The Lord Hugo Mandrake was exhausted. Each time he drew upon the Maelstrom it was becoming harder to hide the effects of Dark Magic. His eyes were turning blacker; a fine latticework of green veins now stretched over his brittle skin. He had no appetite – at least for ordinary food and drink. His mastery of elemental power was growing; the dark of the Maelstrom was rising at his command. Over-confidence had conjured a blizzard far worse than that at the Cauldron; one that drove even mighty Imperials into the ground and overturned and sank their transports and galleons. But once unleashed, it surged out of control, and now the north beyond the Old Wall – that ancient relic of the First Age, a wall that crossed the highlands – was buried beneath a unnaturally brutal winter.
He had, perhaps, been too ambitious too soon, because the surge of power that had flowed through his veins during the Battle of the Westering Isles had left him feeling sick and scorched inside, unable to stand. Barely able to open a portal in the raging blizzard he had created, he fled the ice shelf before he was discovered, racing through the nexus for the sanctuary of his nearest castle on the Northern Isles, and from there to a keep close to the Howling Glen. The effort had exhausted him. Something was wrong; the toxic elixir that gave him the strength to survive was no longer enough.
The ancient Dragonsdome Chronicles had recorded that chaotic Maelstrom Magic, once unleashed, was ultimately uncontrollable. Housed in the vanished Sky Citadel, the Chronicles had been lost these past two thousand years. Only the Dragon Whisperers, so legend said, had the power to defeat warlocks, and they too had long since passed from the mortal realm, vanished into history.
The candle burned down. The Inner Council were meeting tonight. The city was growing restless, and the watch were fully deployed keeping order. There had already been several incidents of looting as rumours of disaster swept the Black Isle.
The cauldron changed colour. The freezing liquid sizzled as it touched the soft metal. Hand shaking so badly he could barely hold the pewter tankard, the Grand Master dipped it into the brew. Greedily he drank down the elixir and let the goblet fall with a clang. He sank to his knees within the cloak of concealment he had cast, and wrapped his arms about himself, rocking to and fro, his heart pounding. His skin shifted and moved as if something alive lay beneath it. Hugo Mandrake stifled a groan, doubling up as the elixir consumed him, changing him, mending his broken body.