Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. III

watched . . . and watched . . . and watched.”

A lengthy silence followed. It was a silence that the warlock knew meant the tale was at an end, or at least as much of it as the drake was willing to tell him. There were many questions that Cabe wanted to ask, including whether Shade was one of the Tezerenee and how the Crystal Dragon had kept his immortality secret from his counterparts, even barring his hermitic existence. Perhaps someday he would be told the answers to his questions, but not this day. What he had learned was stunning enough. The Dragonrealm was ever a cornucopia of surprises.

The silence continued without foreseeable end. At last able to stand it no longer, Cabe dared speak. “Your Majesty?”

There was no response from the massive form.

“Your Majesty?” The warlock paused, then shouted, “Logan Tezerenee!”

The Crystal Dragon’s head shot skyward. Blazing, reptilian eyes fixed on the small, defiant figure standing before him. The monarch of Legar hissed. “You have my attention. Make it worth the danger.”

Cabe Bedlam had had enough, however. He took a step closer and retorted, “I don’t fear the danger. If you were anything of a threat, you would be acting against the true problem, the wolf raiders. Instead, you remain here, dwelling on a past that is lost. If you care so little about your existence, then you should have ended it long ago.”

“Beware of how you ssspeak, human!”

“Listen to yourself! Is that a man speaking?”

The glittering behemoth rose to his full height. Even then, the warlock would not back down. He dared not.

“You are purposely trying to annoy me! Why?”

Pointing at the walls, Cabe responded. “You’ve seen what’s out there. You unleashed the fog. Now, instead of bringing down the Aramites, it may become a weapon they can use. You have to do something.”

“The fog will eventually dissipate! It must! It cannot hold itself together, not even if he commands it. The raiders will wipe themselves out trying to conquer this land and that will settle the situation.” He hesitated. “Now leave me . . .” The Dragon King started to turn away. “I must rest.”

Cabe could not recall ever becoming so infuriated with a Dragon King before. The very notion surprised him even now, but he knew that he was nonetheless fast approaching the point where he would lose his temper . . . and then probably his life. There were too many people relying on him, however, for the incensed sorcerer to give up.

“You’ve been hidden away here too long, content with observing through this device rather than seeing the world through your own eyes! You’ve become afraid of the outside, afraid of becoming part of the Dragonrealm!”

“You understand nothing!” roared the Crystal Dragon. “You understand nothing! I cannot leave this chamber! If I do so I lose everything! I will become as the others did, as I once was! I will be a creature, a monster, in form and in mind! I will lose myself! And this time it will be forever, I feel it!” The enraged dragon tried to calm himself down. “The sssame it isss if I exert my power too often, asss I nearly did when Ice sssought to end all things with his foul spell! I have rested much since then, but it is still not near enough!

“It almost happened once, when I decided to seek out some of the others and see if they, too, with the aid of this chamber could recall their past. As I started to leave, though, my head began to swim and my thoughts grew beastlike. I only barely made it back here. It was three days before my mind was calm enough to think my bitter experience through. I came to realize that only here was I myself. Only here could I survive intact.”

Intact? Cabe found that debatable. His shoulders slumped in resignation. There would be no alliance with the lord of Legar. Now, Cabe was truly alone unless somehow he could find Darkhorse.

“Then there’s no need for me to remain here,” the warlock stated. He readied himself for the worst. “Am I free to depart or have you told me this fantastic story with the intention of keeping me here?”

The Crystal Dragon no longer seemed even interested in him. He curled up in what was obviously a prelude to slumber. It dismayed Cabe to see what the Dragon King had become. “You were free to go the moment you woke. You are free to go now.”

What are you waiting for? the sorcerer demanded of himself. To his surprise, he tried once more to convince the Dragon King to see his way. “If you would only consider-”

Glittering, inhuman eyes that had been nearly closed widened. A hiss escaped. “I ssssaid leave!”

With those words, the warlock began to spin. Cabe gasped and tried to stop, but was helpless. He spun faster and faster, a frantic, living top. The cavern became first a bright blur and then a murky nothing. Cabe tried to concentrate, but the constant twirling threatened to make him black out. It was all he could do to keep conscious.

All at once, he simply stopped.

With a grunt, the stunned mage fell to the floor, but a floor that was hard and, strangely enough, very uneven. Cabe shook his head, then regretted the action as vertigo set in again. He settled with putting his head in his hands and waiting for the world to come to a halt on its own. Only when it finally did was he willing to look up.

Cabe first saw nothing. Wherever he had landed, it was pitch-black. Cabe summoned a dim sphere of blue light, then grimaced at what the illumination revealed. He was in another tunnel, but unlike the ones leading to the drake lord’s lair, the malignant fog held sway here. That meant that Cabe must be closer to the surface. Closer to the surface and, he suspected, almost beneath the Aramite encampment.

With the Crystal Dragon’s aid no longer a hope, the warlock was on his own. The surface was where he now needed to go, but which was better, he wondered, journeying in the direction he was already facing or turning around and seeing where the other end of the tunnel led? Did he really want to continue to the surface or would it benefit him to descend farther into the earth? At this point, it was impossible to tell which path led to the surface and which did not. One thing was certain: no matter which direction he chose, the mage would have to walk. As long as the tendrils of Nimth had hold of Legar above and below ground, the warlock dared not try teleporting save as a last desperate venture. There was too much chance of something going wrong with the spell.

Grumbling, Cabe at last chose the direction he was facing and started walking. What he hoped to accomplish without the aid of the Crystal Dragon, he could not say. Yet, even without the Dragon King’s might behind him, the warlock knew he had to attempt something.

By the time he did reach the surface, Cabe hoped he would know exactly what that something was supposed to be.

One hour ’til dawn, yes? thought the blue man. It was hard to be certain in this godforsaken place, but that seemed a good estimate. Kanaan D’Rance estimated he had two hours at most to accomplish his task before Lord D’Farany rose. If all went as his grotesque visitor said, that would perhaps be an hour more than he needed.

D’Rance did not at all trust the macabre creature who had visited his tent, but Plool did indeed know things about sorcery that the northerner had never come across before. What especially interested him, however, was the stranger’s knowledge of the magic that was the fog. With that to add to his own growing skills, the blue man would have need of no one. He could leave the mongrels to their own end.

The blue man entered the tunnel mouth and hurried down the deep, descending path. The guards in the passages would think nothing of him returning since his other work was down here, but those who kept watch in and around the chamber would be suspicious if he entered without Lord D’Farany. None of the Aramites trusted him that far. His skills were still not sufficient enough to deal with so many, otherwise he might have been able to do this without Plool’s aid.