Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. III

briefly flourished long, long ago, when godlike mages had journeyed from their dying world to this one in an attempt to escape a doom they themselves had caused.

There was Vraad sorcery here, but Vraad sorcery with a peculiar taste to it. Cabe shook his head, unwilling to believe this. First Hadeen and now yet another terrible spirit from his past. He tried to reject the notion. The touch was unmistakable, however. Only one spellcaster had wielded such strange magic.

Shade.

Cabe followed the siren trail. He could do nothing else. It was almost a compulsion, but one that he knew was his own doing. He had to know. Hadeen, if it had been Hadeen, was lost to him again, but the trail he now followed was as strong as ever.

If it was the blur-faced warlock, somehow alive, would he be friend or foe? Did another sinister Madrac await Cabe, or would there instead be someone like the kindly but enigmatic Simon? Toward the end, the original personality of Shade had surfaced, or so Darkhorse had said. Would it be that one? What was that Shade like? He had been Vraad . . .

At the battered wall, Cabe paused. Part of him screamed that he should turn around, flee. Shade was more powerful than he. Yet, despite that plea, the warlock finally stepped through the broken wall. He had no choice. It would forever haunt him if he failed to discover the truth.

The first sight that met his eyes was disappointing. Weeds and more rubble. Dragon-torched skeletons of once tall buildings. Two decades of weather that had left some structures virtually unrecognizable. A skull, marking either the last resting place of one of the citizenry or a traveler who had made the mistake of thinking the ruins a safe place to rest.

There was no Shade.

The sensation had not faded. Cabe was close. He eyed the various ruined buildings, seeking the direction from which the Vraad sorcery emanated. His eyes alighted on what looked to have been an inn or tavern. He could not help smiling despite the seriousness of the situation. The first time Cabe had encountered the shadowy warlock had been where the young Bedlam had been serving ales. Shade had sat undetected at one of the far tables, watching the grandson of Nathan. He had spoken in a rather enigmatic fashion about Cabe’s life, then had vanished before the serving boy could ask for clarification.

The path to the ruined tavern was filled with shattered stone and rotting wood, but Cabe chose to dare it rather than risk materializing inside. He kept his magical senses alert, but it was difficult to notice anything else in the presence of so strong a Vraadish force. The warlock could almost picture Shade sitting among the ghosts of Mito Pica, quietly sipping an ale he had summoned from the shadows.

He was nearly at the cracked and open doorway when the earth beneath his feet burst upward.

The speed with which the long black tentacles moved left him too stunned to act. They rose on all sides of him, never touching the spellcaster but instead coming together a foot or two above his head. As they touched, a green shimmer swept over the cage within which Cabe suddenly found himself trapped. The spell was one of the swiftest the baffled warlock had ever been unfortunate enough to experience. Freedom had become imprisonment in less time than it took to blink the proverbial eye.

Recovering, the warlock immediately probed his cell. What he discovered both unnerved and confused him. Other than capturing him, the magical prison meant Cabe no harm. It was simply designed to hold him where he was. He had expected some sort of death trap, but such was not the case.

As relieved as he was by the lack of any imminent threat, Cabe did not relax his efforts. Harmless the cage might be, but in the fulfilling of its basic function it excelled. Cabe searched every strand of the spell and could find no flaw. This was a cage designed to hold a spellcaster of astonishing power. The one who had designed it had worked long and hard. As he studied it again, Cabe had the sinking feeling that escape would be anything but simple. In fact, he had some doubts as to whether he could escape at all.

The warlock had to try, of course. He had no intention of idly passing the time while he waited the coming of the mage who had set the trap.

The trap’s design still perplexed him. Why use traces of Vraadish magic as a lure? Few knew of the Vraad, much less their tainted power. For that matter, the trace had been a specific one, specifically that of Shade. Yet, Cabe doubted that Shade had had anything to do with this. The warlock was dead . . . as far as he knew. Somebody had simply decided to use the memory of him to bait the snare.

Which strongly hinted that the trap had been set for a particular being. . . .

Even as he contemplated that, the tenacious warlock was already at work seeking a way of escape. The tentacles themselves were not likely to break, but the place where they joined together above him might be a weak link. With intense concentration, Cabe sent a tendril of power up to the point of convergence. The tendril was thin, barely a whisper, but behind it he built up an incredible reservoir of energy. All Cabe had to do was find a slight gap in the point of connection, and then he would be able to funnel the stored power through. That, the warlock was fairly certain, would give him the opening he needed to destroy his cell.

The fault in his plan proved to be the simple fact that no such gap existed. Try as he might, Cabe could not locate a break. The tendrils had bonded together so perfectly that it was almost possible to believe that the cage had been created whole. Frustrated, the imprisoned mage continued to poke futilely about the top with his sorcery, trying to create his own gap. But even after he had exhausted every bit of sorcerous energy he had gathered for his escape, the spell controlling the magical prison remained unchallenged and unweakened.

This was the work of someone who had planned long and hard for this time. Yet how could they know that he would come here? Why such an elaborate ploy for him?

“No . . . not me . . .” Cabe muttered. The cold chill of reality danced down his spine. They could not have known so quickly where he would be, but whoever had devised this cunning trap might have been familiar with the ways of Darkhorse. Cabe doubted that he and Gwen were the only ones who knew that the shadow steed haunted this miserable place. Someone else must have noticed him.

There were many, not all of them drakes, who wanted the eternal for one reason or another. Most, though, would have been satisfied with destroying him . . . if such was within their power. Yet, this spell did nothing but keep one prisoner. Someone wanted Darkhorse, but for a purpose. In that, Cabe considered himself fortunate. A death trap created with the shadow steed in mind would have stood a better than average chance of killing the warlock. He was only human, whereas Darkhorse was . . . Darkhorse.

Cabe tried physical action, first pushing against the side of his prison, then attempting to tear through it. Success still mocked him. After several minutes of useless maneuvering, the weary mage finally sat down and stared at his surroundings. It appeared the creator of the sinister spell had planned for all contingencies.

Momentarily putting aside his escape plans, Cabe wondered where his captors were. Considering their effort, he would have expected them to appear the moment the trap had been sprung. Yet, as the minutes passed, no one came to claim him. It occurred to him that perhaps this might be an old spell left over from the destruction of the city, but the use of the false trail, the scent of Shade’s sorcery, seemed to indicate otherwise. No one would have bothered setting such an elaborate trap in the midst of Mito Pica’s downfall. Besides, Darkhorse had been to the ruins too many times for the shadow steed not to have noticed this spell before. At the very least, the eternal would have seen to it that the trap was harmlessly sprung rather than leave it for some unsuspecting fool . . . like Cabe Bedlam.

As he grimaced at his own ignorance, something that two decades of magical training should have had some effect on by now, Cabe suddenly became aware of the faint presence of another person.

No, he almost immediately amended, two. Repositioning himself, he tried to use his magic to seek out the newcomers. The cage, however, evidently muted his skills, for the two faint figures remained just that. With his magic unable to help him, Cabe resorted to simply scanning his surroundings, but a quick examination of the devastated region revealed nothing new. Everything was exactly as it had been the moment before he had been snared . . . yet somewhere out there were two nearing figures. Try as he might, the warlock was unable to discover any more.

Then, just as suddenly as they had come, the two vanished. Cabe could not feel their presence anywhere. The imprisoned mage had no time to wonder what had happened, for only a breath or two after the first pair disappeared, a third presence, more evident to his senses, popped into existence somewhere very near the