fact, was composed of four, intricately carved figurines designed to seem to be holding the bier level and representing the drake, human, Quel, and Seeker races. Darkhorse pondered briefly the potential significance of the four, but could think of nothing that related to his present situation. Desiring a closer look, he probed the immediate area again.
A thin tendril of life flickered within Drayfitt’s body.
Untrusting, Darkhorse probed again. It was there! Only a trace and barely even that. He knew he could not save the aged mortal, but there was a chance, then, that Drayfitt might be able to tell him something about Shade’s plans. Anything.
The essence of his probe altered. Where in the past few days he had twice been forced to part with a portion of his very being, Darkhorse now willingly gave of himself, a handful of water to a man dying of thirst. It was a slow, careful process. Too much and he might finish what Shade had started; too little, and he might not revive the sorcerer in time.
The cracked, gaunt face twisted suddenly as life fought back. Drayfitt coughed and choked, his fingers reaching out to claw at the air, perhaps in an unconscious attempt to further gather life to his thin shell.
Darkhorse silently cursed those who had given the original Shade his own life.
Eyelids fluttered open, but the eyes within did not see. The shadow steed moved closer, hoping that, even if the dying mortal could not see, then he could at least hear.
“Friend Drayfitt, it is I, Darkhorse,” he whispered in one ear. “Do you hear me?”
Nothing.
“Drayfitt, I have done my best for you, but your time is short. Talak and your people still depend upon you, as they have for more than a century.”
The sorcerer’s mouth opened and closed. Darkhorse waited. The human’s mouth opened again and a hiss escaped as Drayfitt sought to speak. Uncertain as to whether he might push too far, Darkhorse gave of himself again.
“Draaa… aaa…” the failing spellcaster managed to say.
“You are Drayfitt. That is true.” Inwardly, the stallion wanted to roar. Would this be all his efforts came to? Was there nothing left of the human’s mind?
“Draaag… King!”
Dragon King? Which one? The lord of clan Red?
“Tallll… aaak!” Drayfitt’s left hand sought out his own chest. “Quorin!” It was the clearest, most precisely spoken word so far, an indication of the sorcerer’s hatred for the counselor. Drayfitt clutched at his chest again, as if seeking something that had hung around his neck-or Quorin’s.
While what he had heard had begun to form an ugly picture in Darkhorse’s mind, none of it concerned the one the phantom steed was hunting. “What of Shade? Tell me of Shade!”
“Memmm… mrriess. Focus… child?” The eyes turned, seeing perhaps, at least shadows of what was around him. Drayfitt, with forethought that had kept him alive and secure for so long, was trying to economize his words to those that would mean the most. He knew that his life was ebbing away and that even Darkhorse’s gift was failing him.
“Focus? Child?” What did it mean?
“Mistake again… again-”
“Master Drayfitt!” someone shouted from without. Darkhorse turned, then realized that the sorcerer was still saying something. By the time he turned again, Drayfitt had grown silent. His eyes were still open, but the only thing they might be seeing now was the final path that all mortals took at the end of life. His last words had been lost.
“Drayfitt!” An officer in his middle years barged through the tent flaps. Unlike most humans, who were properly in awe of the eternal, the newcomer took one stunned glance at the immense steed before him, drew a sword, and charged.
The image was so incredulous that Darkhorse laughed despite all that had happened. Ignoring the laughter, the soldier cut expertly at the stallion’s legs. A true horse would have been too slow and would have fallen to its knees, its front legs useless. Darkhorse, though, nimbly stepped aside. Pulled off balance by the force of his own swing, the officer left his side open. Darkhorse seized the opportunity, sending the man flying with the gentlest of taps with his front hooves.
“Now,” he roared, ignoring the other humans who rushed through the entrance, “if you will be so kind as to listen instead of trying to kill everything in sight, I will-”
“You’ll do nothing, demon!” A man clad in armor decorated intricately enough to designate him as the commander of the expedition pushed aside the rest and strode toward the shadow steed. He carried no sword, but something in his right hand emanated so much stored energy that Darkhorse grew uneasy. There had been, throughout the millennia, objects created by one race or another with more than enough killing power to destroy a hundred Darkhorses.
“Listen to me, you fools! Talak-”
“-will not suffer your masters’ reign of tyranny ever again!” The commander held up a small black cube.
“My masters? I am no thrall of the Drag-”
Darkhorse got no further. The tent interior melted into a surreal, fog-shrouded picture. Darkhorse shook his head, trying to focus on reality. Through the haze, he could still hear the voice of the human.
“Think our king did not imagine your drake masters would try to summon such as you? This talisman is proof against your kind!”
The shadow steed tried to argue, but his words were muted by whatever trap he had been caught in.
“Would that I could command you to tear your masters apart, but such is not within the power of this object! I can only command it to perform its original function-and send you back to whatever hellhole spawned such as you! Begone now!”
“Foooolssss!” was all Darkhorse had time to cry.
“Utter, abysmal fools!”
“Once there was a tiny dot,” a voice floating in the nothingness commented blandly. “A tiny hole in reality, he was.”
The shadow steed kicked uselessly at the empty space around him. He knew where he was-how could anyone fail to recognize a place as barren as the Void?
Whatever hellhole spawned me? This is not quite the hellhole that spawned me, but nearly enough, curse all meddling mortals! I should stay here and let them suffer their fates!
“The tiny dot grew over-time doesn’t work, does it? I shall have to find something else later, when I have the”-the owner of the soft-spoken voice giggled insanely-“time!”
Darkhorse focused on the direction the voice seemed to be coming from. “Still composing your tales?”
“I compose epics; you wear tails.” Another giggle.
“I’ve no time for your witticisms, gremlin.”
“My name is Yereel, if you do not mind, and even if you do!” A tiny figure, like a child’s doll, coalesced before him. It had no distinct features and was as black as Darkhorse. “And here, as you so well know, there is no time all the time! Have I said ‘welcome home,’ by the way?”
The shadow steed looked around him, noting, as he always did, the densely packed regions of empty space. Nothing crowded against nothing, which jostled even more nothing. Some of the nothing was forced to climb on top of the rest of the nothing just so there was room for all. It was astonishing that so much nothing could fit into so little space.
I begin to sound as bad as this one, Darkhorse thought wryly. To his puppetlike companion, he replied, “A welcome is hardly on my list of desires; I plan to leave here in a moment! You know, too, the mortal who saw you cried out ‘You’re real!’ Hardly a masterful way of choosing a name!”
The puppet did a headstand in the emptiness. “And you chose your name so cleverly! You haven’t commented on the start of my latest epic, dear one! I was thinking of calling it something nonsensical, like, Darkhorse, the Hole That Would Be Whole!” The tiny figure giggled again, then struck an upside-down orator’s pose. “The hole, as it grew, matured into pretensions and delusions of grandeur…”
Darkhorse had had enough. He physically turned himself from the other. “Goodbye, Yereel.”
