It seemed that they had failed.
He hoped that Calliande had been successful, that she had recovered her staff and defeated the Devourer. Or perhaps they had both failed, and it had all been for nothing. Well, he could still take as many Mhorites with him as he could…
A deep, thunderous roar cut through the noise of the battle, and a dark shape surged through the archway.
It was an ursaar, one of the dark elves’ war beasts, a creature that looked like an enormous, twisted bear. Plates of blue dark eleven steel covered the ursaar, armoring it from snout to haunches, and the hulking beast looked as if it could destroy an army on its own. Atop the ursaar sat a towering figure clad in armor of similar design to the armor Ridmark and the others had stolen from Urd Morlemoch, though this armor was far more ornate, adorned with twisted designs of silver that made Ridmark’s eyes hurt. The figure’s face was chalk white, and his eyes were bottomless black pits into a void. His blue helmet had an ornate crest of silver, and in his armored fist he carried a longsword of dark elven steel that writhed with shadow and blue flame.
The dark elven lord atop the ursaar was the Traveler, the prince of Nightmane Forest, one of the most powerful remaining dark elven nobles…and Mara’s father.
Mournacht let out a deep, rumbling snarl, taking several steps to the side to keep both the Traveler and the Swordbearers in sight. Morigna and Antenora began new spells, while Mara stared at her father with a grim expression, Jager at her side. Dozens of Anathgrimm warriors stood behind the Traveler’s ursaar, and here and there Ridmark spotted the crouched, twisted forms of urvaalgs. The sounds of furious battle still rang from the central Vault, but for a moment silence fell as the Traveler and Mournacht glared at each other.
“So,” said Mournacht, “it seems your pets and your slaves managed to fight their way through after all.”
“Orcish dog,” spat the Traveler, his face twisted with rage. His voice was far deeper than any human voice, and inhumanly beautiful, the beauty made terrifying by his rage. “You think to challenge your betters? You will lie upon your belly and grovel for scraps before I am finished with you.”
“Bold words,” said Mournacht, “since you have yet to defeat me.”
The Traveler shuddered, a spasm going over his expression, and a strange, manic laugh came from his lips. It was somehow more unsettling than his rage. Morigna had spoken of how his moods swung back and forth like the pendulum of an overwound clock. “Indeed? I have let to defeat you, or I have yet to defeat the bearer of Incariel’s shadow?”
Ridmark blinked. He had guessed that Shadowbearer might be with Mournacht, and if the dark elven lord was right…
“Fool,” said Mournacht. “Mhor gives me the power to slay, and I shall slay you.”
Again the Traveler let out that wild, mad laugh. “You are a puppet and you do not even know it. A puppet with strings of sorcery driven into your flesh, dancing to the tune of your unseen master. How delightfully amusing!” Once more he laughed, and his ursaar growling, the beast pacing forward on its massive claw-studded paws. “How exquisitely cruel. Of old I would have shared the joke with the other lords of the dark elven kindred, and we would have laughed as you spent your life in a purpose not your own.”
“You shall not laugh,” said Mournacht, “as I spill your life upon the floor.”
“Will I?” said the Traveler, and his mocking smile turned to a snarl as the pendulum of his mood swept back to rage. “Will I? Orcish dog! Once I claim the power of the Keeper for myself, I shall kill you and your master! I shall rend him from his flesh and send Incariel’s shadow screaming back into the void once more! And then, for your impudence, I will exterminate every last orc of Kothluusk and crucify every last shaman of Mhor upon the altars of your impotent and useless god! I shall…”
The black, void-filled eyes fell upon Ridmark, and the sheer weight and power of the ancient dark elf’s gaze made him want to flinch. The Traveler possessed the same aura of power that had surrounded the Warden, but the Warden had been cold control and iron discipline. The Traveler was simply insane, and almost impossible to predict. Ridmark was not sure if that made the Lord of Nightmane Forest more or less dangerous.
The Traveler shuddered again, and all the emotion drained away from him, leaving his face a bloodless, emotionless mask. He looked a great deal like Mara, almost disturbingly so.
“The Gray Knight,” said the Traveler, his voice toneless and dead. “Interesting indeed. What a disruptive force you are.”
“Thank you,” said Ridmark, trying to watch the Mhorites and the Anathgrimm at the same time.
“It is indeed a compliment,” said Traveler. “After the Keeper went into her slumber, the bearer of shadow hatched his plans. Everything that has happened since the Keeper entered hibernation has happened according to Shadowbearer’s will.” A hint of the manic glee entered that gaunt white face. “Your realm of Andomhaim danced as puppets upon strings pulled by the bearer of shadow. Upon the day of the great conjunction, the day the Keeper awakened, his final victory was at hand and the destruction of this world was near…and then you shattered his plans. How he must have raged.” The bottomless black eyes bored into Ridmark. “I would have expected you to be…more. I would have expected a Swordbearer, a great Magistrius, perhaps even a high noble of your feeble kingdom. Instead you are a branded exile with a stick.”
“I suppose that would have made Shadowbearer all the angrier, would it not?” said Ridmark.
The Traveler threw back his head and roared with laughter the way the Warden had done. The sound was horrible, and dug at Ridmark’s ears like knives. Then the laughter stopped, and the Traveler’s face returned to its empty mask.
“Indeed,” said the Traveler. “You have earned the honor of a death at my hand, human.” The black eyes shifted to the side. “And you have brought my wayward daughter into my grasp once more. Splendid. I shall tame her power, and dispose of her impudent rat of a husband.”
“You failed to do so the last time,” said Jager. Ridmark expected the Traveler to fly into a rage at the insult, but the dark elven lord only shrugged.
“You mortals are so impatient,” said the Traveler. “If I kill you today, or if I kill you after seven years of torment…it makes no matter. Ah! The Swordbearers are with you as well, Sir Arandar and Sir Gavin. Their soulblades shall make fine trophies in Nightmane Forest. The peculiar sorceress from Old Earth is in your company, too. I shall enjoy digging the secrets of her magic from her skull.”
“No,” said Mara. “You shall not, father. You should have stayed behind your wards in Nightmane Forest.”
The Traveler stared at her, and his calm mask shattered like a dam bursting from a torrential flood.
“Then perish!” he screamed. “Perish, all of you. Slaves! Kill the Gray Knight and his deluded followers! Kill them all!”
Mournacht laughed, bloody fire blazing to life around his axe once more. “And you shall join them, Traveler! The time of the dark elves is past, and you shall fall into the dust of history to join your kindred!”
“And you, orcish dog,” snarled the Traveler, lifting his sword as shadows and blue fire snarled around the blade, “shall die at my hand.”
The hall exploded into chaos around Ridmark, and once more he fought for his life.
Chapter 16: Lost Lives
Calliande strode alone into the gloom, the clammy gray mist washing over her bare skin.
She felt the cold stone floor beneath her feet, and the strange mist gave off a pale light, but she had no idea where she was. Her gaze could not penetrate the mists more than a few feet in any direction, and she saw no walls, no pillars, no doors, nothing. So she took slow, tentative steps, her hands outstretched before her.
Yet it felt as if she covered some vast, unimaginable distance with every step, as if every stride took her farther into some strange place. And this mist…she had seen this mist before, but where?
Calliande took another step into the misty gloom, and the answer struck her.
She had seen this mist again and again in her dreams. For that matter, she had seen it in the waking world. It was the mist that choked her thoughts, that cloaked her memories from her waking mind. Stunned, she cast the spell to sense the presence of magic, and she felt mighty magic, ancient and potent, all around her.
Suddenly she understood. Dragonfall was not entirely in the mortal world. Parts of it extended into the threshold, into the spirit realm. She had wanted to hide her staff and her memories, and where better to hide them than a place beyond the circles of the world?
Something stirred in the mist behind her.
Calliande whirled, her mist-damp hair slapping her forehead, and summoned power for a spell. A lot of power came at her call, far more than she expected, and her hands seemed to burn as if her bones had transformed into light. Understanding came a moment later. Magic was stronger in the threshold than in the material world. Morigna and Antenora both had been able to wield considerably more power in the threshold. They used elemental magic, but apparently the magic of the Well would be stronger here.
She stared into the gray mist, but nothing moved, and after a moment she kept walking, though she kept her power close at hand. Silence hung around her, and step by careful step she moved deeper into the clammy mist, watching for any sign of danger.
None showed itself. The horrible sense of familiarity deepened, until it seemed to Calliande that she had stood in this very place just a few moments ago. She knew she had suffered pain, terrible pain, here.
Now she was certain that she was about to experience that pain again.
The mist rippled, and Calliande turned, certain that someone or something was watching her. Again she saw nothing. The mist started to spin, pushing away from Calliande in an increasingly clear space, as if she stood in the eye of a storm. As the mist pushed away, she saw that the floor was made of pale white stone, similar to the kind of stone she saw in dark elven ruins. Was Dragonfall inside a dark elven ruin? It was a disturbing thought. She had gone to several dark elven ruins with Ridmark and the others, and they had almost been killed every single time…
The mist drew back further, revealing a vast hall of white stone, and Calliande realized that it was not a dark elven ruin after all. Dark elven ruins had a disturbing, alien sort of beauty, one designed for eyes other than human, a beauty that induced a mild sense of fear and unease. The vast hall of white stone around her was simply beautiful. Niches lined the walls, and in each niche rested the skull of a dragon, black as night and hard as diamond. Each dragon skull could have swallowed Calliande whole without much effort, and she felt the potent magical power secured within each skull. The dragons had been mighty wielders of magic.
Another memory jerked out of the mist that choked her mind. The dragons had been powerful, so powerful that the high elves had sealed their skulls away in Dragonfall lest that power fall into the hands of the dark elves. Perhaps that was why Calliande had hidden the power of the Keeper here.
The mist continued to roll away, revealing a stone plinth in the exact center of the hall. Atop the plinth sat a peculiar crystalline sphere that seemed to give out a faint chiming noise, shining with a ghostly light of its own.
A specter stood next to the plinth, an image fashioned of pale blue light. It was an old man in the white robe and black sash of a Magistrius, his hair and beard tangled and gray, his eyes and face tired and sad. Calliande knew him as the Watcher, and his spirit had stood watch over her in the Tower of Vigilance, and had counseled her in her dreams ever since.
Perhaps, she wondered, the place where they had spoken in their dreams, the mist-shrouded empty plain, had actually been Dragonfall all along.
“Watcher,” said Calliande. She felt peculiar speaking to him naked, but he had been inside of her dreams. Physical nudity seemed almost redundant after that.
The Watcher’s eyes widened in alarm.
“Behind you!” he shouted. “It’s behind you!”
Calliande blinked, spun, and almost screamed.
The Devourer crouched not a dozen yards away, moving forward in absolute silence. The malophage had returned to the form of the scale-armored ape, its four arms extended, the jagged claws ready to rend her unprotected flesh. The Devourer looked badly injured, burns covering its torso and limbs, but it still moved with eerie, fluid grace. The malophage surged towards her, and Calliande raised her hands and called upon her magic. White fire blasted from her palms, more powerful than she had ever called before, and slammed into the malophage. The spell flipped the malophage over, and the Devourer hit the floor hard, its claws scrabbling for purchase on the smooth white stone. Before it could recover, Calliande hit it again, white fire drilling into its armored flesh. The malophage seemed badly weakened. Perhaps passing through the wards around Dragonfall had damaged it.
Enough that Calliande could destroy the creature entirely?
She attacked again, but the Devourer leaped backwards, vanishing into the gray mist that still ringed the chamber. Calliande stared into the mist, breathing hard, but saw no sign of movement. She had driven off the Devourer.
She had no doubts that the creature would be back.
“You must be vigilant,” said the Watcher in his tired voice. “The creature will return. Shadowbearer must have summoned it to wait for you.”
“I doubt it,” said Calliande, shaking her head. “I think the malophage is just an opportunist. It sensed the power within Dragonfall, and has been waiting to catch me ever since. I think that…”
She fell silent.
Her voice…sounded strange to her. Different. More forceful, more confident. Her accent had changed as well. Come to think of it, she sounded a great deal like Morigna.
And Morigna had learned much of her Latin from a man who had known Calliande before she had gone into the long sleep.
“Yes,” said the Watcher in a soft voice. “Yes, you are starting to remember.”