possible.
“Here ya go!” He slammed the ale down right in front of the figure and made to leave, but the hand, with astonishing speed and bone-crushing strength, caught his own and trapped him there.
“Sit down a moment.” The slight amusement in the hooded one’s tone made Cyrus go pale. He sat down with a heavy thud. The warlock released his hand, almost as if daring the innkeeper to run away.
“What city is this?”
It was an odd question, seeing as how a spellcaster of all people should know such a simple thing. Despite that thought, however, Cyrus could not stop himself from responding immediately. “Talak.”
“Hmmm. I noticed a commotion earlier. What was the cause?”
Cyrus blinked in a mixture of fear and shock as his mouth formed the answers without his aid. “King Melicard’s betrothed, the Princess Erini of Gordag-Ai, arrived only today.”
For the first time, the figure in the dusky hood reacted. Cyrus was certain it was confusion despite being unable to make out the warlock’s features. He had been trying to see the man’s face for several seconds, but there was something wrong with his eyes, for the other’s visage never seemed in focus.
“‘King Melicard’? What’s happened to Rennek IV?”
“Rennek died some time back. He spent the last part of his life mad as a sprite.” Where had this man been that he didn’t know something common knowledge to everyone else?
“I’ve been far, much too far away, innkeeper.”
Cyrus shook as it hit him that he had not asked the question out loud.
The warlock reached over and touched Cyrus on the forehead with one gloved finger of his right hand. “There are people of importance that I would know more about. You know their names. Tell me and I will let you return to your business.”
It was impossible not to tell the hooded figure what he knew. The names that flashed through Cyrus’s unwilling mind frightened him, so powerful and deadly the bearer of each one was. His mouth babbled tale after tale about each, mostly from things he had heard from patrons, much of it forgotten until now.
Finally, it ended. Cyrus fearfully felt himself black out.
The warlock watched with little interest as the innkeeper, his mind fogged, rose from the table and returned to his duties. The mortal would remember nothing. No one would recall that he had been here. He could even stay long enough to finish the ale, something he had not had in ten years. The long lapse made the drink even sweeter.
Ten years, Shade thought as he stared into his mug. Only ten years have passed. I would’ve thought it longer.
Memories of endless struggling in the nothingness that had been his prison, the prison that was a part of his enemy and his friend, flashed through his mind. He had thought he would never touch the earth again.
Ten years. He took another sip of ale and could not help but smile again at circumstances. A small price to pay, actually, for what I’ve gained. A very small price to pay.
Shade put a hand to his head as a sharp pain lanced through his mind. It was as short-lived as the others he had experienced since his return, and he ignored it once it had passed. The warlock took another sip. Nothing would mar his moment of triumph, especially an insignificant little pain.
III
THE SINGLE TORCH, left by the mortals, had long ago burned itself out, but Darkhorse had no need of such things, anyway. He did not even notice when the light sputtered and died, so deeply was his mind buried in a mire of concerns, fears, and angers-none of which he had come to terms with yet. What distressed him most was that Shade roamed the Dragonrealm untouched, free to spread his madness across an unsuspecting and, in some ways, uncaring land.
And here I lay, helpless as a newborn, trapped by a mortal fool who shouldn’t have the knowledge to do what he’s done! Darkhorse laughed low, a mocking laugh aimed at himself. How he continually underestimated human ingenuity-and stupidity.
His pleas of freedom fell on deaf ears and mad minds. Nothing mattered more to Melicard than his quest to rid the realms of the drake clans, whether those drakes were enemies or not. That Shade had the potential to bring the lands down upon them all-human, drake, elf, and the rest-meant nothing to the disfigured monarch.
“What threat is a warlock compared to the bloody fury of the Dragon Kings?” Melicard had asked.
“Have you forgotten Azran Bedlam so soon?” Darkhorse had bellowed. “With his unholy blade, the Nameless, he slew a legion of drakes, including the Red Dragon himself!”
The king had smiled coldly at that. “For that, he had my admiration and thanks.”
“They might’ve easily been humans, mortal! Azran was no less dangerous to his own kind!”
“The creature you call Shade has existed for as long as recorded memory, yet the world remains. If you wish, you may deal with him after you have served me. That seems fair.”
It was futile to try and explain that always there had been someone to keep Shade in check and that someone had more often than not been Darkhorse. Other spellcasters had fought and beaten the warlock, true, but always the shadow steed had been, at the very least, in the background. Now, he was helpless.
“Well, demon?”
In pent-up anger, Darkhorse had reared and kicked at the unbreakable, invisible wall, screaming, “Madman! Can you not hear me? Does your mind refuse to understand reality? Your damnable little obsession will never be fulfilled, and while you muster your fanatics Shade will bring both drake and human down! I know this!”
At that point, King Melicard had turned to the sorcerer beside him and said, “Teach him.”
For his refusal to obey, Darkhorse had suffered. The old sorcerer Drayfitt had surprised him again, intertwining a number of painful subspells into the structure of the magical cage. The pain had not stopped until the jet-black stallion had been no more than a mass of shadow huddled on the floor. Finally, Melicard had simply turned and departed, pausing at the doorway only long enough to give some instructions to the spellcaster. With the king had gone the devious one, the mortal who was known as Counselor Quorin.
Alone with the elderly sorcerer, Darkhorse had pleaded his cause once more. Fruitlessly. Drayfitt was one of those men who embodied the worst and best trait of his race: blind loyalty.
And so here I remain, the spectral horse snorted in frustration. Here I remain.
“I once suffered a fate similar to the one facing you now,” a familiar voice mocked. “Trapped with seemingly no way out. I think you can imagine how I felt.”
Darkhorse rapidly drew himself together, all his power preparing for the worst.
The torch was suddenly ablaze again, but its flame was a deep red that bespoke of blood. Amidst the crimson shadows, a cloaked and hooded figure detached itself.
“Shade… or Madrac…” Darkhorse rumbled. “Come to mock only when you know for certain your hide is safe from harm.”
The warlock bowed like a minstrel after a successful command performance. “Call me Madrac, if you will-or any other name, for that matter. I don’t care. I’ve come to tell you something. I sat quietly drinking in a tavern, absorbing life itself for once. I remember, you see. I remember everything from every life. I recall the fatal day, the agony of being torn apart and restored to existence again and again and again! I recall more than I could ever recount to you!”
As long as he had known the human, Darkhorse had known a man condemned. Forever resurrected after each death, whether his body was whole or not, Shade was cursed to live lives alternately devoted to the dark and light sides of his nature. Each was only a shadow of the original spellcaster, however. Memories were so incomplete as to sometimes be nonexistent. Abilities altered. In desperation to be whole, each new personality even took on a secondary name of its own, such as Madrac, hoping that somehow he would be the final, immortal Shade. Now, after millennia, something had changed to make that possible. Understanding this, hope briefly spurred Darkhorse. “Then your curse is lifted; you can live in peace.”
Shade chuckled bitterly and stepped forward. Raising his hood, he let the shadow steed stare into his face, or
