Richard Knaak - Legends of the Dragonrealm Volume 2

“Have you forgotten Azran Bedlam so soon?” Darkhorse had bellowed. “With his unholy blade, the Nameless, he slew a legion of drakes, including the Red Dragon himself!”

The king had smiled coldly at that. “For that, he had my admiration and thanks.”

“They might’ve easily been humans, mortal! Azran was no less dangerous to his own kind!”

“The creature you call Shade has existed for as long as recorded memory, yet the world remains. If you wish, you may deal with him after you have served me. That seems fair.”

It was futile to try and explain that always there had been someone to keep Shade in check and that someone had more often than not been Darkhorse. Other spellcasters had fought and beaten the warlock, true, but always the shadow steed had been, at the very least, in the background. Now, he was helpless.

“Well, demon?”

In pent-up anger, Darkhorse had reared and kicked at the unbreakable, invisible wall, screaming, “Madman! Can you not hear me? Does your mind refuse to understand reality? Your damnable little obsession will never be fulfilled, and while you muster your fanatics Shade will bring both drake and human down! I know this!”

At that point, King Melicard had turned to the sorcerer beside him and said, “Teach him.”

For his refusal to obey, Darkhorse had suffered. The old sorcerer Drayfitt had surprised him again, intertwining a number of painful subspells into the structure of the magical cage. The pain had not stopped until the jet-black stallion had been no more than a mass of shadow huddled on the floor. Finally, Melicard had simply turned and departed, pausing at the doorway only long enough to give some instructions to the spellcaster. With the king had gone the devious one, the mortal who was known as Counselor Quorin.

Alone with the elderly sorcerer, Darkhorse had pleaded his cause once more. Fruitlessly. Drayfitt was one of those men who embodied the worst and best trait of his race: blind loyalty.

And so here I remain, the spectral horse snorted in frustration. Here I remain.

“I once suffered a fate similar to the one facing you now,” a familiar voice mocked. “Trapped with seemingly no way out. I think you can imagine how I felt.”

Darkhorse rapidly drew himself together, all his power preparing for the worst.

The torch was suddenly ablaze again, but its flame was a deep red that bespoke of blood. Amidst the crimson shadows, a cloaked and hooded figure detached itself.

“Shade… or Madrac…” Darkhorse rumbled. “Come to mock only when you know for certain your hide is safe from harm.”

The warlock bowed like a minstrel after a successful command performance. “Call me Madrac, if you will-or any other name, for that matter. I don’t care. I’ve come to tell you something. I sat quietly drinking in a tavern, absorbing life itself for once. I remember, you see. I remember everything from every life. I recall the fatal day, the agony of being torn apart and restored to existence again and again and again! I recall more than I could ever recount to you!”

As long as he had known the human, Darkhorse had known a man condemned. Forever resurrected after each death, whether his body was whole or not, Shade was cursed to live lives alternately devoted to the dark and light sides of his nature. Each was only a shadow of the original spellcaster, however. Memories were so incomplete as to sometimes be nonexistent. Abilities altered. In desperation to be whole, each new personality even took on a secondary name of its own, such as Madrac, hoping that somehow he would be the final, immortal Shade. Now, after millennia, something had changed to make that possible. Understanding this, hope briefly spurred Darkhorse. “Then your curse is lifted; you can live in peace.”

Shade chuckled bitterly and stepped forward. Raising his hood, he let the shadow steed stare into his face, or rather, the blurry mask that passed for it. “Not yet, my dear friend, not yet, but-Madrac is fading and I cannot be certain what sort of persona will replace him. A different one from those past, that much is evident. I felt the need to speak to you, though, to tell you, but…”

“If you can free me, I will do what I can for you, Shade.”

“Free you? Don’t be absurd! I rather enjoy the irony of this!”

The tone of the warlock’s voice stirred the eternal’s misgivings far more than the actual words did. Has the curse given way to something darker, something much more sinister? Darkhorse wondered. Shade’s personality seemed to be swinging back and forth unpredictably. If the warlock had not been mad before, he soon would be under the pressure of this new torture.

Putting a hand to his forehead as if trying to relieve pain, Shade continued, “I also came to tell you this: I know where my mistake was made-where my spell went awry. I know why the ‘immortality’ I did receive turned out to be a never-ending agony. That can be rectified-this time.”

He took a step closer to the magical cage. “You-you can do nothing to deter me. Not while you are trapped here. The spellcaster responsible for your pleasant little domain has touched upon Vraad sorcery to create the cage. Do you know what that means?”

Darkhorse did not respond at first, stunned as he was by the warlock’s words, especially the last. “I know of Vraad sorcery. It no longer exists in this reality! The Vraad only live on in the seeds of their descendents; their magic has given way to the magic of this world!”

Shade inclined his head in a brief nod. “As you wish. Test the spell yourself-oh”-the spellcaster may have smiled; it was difficult for anyone other than him to know for certain-“that’s right. You can’t. You’re inside, of course, and the patterns are outside, surrounding the barrier.”

“Why did you come here, Shade? Merely to talk?”

“I came against my better judgment-but-I felt an overwhelming urge. Call it a whim.”

“Call it conscience.” Darkhorse retorted quietly.

“Conscience? I no longer have such a wasteful thing!” The hooded warlock stepped back, growing more indistinct with each step. There was always something not quite right, not quite normal, about Shade’s magic, but Darkhorse could not say what.

“Enjoy your vast domain while you can, friend. When you see me next, if you ever do, I will at last be master of my fate-and so much more.”

“Shade-” It was too late; the warlock dwindled away into nothing. The torch died the moment he was gone, plunging Darkhorse into the blackness again. It was the least of his concerns, though. The brief, puzzling visitation by him who was both enemy and friend interested him much, much more.

To say that Shade’s return to him was contradictory to what the spellcaster should have done was putting it so mildly that Darkhorse had to laugh. Shade did nothing without reason, even if Shade might not know the reason himself. To simply come to mock Darkhorse was not enough; it was not the warlock’s way in any of his countless lives, at least, the ones that the shadow steed knew about.

How old are you really? It was a question he had asked Shade time and again and it blossomed unbidden now, but there was no answer. The spellcaster could never recall. He only remembered a few vague things; that he, an ambitious sorcerer, had tried to gain mastery over powers that were, at the time, known simply as good and evil, dark and light. Perhaps colored by such primitive perceptions, Shade had made some fatal error in the final steps of his master spell. The powers were not his to command; he was theirs to play with. Perhaps the enchantment had even succeeded, but not the way the spellcaster had supposed. That still did not answer the question that always bothered the jet-black stallion. How old was Shade before we first encountered one another? Old enough to recall the Vraad? Old enough to-be one?