“When men came back to this land,” he was telling her companionably, “and settled, bowing for a time to the will of the first Dragon Kings, I moved back among them. Weaklings! Their ancestors had given in to this world, taking up its magic instead of strengthening their own! There were a few who could do outstanding things with that magic, though, and from them I learned much of what I had dared not attempt for fear of losing myself as my counterparts had.”
Erini, held by his spells in a standing position with her arms outstretched-as if challenging the world, she thought bitterly-did not understand half of what he said. He was talking for himself. As long as it kept her from the fate he had planned, Erini did not object.
“I took many names and many guises in those days, learning what I could. Several times, I renewed my lifespan. Someday, though, I knew that those spells would fail me. I would die and the Vraad would pass from this world forever, a world ours by right.” He smiled coldly. “There were a few others who survived, in a sense, but they had also given themselves over to this world’s nature, becoming less Vraad and more-more-”
Shade rose, seeming to forget his tale completely. It was not the first time he had changed so abruptly. Shade stretched out one arm and caused the blue ball of light floating high above them to increase in intensity. The warlock’s stronghold, little more than shadow prior to this, was revealed to his captive for the first time. Erini was properly awed.
Erini had never seen the throne room of the drake emperor, so it was understandable that she would miss the incredible similarity between that place and this. Grand effigies of people and creatures long dead or vanished lined the walls on each side. Some were so real as to force the princess to look elsewhere, for fear one of them would start staring back at her. Erini was brave, but, even with her limited experience in magic, she could sense the cold presence within each one. These things were alive, although hardly in the sense that most people thought of as living. In some ways, they almost reminded her of Darkhorse, though she hated even considering such a thought.
“My cache. Plundered by those scaly wretches above. This was where I formulated my spell and stored all my notes and special-toys. A Vraad habit. Though I performed my spells among humans and lived in human communities, it was here, in this place, that I first conceived of my notion. It was here that I found and began to travel the path of immortality and true power such as even the Vraad had never dreamed.”
As he spoke, Shade reached into his cloak and removed a rather ordinary-looking tripod. The care with which he handled it told Erini it was anything but ordinary. She watched in helpless frustration as the warlock placed it at her feet.
“The concept came to me early on, but the doing of it escaped me for centuries. I feared I was lost. To understand what I needed, I would have to give myself. Become changed by this world-have I said that already?” Shade looked up from what he was doing, uncertain. There was a slight trace of fear in his tone, as if he were finally realizing that his mind was not as it should be.
While he puzzled over his own question, Erini continued her own struggle. Though she could not move, her mind was still free. Shade needed her mind free yet malleable. The princess desperately tried to capitalize on that, continually summoning up whatever strength she could find within herself and sending out a sorcerous cry for aid that she hoped Darkhorse would detect. It was a slim, almost mad hope, but it was all she had. She lacked the skill and experience she needed to break free of her physical predicament. The warlock knew too many tricks.
“It won’t even hurt-not much, that is,” Shade suddenly told her, coming within a hand’s width of her face. She tried to close her eyes, but his spell prevented that. Instead, she was forced to stare into his glimmering, seemingly multifaceted orbs. There were those who said that the eyes were the mirror of the soul, and what there was of Shade was more reflection than substance. More than life, but also less.
He was no longer human and likely had not been since the very day that he had fallen victim to his own obsessive desires.
His hand came up before her eyes, his voice was soothing, yet with that undercurrent of anxiety and fear. “Listen to me now. I’m going to begin. I don’t need your cooperation, but I ask it. Give me what I want and I’ll see what I can do for you afterward. You will give it to me regardless of your desires, but the transition will be easier on both of us if you do your part willingly.”
Frozen as she was, Erini could only respond with her eyes, which she did promptly. Shade backed away, his face initially the picture of remorse, then, in an abrupt change, arrogant and lordly. “Very well, then. I offered for your sake, really. Suffer if you like. Here is what you will do for me.”
The warlock reached up and touched her forehead. Erini’s mind was suddenly filled with images and instructions. She found herself unable to continue her desperate summons under such circumstances and finally gave in. Her only consolation was the thin hope that something in the shadowy warlock’s instructions might give her an idea.
Erini’s task, as he had defined it, was to be the vessel in which two radically different forms of sorcery would be meshed together. Unlike the tales the princess had heard as a child, it was not the powers of darkness and light that Shade had sought to master. It was the vestiges of a power that lingered from whatever world the Vraad had originated from and this world’s own strength. The images both horrified and fascinated her.
“We will begin now.” Wrapping himself deep within his cloak, Shade leaned forward and focused his gaze on the tripod.
Though she could see little, Erini felt everything. She felt the power that she summoned forth fill the chamber-she summoned forth? No, it only appeared that way. From the instructions that the warlock had implanted in her mind, she understood that he was utilizing the tripod in order to draw energy through her. To draw upon so much power himself would be to risk the success of his plan. He had to be free to control the situation, and without her that would have been impossible.
Erini knew that there must be defenses she could summon, things that would disrupt his spell permanently, but her mind was not skilled enough to cope with the influx of power and still concentrate on shielding herself. The princess now saw why Shade desired an untrained and inexperienced spellcaster with high potential. Even Drayfitt’s mind would have been too closed for Shade to have trusted the outcome of his experiment. Erini was like a child, uncertain of what her limitations were; an open book on which Shade could write what he pleased.
“You feel the power flowing into your soul.” A statement, not a question. “Hold it there. Let it gather.”
She did as he bid her, unable to do anything else. It was frustrating to feel so strong and yet be so helpless. The strength of the world seemed to flow into her. For the first time, Erini saw the world in terms of the lines and fields of energy that many spellcasters did. Yet, the spectrum remained there as well. The two were one. It was impossible to tell if one had resulted because of the other or if they had both sprung into existence simultaneously. There was so much potential here that even the greatest sorcerers of legend had probably never known the like. There was power enough here to make one almost a god-
— and this was only a part of what Shade desired. Shade, not her. She was a vessel, the princess reminded herself, for all the power that she contained was for her captor, not herself.
“The flow will continue slowly. You must guide its intensity, make certain it does not overwhelm you-and be prepared to accept the next offering.”
It was too much! Erini panicked. How could she hope to contain so much energy, so much pure power? Erini struggled to assert her mind. Darkhorse! If only I could summon him!
Erini?
It was brief and lost to her completely after that single word, after the calling of her name, but she knew that she had touched the eternal’s thoughts. Her mind filled with hope.
A cold, loathsome essence entered Erini just as she sought Darkhorse again, caressing her soul as if tasting a treat. Caught unaware, the princess wanted to scream and scream and scream, but Shade’s earlier spell prevented such a release of her horror at the unthinkable invasion. The world around her shrank away, as if she were looking at it from above. The warlock looked into her eyes, curiosity and anticipation at the forefront. She wanted to ram him through the earth, peel away every layer of skin while he writhed in agony-anything-as long as it would free her mind from the unspeakable presence seeking to become a part of her.
“Accept it, princess. You have no choice.”
She didn’t. Erini wanted to destroy, to tear her own body apart and remove the cancerous thing from her soul. Shade’s commands prevented all but the weakest resistance. This was the essence of the power that the warlock’s kind had utilized in that nameless hell they had been-forced? — to leave. It was alien to the Dragonrealm, following different, twisted laws of nature that should not-could not-exist here.
