creatures in any sense of the word, merely bits of magical energy shaped to do a particular task. Shade counted out an even dozen before he broke off the spell. His head throbbed briefly, but he assured himself that it was only a headache this time. There had been no further losses of memory-as far as he knew-and his personality had been stable for days. He was himself at last and nothing would change that again.
Without a word, he sent the tiny shapes out and about. They would spread through the palace. No corner of the massive edifice would remain uninvaded.
He drew back into the shadows then, wondering how long it would take Darkhorse to detect him once the masking spell that had protected him thus far was removed. Not too long, he supposed, but long enough.
The warlock smiled to himself as pictured the scene to come.
Retaking the palace was child’s play, as far as Darkhorse was concerned. Melicard found and freed a number of the prisoners the counselor’s men had captured in the cells surrounding his own. Though still outnumbered and without weapons, they were a force to be reckoned with, even forgetting that the king also had a sorceress and a “demon” to aid him.
After a thorough search through more than half the building, it became apparent to all that the palace was, for the most part, deserted now. Only a few stragglers, looters generally, were uncovered. Melicard’s men rearmed themselves quickly on weapons left abandoned in the corridors. The reason for the abandonment soon revealed itself to them, thanks to a looter caught trying to ransack the king’s chambers. Staring up at Darkhorse all the while he spoke, the prisoner informed them of how Quorin’s men knew now that Melicard had unleashed his personal horde of demons that he had saved just for this moment. Allowing the traitors to seize the palace had only been a ploy to discover who was guilty and who was not. Even now, men were fleeing for their lives from the monsters they knew were following them relentlessly.
Darkhorse understood. Seeing him and knowing that he had come for their master, Quorin’s underlings had panicked. In their haste to get as far from the shadow steed as possible, they had likely rushed past their fellows without pausing, spouting out garbled warnings as they ran. As was always the case with fear, the stories had grown, each man shouting some tale of a demon come to get them. Panic escalated.
The eternal chuckled as he told Melicard, “Apparently, I was too pessimistic about your chances of quick success! You have my apologies, King Melicard!”
“We have you to thank for our easy victory. Let us hope that those at the gate surrender so easily.”
“Shall I go there and see to it?”
The king shook his head. “I am grateful, but your appearance may panic people near the gate. I need as much order as possible.”
Erini, who had vanished momentarily from the throne room, returned at that moment with another man, an officer in the dress of Gordag-Ai. Melicard knew him, but the princess introduced him to Darkhorse, who learned the man was a Captain Iston or something. Iston seemed in awe of the ebony stallion, but his military training succeeded in keeping him from making much of a spectacle of himself.
Captain Iston apologized profusely to the king for his failure to keep the princess safe. From the look on her face, Darkhorse hazarded a guess that Erini had heard the same thing only moments earlier.
“I’ve already explained to you,” she said, interrupting his fourth apology, “I am a sorceress, captain. I transported myself out of the room by accident. There was no way for any of your men to keep watch over me.” Beneath her calm tone, the eternal noted some bitterness. Erini had still not forgiven herself for the men who had died trying to rescue her.
While they talked, rather too idly in Darkhorse’s opinion, something nagged at the corner of his mind. Something obvious that they had all been missing, something about the crooked counselor…
Of course! Darkhorse cursed himself for not thinking of it sooner. He turned immediately to King Melicard, who was engrossed in a discussion concerning the chameleon cloaks Iston’s two men had worn. “Your majesty!”
When a tall, pitch-black stallion demands attention, he receives it instantly. Melicard fell back under the glittering gaze. “What is it? Is Shade within the palace walls?”
Darkhorse snorted. “I doubt I would be able to tell even if he was, but that is not what I wanted to say! I have a request of you!”
“Name it. I owe you too much to deny you anything.”
“Mal Quorin’s chambers. I want to see them.”
Erini’s face darkened. Melicard nodded grimly and looked rather irritated with himself. “I should’ve thought of that long before. He’s the link, after all, to the Dragon King-and likely Shade, too.”
“Yes! It was he who provided Drayfitt with the book that the drakes had uncovered! I wonder what else remains hidden in his rooms?”
“I’ll have someone drag him back up here!” Melicard rubbed his chin. “He’ll show you everything even if I have to remove a few fingers and toes to get him to do it.”
The eternal disagreed. “Mal Quorin is the last creature I would want in that room. From the tricks he has already played, I would not put it past him to have a few more ready and waiting for him. No, I think I would prefer to probe his room on my own. Your good counselor is best left admiring the cobwebs of his new abode.”
“There’s much in what you say. Do you need someone to lead you to it?”
“It is not a place I think I would care to enter without some prior inspection. I am not impervious to everything.”
Melicard smiled. “I was beginning to think you were unstoppable. However, if otherwise is the case, I can have one of my men show you the way.”
Darkhorse dipped his head in the closest he could come to a bow. “That would be appreciated.”
Little more than a few minutes passed before he was being led to the ex-advisor’s personal sanctum by one nearly panic-stricken soldier. Even knowing that the great leviathan trotting next to him was an ally of the king did not stop the man from shaking and stuttering. It was an amusing sight, a soldier who was obviously a longtime veteran shaking in his boots, but Darkhorse forbore from saying or doing anything that would shame the human.
At last, they came to a set of doors that somehow arrogantly proclaimed power even though they were as plain as any Darkhorse had seen here. He was interested also to note how far they were from the king’s chambers. Quorin had set up his own tiny little kingdom in the palace. It was a wonder that he had, according to Erini and Melicard, always seemed to be around when you expected him least.
Darkhorse dismissed his guide, who happily departed at the quickest walk he could manage while still seeming to keep his dignity. The ebony stallion waited until he was alone and then began to inspect the entrance for traps or tricks.
The first was simple yet devious. There was an intricate triple lock in the door. A normal key would merely cause one lock to be exchanged for another, all without the one turning the key realizing it. He would then find that the door was still locked. Trying again would set the third lock into play. It was an endless cycle. The secret, evidently, was a special key that Quorin had no doubt carried on his person, one that caught all three lock mechanisms simultaneously. A very impressive piece of work, the stallion decided, but not one that would give him any trouble. Darkhorse did not need a key and, in fact, could have ignored the lock altogether. The door was so reinforced that nothing short of a raging, full-grown bull would have been able to break it down, and that only after several painful attempts. That meant nothing to the creature who could create fissures in a mountain with the mere tap of his hooves. In respect to King Melicard and Princess Erini, however, Darkhorse decided to forgo splintering it into so much scrap. Instead, probing the locks again, he caused all three locks to open at the same time, as if the key were actually in there.
After that, it was an even simpler task to make the door open up by itself. Darkhorse laughed silently at the picture he knew he must have made. Not once, however, had he considered giving himself hands and arms, useful though they might have been. The form he wore was more his own than the shapeless mass he had originated with. With his abilities intact, it would serve him as well as any other.
The shadow steed peered inside.
“Curious,” he finally muttered before stepping into the room.
Mal Quorin’s personal chambers had an odd feel to them, as if the rooms, at least the front ones, were more for display than actual use. Things were just too perfect, too much what one would have expected, almost as if
