long after in Cabe’s time. I hope to return again to write about those stories…
Welcome back to the Dragonrealm!
Richard A. Knaak
SHADOW STEED
I
You will raise me a demon.
The words were seared into Drayfitt’s mind. The chilling visage of his monarch haunted him still. There had never been any doubt that the king had been serious. He was a humorless, bitter man who had, over the last nine years since his horrible disfigurement, become everything that he had at one time despised. The palace reflected that change; where once it had been a bright, proud structure, it was now a dark, seemingly unoccupied shell.
Yet, this was Drayfitt’s ruler, the man who represented what he had sworn his loyalty to more than a century before. Thus, the gaunt, elderly man had simply bowed and said, “Yes, King Melicard.”
Ahh, Ishmir, Ishmir, he brooded. Why could you not have waited until my training was complete before you flew off to die with the other Dragon Masters? Better yet, why did you have to train me at all?
The chamber he occupied was one of the deepest beneath the palace and the only one suited to the task at hand. The seal on the door had been that of Rennek II, Melicard’s great-great-grandfather and a man known for dark tastes. The chamber had been cleaned so that Drayfitt could make his marks, etch the lines of the barrier into the floor. The cage, a thing of enchantment, not iron, filled much of the room. He was uncertain as to what dimensions a demon might possess, and much of what he did was guesswork, even with the aid of the book Quorin had located for the king. Still, Drayfitt had not outlived most of his contemporaries by leaping blindly into things.
The room was dark, save for a single torch and two dim candles, the latter necessary for reading the pages of the tome. The flickering torch raised demons of its own, dancing shadows that celebrated the coming spell with gleeful movements. Drayfitt would have preferred the place brilliantly lit, if only for his own nerves, but Melicard had decided to watch, and darkness preceded and followed the king wherever he stalked. Shifting, the ancient sorcerer could feel the strength of Melicard’s presence behind him. His lord and master was obsessed-obsessed with the destruction of the Dragon Kings and their ilk.
“How much longer?” Melicard’s voice throbbed with anticipation, like a child about to receive a favorite candy.
Drayfitt glanced up. He did not turn to his ruler, but rather studied the design in the floor. “I am ready to begin, your majesty.”
The voice of Quorin, the king’s counselor, abruptly cut through the sorcerer’s thoughts like a well-honed knife. Mal Quorin was the closest thing Talak had to a prime minister since the demise of old Hazar Aran, the last man to hold the position, two years ago. The king had never replaced him, though Quorin did nearly everything the prime minister was supposed to do. Drayfitt hated the counselor; it was the short, catlike man who had first reported to Melicard that there was a spellcaster in the city-and one sworn to the king. If there was any justice, any demon he succeeded in summoning up would demand the counselor as a sacrifice-if a demon could stomach such a foul morsel.
“One was beginning to wonder, Drayfitt, if your heart was in this. Your loyalty has been… cool.”
“If you would like to take my place, Counselor Quorin, I will be happy to let you. I certainly would not want to stand in the way of someone obviously more well-versed in sorcery than myself.”
Quorin would have replied, always seeking the last word, but Melicard cut him off. “Leave Drayfitt to his task. Successful results are all that matter.”
The king supported Drayfitt-for now. The old man wondered how long that support would last if he failed to produce the creature his liege desired. He would be lucky to keep his head much less his quiet, simple position as Master of Appointments. Now, the latter was probably lost to Drayfitt, success or not; why waste a man of his power on a minor political post even if it was all Drayfitt had ever wanted?
Enough dreaming of things lost! he reprimanded himself. The time had come to summon the demon, if only to tweak the well-groomed mustache of Quorin.
Neither the king nor his counselor understood how simple the summoning itself actually was. There had been times when he had been tempted to tell them, to see the disbelief on their faces, but his brother had at least taught him that the secrets of sorcery were the most precious things a mage owned. To maintain his position and to counterbalance those like Quorin, Drayfitt had to build himself up as much as possible. It would have been laughable if it had not been so tragic. There was a chance that success might get them all killed. The barrier might not hold whatever it was, if anything, he summoned.
Raising one hand in a theatrical manner he had practiced long and hard to perfect, Drayfitt touched the fields of power with his mind’s eye.
The summoning was simplicity itself; surviving the encounter with whatever happened to be snared was another matter.
“Drazeree’s ghost!” Quorin blurted in growing fear.
Drayfitt would have smiled, had he heard the outburst, but his mind was on the link he had created. There was only the link-no chamber, no king, not even his own body. He was invisible-no-formless. It was an experience that he had never before achieved and the wonder of it almost proved fatal, for in maintaining his link with the spell, he nearly broke the one binding him to his mortal form. When the sorcerer realized his error, he immediately corrected it. A lesson learned, Drayfitt realized… almost too late.
Before him, the stream of light that was the mental representation of his bond disappeared into a gleaming tear in reality. He knew that the tear was visible to the king and Counselor Quorin, a sign of success for them to mull over while he moved up. If failure greeted him at any point onward, he hoped that Melicard would realize that he had tried his best, that he had proved his loyalty.
A cold presence with a feel of great age grazed the outer boundaries of his seeking mind. Ancient was not a satisfactory description for such a creature. A desire to abandon the summoning washed over Drayfitt, but he fought it, understanding that it was a ploy by the creature he had snared. The analogy of a fisherman who has caught the grandfather of all sea monsters did not escape him. What he had snared was powerful-and very reluctant to the notion of being forcibly brought to Drayfitt’s world. It was ready to fight him with all weapons available to it.
Some would have fought the demon here, in this place with no name, but Drayfitt knew that he could only bind his catch if he battled it from the physical as well as the spiritual planes. The earth, whose existence was interwoven with both the fields of power and his own life, was his anchor.
As he retreated toward his body, the sorcerer was amazed at the ease with which he drew the demon after him. The struggle was far less than he expected, almost as if the demon had some strong bond of its own with his world, a bond it could not deny. That a thing spawned out there could have any tie with the mortal plane disturbed him. The thought of a trap occurred to him, but it was a brief notion. Such a trap was too daring; the closer they moved back to Drayfitt’s domain, the more difficult it would be for the demon to free itself.
The sorcerer felt the creature’s growing frustration. It was fighting him-constantly-but like someone forced to do battle on a number of fronts. Had they met on equal terms, both with their respective abilities intact, the elderly sorcerer knew that he would have been no more than a breath to his adversary. Here, the battle was in Drayfitt’s favor.
The return seemed endless, far longer than when he had departed his body. As he finally neared his goal, he was struck by a great wave of panic emanating from the demon. The link stretched as he had not known it could and, for a moment, it felt as if part of the demon had broken away.
Nonetheless, his prey was with him. Body and mind began to meld. Other things-sounds, pressures, odors- demanded a measure of his attention.
“He’s stirring again!”
“You see, Quorin? I told you he had not failed. Drayfitt is loyal to me.”
