Legends of the Dragonrealm Vol III Part 11

Even Darkhorse could not have moved fast enough to avoid it. Cabe raised his arms over his face and summoned a shielding spell that he hoped would halt at least a substantial part of the oncoming juggernaut's power.

The light struck them . . . and scattered into a thousand tinier sparks that quickly faded away, leaving no trace of their fleeting existence.

"Someone wants to play games with us?" Darkhorse snorted and looked around for someone or something on which to vent his anger. "I will be more than happy to show them a new game!" He tore at the ground with one hoof, scattering rock.

"Quiet!" Cabe whirled around in the saddle.

"What is it?"

"I thought I heard . . ." Something clinked. It was the familiar and ominous sound of metal upon metal, a sound that from Cabe's vast experience spoke of men in armor. Men in armor who must be very near.

He heard it again, but this time it was in front of them. Below him, the shadow steed p.r.i.c.ked up his ears, an equine habit learned during those long ago first days when the eternal had first experimented with the form.

A tall black figure coalesced before them.

Of the three of them, the wolf raider was the most surprised by the encounter, but that in no way meant that he was the slowest to react. His blade already out, he moved in on Cabe. There was no question, no demand for surrender, simply a strange, high cry and then an attack.

Darkhorse easily kept himself between the Aramite and the warlock. The raider slashed at him with the sword and Darkhorse, chuckling in an evil manner, allowed the edge to strike him in the neck. It was as if the attacker had tried to cut through solid stone. The blade snapped and the entire weapon fell from the startled raider's hand.

His confused hesitation was all the time the deadly stallion needed. Rising just a bit, Darkhorse kicked the Aramite in the chest. The force of the blow was enough to send the armored man flying back into the mist. Cabe winced as a heavy thud finally put an end note to the raider's haphazard flight.

Where there is one wolf raider, however, there must be others. The Gryphon had often written comments like that in his missives. The Aramites were, for the most part, pack creatures like the animal that was their namesake. Cabe, already cautious, sensed them before he heard them. They were coming from all sides in numbers enough to startle him.

"We've run into a patrol!" he whispered to his companion.

"Excellent! Rather would I fight something real than wander much longer in this thick mora.s.s!"

"That's not-" He had not time enough to finish, for the first shapes materialized then.

They moved in with fair but not exceptional precision. It was clear that the wolf raiders were put off by the rank fog, but they had been trained to suffer most any environment in the pursuit of their tasks and so they were adapting as best possible. Listening, Cabe now understood the purpose of the initial cry by the first raider. The Aramites were using it to keep in contact with one another, evidently deciding that stealth was not worth the cost of possibly losing every man to the mist.

"Well?" Darkhorse was suddenly shouting to the oncoming shadows. "Come, come! I have not all day! There are still other tasks I must deal with after I have finished with all of you!"

"Darkhorse . . ." This was not what the warlock had wanted. He had hoped to avoid danger as much as possible, which was one reason he had sought out the shadow steed. Darkhorse, while always willing to face an enemy, generally also respected the safety of his companions. Now, however, he was taking chances that Cabe felt were more than a little risky. The eternal was begging for a fight and it could only be because of Shade again. Wandering through the fog, seeing nothing, the shadow steed's thoughts must have returned to the subject that had become so much a part of his recent life.

It was too late to do anything about it now. The Aramites were coming at them from all directions and it would have been sheer folly to attempt to teleport away. Something within warned Cabe Bedlam that a teleport threatened his life more than this attack.

Two other swordsmen tried to cut Darkhorse's forelegs, but met with the same results as their predecessor. The demon steed kicked one of them back into the fog, but the other managed to avoid the blow. He pulled a curled dagger from his belt and threw it, but at Cabe, the rider, rather than Darkhorse. It still had not registered in the minds of the raiders that the horse was the greater of the threats to them. They a.s.sumed that with the rider under control or dead, the battle would be won.

The warlock saw the dagger coming and although he had shielded himself against ordinary weapons, he deflected it, deciding that it was not wise to risk himself because of overconfidence. Then he turned as both his magical senses and his ears warned him of several raiders coming from the rear. A lance came within a yard of him, but with a spell he lifted both the weapon and the man and used them to clear four other soldiers nearby. The spell suddenly went awry, however, and the lancer dropped to the ground like a rock. The raider scrambled to his feet and back into the fog.

"Careless," a voice said.

Cabe looked at Darkhorse, but the stallion was busy dealing with both the raider who had evaded his first a.s.sault and two others who had joined the survivor. One was trying to rope the eternal, a foolish maneuver if ever there was one. Darkhorse caught the rope in his teeth and, while the Aramite was still holding it, pulled with such might that he sent the soldier flying into his companion. Both collided with a harsh clang and crumpled to the ground. The soldier who had survived the earlier attack backed away, almost immediately disappearing into the fog. The shadow steed laughed.

Forgetting the voice, Cabe returned to his own dire situation. Where the eternal had no qualms about the destruction of his adversaries, Cabe still felt pain every time he was forced to kill, even though most often it was in self-defense. He held back as much as he could, trying instead to dissuade or knock senseless the attackers. With his abilities suddenly once again in doubt, the warlock felt justified in resorting to flying rocks and tiny windstorms to beat back his opponents.

This did not mean that he was not forced to kill. Some of the Aramites could not be stopped any other way. They brought their own deaths by charging wildly into the storm of rocks. One reached close enough to almost pull Cabe from the saddle. Try as he might, the sorcerer could not free himself and he discovered then that some Aramite weapons would hurt him regardless of his protective spells. The dagger that caught him slightly on the leg was bejeweled and also likely bewitched for just such a battle. Over their long history of war, it made sense that they would learn to deal with spellcasters. In the end, he had struck back out of sheer reflex . . . and had sent a jolt of energy so great in intensity that he had literally burned the man to death in less than a breath.

Still they kept coming. It was almost as if the entire raider force had found them.

"Unngh!" The blow against his head shook Cabe so hard he had to struggle to keep in the saddle. His first thought was that someone with a sling had caught him unaware, but his spell should have protected him regardless. When he heard Darkhorse grunt in pain, though, the warlock knew that it was no mundane weapon that had hurt him.

Where was it? None of the raiders he had sensed carried any such weapon. In truth, the greatest danger he and Darkhorse faced was likely not the Aramites, who only had sheer numbers on their side, but rather the malevolent fog, which continued to sap his will and play havoc with his magical abilities.

He kicked out at a swordsman who had somehow gotten past Darkhorse, then shocked the man before he could close the gap again. The Aramites were giving him little time to think. Even as the soldier fell twitching to the earth, Cabe himself was stung. Every bone in his body seemed to quiver. This time, the addled warlock slipped almost halfway off of his companion. It was only quick shifting on the demon steed's part that kept Cabe from falling.

"Cabe! You must hold tight! I cannot fight and maintain your balance!"

"I . . . can't." It was painful just to straighten. He was almost flung off again when Darkhorse spun about to defend his right flank.

"Very well . . ." The ebony stallion almost sounded disappointed with the turn of events. "Hold on as well as you can, Cabe! I will take us to safety!"

The warlock gripped the saddle tight and forced himself to look up. Darkhorse had abandoned the fight and was now clearing a path through the attackers. Several went down, but there always seemed to be more. Arrows struck both warlock and eternal, but Cabe's spell still held and Darkhorse was Darkhorse.

In the midst of the fog and chaos, the weakened spellcaster caught sight of a truly peculiar figure squatting atop a rock formation. The Aramites, who streamed past his very location, took no note of him. The mist partly obscured the figure, but Cabe made out long, spindly legs and arms and an obscenely round torso. The head was mostly covered by a long, wide-rimmed hat that fell down over the face . . . if indeed the odd parody had one.

A spider, was his first impression. A human spider.

The entire scene wavered then, but not because of Cabe's condition. Rather, a wave flowed over the area, shaking rider and mount and throwing the pursuing raiders into new turmoil.

Cabe recognized it although he had rarely experienced the sensation before and certainly not of the magnitude of this ripple. Wild magic. The term was not quite correct, but it was as close as any description could come to explaining what was happening.

One of the rock formations nearest to them melted. Flat ground began to rise. The warlock heard a scream and located the source just in time to see one of the raiders fold into himself and disappear. Several of the Aramites were struggling to free themselves from ground that had become liquefied. An empty suit of armor, half corroded, indicated that something else had happened, but Cabe was not in a hurry to discover exactly what that was.

"What . . . what . . . what . . ." Darkhorse was shivering. The demon steed appeared caught in some sort of fit. He was changing, too, becoming stretched out like a true shadow. Cabe felt the saddle move. He looked down and saw that it was sinking into his companion.

The spellcaster threw himself off. The saddle disappeared within Darkhorse as if it had never existed. Wild magic. Once in existence, it could create earthquakes, fires, anything. The very fabric of reality would be turned about for the time it existed. Literally anything that magic was capable of doing might happen depending on the intensity of the wave. It could also concentrate in one area, become a well of sorts where anyone who entered became subject to its insanity.

Sometimes it was caused by an irregularity in the natural forces of the world. Most often, it was because some mage had been too careless. Reckless spellcasting could pull and bend those forces beyond safe limits. Sometimes the world repaired itself, but other times it tried to adjust to the new patterns of force and then would come the ripples or waves of pure energy. Pure, unfocused energy.

There was nothing that could be done. Cabe only hoped that the wave would play itself out and leave them alone.

"You! Keeper!"

He realized the voice was directed at him. The warlock twisted around. A gruff, bearded Aramite wearing the cloak of an officer was moving toward him, battle-ax in his huge hands. Cabe felt a buzzing in his head, then saw the small crystal hanging around the soldier's neck. A Quel talisman and one evidently designed to deflect sorcery.

"Stop what you're doing to my men, keeper, or I'll save the inquisitors the trouble of questioning you!"

The t.i.tle by which the raider called him puzzled Cabe Bedlam until he recalled that to the Aramites the only mages were all of the keeper caste. "This isn't my doing!"

"You lie!" He swung the ax, coming within arm's length of the anxious warlock's chest. "Your last chance! Do it! Don't think you'll be able to take me, either! Your spells won't even touch me! I'm protected!"

"Are you now?" came a singsong voice. Cabe recognized it as the one he had heard only moments earlier. "Or aren't you?"

To Cabe, the voice cut through all else, demanding his complete attention. Not so for the Aramite, who still waited for the warlock to obey. Then, both of them looked at the crystal, which had, without warning, begun to glow with an internal fire.

The officer snarled. "What did you do?" He reached for the crystal with one hand. "You can't have-"

The Quel talisman melted through his breastplate before he could even finish the statement. He dropped his ax and tried to take hold of the crystal, but it was already too deep for him to reach that way. The raider's eyes widened. He scrambled to tear the chain from his neck but his fumbling, gauntleted hands were too slow.

Cabe tried to help him even before the screaming began, but the man would not hold still and the warlock's spells would still not affect him. There was the smell of burning flesh.

It was over relatively swiftly. The crystal burned through his chest with rapid, unchecked success. When the end came, the Aramite literally had only time to stiffen and gasp before collapsing in a limp heap on the inhospitable ground.

"Not very strong it was. Strong it definitely wasn't."

"Who are you?" Cabe searched for the owner of the singsong voice, fairly certain that it was a strange creature with a round form and long, spidery appendages.

"Cabe . . ." At first he thought that the voice was mocking him, but it was not the same one. Turned about by the sudden series of events, it took him several seconds to recognize the demon steed.

Darkhorse still stood where he had been, but now he was able to move his head a bit. Cabe rushed over to him and would have taken hold of his companion, but Darkhorse vehemently shook his head. "No, do not touch me! I am not yet stable. You might be pulled in. I could never forgive myself for that!"

"Are you all right?"

"Not by far, Cabe! Now I recognize this madness! I thought it impossible. I thought the last traces had perished with Shade, but this is too real. This has the taste of Vraad about it . . . the taste of a cursed realm called Nimth."

They both knew of Nimth, the place from which, countless millennia ago, a race of sorcerers called the Vraad had fled into the Dragonrealm. Humans today were the descendants of the Vraad, although from what he had unearthed of them, Cabe would not have cared to call the dark race ancestor. They had flourished briefly in this new world, but had disappeared as a culture, if arrogance and indifference could be considered a culture, before the first generation finally died off.

Yet it was said their world still lived despite the damage they had done to it with their careless, G.o.dlike att.i.tudes toward sorcery. Shade had hinted that and he, it had turned out, had been one of them. Darkhorse had even known them, although he refused to speak of that time and could not or would not remember much of it. Some Vraad, it appeared, had had a penchant for torture.

The ground rose under them again, but not much. There were fewer shouts now. Most of the wolf raiders had either vanished back into the mists or were dead. Only a few, either stubborn or trapped by the ever-shifting reality, still remained. At the moment none of them was very concerned with the horse and rider. They were either trying to help fallen comrades or simply trying to survive. "It can't be Nimth, Darkhorse! Nimth is lost, sealed off from everything!"

"Not so sealed. Shade always had a link with it. I tell you it is Nimth . . . or a taste of it at the very least."

"But how?"

"That, I cannot-"

A thing like a nightmare hodgepodge of plant, animal, and mineral formed from empty s.p.a.ce. Without preamble, it charged the warlock before it was even fully solid. It had hundreds of vinelike tendrils for legs, reptilian forearms that ended in claws much like those of a crab, and an oval body that resembled a simple hunk of granite. Carved into the center of that was what at first glance appeared to be a crude image of a human face, but the jade eyes that stared with hunger at the warlock and the huge maw that opened and closed, constantly revealing row upon row of sharp teeth, looked real enough. It moved at an incredible speed, considering that each tendril had to push forward to give it momentum. It spattered a greenish slime about as it traveled. Cabe noticed with dismay that the trail it left behind it burned into the hard ground beneath as the monster pa.s.sed. There was no doubt that it was a magical construct; no creature could have been born so.

"Stand away, Cabe!" Darkhorse demanded, putting himself between the monster and his friend. "I will deal with this abomination!"

The warlock stepped aside, but not to protect himself. There was no way that he could prevent Darkhorse from trying to defend him, but he was also not the kind of man who would let others do battle while he stood by watching.

The magical abomination slowed as it neared Darkhorse. It shifted to one side, as if trying to get around to the eternal's flank. Darkhorse kept the monster before him, which resulted in Cabe ending up behind the shadowy stallion. The warlock started toward the left, but then the abomination moved again and Cabe once more found himself standing to the rear of his companion.

The two leviathans continued to square off. Darkhorse, Cabe knew, was trying to evaluate the thing's abilities. Where anything a.s.sociated with Nimth was concerned, the demon horse was unusually careful. He had a long and bitter memory of things sp.a.w.ned from that sorry realm.

The warlock once more tried to join Darkhorse and once more the madcap abomination shifted also, again leaving Cabe where he had started. Things were going from bad to worse, for in addition to the beast, the fog was thickening further. Already, both Darkhorse and his adversary were half-hidden from his view and that with the warlock only standing two or three yards from the ebony stallion's backside. If they had to battle this thing blind, there was no telling what the outcome would be. Darkhorse was not invulnerable and Cabe thought even less of his own chances.

Despite his wishes, the foul mist continued to thicken . . . no, at this point, solidify almost seemed a more fitting word. The magic-wrought beast was already little more than a shape. Not wanting to suddenly find himself alone against a threat that might be able to see when he could not, Cabe decided to risk the danger and come up on Darkhorse from behind. If he could not be at the shadow steed's side, he would at least remain close enough so as not to lose him.

As he took a step forward, however, the abomination backed away an equivalent distance. Darkhorse, needless to say, followed his monstrous adversary. Like Cabe, he had no intention of losing sight. Unfortunately, each step he took seemed to make him fade a little more.

"Darkhorse . . . Darkhorse! Don't follow it! Wait for me!"

Either Darkhorse chose to ignore him, which was not likely, or he could not hear the warlock, for the eternal not only did not reply, but also trotted even farther ahead. Now, not only could Cabe not even make out the vague shape of the magical monstrosity, he could barely even see the outline of the ma.s.sive stallion.

Dignity aside, the anxious warlock shouted more frantically, "Darkhorse! It's a ploy! We're being separated! Come back!"

He tried running, but for every step he took, his companion took four. Little by little, Darkhorse became a thin shadow in the dank mist. Cabe's shouts went unheeded. Even when he tried to send a burst of sorcerous energy in the shadow steed's direction, the magical fireball only made it halfway before fading to nothing in midflight.

Something tangled in his legs and sent him falling. He rolled around for several seconds, trying to untangle himself from whatever had snared him. Whatever it was, though, it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Swearing to Lord Drazeree, the spellcaster rolled back onto his feet and turned his gaze quickly in the direction he had last seen Darkhorse.

Neither the demon steed nor his adversary was in sight. In fact, Cabe could see nothing at all, not even the ground just beyond his feet.

"Darkhorse!" He did not think that the other would hear him and so when there was no reply, it did not surprise him in the least. He was, for all practical purposes, entombed as good as if he had been buried miles beneath Legar's surface.

As dangerous as it might be to teleport in such a magical mire, Cabe knew he had to risk it. He would return to the hills of Esedi and hope that Darkhorse followed suit once he discovered that the human was missing. Then they could decide what to do about Legar.

He was careful and deliberate as he teleported in order to ensure that there was no mistake. A spell that normally would have taken him only a swift thought became an elaborate series of mental exercises, each designed to create success. Although all of that only took him the blink of an eye to complete, to the mage it was an eternity.

What made matters worse was finding himself still lost in the deadly reddish green mist when all was said and done.

"Tsk," came the singsong voice from behind him. "Not one of my better. One of my better it certainly was not."

He spun around, seeking the source. "Who are you? Where are you?"

"Good enough, though. Enough to be good."

Cabe squinted. Was the visibility just a bit better? He saw that it was, for now he could at least make out a few patches of ground beyond arm's reach. The fog continued to thin even as he watched. It was becoming too obvious that whoever had spoken must certainly be the reason behind his separation from Darkhorse. The warlock clenched both fists and carefully turned in a circle, seeking with his eyes, ears, and magical senses some evidence of where the culprit was located. This could not be the work of the Crystal Dragon, at least he thought not, and it did not seem the kind of weapon the wolf raiders appreciated.

That only left . . .

Then he saw the rock, a vague, miniature hill just off to his left. Atop the rock, spindly arms and legs bent, squatted the same outlandish form he had noticed earlier, the form he was certain had been responsible for the raider officer's gruesome death.

The fog parted slowly but certainly from the rock and its lone inhabitant. Cabe saw that the figure was more or less human, but as oddly shaped as anything he had ever seen. The bizarre figure was clad in a strangely patterned courtier's suit of purple and black that would have looked clownish on any other person but somehow was perfect for its present wearer and not just because of its shape. The hat's flap still covered most of the face. All he could see was a chin that ended in an almost extreme point.

The head lifted a little, allowing him then to see the curved line that was all there was to the mouth. "I am Plool the Great," the spidery figure abruptly said. Other than raising his head, he did not move, not even to remove his hat. "The Great Plool I am."

Cabe Bedlam shivered as he became aware of what it was he was facing here. Plool was at home in the foul mist. He manipulated it to his own desires in the manner of someone long accustomed to the practice. Yet Darkhorse had called the fog a thing of twisted, decaying Nimth, the h.e.l.lish place from which the mage's own ancestors had fled.

He had never thought to wonder if perhaps some had not fled Nimth. He had never wondered what they or their descendants might have become, living as they did in a world where the natural laws had all been torn asunder and wild magic flowed forever unchecked.

Plool could only be a Vraad . . . and now he was loose on the Dragonrealm.

THE MISSIVE FROM Cabe in no way calmed Gwen. She paced the floor of their bedroom, cursing the fact that she could not be with him. It had been her own idea to have one parent remain behind. Her own parents, long, oh, so long dead, had instilled in her the need for someone to be there for the children. Cabe was of the same mind, although the enchantress did not doubt for one moment that he would have also raised a protest if it had been her task and not his.

None of which made the waiting any easier. The magical message that she had received had given her a brief rundown of Cabe's time in Zuu, but knowledgeable as she was where her husband was concerned, the Lady Gwen knew there was more to the story than what he had written. His tale of King Lanith's rather heavy-handed recruiting of mages reminded her too much of the days when Melicard had sought out spellcasters, talismans, and even demons in his quest to eradicate the drake race. Lanith's ambitions would have to be looked into and not just by her. Toos and Melicard probably knew all about this already, which somewhat infuriated her since they had not seen fit to pa.s.s on that bit of knowledge. One was never certain just how much information was being held back at the "councils" she and Cabe attended with the two monarchs.

It was not the gathering of mages that bothered her, though. It was the thought that more had happened in Zuu. She could not help feeling that perhaps Cabe and Darkhorse had not simply entered Zuu, stayed there for a time, and departed. Because of that feeling, she wondered what else her husband might have left unsaid and what dangers he might still have to face.

Worry doesn't help him, she angrily reminded herself. It made her feel no better. Gwen sighed. There were other things that needed to be taken care of. Perhaps, she hoped, they would be enough to keep her from dwelling too much on what might be happening to the man she loved.

As she departed the bedroom, she almost walked into a figure just beyond the doorway. The other caught her in his arms and held her just a second too long for her tastes. She freed herself and backed a step away before realizing that doing so only added to the newcomer's amus.e.m.e.nt.

He was tall and lean, with arrogant but striking features that had many females, human and drake, eyeing him with speculation that he often encouraged. His eyes were narrow, burning orbs that could snare a person and almost make one kneel. He wore a tight-fitting, emerald and gold suit reminiscent of those of the royal court of Gordag-Ai. Gwen knew that he had chosen this particular one in part because it appealed to her tastes. Kyl and the younger drakes wore real human clothes, not magical constructs formed from their own skin, which was what the elder drakes often did. It was not quite the same color combination as his skin, which was a more elegant mixing of the green and gold, but it was still eye-catching. Still, Kyl could have probably created a perfect duplicate if he had wanted to do so. His skills were much more advanced than those of his older counterparts. Sometimes, the Lady of the Amber thought that they were too advanced.