Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. III

“We are very close now. I can hear its call. It was good of the Quel not to lie to us,” Lord D’Farany commented as he watched his men advance across the gleaming land toward the place where the dying Quel had claimed the entrance to his city was hidden. Lord Ivon D’Farany did little to stem the madness in his voice. He knew the others could not sense what he sensed, for none of them had ever been trained as a keeper. They were to be both pitied and envied, he decided. Pitied because they had never known the seductive power of the Aramites’ great god, the Ravager, and envied because they had not had to suffer the soul-wrenching horror of withdrawal when that power had been abruptly torn away just prior to the war. He was considered one of the fortunate ones, but then no one else could ever understand the emptiness that was now ever with him. His hand twitched as old reflex actions still sought the talisman he had once owned, the link to his god.

“But that will change . . .” he whispered. “So much will change, then.” The ends of D’Farany’s thin mouth rose ever so slightly, the closest he generally came to a smile. It was never a good idea to smile, for it upset the men so.

When the power of his god had been torn from his soul, he, like the rest, had fallen into madness. He had screamed and then laughed, a laugh that had chilled his watchers. In his mind, he had died, completely and utterly. When sanity at last returned, a different man occupied the body. The desperate commanders had sought the power of a keeper to aid them in the sudden and overwhelming revolt that had arisen, but they had found something else instead. Something that would not be manipulated but rather would manipulate in turn.

Recalling where he was, Lord D’Farany glanced about him. Despite the sun and heat, his men were still moving at a brisk pace. The common ranks did not know what they truly sought, only that their leaders had ordered them to watch for a cavern and be prepared for battle.

It might be that he was wrong, that this was not the place that he had dreamed of for the past few weeks. He had not, of course, told anyone else of the dreams. He never did. The ship captains had obeyed his command to steer toward this land rather than one of the more lush regions to the north, but it was clear that they considered the gleaming peninsula an interesting but hardly useful bit of dirt. Vegetation was sparse and older reports had warned that the interior was inhospitable, consisting mainly of endless hills of rock and crystal. There was nothing here of value to the average wolf raider; the crystals were fascinating, but they were, for the most part, common.

He knew otherwise. He had first felt the power emanating from the near-barren domain days before they had landed. Now, ashore, he more than felt it; he lived it. Here was a force that could fill the emptiness inside, make him complete at last.

All his men had to do was take it from the beasts below.

“This is a mistake, yes?” came a knowing voice to his left. While phrased as a question, as much of what his companion said was, the comment was actually a statement.

“Give Orril his opportunity, Kanaan. It is both his reward and his punishment.”

“There is another way, my lord. A better way, I think.”

D’Farany knew what his aide meant. He nodded slowly. “When it is needed. Patience, Kanaan.”

The tall figure beside him grew silent, but the Aramite leader knew that Kanaan D’Rance was by no means mollified. Like most of his kind, he was impatient and ambitious, a combination of traits that would have had him executed on the first day by most commanders but suited Ivon D’Farany just right. The Pack Leader had a fondness for things mercurial and the blue man was certainly that. He was also a fount of information. D’Rance had made the Dragonrealm his obsession.

The gaunt northerner had been a rare find. His talents perfectly complemented Orril D’Marr’s own considerable skills, yet the two were of such different minds that their constant competition also served D’Farany. The latter also assured that the two would never combine forces and cause him threat. He would have hated to see that happen. It would have meant the need to eliminate two valuable weapons. He did not dare do that until he was complete again.

Complete . . . the Pack Leader frowned. Even this would not make him truly complete. Nothing save his glorious god’s return could do that. Still, I will be close.

It was then he felt the power around him shift and shape and though he knew what it meant, Ivon D’Farany merely stood there and drank in the sensation.

The world exploded in light . . . and the belated screams of men.

“I warned, did I not? I warned that this would happen, yes!”

D’Farany forced his eyes to focus. He did not see as normal men did, not anymore, but there were times when it became necessary to try. When the raider leader did at last see what the underdwellers had done, he could not help but smile, despite the horrific sight he knew he created. “Magnificent!”

Before him, his soldiers scattered in an attempt to make themselves less of an inviting target. The Pack Leader barely noticed their frantic efforts. His eyes only saw the wonderful result of so much power, power that was to be his.

There had been a small rise where the beasts had struck with their sorcery, a small rise populated by a few scraggly plants and, at the moment of the attack, likely a dozen or so soldiers. Now, the rise was a flat, iron-hot pool of glass and the plants and the men unfortunate enough to be there at the time . . . were nothing.

Yet still the raider force moved on, for they had been given a command and that was all they needed.

“Magnificent . . .” the Aramite commander whispered again. His hand twitched as he once more sought the talisman that would have let him manipulate such power.

The same sensation swept over him. A second flash burned away the world in a sea of light. D’Rance and the others were forced to fall back and shield their eyes, but Lord D’Farany barely noticed. He breathed in the holocaust air and felt a strength he had not felt in years.

With an almost wistful expression on his ravaged countenance, he slowly turned toward the blue man and quietly commanded, “Bring me the box now, Kanaan.”

Still blinking, the bearded northerner reached into the depths of his cloak and pulled out a tiny, rectangular container. The Pack Leader nodded pleasantly, having known all the time that the blue man would have it on him despite orders to the contrary. He forgave D’Rance such things, because it pleased him to do so. There would come a time when he overstepped himself and when that happened D’Farany would either punish him properly or turn him over to D’Marr, who had never made it a secret that he wanted the blue man’s skin.

The Aramite commander liked to think of himself as a fair man. He was also perfectly willing to give the younger officer to the northerner if circumstances warranted it.

He removed his gloves and, with great respect, took the tiny black box from D’Rance. The former keeper ran one finger over the lid, outlining the wolf’s head engraved there. It had taken him much effort and time to gather the forces stored within and he treated them with the care they deserved.

A third burst of light raised anew the shouts and screams, but the sounds were merely insignificant irritations to him as he opened the top and admired his prize.

In the days of the keepers, it would have been called the Ravager’s Tooth. A curved artifact shaped to resemble a hound’s fang, it was small enough to fit in his palm. He had once had one like it, before the day of emptiness. With great eagerness, Lord D’Farany removed the talisman from the box and cupped it in his left hand. The terrible smile stretched tighter as he allowed himself to briefly become ensorcelled by the tooth.

My master, why have you forsaken us? In the talisman was the residue of the Ravager’s unholy will. Long ago, a younger D’Farany had discovered that although their god had vanished and taken his power with him, there were traces in the talismans of the keepers . . . even traces in the keepers themselves. It had meant dark work, locating the artifacts and the bodies and drawing the lingering power from them, but he had prevailed. Yet the power this piece contained was limited; each use drained the talisman. It would soon be as empty as he was.

“But not for long . . .” The Pack Leader cradled the piece in his hand and returned the box to the blue man. He then turned back to where his men fought to survive and held out the talisman toward the gleaming landscape where he supposed the cavern entrance was.

Yet again the earth was shaken by a burst of deadly light. The Quel might no longer be masters of the