Richard Knaak - Legends of the Dragonrealm Volume 2

With a stiff gesture, Darkhorse reversed the outcome of the spell. Instead of creating yet another cage around the first, he tore the present one apart.

The elderly sorcerer lowered his hands and resumed his deathlike stance. Darkhorse took a hesitant step toward the edge of his prison. One limb, stretched to needle-thin, touched the barrier-and passed beyond it. Jubilant, Darkhorse leaped free, not trusting his luck to hold long.

“Freedom! Ahhh, sweet-tasting freedom! Excellent work, my mortal puppet! Most excellent work!” He gazed down almost fondly at the spellcaster. “For that, you deserve a reward of great value, something I think you’ve lacked these past days! Sleep! Deep, restful sleep! A long, restful nap will do you wonders! When you wake, I want you to do one more thing for me; seek out the source of your Vraad sorcery, this book, and destroy it! Rest now!”

Drayfitt slumped to the floor.

With one last, contemptuous scan of the chamber that had been his prison, Darkhorse reared, opened a path to the beyond, and vanished through it.

As night prepared to give way to day, the object of Darkhorse’s desperate quest materialized in the middle of a chamber that was quite a contrast to the one recently forced upon the shadow steed. Though a bit more austere than the personal quarters of King Melicard, they were elegant and, indeed, also fit for a king.

Shade reached out a hand and ran a finger along the edge of a massive, golden couch. A thick layer of dust flew off. The warlock may have smiled. No one had made use of this room in quite some time, years perhaps.

The rumors were true, then. These chambers had once belonged to the Lord Gryphon, inhuman but just ruler of Penacles; the legendary City of Knowledge. Once, the Gryphon had been a comrade, sometimes a friend, but only at those times when Shade could be trusted. The Gryphon had understood him better than most, save Darkhorse. As Shade wiped the dust from his fingertip, he found the almost missed his sometime adversary. The Gryphon was rumored to be somewhere across the Eastern Seas, fighting some war that seemed unwilling to completely finish itself. Despite numerous pleas by various city functionaries, the man he had left in charge, a minor spellcaster of masterful strategy, General Toos, refused to take on the mantle of king. Instead, the general had chosen to become regent, with powers equal to those of the monarch with the unique option of retiring in favor of the Gryphon if and when he returned.

So much the better, Shade decided. He turned in a slow circle, observing each and every object, whether it stood on the floor, was pinned to the wall, or hung from the ceiling. Most things were as he remembered them, even down to the two lifelike metal statues standing on each side of the door. They were iron golems, animated creatures of cold metal created by the former lord of Penacles to guard his personal chambers. Surprisingly swift, the creatures should have been on top of the warlock the moment he materialized. Unlike most intruders, however, Shade had the key to their control.

There were words, implanted deep in their very beings, that, when acknowledged by the golems, made them no more than fanciful statues. Words that Shade had silently flung at them before completely materializing. There were advantages to having once been privy to the secrets of the Gryphon. The warlock chuckled quietly, then turned to one of the far walls, where the object of his search, a great, intricately woven tapestry of the entire city of Penacles, hung.

That the tapestry hung here, unwanted by the regent, said many things. The artifact was ancient, even older than Shade. He touched it delicately. General Toos had never hidden his dislike for talismans of power, though he tolerated them. The tapestry itself was only a link to another greater wonder, though. Leaning as close as he dared, the warlock slowly studied the pattern. Each and every street, every building, was represented. Despite having been originally weaved during the initial construction of Penacles, the tapestry revealed structures that were no more than a year or two old.

“Even after all this time, you still work flawlessly,” Shade whispered. The creator had been a perfectionist and even Shade acknowledged the superiority of this artifact.

For several minutes he scanned the tapestry, seeking a masking that he could not even be certain he would recognize. Like the city, the mark he sought changed over the years. Sometimes, it was a stylized picture of a book. Other times, it had been a single letter. There had been many symbols over the centuries, a number of them highly obscure.

I need your fantastic eyes, Lord Gryphon! You were always able to spot the mark with little more than a glance!

Then, his eyes fell on a tiny, twisted banner, one familiar to him as it would be to no other creature living today. Shade smiled his hidden smile and the blur of face seemed to swirl with emotion. He memorized the location and briefly looked up at the tapestry in open admiration. “One would think you were living, old thing, and, if so, you have a wicked sense of humor! My-my father-might even have been amused!”

Father. The warlock shivered. Not all the memories that returned were particularly pleasant ones. He quickly buried himself in his task.

Locating the mark again, Shade rubbed the banner with one finger, and as he did, the room around him began to fade. Shade may have smiled. He continued to rub the mark as the Gryphon’s chambers gave way to another room of sorts, a corridor. The tapestry, still whole, remained until the living quarters had completely dissipated. Then, it, too, faded away. The warlock was left standing in a corridor whose walls were lined with endless shelves of massive, bound tomes, all identical, even in color. The tapestry still worked.

He stood in the legendary libraries of Penacles.

The libraries had been standing long before the city. His memories returning, Shade recalled some of the truth about the odd structure, a building beneath the earth, beneath Penacles, that was larger on the inside than the outside and never to be found in the same location. Its true origins were unknown even to him, but he suspected that, as with the spell that Melicard’s sorcerer had used to make Darkhorse’s cage, this was Vraad work.

Other than the countless volumes stored here, there was not much to see. The floor was polished marble. The corridor he stood in and those he could see were all illuminated by the same unseen source. The shelves themselves might have been brand new, though Shade knew otherwise. Time seemed not to matter in the libraries.

“You have returned after all this time.”

The matter-of-fact statement proved to be issued by a small, egg-headed figure clad in simple cloth garments. His arms almost reached the ground, due in great part to his uncommonly short legs. There was not so much as a strand of hair on his head.

One of the gnomes-or perhaps the only gnome-who acted as librarians here. As far as Shade could recall, the libraries had always had gnomes and all of them had been identical in appearance.

“Ten years is not so long to the two of us,” the spellcaster mocked, recalling his final visit here with the Lord Gryphon.

The gnome seemed oblivious to the tone of mockery, replying simply, “Ten years, no. A thousand years, yes. Even to the two of us.”

Though his face was unreadable, Shade’s body was not. He stiffened and tried to speak, but was uneasy about his choice of words. The gnome chose to fill the silence.

“What you seek is not here. It is, perhaps, the one piece of knowledge the libraries refuse to contain.”

Speaking of the libraries in terms of a thinking creature irritated the warlock. He had no desire to feel as if he were in the belly of a beast. “Then where is it? It exists!”