SHADE STOOD STARING in open contempt at the putrefying column of mixed body parts and dripping ichor that was the guardian of this opening to the realms of the Lords of the Dead. He was not impressed. Not at all.
“Shoddy. I would’ve expected better of your masters. It appears that they, too, have fallen from the ranks of pure Vraad.” He waved his hand and the guardian, with a wailing sound, crumbled into its component parts. “Is that the best you could do?” he called out to the mire-filled pit. The cavern around him echoed his growing annoyance.
Tendrils of thought reached out to him, some contemptuous, some defensive, all of them a bit fearful. What had he accomplished in all his existence? What had he accomplished other than creating an endless game between the opposing poles of his existence?
The warlock smiled coldly. “Too true. That changes now. Your existence changes now. You have a bauble of mine that I require.” Protesting thoughts bombarded him, but he shook them off like droplets of water. “Don’t bandy words with me! Return to me the tripod. Now.”
Open fears now. Fears of control lost and rifts opened.
A sigh. “This world has changed you. Like all the rest. You are not worthy of the name Vraad. You are especially not, my cousins, worthy of the name Tezerenee.”
A breath, perhaps two, passed before a dark and unprepossessing object formed at the warlock’s feet. He picked it up and examined it thoroughly. It was, as he had termed it, a tripod perhaps a hand’s length high. A black sphere, no bigger than one of his pupils, rested securely on the top. Finally satisfied, Shade thrust the artifact into the voluminous confines of his cloak.
“Thank you so very much,” he acknowledged with a mocking bow. “Having taken such great care of it, I can almost forgive you for stealing it from my workshop after my-death just doesn’t sound right, does it? My temporary displacement.” He started to fold within himself, then changed his mind. “I did say ‘almost forgive you,’ didn’t I?”
Panicked protests went unheeded as the warlock struck out.
When Shade at last left what remained of the cavern-and the now-ruined island that had once housed it-his thoughts turned immediately to the culmination of his millennia-long dream. Time was running out for him, he knew that. In two, maybe three centuries, his forcibly extended lifespan would reach its limit, but not with the normal aging results. The shadowy warlock knew what awaited him would be far worse, a last fifty or so years as a withered, decaying creature, a consciousness trapped alive in a dry husk. Only when the last vestiges of his earlier, more desperate spells dissipated would he be freed-freed to a death he had no desire to embrace. The others had given in to this world, let it master them, but not him.
He reentered the world in the emperor’s cavern, only to find it abandoned. The Silver Dragon had moved on with his campaign, likely fearing that whatever Shade had in mind for Drayfitt would upset his carefully laid plan. He had taken everyone with him. The Dragon King’s ideas had merit; planting a loyal human among his kind’s worst enemies and then manipulating that man into a position of great authority had been a plan worthy of a Vraad-and why not?
He dropped that line of thinking, deciding it was hardly worth his time now that his dreams were nearing fruition. He had mapped things out carefully in his mind, seeing where he had made his mistakes, reassuring himself of those results with the memories taken from the sorcerer Drayfitt. It had to work this time!
With the tripod returned to him, there was only one other item he needed, but it was the most integral component of all, outweighing even the artifact that he had taken back from the Lords of the Dead. The tripod was the means of summoning, something Drayfitt could never have known since it had not been in the notes, but it could not function as the focus, the means by which the powers would be drawn together, bound, and turned to his will. His prior mistake had been making himself that focus. Forced to both contain and bind them simultaneously, even he had failed. No, the only way for the enchantment to succeed would be to find something else to serve as a focus.
Something? Someone. It had to be a living entity, one with the open gift that made one a spellcaster. As untrained as possible and young, for the spell would tear at the lifeforce, eating it away. Untrained and young also because those minds were more susceptible to the sort of commands he needed to ingrain upon them. A child would be perfect. A child was malleable.
A child with the potential he sought would also be nearly impossible to find. Since the days of the Turning War, when the human mages had almost defeated the Dragon Kings, the latter had tried very thoroughly to assure that there would never be a second such war. They had missed Cabe Bedlam because of his grandfather’s interference. Likely they had missed others as well, since their control had slipped harshly after that near disaster. A long search might prove fruitful, but Shade knew that searching for an infant with latent abilities might very well consume more time than even he had.
There was one possibility, likely more, but he had found himself strangely reluctant to consider it. Memories of his addled past, the centuries of swinging back and forth between one mind or another, invaded again. A curse escaped his lips and a fissure suddenly burst into being in one of the cavern walls to his right. He paid it no mind. Breathing deeply, the warlock buried the alien thoughts and memories. It was not the first time he had done so, but he swore silently that it would be the last.
He had sworn so more than a dozen times this one day alone. Each time, they had returned stronger than before. Care. Guilt. Friendship. Unbecoming memories for one of his stature. Feelings for those who were not Vraad.
That settled it. He would hesitate no more. Not with so perfect a focus awaiting him. One whom the family would not even notice was missing, if he could help it. The last thought gave him a feeling of benevolence, like a master taking good care of his pets. For their sacrifice, they deserved that much. It would be as if the boy no longer existed.
Still, a tiny shadow of guilt lingered on.