Legends of the Dragonrealm Volume 2

VII

Morgis did not follow the beast into the passage, as it might have expected. Instead, he circled the keep, each step taken with a wariness he had not felt since the height of the war. Of his friends or his quarry he saw no sign. He still clung to the hope that he would find the former alive and well, but with each passing breath that hope sank more and more.

As he neared the entrance, the drake saw that the fire still burned within the building. However, Morgis did not take that as an invitation to enter freely. He also heard the anxious sounds of the horses and wondered why the monster had not taken them already. Bait, perhaps.

Trying to be ready for anything, the drake entered.

“Morgis!”

The hooded figure leapt up from its position near the fire and raced toward him. He hesitated for a moment until he saw Kalena’s face under the vast hood.

She threw herself against his chest, her hands pressed close to his heart. The discomfort caused by her closeness was negated by his relief at finding her alive.

“I was afraid you’d run off or been killed!” She ran her fingers over his chest. “Are you cut?”

“My shoulder is dislocated, but there are no outer woundsss.”

“No cuts,” she murmured, planting her hooded head against him again. “That’s good.”

He gently pushed her back and asked, “Where isss Leonin?”

She looked behind her. “You only just missed him. He said he was going to search for you.”

The drake hissed. “The passssage?”

“Yes, but-”

“Damn!!” Morgis felt like he was trapped in a maze, constantly running around the same places as he tried in vain to reach a conclusion. “Come! We may be in time yet!”

With effort, he moved the injured arm and seized a torch. Keeping Kalena behind him, he led the way through the back room and into the narrow corridor hidden within.

The passage was as silent as the grave, not an auspicious sign. Morgis wanted to shout to Leonin, but knew that would only alert their unholy adversary to their approaching presence.

They passed the body of the guard Morgis had killed. Although much of the blood had dried, a few moist drops still glittered in the torchlight. The drake tried to shield Kalena from the truth, but her feline eyes saw quickly how the man had perished.

“I am… sssorry,” he murmured.

“It had to be done, I suppose.” She looked slightly disappointed, but the expression vanished as she eyed him. “With so many so quickly it couldn’t be avoided.” She reached up and caressed his cheek. “It’s forgotten.”

He wanted to hold her hand there, but instead turned away. “Leonin needsss usss…”

Deeper and deeper they descended. Morgis frowned. Soon they would be at the end of the passage and still he had found no trace of his partner. Did the bearded fighter even now wander around the keep, intending to return by the entrance just as the drake had? What folly in the face of horror…

Then, bits of dark moisture on the floor caught his attention. He knelt down, using the torch to study them.

“What is it?” Kalena asked, leaning over his shoulder.

“More blood.” He almost dismissed it, having seen so much already, but then noticed how it left a trail that started from in the wall on his left and headed further ahead down the passage.

Morgis jumped to his feet, holding the torch high and peering as far ahead as he could. The trail of moist, crimson drops led his gaze on…

Another body lay slumped in the narrow corridor.

Forgetting Kalena for the moment, Morgis hurried to the second form. None of the other soldiers had died in the passage, which meant that the body ahead could be only one of two missing men.

And but a moment later, Morgis’s torch revealed a corpse too short and slim to be the remains of Keeper D’Kairn.

Leonin.

Drying blood gave the body a speckled appearance. Morgis set down his sword and gently touched what was left of his companion. For all the faults of both Leonin and Awrak, they had done their tasks well and had never abandoned a comrade.

The drake hissed savagely. He looked past the corpse, but saw only more moist droplets. The fiendish beast had made good its escape.

Suddenly, Morgis frowned. Continually he thought of it as a beast, a monster. It was both, but it was also highly intelligent. Not only did it know how to hide from its prey, but Morgis believed that only an intelligent killer would ever dream of skinning its victims. He thought back to what Kalena had told him of her discoveries and tried to connect that with everything that had happened.

Surveying the scene, something else occurred to him. He looked at Leonin’s grisly form and recalled all the other victims he had come across. His fist clenched tight, but he tried to hide it from the cat woman.

“Ssso…”

“I’m so sorry, Morgis… too late again.” Kalena, cloak shielding her body, shut her eyes for a moment. “He was a strong, good fighter.”

“And it availed him nothing.” Retrieving the blade and rising, he glanced behind them. “Come! There’s sssomething I want to sssee.”

“What, Morgis?”

“I would rather not explain now sssince I am not certain what it meansss.” The drake put his sword arm around Kalena. “I want you to ssstay bessside me at all timesss. Do not fall behind me, underssstood?”

Her expression indicated that she did not understand, at least not entirely, but she nodded.

The trail of blood still shone bright under the light of the torch as they followed it back. A few smears here and there testified to where Morgis had been unable to avoid stepping in some of the dark fluid.

When they reached the area where he had first discovered the trail, Morgis eyed the stone wall. He tapped it twice with the flat of the blade, then saw that for which he had been searching.

“Kalena, I will ssstand ready with the sword and torch, but I want you to touch that area up on the left. That jutting piece there.”

She carefully stepped up to the wall and did as he requested. Nothing happened.

“Harder, pleassse.”

The cat woman repeated her effort.

The wall suddenly slid open like a door. Kalena jumped back.

But Morgis was there to guide her forward with his sword arm. “It isss all right, Kalena. The danger is not within.”

Together they stepped inside. Flickering light suddenly danced about the room and more than a dozen pairs of staring figures stood waiting for the newcomers.

Morgis and Kalena reflected in mirrors.

Most were full-length, but some hung on walls. The majority had cracks. They had once been masterfully-crafted and expensive pieces, for the drake recognized gold and silver in the frames and even several with jewels.

And behind the array of mirrors, set against the walls of this hidden chamber, were several high, wide, and sturdy antique cabinets of the type designed for clothes.

Again, Morgis recalled what he had been told about Kalena’s horrific find.

“It displaysss itssself here,” he muttered, drawing the cat woman along with him. Morgis positioned the two of them before the most elegant of the mirrors, a high, gilded pane with genuine diamonds inset along the surrounding edge. “Thisss would be itsss favorite, I think, where it preensss itssself in its new coveringssss.”

In the mirror, Kalena’s eyes were wide and unblinking. She stepped from the drake’s grasp and in fascination touched the glass. “Each flayed with perfection, not the slightest harsh cut to the skin. That would have ruined the effect…”

“And whenever it wasss finished, it placed its prize in one of the cabinetsss, including one that it kept upssstairs, although why it left those where they could be so easily discovered-”

“Those are the favorites,” the cat woman whispered. “The best ones.” She touched her cheek, watching her reflection mimic her. “The ones without blemish, the ones young and full of life…”

Morgis glanced at the darkened cabinets. “Of course. Ssso simple. Alwaysss keep the favoritesss more handy… until it became evident that they were risked upssstairs.”

He stepped toward the nearest of the closets and with the tip of his sword prodded it open.

Hanging from hooks were seven skins so perfectly taken that Morgis could almost imagine himself being able to put one on. Humans, elves, another Syrryn, some canine-looking creature… the drake suspected that the variety he would find if he opened all of the closets would stagger him. Then he noticed that one looked slightly less than perfect at the edges and something else occurred to him.

“They don’t lassst. Eventually, they decompossse, but it can preserve them for a time.” He sniffed. “And whatever it pressserves it with smellsss like musssk.”

When Kalena did not answer him, Morgis turned to find her still staring into the mirror. Closing the cabinet again, the drake returned to his companion.

“One more thing. It took me a moment to find it, but I’ve ssspotted the late and unlamented D’Kairn’s body over in the corner, behind the first mirrors. Not quite finished with it-were you?”

He thrust the torch into the cat woman’s voluminous cloak.

The cloth garment burst into flames. Kalena opened her mouth, but out of it came no mortal scream of fear and agony. Instead, a monstrous keening, an angry sound, shook the chamber and sent even Morgis back a few steps in astonishment.

“My pretty one!” the cat woman’s mouth said, moving irregularly. “My pretty one!”

The fiery cloak opened up-and beneath the charring flesh that had once housed Kalena, a spider-black form moved in a manner not possible for any normal, living creature, with multi-jointed limbs that seemed everywhere.

Already most of the skin below the head had caught fire, but that did not appear to physically bother the horrid form beneath. It stalked toward the drake, growing taller and wider as it neared. Halfway to Morgis, it already looked down on him.

The twisted face of Kalena smiled at the drake. “My pretty one is gone, so my best one I will wear… a dragon’s skin, a rare thing here! I have never been a dragon before!”

“I will keep my own ssskin, thank you…” Morgis slashed with the blade, but the creature looked unimpressed by the threat, so he waved the torch instead. Unfortunately, the pain in his shoulder nearly made him drop it.

The cat woman’s expression changed to a frown. “Be careful! You might scar it more! I’ve been very careful, sacrificing all those lesser but pretty skins so they wouldn’t interfere… and so I could keep yours so clean, so unmarred…”

The thing had purposely saved Morgis for last, literally trying to protect his scaled hide from the Aramites so it could later claim the skin for itself. It had acted as protector, using Kalena’s feminine form to put both Morgis and the others off their guard. Even when D’Kairn had thought Kalena responsible for the deaths of the sentries, he had still seen her as more of a nuisance than a danger, using her as bait rather than slaying her when he finally had the chance.

“I will be most cautious when I remove it, I promise you,” the macabre horror remarked cheerfully, its voice growing higher-pitched as the last vestiges of the cat woman burned away.

From what remained of the cloak emerged four long, razor-edged appendages. Each curved blade had a fine point, perfect for precision cutting. They were made of something that to the drake resembled dark bone or shell and moved with such swiftness that they were little more than blurs.

He had no doubt that they would cut through even his tough, scaly hide with ease.

Morgis cursed. He had expected the fire to deal with the threat. The false Kalena had not suspected that he had discovered the truth, discovered the horrific lies.

For supposedly the most vulnerable of all of them, the cat woman had survived quite well. Even that would have not been enough, but in the end, the fake Kalena had made one misjudgment. Leonin had not perished quite so recently as it had looked. The blood had been drier than that on the floor. Based on that, he had died at least before D’Kairn, whose blood trail it had been that Morgis had mistaken at first for his partner’s. Yet, the cat woman had said that Leonin had just departed. Instead, his corpse had been dragged back to the passage.

All so that the monster could take Morgis when it thought it could do the least damage to the skin it so coveted.

Her reaction to the mirrors had but verified his suspicions, not that the knowledge did him any good now. Trapped, unable to transform, he had as good as given himself up to be flayed.

Like lightning bolts, the dark blades flashed back and forth. Below them, a pair of oddly-feminine human hands opened and closed eagerly. The monster would have had him already if not for the mirrors. It did not want to break the mirrors. It lived for gazing into them once it wore one of its stolen hides. Morgis watched as it moved gingerly past one, going out of its way when it could have tried to reach him.

More and more it resembled some upright combination of a skeletal arachnid and praying mantis, but with hints of human still in it. That it had probably once been human or of some similar race did not surprise him, not with the vanity it radiated.

He stumbled over something on the floor, nearly losing his footing. Immediately, one of the blades darted out to take his head, perhaps even pierce his skull and brain so as to minimize the damage to the skin. The drake barely deflected the attack as he fought to right himself. He crashed against one of the cabinets, which brought a furious keening from the demonic figure.

Smiling grimly, Morgis twisted around and brought the flames to the wooden piece.

The fire eagerly devoured the antique cabinet. The fragmenting visage of Kalena contorted further and the keening became a wail.

“My skins! My beautiful, wonderful skins!”

Almost unmindful of its prey, the creature moved toward the cabinet. Morgis leapt to the side, letting it focus on the piece. He glanced at the entrance, wondering if he could make it before the monster noticed.

But as he moved, another swordlike appendage shot to the side, almost skewering the drake. Morgis ducked back, trapped in the far portion of the secret chamber.

Kalena’s mouth widened, widened further… then ripped apart. An ebony skull with strands of gray hair still attached to the scalp materialized as the burnt tatters fell away. The mouth opened to impossible dimensions.

A gray, viscous substance spewed from the mouth, washing over the burning cabinet. Wherever it touched, the thick liquid instantly doused the fire. A heavy, musky smell arose.

With rising fury, the monster whirled on the drake.

He did the only thing he could think of, setting another cabinet afire, then doing the same to a third. As the scuttling horror moved to douse them, he tried once more to reach freedom, only to be cut off by a pair of lethal limbs, one of which slashed at the arm that held the torch.

The torch fell, rolling away but causing scant damage on the stone floor. Morgis hissed. Evidently his monstrous foe had reached the point where it considered a little damage to his scaled hide a necessity.

“Nasty dragon!” it hissed in turn, the second closet already covered in the gray, preserving soup it likely also used to keep the skins fresh longer. “The wolf soldiers, they made it so hard for so long to gather good skins, always marching past and scaring off others, but when they stopped coming, others returned! So large and joyous my collection became! So much better than the dresses I once kept, the faces I once wore when mine grew old!” The eyes, which had become black pits, again studied Morgis covetously. “But you’ll make up for it, yes, you will…”

Morgis rolled away again as the blades came down. One caught his injured shoulder, making him cry out. Again, the only thing that saved him was the creature’s desire not to damage its surroundings. This was the one place it could not attack to its full potential.

Which did Morgis little good otherwise. Sooner or later, unless he escaped, the thing would corner him-and if he did escape it would have an even easier time of hunting him down outside.

Somehow he had to destroy it here.

As it moved in on him again, the drake snagged one of the elaborate mirrors and twisted the piece so that it faced its monstrous owner. The skeletal creature gasped and backed up. As Morgis had guessed, it cared little for its own horrible reflection.

He tried to take advantage of the distraction, but pain made him instead stumble to the side-where his feet became tangled in the limp form of the late, unlamented D’Kairn.

A single sharp hole half an inch wide had been made in the keeper’s helmet-and skull. Despite the fact that part of the skin around the face had already been expertly peeled back, Morgis could still make out the Aramite’s expression, a combination of arrogance and confusion. D’Kairn had never quite realized he was dying, the victim of a thing of sorcery even darker than his own.

The creature had missed a chance by not taking the drake immediately after, but Morgis had already determined that its judgment was based on its ancient vanities and its desire for the perfection of its skins. Trying to slay Morgis on the harsh landscape would have not only ruined D’Kairn’s hide-clearly also a favorite-but risked damaging the dragon’s.

You should have listened, keeper! If you’d turned a moment sooner, you could have used that foul trinket of yours and maybe saved us both! Of course, then D’Kairn would have killed him.

Thinking of the Aramite’s stone, Morgis quickly searched the body. At first he could not find the amulet, but then realized it was buried under the head. He seized the chain-

Instinct made him move his head just before the razor tip of a blade would have caught him at the base of the neck. Instead, the monstrous appendage buried itself in the dead keeper’s throat.

“More cuts! More damage!” The black horror howled at him. “No more!”

Morgis moved too slow. Another blade sank into his dislocated shoulder. He screamed as the creature lifted him up by the wound.

The macabre faced filled his view.

“A cloak… a small covering… that’s all that’s needed,” it babbled gleefully. “Still a very, very precious skin! I will walk well with it, walk long with it!” It chortled. “I may even fly with it!”

As it had done with Kalena, the monster would take on the properties of the one whose identity it had stolen, make use of their abilities. Whether it could actually do what Morgis could not do-revert to a true dragon form-he could not say, but that would hardly matter to the drake once he was dead.

The blades drew nearer.

“Must be careful…” it murmured clinically, eyeing his head. “Must be precise, always precise…”

Morgis swung his good arm up, shoving D’Kairn’s stone into the unholy face.

Nothing happened.

His grotesque captor laughed at his antics and one pointed blade went up to brush aside the hand obscuring its view.

Dropping the amulet, Morgis quickly seized the appendage, twisted it around, and, with a force no human could muster-shoved it into the monster’s throat.

A gagging hiss escaped the creature as it struggled to remove the limb. Thick, dark red ichor escaped from the edges of the wound.

It convulsed. Morgis suddenly found himself slipping free without any hope of grabbing some other support.

The stone had only been a decoy. He had understood just enough of the Aramite’s sorcery to know he would not be able to figure out how to use the talisman in time. However, it had drawn the creature’s attention and elicited the overconfident reaction he had needed.

And there and then Morgis had used the only weapon he suspected could readily pierce the hard hide of the monster-the thing’s own bladelike appendages.

He hit the floor hard and was at first unable to move. Fortunately, surprise and his inhuman strength had enabled him to shove the appendage in so deep that a good portion of it also thrust out of the back of the neck, leaving him the least of the creature’s concerns.

A slight gleam shook him from his stupor. He blinked. The keeper’s stone. Morgis seized it-only to have it break into several pieces. The drop had cracked it open, ruining it. Worse, despite its destruction, the drake could still sense that D’Kairn’s treacherous spell remained intact.

A hacking sound reminded him that his ability to transform would be a nil point if he did not move fast. Morgis dragged himself forward, expecting each moment to be skewered.

He reached the area of the mirrors and glanced in one. Behind him he saw the monster-now turned away from him-still struggling, the floor around it covered with its foul fluids. The remaining limbs sought to pull the one free and looked to be finally managing some success.

Knowing he could not allow that, Morgis pushed himself up. He braced himself as best he could, watched the creature’s back-and then leapt.

Weakness made his jump less than what he had hoped, but momentum was on his side. With a mass almost twice that of most beings his size, the drake struck the hellish beast.

They fell forward.

The skin walker hit the floor face down, driving the blade all the way through. It convulsed again, throwing Morgis aside, Choking harshly, the monster rolled to the side, colliding with one of the standing mirrors. The mirror tipped over, hitting a second… which in turn hit a third.

Glass shattered everywhere. Morgis collapsed against a cabinet.

A silence settled over the chamber.

When at last the battered drake could move, he saw by the light of the fallen torch that the monster lay dead. Driving the blade completely through had sealed its fate.

Its own mad desires had led to its destruction. Had it simply slain him early on instead of putting so much value in the pristine quality of his scaled skin, Morgis knew that his face would be hanging in a cabinet even now.

And that thought settled for him what he needed to do next.

Dragonflame would have made the keep burn well, but dragon flame was beyond him. He found what kindling and oil he could and, though it took him a full day, dragged everything-and every body-to the chamber of mirrors. Then, using a fresh torch, Morgis lit the huge bonfire.

He waited and waited while it burned, leaving the door open so that lack of air would not smother it. A being of flame, the smoke did not bother him as much as it would have most other races. That enabled the drake to make certain that everything was destroyed.

And while he watched, he pictured those who had died, especially one in particular. Likely that had indeed been her body that he had found near that of the Gnor. Had she done as the creature had described? Had Kalena run, praying that she would escape-and failing in the end?

Morgis still did not know the origin of the keep’s cursed resident, but he could guess some of it. Vanity, obsession, and yet, some strange lack of self identity. The drake really did not care. What mattered was that the evil was dead and would no longer make a mockery of its victims’ lives.

When it was done, Morgis closed the hidden chamber. He would have sealed the room or, better yet, razed the ruins to the ground if his powers had been his, but so long as D’Kairn’s spell held, hiding the secrets so was all he could do.

The animals were still waiting for him, both those of his party and the Aramites’ own dark steeds. He still found it interesting that the monstrosity had let them live, but of course they were harmless and could have been slain at any time later once they were no longer useful as bait.

That… and their skins had been worth nothing to it.

Injured as he was, Morgis could not control the small herd. He released all but four of the animals into the wild, keeping his, those of his comrades, and the one he was certain had been ridden by D’Kairn. Both D’Kairn and the captain had carried documents with them that hinted of other enclaves of Aramite resistance. The Master Guardians would appreciate those papers. They would also see to the honoring of Awrak and Leonin, fallen warriors in the struggle to free the lands. Likely the Guardians would also have the wherewithal to remove the spell on him-at least, so he hoped.

Of the keeper’s research into blood sorcery, Morgis made certain that every shred had burned with the bodies.

The day had nearly vanished by the time he rode off, the ever-present cloud cover promising an early darkness. Perhaps it might have been more prudent to stay one more night in the now-safe keep, but the drake wanted to be far away from the place.

And as he rode off, his memories drifted to a time when he had wanted to wear another’s skin, when he had wished he could have been the right one. A beautiful, feline face that he had pictured many times before formed in his mind, but this time another face, also beautiful and feline, overlapped it, blurring both.

Unable to separate them, Morgis finally dismissed both, concentrating instead on the present. There was still a war on and he had a part to play. There were foes to fight and lands to explore. Tomorrow he might find himself doing battle with an Aramite patrol or hunting another sorcerer…

Anything to keep him from ever again wishing to walk in someone else’s skin.