibly it was so. Possibly it was also the case that Quorin kept most of what he needed to know in his head. Such an agent would be useful to the Dragon King.

Just as the shadow steed was about to concede defeat, a yellowed parchment giving off a very distinctive aura caught his eye. Its age was uncalculable, save that he knew with only a glance that it was Vraad in origin. Darkhorse did not take time out to study it. Instead, he completed his search of the rest of the effects, moving more slowly and cautiously now.

Three other pieces caught his attention before he was finished. The first was a dagger with an inscription dating it to the time just prior to the Turning War. It had a taint to it that Darkhorse suspected belonged to Cabe’s father, Azran. The second of the trio was another parchment, one of recent origin. While he could not sense anything overly malevolent about it, something disturbed him. The final addition was a talisman, obviously of Seeker origin, that he found in the same drawer as the box. Its purpose, too, escaped him for the moment, but any such item that Quorin would deem worthy of keeping interested him for that reason alone. The shadow steed’s spirits both rose and fell as he surveyed his tiny collection. It was possible he had found what he had originally sought, but now came the difficulty of understanding just what it was he had found.

The box interested him most, but it would also probably be the most exasperating piece of the lot. He inspected the dagger first. It was, as he had suspected, a creation of Azran’s and definitely one of his first attempts. The madman’s mark was on it. The dagger would kill with only a touch. Even a nick was fatal. Close examination revealed the blade as nothing more than that. Unlike the other items he had looked over, Darkhorse did not replace the dagger in its original location. With some satisfaction, he raised it into the air before him and sent it on a journey that would only end when it reached the sun. Even a toy left behind by Azran had limits to its capacity to survive.

The Seeker talisman seemed to have little in the way of power and, though its use remained a mystery, Darkhorse doubted it could be of any importance. He returned it to where it had come from. That left the parchments and, of course, the box. After some deliberation, he had the Vraad parchment rise up before him. Defenses ready, the shadow steed slowly made the yellowed and crumbling sheet unfold. It had not survived the millennia as well as Shade’s book apparently had, but that it still existed at all said something for the power invested in it. He only hoped that it was not protected by some secondary spell. His probing had revealed nothing of the sort, but one could never be too certain where the Vraad were concerned.

He recognized the mark, though he had seen it only once or twice, and that in the far, far distant past: the dragon banner. There was a Vraad clan name attached to that banner, but it escaped his memory at the moment. He could only recall that the warlock had been part of this selfsame clan.

It was a map. A map detailing the division of a land. There was a list of almost two dozen items, names perhaps, some of which had been crossed out and all of which were more or less illegible. Darkhorse discarded the parchment in disgust. Only the Vraad would think of preserving something so minor as a list of their division of spoils from some plot. The great conquerors. Despite himself, he laughed.

That left him only two items: the newer, or, at least more recent parchment and the box. Once more he tried to pry it open with his powers and once more he failed. Furious, he allowed it to drop heavily onto the floor. Darkhorse used his skills to snatch up the parchment in its place and, with thinning patience, unfurled the new item completely before common sense reminded him of the traps that might lurk within.

Something briefly struck at him. A human would have died from the blow, his heart literally bursting open. Darkhorse, on the other hand, suffered nothing more than annoyance at his own lack of thought. Had this been a stronger spell, he might have been injured-or worse.

The blow lessened until it was no longer noticeable. The ebony stallion inspected the parchment. It was blank. Its sole purpose had been to kill whoever had opened it. Darkhorse wondered if it had been meant as a last resort for Quorin should he have failed his master, or if the foul counselor had intended to give it to Erini or the king at some late point. Whatever the case, it was now no more than an unused sheet. He returned it to its original resting place and once again began inspecting the box.

“You, my friend,” he muttered to the object, “have a story to tell! I wonder what lies within your maw-and what I must do to pry that maw open…”

The spell keeping it closed had an odd feel to it, almost as if it were incomplete and that, somehow, it was that incompleteness that gave it strength. The spell was a lock and completing it would be like using the key-but what key would fit?

I have no time for your little games! Darkhorse ranted silently at the box. The key would not be obvious to someone who had not searched the entire area already. If would have to be magical in some sense, but subtle as well. Only a tiny link was missing from the spell binding the box shut. What he needed was something almost insignificant in power but-

He recalled the Seeker talisman from where he had sent it. Could it be? It would explain why Quorin had kept such a weak artifact and why it seemed to have no detectable purpose. Add to that the fact that it had been located in the same drawer as the box. Why not put the key in the same place as the lock it was meant for, especially since most people would never connect the two. Like hiding something in plain sight. More and more, Darkhorse convinced himself that he had chosen correctly. In the end, however, there was only one way to find out, and that was to see if his “key” fit.

Recalling some of his past mistakes, he surrounded the container and the talisman before beginning. With so much effort put into keeping the box sealed, it was possible that what he unleashed might be devastating. Possible, but doubtful. Unlike the parchment, Darkhorse sensed that this item had a more useful purpose.

With his mind, he brought the talisman to the box and laid it on top. The pattern he sensed did not seem right. Darkhorse shifted the talisman to a standing position in front of the container. The binding field altered, but again it was not the complete pattern that he sought.

After a moment’s thought, he caused the medallion to lay flat. This time, he brought the box to the talisman, carefully placing it directly on top of the Seeker device.

A perfectly formed pattern momentarily flickered into existence, then cancelled itself out completely. He had succeeded in unlocking the box.

That success did not ease his mind. Darkhorse still had to open the container.

Something nagged at the corner of his mind. He was beginning to dislike those feelings and, under present circumstances, chose to ignore it as simple growing paranoia. It might even be, the stallion decided, that the box itself was trying to turn him away before he opened it and discovered its secret.

Still, there was no sense in taking too many chances…

He turned the container so that the lid would open toward him. In this way, the brunt of any blow would be away from where he stood. The precaution might be all for nought, but there was no harm in taking it.

With a careful touch of his will, Darkhorse raised the lid high.

Briefly, there was a flash of brilliant light, so brilliant that it illuminated the far half of the chamber as well as the sun might have, had it been brought inside. The flash lasted no longer than two, maybe three seconds and then died completely. Darkhorse’s eyes, adjusted to the dark of the room, needed a moment to readjust. When they had, the shadow steed scanned his surroundings, searching for any minute difference. There was none. Despite the fact that he had shielded the box, he had expected some altering. Curious, he dissolved the shield.

The box looked and felt harmless. Darkhorse probed it closely. It was as if Quorin’s toy had used up whatever power it had contained and now needed to be recharged. Where had the power gone, though? Darkhorse almost wondered what would have happened if he had taken the flash full on. It had been more than raw power, though time had not allowed him much of a chance to discover what else it had been. Some spell, but for what purpose?

In frustration, he dropped the box to the floor and crushed it beneath one of his hooves. “Curse your creator! If I should ever find that our paths have crossed…”

It was a foolish act and one he instantly regretted. Darkhorse kicked at the remnants of the container, knowing that it was likely he had destroyed his only clue.

Darkhorse was about to return to Melicard when he became aware of something-no! Someone-in the outer rooms. There was no mistaking that presence. Not so close.

“Your madness has finally led you to-” he burst into the room, defenses and offenses at the ready… only to find no sign of his adversary.

No sign of Shade.

Or was that the case? Darkhorse moved toward the wall to his left, sensing a slight trace emanating from that direction. Shade’s magic. It was too distinctive, too Vraad to be any other’s. There were cracks in the wall, too, as if the warlock had struck out against it before his abrupt departure.

Darkhorse laughed. Even now, he could sense the warlock’s presence elsewhere in the palace. This time, there would be no escape. This time, Darkhorse would confront him.

And one of us will play the final hand… perhaps both of us, if need be!

The shadow steed laughed again, but it was a hollow laugh, devoid of even the least bit of humor.

In the place where he had chosen to wait, Shade nodded to himself and whispered, “So. Now comes the time. At last.”