Keith Baker - The fading dream

Fighting the dreams had made Thorn overconfident. With his tattered cloak and threadbare armor, it was all too easy to think of Shan Doresh as a faded soldier, a spirit whose time had passed. Yet he struck with lightning speed and deadly precision. A thrust of the gleaming blade was an instant away from piercing her heart. She parried just in time, but he was already swinging the heavy scepter in his left hand; she felt a burst of pain as the rod struck her temple. It was only a momentary distraction, but in such a struggle, one moment could make all the difference. Abandoning all thought of offense, Thorn threw herself backward. The lunar blade slashed open her thigh as she rolled away.

If Doresh had followed her, that might have been the end, but once his blade was bloodied, the fallen eladrin wished to savor the battle. He smiled. “In truth, it has been decades since I have relied on my sword to finish a fight.”

As Thorn rose to her feet, she could practically see him remembering past victories.

“Come,” he said. The opalescent radiance of his sword pulsed, the flashing beat one more distraction. “Show me what little skill you possess.”

“I can do that from here,” Thorn said, flinging Steel at his throat.

The Stone of Dreams flashed as Doresh raised his scepter. He struck Steel out of the air with a casual disdain, and the dagger clattered across the floor. Thorn reached out with her thoughts… and nothing happened. Steel should have flown back to her hand; instead he remained still, a lump of cold metal on the floor.

Her moment of concern nearly cost her her life. Shan Doresh struck the moment her attention faltered. The light faded from his crescent blade, and it was almost invisible as he lunged. It was sheer instinct that saved her. She leaped back the moment she saw movement, and the distance gave her just enough room to catch the blade against a bracer. Doresh maintained the attack. Steel wasn’t in her hand, and Doresh unleashed a flurry of blows, moving forward as Thorn fell back. Her arms ached as she caught blow after blow against her vambraces.

“You’re unarmed,” he said as Thorn swept aside a stroke that would have torn open her throat. “Tiring. One mistake will end it all. Just one mistake.”

He was trying to plant doubts in her mind because in that place those doubts would become truth. She’d already learned the trick, and despite the danger, she hadn’t given up hope. Drix needed her. Breland needed her. Walking the halls, she’d imagined those beasts she’d seen in the kennels unleashed on Sharn, imagined her brother, Nandon, fighting for his life against the terrors she’d seen. No. She’d walked strange paths to get there, and if she fell, it wasn’t going to be because of doubt.

The thought gave her renewed vigor. She was learning the rhythms of Doresh’s attacks and letting his confidence grow. But he was wrong. She wasn’t unarmed.

For a moment, she let her guard falter, leaving the barest opening. Doresh struck. The edge of his blade cut across her, but Thorn was already moving. She twisted her left arm around the eladrin’s sword arm, sliding forward to trap his blade. Then, summoning all the strength of the dragon, she slammed her knee up against him.

The warlord’s sword flew from his grasp, and he staggered back across the room. But it was Thorn’s turn to press the attack. She charged forward, a thought bringing the myrnaxe from her glove. He blocked her first stroke with his scepter, the darkwood holding against the blow, but the force of it kept him off balance. She switched her grip, thrusting with the silver spearhead, and he fell back, staying just ahead of her. Just as she was about to sink the blade into his heart, he gestured with his scepter. She felt the ward wrapping around her, but she knew what to do. She drew on the power of the Quiet Stone, letting the warmth flow up and around her, and walked through the mystic bonds.

While he couldn’t hold her, the spell had bought Doresh a moment to recover. He raised his scepter again. At his throat, the Stone of Dreams burned with a brilliant light.

“Enough!” he roared and Thorn could feel the power building in the air. “I am Shan Lian Doresh, the lord of nightmares! To face me is to face your deepest terrors! Let us see what you fear!”

She sent him crashing to the floor with a single blow of the flat of the axe. A moment later she was pinning him down, her knee on his chest and the haft of the axe pressed against his throat. “Nice speech,” she said. “But I think this Quiet Stone keeps my fears concealed. Just in case-” She reached down and tore the silver brooch from around his neck. “I think I’d better hold on to this.”

Doresh screamed, and as he did, the room around them faded. There was a crack as fractures snaked down the grand windows. The nightmares in the sky outside the tower fell suddenly silent, and the hammers of the smiths stopped ringing. Patches of rot spread across a tapestry on the wall, and Shan Doresh himself seemed to shrivel within his armor. He went limp beneath her, his tortured cry coming to an abrupt end. His scepter crumbled away, and Thorn heard his sword shatter.

Thorn stared down at the fallen warlord. Even with his threadbare cloak, he’d held a sense of majesty and might. After she removed the Stone of Dreams, he was just an ancient scarecrow clad in tarnished armor.

“Finish me, then,” he said. “Claim your prize. Let there be an end to it.”

“I don’t think so,” Thorn told him. “I was given a job. I’m taking my friend. I’m taking these stones and yours with them. I’ll let the Council of the Silver Tree decide your fate.”

Doresh didn’t move as Thorn slowly stood. She wasn’t certain if he had the strength to stand on his own. She turned to Drix. Around her, the trappings of the chamber continued to decay. Yet it seemed the ward holding Drix was still in place.

Then Doresh was upon her.

He’d lost none of his speed, and there was no time to escape. One bony hand wrapped tightly around her own, trying to wrest the Stone of Dreams from her grasp. The other pressed against the back of her neck, and agony flowed through her. Thorn couldn’t concentrate on the Quiet Stone; she focused every ounce of willpower on holding on to the Stone of Dreams.

Doresh was howling, his voice a wild shriek. “One dream!” he cried. “One terror. Give that to me, and I will see you fall!”

And fall she did, pain driving her to her knees. She still had the silver brooch clutched tightly in her fist, but something had changed. There was a terrible heat in the room. Thorn had walked in lava without feeling it, yet she felt as though she were leaning over a smith’s forge. Sweat beaded on her skin. She could feel a shift in the air pressure, a hot breeze flowing over her, a stench of sulfur and ash.

Even as she rolled onto her back, she knew what she was going to see. Shan Doresh was staring down at her, still little more than an emaciated wight in blackened robes. A glorious beast towered over him, filling the tower hall with her bulk. Her crimson scales were the color of fresh blood, and if the legends were true, mundane steel would shatter against them. Long horns curled back over her head, and her horns and teeth had the color and gleam of polished obsidian. Her eyes gleamed with inner fire, the heat that filled the room, and Thorn knew that one breath could incinerate everything there. For she knew that glorious monster. She’d seen her in her worst nightmares, struggled with her in her mind.

The dragon Sarmondelaryx.

The Angel of Flame.

Shan Doresh hadn’t even looked up to see what he had summoned. He had eyes for only Thorn. “Crush the life from her,” he cried. “Crush her. Retrieve my stone, so that I can begin to rebuild from this humiliation.”