Curse of the Shadowmage

Sixteen

The four riders picked their way across the bleak expanse of the High Moor. The rough terrain looked as if it had been shattered by a war among giants. Long stretches of treacherous scree gave way suddenly to jagged chasms that sliced across the ground like gaping wounds. More than once they had been forced to travel miles out of their way to find passage. Despite the harshness of the moor, a sprinkling of moss and lichens clung to the rocks, softening the landscape like a gray-green veil. Mari had never before seen such a melancholy land. Yet it was also lovely. She marveled at the stark contrast of sorrow and beauty dwelling side by side, each blending into the other so that she could not possibly have said from which arose the aching in her heart. She sighed, her breath turning to mist in the cold air.

An icy gust of wind snatched the breath from her lips as a spiderweb of glittering frost spread across a nearby heap of stones. A dark blot appeared in the air above the rock. In moments, the swirling patch of darkness resolved itself into a ghostly knight with smoldering eyes.

“In another mile, the walls of this ravine you follow will rise into sheer cliffs,” Serafi said in his sepulchral voice. He pointed to one side with an ethereal gauntlet. “Follow this gully to the north. It will take you out of the ravine and up to a ridge where you may ride more swiftly.”

Then the spectral knight vanished, a chill gloom lingering in his wake.

“Well, isn’t he just a ray of sunshine?” Ferret muttered glumly.

Mari cast a look at Morhion. He sat astride his dark stallion, Tenebrous, head bowed. Over the last several days, as they rode deeper into the High Moor, Serafi had appeared from time to time, warning them of obstacles or steering them toward easier paths. The mage had told the others of the pact he had forged with Serafi to save Caledan’s life. Yet Mari could not help thinking there was something else beneath the mage’s brooding. Morhion’s pact with the spectral knight, forged ten years earlier beneath the fortress of Darkhold, didn’t really explain the spirit’s presence on this journey.

There was no sunset that day—the iron gray clouds hid all traces of the sun—but gradually the wan daylight faded, until Mari could barely see Ferret, who led the way astride his bony roan stallion. They made camp in a low hollow that offered some protection from the bone-numbing wind. Supper that evening was only dried fruit, nuts, and hardtack, for they dared not light a fire. They had seen no signs of the shadevari since leaving Soubar, but there was no sense in making themselves any more conspicuous than necessary.

Morhion retrieved a leather-bound tome from Tenebrous’s saddlebags. “I am going to study my spellbook,” he said coolly. With a soft word, the mage conjured a tiny sphere of purple magelight. He sat on a rock, hunching over the book and shielding the faint illumination with his body to conceal it from prying eyes.

“Would you play a song, Mari?” Kellen asked then.

Out of habit, Mari had packed her lute in her saddlebag, but she had not yet brought the instrument out on this journey. She had not felt like making music. Yet tonight the prospect seemed appealing. It might be good to let her mind drift on the forgetful strains of a song.

She smiled at Kellen as she retrieved her lute. It was a beautiful instrument, fashioned of cherry inlaid with rosewood. Her adopted father, Master Andros, had made it for her. Its surface had been polished to a glowing patina with long years of use.

The ballad she sang told the story of a prince who fell in love with a maiden trapped in a witch’s tower. The prince tried to climb the tower but fell into a hedge of thorns. The thorns scratched his face, blinding him, and the prince became a wandering beggar.

Mari paused, her fingers hovering above the strings. Why had she chosen such a mournful song?

Kellen had rested his head on her knee, listening. Now he looked up at her. “The poor prince,” he murmured sadly. “If only he had never fallen in love with the maiden.”

At this, Mari shook her head fiercely. “Don’t say such a thing, Kellen. It is never wrong to feel love. Besides, I have yet to finish the tale.”

Strumming softly on the lute, she sang the remaining verses.

After several years the witch died, and the maiden escaped from the tower. In the forest, she came upon a wretched beggar and realized that it was her prince. She cried bitterly, her tears falling on his face. Such is the power of love that her tears healed his eyes and restored his sight. They returned to the tower and lived there together to the end of their days.

Mari played a few final, wistful notes, then let her hands fall from the lute.

“Thank you,” Kellen said quietly.

Ferret had finished repacking their supplies. “I’m going to do a little scouting while there’s still a shred of daylight,” the thief said.

Kellen hopped to his feet. “Can I come along?” he asked eagerly.

Ferret gave him a critical look. “Can you move without making a sound?”

Kellen chewed his lower lip. “I think I can,” he decided, “if you show me how.”

Ferret laughed at this. “I imagine you could at that. Come on then, if it’s all right with Mari.”

Mari nodded her assent—the boy could be no safer than with Ferret—and watched the two disappear into the gathering gloom. She turned to see Morhion watching her.

Mari sat down on the smooth rock beside the mage. “He is wise for a child,” she said after a moment. “Kellen, I mean.”

Morhion stared into the deepening night. “Sometimes I think he is wiser than any of us.”

She laughed softly. “You may be right.”

At last the mage spoke again, his voice oddly wistful. “Do your truly believe what you told him, Mari? That it is never wrong to feel love?”

This seemed an unusual question for the usually reticent mage. Finally she nodded. “Yes, I do believe it.”

A rueful smile touched his lips. “You are fortunate then. Would that I could believe in love so strongly as you.”

Mari frowned in puzzlement.

“I mean …” The mage began, then shook his head. “But it is foolishness to talk about it. Forgive me.” He started to stand.

“Wait,” Mari said intently. “Why won’t you tell me what you were going to say, Morhion? I thought … I thought that we were friends.”

His chill blue eyes sent a shiver down her spine. “Are we?” His tone was not mocking; it was as if he were asking a question whose answer he truly did not know. “I am not … I am not certain I know what it is to be close to another person, Mari. It is a mage’s lot to dwell in solitude.”

Mari stared at the mage. What in Milil’s name could he possibly mean? All at once, realization washed over her. How could she have been so blind?

“Why, Morhion?” she whispered. “Why have you never told me how you feel?”

The mage shook his head sadly. “How could I? You are the partner of my closest friend. How could I tell you that—” A bitter expression twisted his face into a sneer. Quickly, he rose. “I am sorry. I imagine that I must disgust you now.”

Before he could move away, Mari stood and gripped his arm.

“You’re wrong,” she said fiercely. “Yes, I am surprised at your words. Maybe even shocked. The truth is, I really don’t know what to think. But there is one thing I do know, Morhion, and it is this: There can never be anything wicked in feeling love, whatever the priests in the temple might say. If there is one thing in all this world that is truly good, then it is love. And it is wrong to pretend that love does not exist.”

He gazed at her, his blue eyes unreadable. “Perhaps you are right,” he said finally. “Or perhaps not. It does not matter now.” A shadow crossed his handsome visage. “There is … something else I must tell you, Mari.”

He spoke for a long time in low, measured words. An icy horror filled Mari’s chest as she learned the hideous truth about Morhion’s new pact with Serafi. It was the spectral knight who had given the mage knowledge of the Shadowstar and Stiletto, but for the price of Morhion’s own body.

“But how could you accept Serafi’s offer?” Mari gasped in disbelief.

Morhion shook his head somberly. “How could I refuse it?”

Mari clenched a fist. “Damn him, Morhion!” she choked hoarsely. “Damn him to the Abyss! Why must we always sacrifice everything for Caledan? Why?”

“Because we love him,” Morhion said quietly.

It was true, and she knew it. As the anger drained out of her, she sank back to the cold stone. Morhion joined her once more. For a time they sat in silence, while somewhere in the distance a pair of mourning doves filled the night with their sweet lament.

Kellen crept softly among the scattered heaps of rubble toward a dim shape. Night blanketed the moor, but a faint gray glow hovered on the air, giving just enough light to navigate by. Somewhere behind the thick clouds, the moon had risen. Kellen concentrated on moving stealthily, and he was no more than three paces away when the dim form let out a surprised oath.

“Gods, kid—you’re pretty good at this moving in shadows stuff,” Ferret said in his raspy voice.

Kellen sat down on a rock beside the thief. “I like shadows,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Well, I think they like you, too,” Ferret replied, his crooked teeth gleaming in the darkness. “You’d make a good thief, Kellen.”

With a thumb, Kellen traced the puckered scar on the palm of his left hand. “I think I’m supposed to be a mage someday, Ferret. At least, that’s what Morhion says.”

Ferret gave a shrug. “Who says you can’t do both?”

Kellen considered the possibility. Mages cast powerful spells and used magical wands to conjure lightning and fireballs, but thieves got to prowl about in the dark and steal interesting treasures from ancient tombs. Both professions had their attractive points. “I’ll have to think about it,” he said finally.

As he spoke, the night wind picked up, whistling mournfully over the jagged rocks. Kellen felt icy pinpricks stinging against his cheeks. It was starting to snow.

“We’d better get back to camp,” Ferret said. “Mari and Morhion will be wondering where we are.”

Together they moved silently through the chill night toward the hollow where they had left the others. They had gone no more than a dozen paces when the wind suddenly turned into a gale. Another dozen paces and the gale became a hurricane. Kellen stumbled, the fierce wind lifting him bodily off the ground. He would have been blown down a ravine and dashed against the rocks were it not for Ferret’s quick reflexes. The thief grabbed the collar of Kellen’s tunic and pulled him back. Holding on to each other, they tried to make headway against the wind, but the gale seemed to blow them back nearly as many paces as they stumbled ahead. The sound of the wind rose to a keening wail, and the hard snow felt as if it were scouring the skin off Kellen’s face. The scar on his left hand throbbed dully.

“I don’t think this is a normal storm, Ferret!” he cried over the shriek of the wind.

“Even I could figure that one out, kid!” Ferret shouted back.

Cloaks flying wildly behind them, the two struggled on. Suddenly, like a dark wound, a rift opened in the clouds that had hung for three days over the High Moor. With impossible speed the rift widened as the violent wind ripped the clouds to ragged tatters. As quickly as it had risen, the gale dwindled and blew itself into stillness. The night was utterly silent. Stars glittered like chips of ice in the perfect black sky, and a gibbous moon frosted the land with crystalline light.

“It’s beautiful,” Kellen whispered, his breath making ghosts in the motionless air.

“Yeah?” Ferret asked softly. “I was thinking more along the lines of ‘weird’ myself.” The thief’s beady eyes glittered warily in the moonlight.

Then a new sound shattered the frozen air—the hunting call of a lone hound, After a moment, the hound’s distant cry was echoed by that of another, and another, then dozens like it.

“I think we might want to hurry a little, Ferret,” Kellen said gravely.

The thief did not argue. They started into a trot, then a lope, and finally an all-out run. The malevolent baying echoed all around now, and it was getting closer. Hearts pounding, the two reached their encampment to find Mari and Morhion staring wide-eyed into the night.

“What in the name of the Abyss is going on?” Ferret swore, panting.

“The shadevari conjured shadowhounds to pursue us,” Mari said grimly.

“We managed to escape them in the Reaching Woods,” Morhion added. “However, I fear we have little chance of eluding them on the open moor.”

Ferret shuddered. “It was a rhetorical question. You really didn’t have to answer it, you know.”

More sinister baying splintered the night, closer than before.

“We can stand here and argue semantics, or we can find a place to defend ourselves. Which would you prefer?” Morhion asked.

“What do you think?” Ferret snapped in exasperation.

“There,” Mari said, pointing into the moonlit night. “We’ll make our stand there.”

Less than a quarter of a mile away, a low hill rose against the starry sky. Standing atop the tor was a jagged ring of stones, the ruins of an ancient tower. There was little need to urge the frightened horses into a gallop. In moments, the four reached the crest of the hill and led the horses through a gap into the ruin. The wall of weathered stone stood about shoulder height, and the floor, which was covered with a carpet of moss and witchgrass, was no more than a dozen paces across.

Morhion muttered the words of a spell, and a blue incandescence burst to life between his hands. Slowly, the glow began to spread outward in a widening circle.

“What are you doing?” Mari asked breathlessly.

“This is a spell of protection,” Morhion explained. “However, I fear it will do little to ward us against the shadowhounds. But it may give us a few moments to—”

Morhion gasped. The ring he wore on his left hand—the ring given him in Talis by the witch Isela—flashed brilliantly. The magical circle of radiance changed from blue to dark purple and expanded rapidly, striking the wall. There was a sizzling sound, and countless tendrils of purple magic crackled, coiling around the weathered stones and plunging into the cracks between them. In moments the entire wall glowed with a deep purple radiance.

“What was that?” Ferret asked. “Er, and that one wasn’t a rhetorical question.”

“I don’t know,” Morhion said in wonderment. “Somehow the ring altered my spell.”

Howls of bloodlust filled the air. At the bottom of the hill, a score of dark forms appeared out of the night. Swiftly, they began loping up the rocky slope.

“Well, we’d better hope the ring knew what it was doing,” Mari said somberly as she drew the short sword at her hip.

Ferret followed suit, pulling a long dagger from a leather sheath at his belt. “I suppose it’s too late to tell you that I’ve changed my mind and decided to stay behind in Soubar,” he said forlornly.

No one even bothered to reply.

With impossible swiftness, the shadowhounds streamed up the side of the hill. They looked like normal dogs, only they were blacker than midnight and bigger than the largest of mastiffs. Their sharp teeth glowed in the moonlight, their eyes burned with crimson light.

“Stay behind me, Kellen,” Morhion ordered, and the boy did as he was told.

For a moment the baying ended, and there was only eerie silence as the shadowhounds closed the last few yards to the ruined tower. Then, as one, they struck. Snarling ravenously, the onyx hounds leapt easily over the ragged wall, long tongues hanging out of gaping muzzles.

Purple radiance crackled brilliantly as snarls of hunger turned to yelps of pain. Like tiny bolts of violet lightning, tendrils of purple magic arced upward from the wall to engulf each of the shadowhounds in midair. The onyx beasts were thrown violently backward. They struck the ground howling and writhing until the purple sparks flickered and dimmed. The hounds regained their feet and padded warily toward the tower, lips curled back from sharp fangs. This time, however, they did not jump over the wall.

“The magic of the ring—it’s holding them back!” Mari said in amazement.

“Don’t get your hopes up yet,” Ferret countered. “We still have a little problem.” With his dagger, he pointed to the gap in the wall through which they had entered the ruined tower. Even now the hounds were prowling around the wall.

“Hold out your weapons,” Morhion commanded.

Startled, the other two did as they were told. Morhion muttered the words of another spell of protection, conjuring a second sphere of blue light. As before, the ring on his left hand flashed. Blue radiance became purple. The sizzling violet magic coiled around Mari’s sword and Ferret’s dagger until the two blades glowed with an enchanted light.

A shadow appeared in the gap, along with a pair of burning eyes. Mari and Ferret whirled just in time to face the shadowhound’s leap. Maw snapping violently, the monster fell upon Mari as she thrust her sword out before her. She fell to the ground, the beast on top of her. Suddenly it threw back its head, letting out a howl of agony. Searing purple magic radiated from Mari’s sword, engulfing the beast; the enchanted blade had pierced its body. The hound stumbled backward, howled again, then collapsed. In seconds its body had dissolved into a puddle of dark sludge. The purple magic faded. Pale-faced and bruised, Mari pulled herself to her feet.

Another shadowhound tried to jump through the breach. Ferret slashed with his blazing dagger, and the beast leapt backward. More of the dark hounds gathered outside the gap, but they had seen the effects of Mari’s sword on one of their ilk. They growled menacingly, but none dared try to force its way in. Then, as if in answer to some inaudible signal, the hounds all turned and loped away down the hill. The companions stared at each other in amazement.

Mari lowered her short sword. “They’re gone,” she said hoarsely. “They’ve given up.”

Kellen moved to the wall. He pulled himself up the rough stones and peered over the edge. “No, they haven’t given up,” he said quietly. “They’re just … changing.”

Drawn by his strange words, the others approached the wall.

“By all the gods of darkness!” Ferret swore.

The shadowhounds had gathered at the base of the hill, milling around in a growling throng. Two hounds brushed against each other, and, as if made of dark clay, their separate forms merged into one. More shadowhounds pressed themselves against their brethren, merging their bodies into shapeless blobs that oozed fluidly across the ground. Finally, the formless blobs coalesced with the remaining shadowhounds into one gigantic mass, which began to take on a new shape. Wings spread outward like midnight sails, a sinuous neck unfurled like a great serpent. Crimson eyes blinked to life in a huge, wedge-shaped head, and obsidian talons sprang from outstretched claws. The thing tilted its horned head back, its vast roar sundering the night.

“Milil save us,” Mari whispered in awe.

It was a dragon. A dragon of shadows.