Jean Rabe - Redemption

The dragon growled and sent ripples through the earth. Her mind picked out the words.

“Yes, master. I am confident your ogre-puppet will find a way to delay Dhamon until he is ready. Of course I will step in, if need be.” Nura paused, her senses studying the shadow dragon, finding the great creature more alive with energy than she had ever seen him.

“That time will be very soon,” the dragon told her. “I can feel it. Dhamon rages against my magic, fights it with his mind, but his rage feeds his transformation. His body is not as strong as his mind, and I will win.”

“Soon.” Nura’s thoughts caressed the dragon’s, drawing strength from her master. Minds mingling, she could feel what the dragon felt. “Very soon,” she purred.

Yes. Soon Dhamon would be ready to face the Black. Maybe it was a matter of hours, maybe a few days. She would guide him, and if he defeated the overlord, her master would have just what he wanted.

And soon, she would rule at the shadow dragon’s side.

“Show me the beginning, master,” she urged. “Please, again, show me the beginning, the Chaos War and your birth. There is time. Dhamon is not yet ready, and the city streets are not yet dark.” She intended to go down into Shrentak when all traces of the setting sun were gone. “It has been so long since you’ve told me the tale.”

The shadow dragon relented and opened his mind, and Nura felt herself plunging into the Abyss. The images were a delirium to her. She felt practically smothered by the heat of the infernal realm. The noise of battle nearly deafened her. The sounds of lightning strikes always came first, brought on by the breaths of the swarm of blue dragons ridden by the Knights of Takhisis. Then sulfur filled the air, mixed with the sweet coppery scent of the blood of those who were falling and tumbling all around her. There were screams and shouted orders from the bravest of Knights, pitiful cries from the dying. The dragons roared, the caverns shook, and everywhere men and women perished by flames, swords, and magic.

“Glorious,” she murmured.

The images were so real Nura felt blood spattering her face and felt her eyes water at the exquisite acridness of the Abyss. She flicked a tongue out, tasting the air and the blood, growing drunk on the glorious pandemonium.

“Show me more, master.”

The war was waged, the battle grew grander and deadlier. In the vision Nura Bint-Drax moved easily through the many tunnels of the cavern, slithering over corpses and around dying dragons, seeing and touching everything and discovering something new that she had missed during her previous visions. As the images of war intensified, she seemed to merge with the mass of combatants, skin tingling from the energy in the air from the blue dragons’ lightning breaths.

In the center of everything was Chaos, a massive god-being known as the Father of All and Nothing.

He batted dragons away with the back of his hand, his booming laughter sent chunks of the ceiling falling down atop Solamnic Knights and Knights of Takhisis, his very thoughts brought disaster to ranks of fighting men. Chaos called his own forces into play, forming out of his very essence smouldering dragons that crackled and hissed with fire. There were ghastly demon warriors and undead—frost wights and shadow wights.

There were also whirling dervishes of wild magic, and when they touched something there were unpredictable and catastrophic results. Nura also saw creatures that must be gremlins and odd, wide-eyed creatures called huldrefolk.

Through the smoke and horror, she witnessed again the birth of the shadow dragon.

Chaos’ shadow was an ever-twisting giant thing, and when it grew wilder and more contorted, the Father of All and Nothing reached down and plucked it loose from the ground and gave it life of its own.

It molded itself into a dragon form, but it retained the color of Chaos’ shadow, and its scales darkly glistened with the light of the god’s magic.

The newborn shadow dragon flew around the ceiling of the immense cavern, darting down to swipe at the blue dragons trying to close with Chaos. It gained strength with their deaths, absorbing their death-energy as it would absorb the energy of others in the coming dragonpurge—as it intended to absorb Sable’s death energy when Dhamon Grimwulf slew the overlord. The few wounds it suffered healed quickly.

Dust and bits of rock rained down from the ceiling as the Father of All and Nothing bellowed his defiance at the puny creatures daring to challenge him. His shadow dragon minion continued to spread death and disaster.

When Chaos was again imprisoned in the Graygem, the shadow dragon escaped from the Abyss through a mysterious portal and found himself high in the mountains of Blöde.

“Thank you, master, for the vision,” Nura Bint-Drax murmured rhapsodically.

When she first crossed the shadow dragon’s path, he had healed her from a life-threatening injury she suffered fighting a hatchling black dragon. She had sworn allegiance to the shadow dragon, and he, in turn, often permitted her the vision of the Chaos War. The tale came more rarely now, despite her frequent requests. She intended to replay this version in her mind again soon—after she checked on that fool Maldred and on Dhamon’s progress.

“You are right, master. Dhamon Grimwulf should be ready very soon.” She slid from the rise and headed down toward the city, resuming her Ergothian guise as she moved. Above her the first stars were winking into view, and the beauty of the night sickened her, so it was with some joy that she entered the dismal, darkening streets of Shrentak and let the fetid redolence of Sable’s city embrace her.

Dhamon spied an empty alley off the same street where the old sage had lived. He had no way of knowing that she was dead, or that Ragh had killed her while he lay unconscious after suffering one of his worst scale episodes, and he had no intention of seeking her out again. But he knew that her stunted tower boasted secret ways of connecting with Shrentak’s under-city of twisting corridors and fetid dungeons. Somewhere in the depths of the undercity was Sable’s lair.

“There isn’t anything down that alley, Dhamon.” Fiona was following his eyes, staring in the same direction. “Nothing but dirt and garbage and rats.”

Perhaps Maldred’s corpse will feel at home there, Dhamon said to himself. I’ll kill him slowly, not until he’s given up a little useful information. He pointed to a tavern just south of the alley. “Hungry?”

“I suppose.” She nodded, but continued to stare down the alley and dropped her fingers to the pommel of her long sword. “This sword talks to me, Dhamon.”

“I know.” The words hissed out between his teeth. The blade had “talked” to him, too, when he owned it months ago, taunting him with promises of cures for the scale on his leg. “That’s all I need,”

Dhamon whispered to himself. “A mad woman with a weapon that talks to her.” Not that he had much choice. He didn’t want that sword, and Shrentak was not a place to leave Fiona weaponless.

Aloud, he said, “Pay no attention to what that damn sword says, Fiona. It lies.”

“Like you and Maldred and everyone else.”

Dhamon tugged her away from the alley and guided her inside the tavern. Ragh followed silently.

Though the outside looked rundown, the interior was surprisingly clean and well kept, and the homey scents that hung in the air miraculously kept the foul odors of the city at bay. A fire burned at the back and, along with a dozen lanterns on the walls, made the place warm and cozy. The tables were all of a polished, dark wood, as was a bar that stretched nearly the entire length of the place. The furniture had some age to it, Dhamon noted. The ebonwood trees the pieces were carved from dated before Sable, when the land was a prairie rather than a spreading swamp. Dhamon doubted a single ebonwood tree grew in the great morass now.