Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. III

Caught up in his own spellcasting, the hooded warlock did not immediately notice her escape. When he did, he shouted something in an unknown language, then turned to deal with her.

Bending down, Valea took the dagger.

In a replay of a few short minutes before, Arak’s hand seized her wrist.

Eyes full of blood, the male elf gasped, “S-sever the tie, c-cousin . . .”

And to Valea’s shock and dismay, her hand twisted of its own accord, freeing the wrist from Arak’s grip, then turning and now plunging the second blade into his chest.

Her rebellious hand removed the dagger as quickly as it had thrust it in. Curiously, instead of dying at last, Arak immediately looked healthier. His breathing normalized and his skin grew less pale. His eyes opened wide and clear-at which point he shouted, “Galani! Look out!”

Valea or Galani-it was now impossible to separate the two souls-spun around to defend the still- recuperating elf.

Shards of pain ripped through her stomach as the warlock’s magical assault caught her only half- shielded.

“You little wretch! I-” Shade abruptly screamed, his agony echoed throughout the chamber. At the same time, the Wyr Stone transformed, becoming as black as an abyss.

The warlock’s body grew distorted, twisted, as if his bones had jellied.

With another mournful cry, he wrapped his cloak around him and vanished.

Arak tried to rise, but could not yet do so. Even filled with pain, Valea was determined to pursue Shade and so, she felt, was Galani. The sorceress eyed the Wyr Stone, the core of the situation . . .

The teleportation spell she cast moments later did not take her far, yet it nearly sent her blacking out from renewed agony. She put her hand to her waist and found more blood.

As her gaze rose again, she also found Shade.

His own flight had not taken him far. He lay sprawled halfway up the very staircase where Valea had begun her excursion into the Manor’s memories. His body was still stretched slightly long, but reverted more normal with each of his ragged breaths.

“I am r-renewed, Galani. You may call me Erynar . . . th-this time.”

“No,” she returned grimly, stumbling toward him with the dagger pressed against her side. “You’re not dead . . . not yet.”

Pushing himself up, Shade pointed at her. His gloved fingers distorted, becoming black tentacles seeking her throat and chest.

Valea countered, creating a barrier of flame that sent his fingers swiftly withdrawing, the tips aglow. The warlock stumbled up several more steps before managing to recover.

He actually laughed. “Galani! How v-vicious you’ve become-and how p-powerful! The Wyr Stone can be very seductive, can it not?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“But you had better be using the stone, dear Galani,” the murky face mocked. “For if not, that large wound will soon be the finish of you.”

It was already the finish of Galani, but the elf was as determined as Valea to end this. Both moved in concert in one body and Valea realized that Galani fully understood who and what resided within her.

She stretched out one delicate and quite empty hand-a hand covered in blood-toward the warlock. “Come dance with us one last time, Shade.”

“Us? Have you become like me, then?” He laughed again and from the confines of his voluminous cloak a ferocious wind struck at his adversary.

The sorceress dismissed it as readily as the tentacles.

“You do wield the Wyr Stone!”

Valea shook her head. “She does. I don’t.” The bloody hand opened again. “Come dance with us.”

A tremendous force tugged at the warlock, dragging him back down the steps. He struggled, but even his legendary power only slowed his descent.

Two souls inhabited the female elf’s body, but it was Galani who had chosen to bind herself to the Wyr Stone. She lacked the knowledge and practice Valea had, but with the artifact, she had no such worry any more.

Separate, either would have been no match for the hooded madman. Together, he had no hope.

But in his madness, Shade did see that last. With a roar, he took advantage of the force pushing him toward his foe by suddenly leaping at her. Galani momentarily lost her resolve, but Valea strengthened her just as Shade reached them.

By rights, he should have sent all of them flying backward, but the sorceress’s added might made it seem as if the warlock had struck a stone wall instead. Galani’s/Valea’s bloody hand gripped his gloved one tight, pulling him close. Momentum made them twirl around and around several times. Finally, the dagger came up, thrust this time in the back so that there would be no hope of Shade reaching it physically.

He screamed, his blurred visage revealing a huge darkness where the mouth had to be. He twisted and turned in their grip but could not free himself. Around and around they spun, the shadowy figure now engulfed by the Wyr Stone’s power fed through by the dagger. Galani it had been who had slumped over the cursed artifact, drenching it with her blood and making the dagger her key to its might. Valea now in a sense stepped back, watching warily from within her host in case something went awry.

But Shade continued to scream and once more his form distorted. His arms, legs, torso-even his head stretched and turned. An aura that constantly shifted color and pattern surrounded him, ate away at his very existence.

And for a brief moment . . . Valea did see the true face of Shade.

It was and was not what she had expected. A young face, not much older than her own, but with hints here and there of so many, many years of torment. It was an aristocratic face and not unhandsome. Dark hair hung over much of the forehead and framed narrow crystalline eyes, a brooding, pained brow, angular cheeks and jaw, and slightly curved nose.

Then the face returned to a blur and, with a last, agonized howl, Shade melted in her grip.

He melted like wax tossed into a hot furnace, literally dripping to the floor. There, what had once been a man quickly dissipated into smoke, spreading randomly throughout the corridors of the Manor and vanishing beyond.

Yet as the last vestiges of Shade dwindled away, Valea could not help immediately thinking somewhere else he is being reborn this very minute.

But she could not concern herself with that, for suddenly she felt herself slipping away. No. Galani was dying. She had bound herself to the Wyr Stone, but not to the extent of her cousin. To use its might even to save herself had seemed an abomination to the elf. The sinister stone had repelled her; she had only sought it to destroy Shade.

“F-fear not. I will not let it happen to you,” the lips said to the sorceress.

Vertigo overcame Valea . . . and the next second, she found herself floating like a ghost in front of Galani.

The elf gazed at her, smiled weakly. “You look-you look like me. All those-those times-I wondered if you-if you were a ghost from the past. A lost s-soul.” She coughed up blood. “Now I-I know-I w-was the ghost . . . but seeing you-I wonder if I am to be r-reborn just like him,” she added, referring to Shade. The smile faltered. “Perhaps he and I-he and you-might meet and become as I once h-hoped . . .”

Valea knew that Galani would hear her if she spoke, but still the crimson-tressed figure said nothing. She did not want to tell the elf that Shade was dead in her time, never to return.

“Galani!”

Arak, completely healed, raced toward the staircase. Such was his concern that he did not really register Valea’s phantasmal figure and so ran right through her to reach his beloved cousin.

“Arak,” she gasped. “I had to do it, didn’t I?”

Galani slumped forward, the dagger dropping.

Valea’s world turned black.