Марк Энтони - Curse of the Shadowmage

Slow, deliberate applause rang out over the chasm. K’shar was clapping. “I salute you, Renegade,” the half-elf said in admiration. “You are more worthy than I had even guessed. Truly, you have given me the chase of a lifetime. And you have given me a new experience as well.”

“And what experience is that?” Mari asked, curious despite herself.

“Losing,” K’shar replied with a rueful smile. “For it is clear that you have won, Al’maren. I congratulate you.”

K’shar’s reaction unnerved Mari. Strangely, she felt almost sorry to have to kill the half-elf. In a way she rather liked him. She was surprised to find herself saying so. “You know, I think in a different time and place, we might have been friends, Hunter.”

“You may be right, Renegade. However, at present our duties contrive to make enemies of us. We will have to save friendship for another lifetime.”

All of a sudden, K’shar lunged into motion. As he did, Mari brought the glowing sword down against the keystone with all her might. Purple magic flashed brilliantly, followed by a sound like breaking glass. The crystal shattered into a thousand glittering shards.

Mari stumbled backward. With a sound like thunder, the graceful arch of the bridge lurched violently. K’shar fell sprawling, sliding across the onyx surface and halfway over the edge. His hands scrabbled against slick stone, searching vainly for purchase. When the other two keystones exploded in sprays of shining splinters, the bridge shuddered. K’shar slid farther over the edge, feet dangling above the chasm. For a moment he looked up, his eyes meeting Mari’s. He opened his mouth, but whether to bid her farewell or to curse her to the Abyss, she would never know. The bridge gave one final twitch. Then with a deafening crack! the span disintegrated. The stone arch collapsed into a rain of dark rubble, plummeting into the gorge and carrying the half-elf with it.

Mari dashed to the edge, but by the time she looked down, the remains of the bridge were already out of sight in the vast depths below. Footsteps sounded behind her.

“Your plan worked, Mari,” Morhion said softly.

She nodded slowly but did not answer. Instead she bowed her head, whispering a brief prayer for the dead. After a moment she turned and faced the others. “Let’s get going,” she said hoarsely.

The four mounted their horses and rode between the stone colossi into the kingdom of Ebenfar.

While the High Moor had been desolate, it had still displayed small signs of life as well as a kind of raw-edged beauty. In contrast, the realm they passed through now was utterly barren. The broken landscape was a tortuous labyrinth littered with piles of dark slag and pits half-filled with foul water. Except for the steady hoofbeats of the four horses, all was preternaturally silent. There were no birds, nor any other living creature. Even the wind had stopped. The air hung perfectly still under the dour sky, cold and breathless as a winter tomb. If ever there was a land that was truly dead, Ebenfar was one.

“Cheery place,” Ferret noted dryly. “I’ll be sure to come here for my next vacation.” The thief’s words seemed uncomfortably loud against the brittle silence. He shivered in his cloak and refrained from making any further comments.

The cold was a hungry, maleficent thing. Mari moved to warm her hands under her jacket, but she could hardly unclench her fingers from the reins. It felt as if the chill had turned her flesh to pale ice. She turned to make certain Kellen was warm enough and saw that the boy rode with Morhion now. He sat in the saddle before the mage, wrapped in a blanket in addition to his cloak. Morhion had tied Flash’s reins to Tenebrous’s saddle, and the pony followed behind.

Such was the tomblike nature of this land that Mari was only somewhat surprised when they rounded a large slag heap and found themselves facing a ghost.

At first she thought it must be Serafi, but a moment later she knew it was not so. The spectral knight was a dark being with eyes like flames. This ghost was as gray as the leaden sky, so pale his outlines blurred into the surrounding landscape. He was clad in misty, flowing robes, like those of a wizard … or perhaps a king. His visage was proud and noble, and with a start Mari realized that she recognized the man’s face. She had seen it once before, carved into the lid of an onyx sarcophagus far below the city of Iriaebor. In the crypt of the Shadowking. She opened her mouth, but Morhion beat her to the words.

“Verraketh Talembar …”

Floating several feet above the ground, the ghostly man bowed his regal head. “Yea, wizard, thou doth know me well.” His colorless eyes flickered down to Kellen. “Greetings, scion of Talembar, child of my blood.”

Kellen regarded the ghost with calm, curious eyes. “Hello, Grandfather,” he said simply.

Mari drew in a sharp breath. “Grandfather” was hardly the proper term to describe Kellen’s relationship to Verraketh. With thirty “greats” in front of the word, perhaps. Despite her fear and wonder, a thought occurred to her.

“I don’t understand,” she said, shivering. “How is it that you appear to us as a man, Verraketh, and not as the Shadowking you were when we … when you … perished beneath Iriaebor?” She swallowed hard, realizing this might seem a rude question to someone she’d had a hand in killing. “If you don’t mind my asking,” she added hastily.

The ghost shrugged. “Forsooth, why should I care, Mari Al’maren? The concerns of the dead are not those of the living. Yet I will tell thee, this form doth mean nothing. Once, I was a child as Kellen stands now. I couldst as easily have chosen that form over this. It matters not. In death, I shall forever be all that I was in life—babe and child, minstrel and mage, and yea, Shadowking as well. Still, I choose to appear to thee in this manner. Is it well with thee, Mari Al’maren?”

Mari nodded dumbly. Who was she to argue with a ghost about what form he should take?

Ferret cleared his throat nervously. “Excuse me, Verraketh, your … er, ghostliness. My friends seem to be a little more accustomed to dealing with spirits than I am. You see, most of the dead people I’m familiar with aren’t nearly so active as yourself. Anyway, I was just wondering …” The thief screwed up his weasely face. “Let’s see. How can I put this tactfully? Are you going to be killing us anytime soon?”

The ghost’s mirthful laughter echoed from all directions, an eerie but not altogether unpleasant sound. “Fear not, gentle thief. I bear thee no grudge for thy actions in my tomb beneath Iriaebor. Thou and thy companions did free me from the dark thrall of the Shadowstar, and let me at last find peace in death. For that, I thank thee.”

Ferret bowed in his saddle. “Don’t mention it.”

“Then why have you come to us?” Mari asked, emboldened by the spirit’s words.

“To help thee,” the ghost replied. “So that the metamorphosis that made me into the Shadowking shall not be worked once again upon my scion, Caledan Caldorien. For only thou doth have the power to save him.”

“How would you help us?” Morhion asked, his blue eyes gleaming.

“Listen,” Verraketh intoned. “On the other side of yon dark ridge doth lie the vale in which I discovered the Shadowstar after it fell from the sky. There also lieth the heart of Ebenfar—the throne from which I once did rule as Shadowking. There is a secret to the vale, a secret unbeknownst even to the shadevari. A secret that, were it known, doth have the power to defeat the Shadowstar.”

“A secret?” Mari repeated. “What do you mean?”

Verraketh explained. “Long ago, there did echo in the vale a strange and wondrous music. Some claimed that it was an echo of the song the gods sang at the time of the forging of the world. If this is so, it is beyond my ken. Yet one thing I do know. When the Shadowstar fell into the vale, it was hot and molten, and before it could cool and grow solid, the music that echoed in the vale did infuse the Shadowstar, becoming a part of its being. Ever after, the music of the vale has had the power to quell the medallion. Thus the song is the key to defeating the Shadowstar. It was a fragment of that music that my son, Talek Talembar, wove into the shadow song with which he did defeat me once.”