There is a way around that.
The thought was not her own, but rather one of Shade’s imprinted instructions, rising forth, now that its task was at hand. It felt like something almost alive, as if it had been imbued with a tiny piece of the Vraad’s being.
There are points of binding, places where the two realities may be joined. You have only to look.
Joined. They had to be joined. Erini saw that now. It was the only possible way to keep herself from suffering a similar fate to that which Shade had suffered, if not something worse. Either force within her was capable of scattering her body and mind beyond the reaches of forever. If she was to have any chance to survive, she would have to do as her captor’s instructions indicated.
Of course you do, the piece of Shade reminded her. Erini wondered if it was her own mind that made it seem so much alive and, if so, was she going mad?
You have a task. Do it.
That was the only truth she did have at the moment. With growing disgust, she accepted the foreign sorcery completely into her being. In her imagination, it seemed to squirm like a worm trying to burrow deeper. Erini almost rejected it then, but knew that, by doing so, she would condemn herself. What sort of world had the Vraad come from, and how could they possibly be the ancestors of the humans alive today? There were hints of those answers now and then, vague, ghostlike images that danced around her, almost distracting her from the horrid task. None of them were distinct and Erini felt some relief at that. Despite her wonder, these were things she actually had little desire to learn about. They all bore the same stench as the sorcery.
See the points. Take them and marry them to their counterparts. Here. Here. Here.
This part of her task seemed almost laughingly simple now, though she knew that here was where Shade had originally begun his downward spiral to damnation. Erini could not see why. The points her mind saw met willingly with one another. Perhaps it was, as the warlock had indicated, only because she was the vessel-or rather the catalyst-and not the final recipient of the spell’s outcome. She had only one purpose, not several as he had had.
While a portion of her consciousness worked automatically, having no choice to do otherwise, Erini found a change occurring throughout her mind, throughout her very soul. The princess could no more deny the transformation than she could her earlier acceptance of the alien sorcery. After a few seconds-perhaps minutes or even hours, she could not say-Erini even began to welcome the change. Her perspective grew and grew and her comprehension of what her world was truly like expanded until Erini felt she was the Dragonrealm, the vast eastern continent, the smaller southern continents, the islands, the seas… everything.
Shade’s spell became a secondary thing to her, something that had to be done but that did not require more than a trace of her concentration. All events, all people, became known to her. Unconsciously, Erini focused on Talak and her betrothed.
It was there before her gaze, a thought came to life. The drakes were within striking range of the city. The princess gained some perspective on how much time had passed, for the sun was already high and it appeared as if the first blows had already fallen. There were dead, drakes on the landscape between the Dragon King’s host and the city walls, and settlements unfortunate enough to have sprung up near the northern wall were little more than splintered wood and scattered articles. The inhabitants, she remembered, had been ordered in at some point before her kidnapping. There was also damage to the city itself. An aerial assault, some corner of her mind told her. It sounded astonishingly like her grandfather, general-consort to her grandmother, the queen at that time. He had been dead for almost seven years. She studied the dragons. Something pierced their hearts. Something magic.
Melicard. Her view did not alter, for she saw all things at once, but the image of the king somehow was foremost among them. He was in the throne room, giving orders, caught up in the battle. A few of his men were injured and there was a sticky, dark fluid covering one of the walls. Erini belatedly noticed the sky where the ceiling had once been. A drake had nearly broken through all of their defenses. Somehow, though, the magical defenses of Talak-she could not recall if she had ever known about them prior to this-had been restored and, in fact, improved. The Dragon King would find Talak a costly victory.
Victory. It was still within the drake lord’s grasp. At the very least, Talak would be in shambles and most of its population would be dead. Another Mito Pica.
The two magics were nearly one now. Erini’s perspective altered again, this time in a puzzling manner. A bit worrisome, too, though that emotion was becoming less and less a part of her. The princess, despite the understanding of her world that she had gained earlier, could not fathom what was happening now. In some ways, it reminded her of how the world looked when the spectrum was visible to her. Like one image superimposed upon another. It was an apt comparison, she decided, but hardly one that explained what was overlaying the Dragonrealm and the rest like a shroud.
There were mountains where mountains should not have been. There were seas and rivers where only dry sand or lush forests existed now. Where Talak stood, another city, smaller in width yet stretching far higher into the heavens, also rose, ziggurats of Melicard’s kingdom fighting for supremacy with odd, twisted towers that ended in spearlike points. It was and was not the same world.
Though she felt life on this world, something warned her not to seek it out. Instead, she turned her inner gaze to the most fascinating and most chilling sight visible. The heavens themselves. The beautiful blue of her world had been replaced by a green of dark intensity. Not a green such as a leaf might be colored, however, but a green that reminded Erini of nothing more than rot. Decay. A world that was festering and had been festering for over thousands and thousands of years.
The world which Shade and the Vraad had abandoned for this one. A world they had made into this putrefying abomination.
This was the potential that Shade represented.
Without willing it, her view turned to the warlock himself. He knelt before her, enraptured by the progress of his spell, almost ready to accept the fruits of her forced labor. To her shock, she saw things about him she doubted even he had ever known. Not just his myriad incarnations, but what the distorted spell had done to his essence over the millennia. Shade was far from whole, far from untouched by the world to which his people had fled. He was possibly in a worse condition than he had been during the time of his previous incarnations-and he refused to see that.
She was astounded at his latent abilities. He had held back throughout all of this, the princess realized. In the hooded warlock was the potential to devastate a region larger than the Tyber Mountains themselves. Shade had hinted at the godlike powers of his kind, but the truth was far more overwhelming. It had only been his desire to complete his lifelong goal that had checked a madness that might have seen the Dragonrealm in complete ruins in less than a week. That and a tiny, nagging doubt-guilt, she correct herself-about what he was doing. There was more good in Shade than he realized. There had been more in the original, too. His own memories were playing him false.
This is a new form of incarnation, Erini concluded. Shade has not escaped his previous failure; he has become even more mired in it than before.
What would happen when his power increased a hundredfold?
Erini found she was growing beyond the point of caring. Her perceptions continued to expand. Soon, she would no longer be a part of her world, not in the true sense. This was the fate that Shade had suffered, but Erini would not be returning in any form. Shade’s variation on his original work would guarantee that. He would gain command of the powers he sought, but lose his vessel in the prospect.
What remained of Erini sought to fight that fate, but she lacked any weapon with which to do it. She did not have the concentration to strike back with her own insignificant talent-and what good would it have done, anyway? Shade would have dismissed any assault on a magical level with as much effort as what he needed to breathe.
Erini felt herself beginning to fragment. Her task was almost complete, but she would never see the outcome. The strain was too much.
She thought of Melicard, who would have no one to keep him from falling into the same darkness that he had lived within before her coming. His image, commanding his aides in the defense of Talak, flickered before Erini. She thought of her parents, who would never know what fate had befallen their daughter. Melicard seemed to fade as the king and queen of Gordag-Ai took precedence. Lastly, Erini thought of Darkhorse, a being she had known only for a short time, but with whom she felt a rapport, a bond.
Erini?
The image of Darkhorse strengthened. He stood, confused, in an area she recognized from its ungodly
