Марк Энтони - Curse of the Shadowmage

“Then when Caledan enters the vale, the echo of the song will nullify the Shadowstar. We’ll be able to get it away from him!”

Verraketh shook his head. “It shall not be so easy as that, Mari Al’maren. Thou seest, when I was Shadowking, I feared the music of the vale. I sought to mar it, and alas I succeeded. By mine own hand, the ancient song of the vale is flawed, and as long as it is flawed, it is powerless against the Shadowstar. Therefore, thou must seeketh to restore the song.”

“But how—” Mari began. Her words were interrupted by a shriek from above. She gave Morhion a startled glance. He nodded, confirming her fear.

“The shadevari have found us,” the mage said grimly.

“Go,” the ghost of Verraketh ordered. “I shall find a way to delay the Eyeless Ones.”

“But what about the song in the vale?” Mari protested. “How are we to restore it?”

“There is not time for me to explain the way,” Verraketh said curtly. “If indeed, after all these centuries, I would even remember how. It is up to thee to find a way to restore the Valesong.” His voice rose thunderously. “Now go!”

Another bloodcurdling cry rent the air. This time, the companions did not hesitate; they urged their mounts into a wild gallop. As they rode, Mari risked a glance over her shoulder. The ghost of Verraketh had vanished. However, she noticed that the sky had grown darker. Even as she watched, the clouds began to swirl in a spiral, faster and faster. High above, the unseen shadowsteeds screeched again, and this time their cries were not cries of hunger but of anger. Ghost or not, Verraketh was doing something that the winged steeds of the shadevari did not like.

The four horses raced toward the distant ridge that lay between them and the vale of the Shadowstar. Mari gripped Farenth’s mane with white-knuckled hands.

“Hold on, Caledan,” she whispered urgently. “We’re coming as fast as we can. Hold on just a little while longer …”

But the cold wind snatched the words from her lips.

Hooves clattering against loose stone, Mista scrambled up the last few feet to the summit of the knife-edged ridge.

“Good girl,” Caledan said, leaning forward in the saddle to stroke her neck. Despite the chill, her pale coat was flecked with foam. “I knew you could do it.”

Mista nickered uncertainly in reply. She did not like this place. Nor did Caledan. He gazed down into a dark hollow in the blasted landscape. The vale of the Shadowstar.

“Well,” he said. “We’re here.”

Though he had never seen this place before, Caledan had an eerie sense that he was coming home. Perhaps, in a way, he was. A thousand years of shadow magic ran in his veins. This was where it had all begun.

The vale itself was not so much a valley as it was a crater—a circular pit gouged into the surface of the world by a terrible, otherwordly force. The walls of the vale were formed of jagged black stone. Hot steam rose from countless fissures in the crater’s floor, creeping around a jagged spire of rock that stood like a sentinel in the vale’s center. He shut his eyes, and he could almost see it: the fiery streak plunging down through the sky to strike the ground with a flash as bright as the sun and a sound as deafening as two worlds colliding, leaving in its wake a gaping wound on the face of Toril.

Caledan opened his eyes and studied the steep slope leading down into the vale. Slowly, he dismounted. His joints ached fiercely, and he was horribly dizzy. Somehow he managed to stand upright.

“I’m afraid this is where we part ways, old friend,” he said haggardly.

Mista gave a firm snort, stamping her hoof in protest.

Caledan shook his head. “You can’t make it down that slope, Mista, and you know it. Frankly, I’m not certain I can, either.” He sighed. “But I have to try.”

The ghostly gray mare let out a worried nicker.

He encircled her strong neck with his arms. “I swear, I will come back for you, Mista, if it is at all in my power. I think that you’re the only one I really remember now. I know that there are others … others who were important to me once. But I don’t know their names anymore, or their faces.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Damn, but I hardly even remember my own name anymore.”

Mista nuzzled his cheek. She bared her big yellow teeth and bit his ear, but the gesture was only halfhearted. Caledan slapped her affectionately.

“Good-bye, old friend,” he said softly.

With that, he turned and began picking his way down the treacherous wall of the crater.

The going was agonizingly slow. Rocks skidded beneath his boots. Sharp edges sliced his hands when he reached out to steady himself. He was perhaps halfway down when his feet set a whole section of loose scree into motion. The small rocks were as slick as marbles, and there was nothing for Caledan to grab on to. With a cry he fell, tumbling down the slope in a small avalanche of loose rock. When he came to a stop at the bottom, he was surprised to find he was still alive. Groaning, he pulled himself from beneath a pile of rubble and staggered to his feet. He was bruised and bloodied, his clothes rent in a score of places.

“Well, that was the quick way down,” he said with a manic laugh, but there was no one to hear his words.

Taking a deep breath, he stumbled onward, skirting a dozen crevices. Hissing steam rose from the fissures along with a dull red glow, filling the air with a sulfurous reek that seared his lungs. Only after several minutes did he consciously hear the throbbing sound that thrummed in his chest in time to his rapidly pounding heart.

It was music.

So this was the Valesong. Exactly how he knew about the Valesong, Caledan was not certain. The knowledge had simply come to him, like knowledge of the Shadowstar and Ebenfar. He cocked his head to listen. The music echoed all around. It was chaotic and dissonant, and he could make out no melody. That was because the music was flawed. He knew that, just as he knew everything else. Long ago the music had been marred.

“And now I must restore it,” he whispered, the words hurting his parched throat. If the Valesong were complete, he would be free of the Shadowstar, free of the dark turmoil that raged within him.

Gripping the Shadowstar, Caledan lurched on. As he went, he racked his spinning brain, trying to figure out what he had to do to make the ancient Valesong whole once more. The knowledge was there, somewhere. It had to be. Then, like one groping blindly in the dark for a flint with which to light a candle, he found the answer.

The acrid smoke swirled. Caledan stumbled to a halt. Before him rose a massive pillar of solid basalt. Carved into its tapering surface were irregular stone steps. His gaze was drawn up the beckoning stairway that spiraled around the towering pinnacle all the way to the top. There, carved into the very summit of the pillar, was a gigantic chair. The throne of the Shadowking.

Even as Caledan gazed upon the onyx throne, he knew that he must sit upon it.

Desperately, he tried to cling to his plan of restoring the Valesong, of freeing himself from the dark power that raged within him, but those thoughts were brutally ripped away by a surging wave of desire. All he could think of was how good it would be to stop resisting, to finally let himself be swept away on that dark, turbulent sea. The other woke within him, and for the first time he was not frightened by its presence. At last, here was an end to his battle. He stepped forward, placing his boot upon the stairway.

As he did, one last fragment of the man who had been called Caledan Caldorien bubbled to the surface. He no longer remembered why he had created the myriad signs as he journeyed, or what they had meant. Yet an image drifted in his mind, of one last sign he intended to create. For a moment, the forces inside him struggled. Then, with a shudder, he reached out and pressed his hand against the pinnacle. Beneath his fingers, dark stone melted, flowed, resolidified. He pulled his hand back, not even bothering to look at the object he had forged. It did not matter now. All that mattered was the throne.