Legends of the Dragonrealm: Shade (2 page)

The thought brought a rare chuckle from the intruder. He had witnessed generations where even the slightest talent for magic by a human would have had that would-be wizard scorched to a cinder or executed in a thousand other unique manners by the cautious drake lords. Now magic was becoming almost as ordinary as when he had first—

Fragmented, somewhat surreal memories of his own distant youth swept away any amusement and bitterly reminded him of why he was stooping so low as to break into a shop. The sooner he had his prize, the better.

There was no sound, but the sorcerer immediately sensed that he was no longer alone. The hood swung to the right, deeper into the back of the building.

“By the moons!” gasped a bearded, elderly man. In one hand he held a brass oil lamp. In the other was a small crossbow, not nearly as powerful as the larger weapon after which it had been modeled, but still strong enough to kill. Two metal-tipped bolts just over half a foot in length pointed directly at the intruder.

But the shopkeeper had lost all apparent interest in firing on the would-be thief. He stood as if frozen by the long-slain Ice Dragon’s glance, but not through any direct action by the spellcaster. No, all that
made the unfortunate merchant helpless before the sorcerer was the elderly man’s astonishment and horror at the face now revealed within the hood.

Or rather . . . the
hint
of a face. Even in the direct glow of the curved brass lamp, the sorcerer’s countenance remained a blur. There were traces of what should have been eyes and perhaps a nose beneath them. Of the mouth, only a vague slit was evident. It was as if the merchant were seeing the face through murky water, for at times it even rippled slightly.

The sorcerer gestured just as the shopkeeper’s shaking hand finally tried to fire the crossbow. A grey mist swirled around the elderly man. He stiffened, this time the result of a binding spell from which he would only wake long after the intruder was gone. The merchant would no doubt be surprised to find himself among the living; having recognized the hooded figure, the elderly man had probably believed a horrible death awaited him. At least, that was what the legends would have made most expect . . . 

And, unfortunately for the sorcerer, the legends were not entirely wrong.

Impatience boiling over, the spellcaster returned his attention to the vault. He reached out with his power and sensed safeguards about the door, but they were primitive, useful only for keeping out those without skill at magic. Dismissing them with barely a thought, he tore open the door.

A number of pouches and small boxes lay within. However, there was no need to hunt for that which he desired, for a hint of the emerald glow now bathed one small leather bag secreted in a corner. An eager hand tugged the pouch free. The sorcerer undid the strings and poured the lone piece within onto his palm.

The medallion, forged from that most durable and age-defying of metals, gold, was scarred and beaten and clearly very old. Despite that, the centerpiece of the design remained quite evident. A phoenix, a creature so mythic even in a world ruled in part by shapeshifting dragons, reared up over a blazing fire while two circles hovered over the
magnificent bird’s head. The artisan had gone to great lengths to perfect the stylized figure, but most of that effort was lost upon the sorcerer, who had searched for the artifact for more practical reasons. All that concerned him about the design was that it was, indeed, a phoenix.

The bird suddenly
moved,
a wing shifting and the beak and talons turning to the sorcerer.

Before he could react, the image of the phoenix enveloped him. The wings and talons became bonds of white fire that sealed his arms to his sides and forced him to drop the medallion. The sorcerer cared not a whit for the artifact anymore; the piece was a fake. Worse, it was a fake purposely designed to dupe
him
.

The phoenix opened wide its sharp beak, then swallowed his head. As that happened, the last vestiges of the bird dissipated, leaving the sorcerer immobile in a cocoon of energy. His concentration wavered despite his efforts, the magical forces penetrating his mind wreaking purposeful havoc on his thoughts. If he could not think, he could not cast.

The spell was a masterful one whose caster he recognized, a wizard who had been both his friend and his foe in but recent times. The sorcerer did not blame his counterpart for arranging this admittedly cunning snare. The wizard had surely spent months of careful planning on it and perhaps sought the aid of others who knew the intended target even better, such as the inhuman lord of Penacles—the great City of Knowledge.

Well played, Cabe Bedlam!
the sorcerer thought.
Well played!

He thought no more about his adversary save that Cabe Bedlam’s work meant there was little chance of there being some weakness in the spell. Still, a search was better than simply accepting his fate, although Cabe surely had no intention of slaying him. Instead, the wizard no doubt intended to “kindly” imprison his prey until such time as he and the others could come up with a “cure” of their own for the curse. A thousand lifetimes might pass before that improbable event . . . and already had for the sorcerer. He would not wait a thousand more.

All those thoughts came in jumbled fragments forced together even
as he delved into Cabe’s spell. Too quickly he saw that it was as he had feared; the energies had been intertwined expertly—in fact, so expertly that he saw the Gryphon’s furred and feathered hand in it, too. While that verified the sorcerer’s suspicions as to the lord of Penacles’s participation, it also further lessened any hope that there would be some chance of escape.

He considered one last option. Death was no desired choice, even for one for whom it would not be permanent. The curse had already taken a turn for the worse in a manner that he could not have expected, and risking a new incarnation might prove the final straw.

Had his features been defined, the sorcerer’s frustration would have revealed just a hint of fear in it, too. Imprisonment or the other path. He could not say which was the more damned fate.

That the wizard or his allies, and surely somehow Cabe, had made some pact with the Dragon King here but had not yet come for him bespoke not their great confidence in the snare, but rather his own perpetual efforts to mask his presence wherever he went. The spellwork had muted any alarm the trap might have sounded, but Cabe would quickly realize something was amiss, if the wizard did not already know.

The sorcerer found a weak point in the trap.

It was minute but still so very unexpected for a spell cast by one as skilled as a Bedlam. He at first thought it another trick, yet saw no choice but to act upon it. That he had held his focus as much as he had this long was a credit to his determination, but he was weakening fast.

He poured his efforts into the defect.

The spell collapsed, the energies scattering in every direction. He fell back as the brunt of the escaping forces struck him hard. In an attempt to keep himself from dropping to the floor, the sorcerer grabbed for the edge of a table covered in tapestries.

His outstretched fingers went
through
the wood.

He landed in a heap, the voluminous robe for a moment making him look more like a pile of loose cloth than anything human. Sparks of
magical energy continued to dart over the sorcerer, each bright burst inflicting pain. Despite all that, he managed to push himself up to his feet.

“I see I’m just in time. It ends here, Shade,” a so-familiar voice sadly declared. “It must.”

The sorcerer turned to where the shopkeeper had stood, not at all surprised to find the elderly man vanished and, in his place, a young male in blue robes. He had a strong head of black hair save for a great streak of silver running from the front to a good part of the back. By the standards of the heroic tales sung by bards, the newcomer was not glorious of face, but with his strong jaw and slightly bent nose he had a ruggedness that appealed to many women, and especially one in particular. The newcomer looked little more than two decades old unless one stared into his solemn brown eyes and saw the bitter experience there. Cabe Bedlam was more than twice the age his appearance indicated; one of the benefits of being a spellcaster was the ability to hold one’s youth for potentially some three hundred years or more.

“Cabe.” Shade greeted him, his tone dark. “Would that I could say it was a pleasure to see you. A trick most cunning.”

“It needed to be, to lure you. Don’t worry about the shopkeeper. The real one is far from here. What you ensorcelled was one of the Gryphon’s golems with an illusion cast over it.”

“I’d wondered. You were never one to risk an innocent.” The sorcerer could sense the energies building around them, energies all summoned by his companion. It was a mistake to judge Cabe by his appearance; he was possibly the most powerful spellcaster in all the Dragonrealm.

But even with the arcane knowledge and ability inherited from his famous grandfather, Nathan, Cabe was not the most
experienced
. Not compared with one who had lived countless centuries.

Or so Shade hoped.

He drew his cloak into him. His body twisted, shrank into the folds.

“Shade!”

A spell tugged at him, nearly made the hooded sorcerer falter. In
addition, the effects of Cabe’s previous spell still played havoc with Shade’s thoughts.

The shop faded, the frustrated image of the wizard with it. Shade felt his insides wrench but pressed his escape.

Cool, moist air struck his blurred face. Shade fell forward, only a stone wall preventing him from hitting the ground.

Even before his gaze could focus, he knew that he was still in Irillian. The smell of the sea cleared his head slightly, but not enough. Shade knew that he needed to concentrate if he hoped to transport himself farther away. Cabe would be right behind him, and worse, the wizard’s most obvious ally here in Irillian would be on the hunt for—

He sensed something terrible about to take place in the alley in which he had landed. Unable to focus enough to transport himself away, Shade was left with an ignoble sprint into the public areas.

A tremendous
fwoosh
erupted from behind him. The roar of water filled his ears. A flood surged past his boots toward the startled citizenry, the water rising up to his knees before the open areas let it settle again.

Had he been anyone else, his heightened senses would still likely not have been sufficient to warn him of the Blue Dragon’s attack. From far away in his lair, Irillian’s master had sent forth a small bit of the sea to entirely fill the alley. It had not simply been dumped into the narrow passage; the water had materialized there. Shade would have instantly drowned.

The humans and drakes eyed him with astonishment. Most did not recognize him—for who expects a dark legend in their midst?—but a few did, and the name by which he was known, the name now so much more apt than his original, sprang from more and more mouths.

The guards needed no such knowledge to urge them to action. Whether or not they knew who the intruder was, they clearly knew him as an enemy. A mounted drake officer sent the mainly human contingent forward. Swords and lances drawn, the guards converged on Shade.

Gasping for air, the sorcerer gestured. The guards’ weapons twisted
down to the street, the tips digging deep into the stone. Several of the soldiers stumbled, some falling to the ground.

There was another rumble from the direction of the crowd, one that had nothing to do with Shade’s spell. He felt Cabe Bedlam’s nearby presence.

“You must stop this now, Shade! It’s for—”

It’s for your own good!
How many times had he heard those words from the ones who felt that they knew best for him? They meant well, they had
all
meant well, but they had always proven themselves even less able to comprehend his curse than he.

Before the wizard could finish speaking, Shade drew a line at his feet. The street peeled upward, forming a wall between him and his adversary. Cabe Bedlam, ever mindful of the lives of others, did not dare cast blindly, exactly as the sorcerer had hoped.

Before Cabe could compensate, Shade again tried to transport himself away. His surroundings shimmered, changed.

A savage set of teeth nearly tore off his head.

Shade had more than once perished in grisly manners that made even this moment seem tame, but that in no way diminished his desire to avoid such a fate. He muttered under his breath and a tendril of energy encircled the reptilian maw barely a foot away.

The riding drake clawed at the fiery bands keeping its jaws clamped tight, but its efforts only garnered it singed nails. Shade forgot the beast as its rider, another blue-tinted, reptilian warrior, flung himself at the still-disoriented sorcerer.

The drake officer outweighed him by at least half again as much, most of it muscle. As the pair collided, Shade stared full into the false helm. The inhuman eyes narrowed with anticipation of battle and the lipless mouth twisted into a grin filled with predatory teeth.

Shade succeeded in bringing a hand between the drake and himself. Through the glove, power radiated.

His foe went flying over the head of the startled mount. The drake warrior crashed into the side of a building, shattering the clay face and
even cracking part of the stone beneath. The armored figure slid to the street, senseless. It would take more than such a collision to slay or even much injure one of his kind, and the sorcerer had not had any such desire. He had come here only to save himself, not to add further blood to his foul legend.

Of course, not even Cabe Bedlam would likely appreciate such care on his part. They knew what he had been, what he might still become.

Shade prayed for a few moments’ respite, just enough to clear his head and recoup the strength he needed to finally fling himself from Irillian. However, at that moment, the riding drake did a curious thing that promised the sorcerer would have no such chance. It started heaving, rasping for breath, even though the sealed jaws would not have prevented the beast from inhaling or exhaling.