CUT FROM THE SAME SHADOW

CHOICES...OR THE LACK THEREOF...CAN MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE...

 

I

 

The two squat dwarves watched warily as the four armored figures atop massive reptilian mounts rode warily along the side of the forested hill. Incursions from the north of the dwarves’ domain had grown more common in the past few weeks. While very reclusive, the dwarves had various methods to keep an eye on the workings of the outside world and so they knew that a threat had been forcing the confederation to move south and east.

East would have been just fine with the dwarves. Humans dwelled there. The dwarves had no animosity toward the humans, but the confederation moving east would have saved the underground race trouble.

“We should warn the others,” the one with the brown beard and eager eyes of youth breathed. “Garni can gather up dozen good fighters real quick! We’ll take care of these scaly scum fast then, dragons or not.”

“Keep your tongue still! They’ve got sharp hearing for havin’ just slits for ears—”

The lead rider suddenly raised his gauntleted hand, bringing the band to a halt. He turned his helmed gaze in the general direction of the dwarves.

The younger of the two gripped his ax tighter, but his gray-bearded companion gave him a warning touch on his shoulder. Contrary to what many believed, dwarves could be extremely stealthy.

The four riders studied their surroundings. Scaled armor covered their bodies from toe to throat, where their helmets took over. Fiery red eyes burned within the helmets, the top of each of which was covered with an elaborate dragon’s head crest that seemed to stare as if alive.

The lead rider hissed, revealing sharp teeth. The same bronze scaling covering his armor also covered his skin. One of the other riders was of an identical color, while the other two wore brown and silver, respectively.

The one thing that they did have in common was the fact that they were drakes. Dragon men. The confederation consisted of drakes of clans whose lords had fallen during what the dwarven kingdom called the Second Turning War or the Return of the Bedlams. The dwarves had better memories than most and recalled the original Turning War two centuries earlier. There had been hope then of freedom from the Dragon Kings Iron and Bronze. However, the first war had failed to bring anything about save blood, death, and finally the utter defeat of the huma wizards known as the Dragon Masters.

The second war...the second war had more than made up for that failure.

Suddenly, all four drakes turned in the saddle at something to the opposite direction. Risking discovery, both dwarves rose high enough to see just what so disturbed the intruders. Drakes were not prone to panic, but the watchers could see that the riders were clearly on edge.

And then...an ebony shape that seemed more shadow than substance formed among the trees just beyond the drakes. It instantly coalesced into a towering stallion already in the process of rearing.

A pair of icy blue eyes lacking any pupils focused on the four riders. Even from a distance, the two hidden watchers could read the contempt in the inhuman gaze.

A bellowing laugh that made both dwarves drop back into hiding resounded through the woods. As the pair peeked out again, they saw the drakes quickly drawing their weapons.

“Leave those little twigs where they are!” the shadowy steed thundered. “Mark this day as one of gratitude on your part, foolish drakes! I have no interest in your scaly hides this day...unless you needlessly provoke me! Begone and we will pretend this encounter never happened!”

The older dwarf muttered under his breath. The other dwarf looked at him, uncertain as to what he had whispered.

“Duhn Tromu,” the older one repeated very quietly. “Has your ma not told you the stories? The Duhn Tromu...”

“Aye, but it was just stories to frighten little ones! I outgrew it long ago—”

“No one outgrows the Duhn Tromu because it’s no child’s tale, you damned fool!”

At that moment, the stallion brought his front hooves down on the ground. They struck with a sound like thunder.

The reptilian mounts spooked. One darted past the leader’s, dragging its helpless rider along with it. That immediately made the drakes in the rear chase after rather than face the black creature. In seconds, three of the drake warriors had abandoned the area.

But in contrast to his companions, the lead rider glared defiantly at the stallion, then thrust a hand toward him. Crimson energy flared around the gauntleted appendage. Indeed, around the entire warrior.

The shadowy horse snorted. “Very well! As you wish! I did warn you!”

With astounding swiftness, the ghostly equine reared again. Distance should have prevented a successful hit, but the horse’s leg stretched forward. The hoof struck the drake’s monstrous mount directly on the skull.

The reptilian beast’s head split open from the impact, fragments of bone, bits of brain, and a shower of blood accompanying the mortal blow. As the already-dead beast collapsed, the bronze rider tumbled forward. Despite desperate attempts to stop his momentum, he rolled into the stallion.

The ebony creature melted into an almost spherical shape. As the drake came to a stop, what had once been an equine but was clearly much more enveloped the armored warrior.

The drake screamed, to the dwarves his fading cry seeming as if that of someone falling a tremendous—endless—distance.

As soon as the screaming subsided, the black thing reverted to its stallion form. The shadowy steed snorted as he peered past the mount’s huge corpse...and directly at where the two anxious watchers hid.

“’Black Nightmare’, indeed!” the creature thundered. “I am now and ever Darkhorse and nothing more! Remember that!”

And with that, he turned and headed northeast at a speed no mortal equine could have ever matched. Within seconds, the ghostly creature had vanished into the distance.

The two hill dwarves stood. The older stared at the younger and vice versa.

Dwarves rarely ran unless it was into battle...but this time the pair eagerly made an exception.

“Don’t be draggin’ behind, Olyn!” growled the graybeard. “There’s no shame in retreatin’ from that one! Only shows sense!”

“Moving as fast as I can, Master Thurn!” the younger dwarf gasped as he tried to keep up. Olyn was a fit warrior, but Master Thurn was known for his tremendous stamina and speed for one of their kind even at the age of one hundred twenty. Olyn, barely forty, could hardly keep up, even with images of a creature out of his bedtime fears to stir him on.

“Well, move faster yet! You saw what happened to that one fool of a drake! ‘Tis just as they always said!”

“What did happen?”

Master Thurn shoved aside his beard, which insisted on fluttering into his face. “That drake he fell in—well—he was swallowed—by my ax, you saw what happened! We’re talking when we could be runnin’ faster! I won’t feel safe until we’re in the south entrance—”

He stumbled to a halt. Olyn, behind him, did not see what so startled the older dwarf and so ran into Master Thurn’s back.

“What?”

“Hush, lad! It hasn’t—damn! It has seen us! Back away! Quickly now!”

Olyn peered around him. “What do you—”

He did not get any farther. The two gripped their axes tighter as they stared at what loomed before them. It was like nothing they had ever seen.

Yet, to Master Thurn there was a recognition of something familiar, something that—

“Damn! Look out, lad, it’s—”

 

II

The drakes and hill dwarves already forgotten, Darkhorse raced among the hills filled with an unusual concern. The legendary creature some thought a demon and others a hero had traversed the land called the Dragonrealm for many, many centuries—millennia even—often aiding those allied against the drake lords either surreptitiously or outright. During that time, he had witnessed countless friends and foes alike perish violently and had nearly lost his own existence several times over.

Even now, he should have been with the wizard Cabe Bedlam dealing with strange and potentially sinister events to the far north, beyond but also including the foreboding Tyber Mountains. Darkhorse should have been investigating that and other matters as he had promised the human mage...but then he had heard the call.

It had pulled at him so hard that he had had no choice but to finally pursue it. It had already taken him across half the continent, seemingly calling to him from a hundred places at once and yet not actually being at any of them. Darkhorse had finally believed that he had discovered the source in the hills near Gordag-Ai, only to instead come across the four drake warriors and the two wide-eyed dwarves. Even despite the brevity of that episode, the shadow steed had lost the trail. Now he ran along, hoping against hope that he would pick up some new sign of it.

At the top of one of the last hills before Gordag-Ai, Darkhorse paused again. The icy eyes stared at the distant mountains that marked the southernmost peaks of the Tybers. He recalled again the mission that Cabe Bedlam had sent him on, a mission of great import. Darkhorse had already spent too much time chasing after whatever siren song he had heard in his mind. If the trail had ceased to be, then it behooved him to—

His head swiveled around at an impossible angle. Darkhorse stared back in the direction from which he had just come.

There it was again. That call that was not a call.

His body shifted instantly so that he now faced the path behind him. With a snort of frustration, Darkhorse raced back.

 

 

 

He arrived at his previous location barely a few seconds later. At first, he saw only the reptile’s huge corpse. Yet, the sense that the source of his frustration was still nearby remained strong. Stronger than ever, in fact.

Moving cautiously, Darkhorse followed what he believed the trail. His heightened senses noted something else in the process; the faint traces of the dwarves’ passage in the same direction.

The shadow steed increased his pace. He did not like the notion of the two paths crossing, especially where the dwarves were concerned.

Unfortunately, only a moment later, his worst fears were realized as he came upon one of the stout warriors cowering against an oak.

Darkhorse judged him young by the standards of the race, although even the shadowy stallion had had little dealings with the reclusive dwarves. Still, there was no gray in the lengthy brown beard and ponytailed hair and few lines in the gruff face.

The dwarf stared ahead, not noticing the towering form quietly approaching until Darkhorse finally stood in front of him. The ebony stallion immediately regretted his stealth as the dwarf shrieked at sight of him and tried to do the impossible for any of his race by trying to climb the mighty oak.

“Cease your fear!” Darkhorse demanded, trying to keep his voice to a low bellow. Even after so long, his understanding of mortal emotions had its gaps, but he could see nothing that he had done to deserve such a horrific reaction. After all, he had approached out of concern, not threat.

Despite what he believed a reasonable demand, the dwarf continued to try to climb. The thick fingers and dense nails, designed to dig in rock and compressed dirt, easily tore into the bark and the softer under layer.

Darkhorse finally created a limb vaguely resembling an arm with a three-digited hand, then seized the dwarf by his wrist. As thin as the newly-formed limb looked, it would have taken far more than the dwarf’s not inconsiderable struggle to free him. Darkhorse turned the frantic warrior around to face him, then waited a reasonable few seconds for the swarthy warrior to calm.

But still the dwarf acted as if every Dragon King ever to live pursued at his heels. The shadow steed finally decided to speak again.

“Tell me of the danger! Where is it? Where is your friend?” All the while he had been dealing with the panicked dwarf, Darkhorse had been studying the area with both his magical senses and extra eyes sprouting from various parts of his torso. Thus far, though, there was no hint of either the missing dwarf or anything else, but he continued to search. Eye after eye burst into life, studied the woods before it, then sank into the body as another formed elsewhere.

Darkhorse belatedly realized that the extra eyes might be adding to the dwarf’s distress. Dismissing the excess eyes and reverting back to a full equine form as much as possible—he still needed the limb to keep his companion from running—the eternal tried to speak even quieter. “I will help. Just tell me what happened...”

“You—you—” Beyond that, all the dwarf could do was stare at a spot to Darkhorse’s right.

The ebony stallion eyed the place in question, but saw nothing odd. He looked again at the dwarf—and then out of the corner of his eye noticed a peculiar rippling.

When he tried to look directly at it, it vanished. Yet, the moment Darkhorse started to turn away again, the rippling ] renewed with vigor.

Keeping his gaze at just the right angle, he said to the dwarf, “You see that motion in the air to my side, do you not?”

To his relief, his frantic companion managed to nod. Encouraged, Darkhorse muttered, “Your friend. Is that where what happened to him took place?”

Another nod. Yet, despite the progress he was finally making with his questioning, the shadow steed remained perturbed. The fear in what should have been a stalwart dwarf’s gaze still focused more on Darkhorse than whatever threat that had taken the older dwarf. Darkhorse could not understand. He had made it clear that he was here to help, yet his companion continued to ignore that very obvious fact.

The rippling abruptly magnified. Darkhorse caught himself before making the mistake of turning to look. For some reason, he could only view it in such a way.

“You...” the dwarf repeated, catching the shadow steed’s attention with his unexpected comment.

“Yes, me. We have settled that!” Darkhorse cautiously created a tendril out of the side of his chest. Keeping the rippling at the edge of his vision, he maneuvered the new limb toward it.

The dwarf shook his head fervently. “No! Master Thurn! He said—”

At that moment, the rippling magnified a hundredfold. Something dark shot out of it toward the ebony stallion’s latest appendage.

Darkhorse tossed his fearful charge as far and yet as gently as he could. He hoped that he had at least prevented the dwarf from suffering further due to the eternal’s mistake.

A horrific emptiness coursed through Darkhorse, made the worse for him by his at last recognizing its origins. Of all things, he had not expected this.

Never this.

The rippling drew his tendril into its center. Try as he might, Darkhorse could not pull the new limb free. Daring to glance at the location no longer made the rippling vanish. A trap had been set and he had fallen right into it.

The emptiness he felt filled him, in the process stirring further an ancient fear. That, in turn, fueled Darkhorse’s struggle to free himself. He finally severed the tip of the tendril, sacrificing that small part of him rather than be drawn with it through what he knew at last to be a portal.

The rippling quickly swallowed up the fragment. A moment later, the rippling ceased and the area returned to normal.

As Darkhorse retracted what remained, he searched with his magical senses for any last trace of the sinister portal. There was nothing, though. It was as if what had just happened had only been his imagination.

“Was that it, then? Was that it?” he demanded of the dwarf. “That is what took your friend—”

Darkhorse stopped when he saw that he was addressing empty air. In the brief chaos, the other dwarf had run off. The shadow steed snorted. He could not exactly blame even a generally-stalwart creature like a dwarf to remain near such an dangerous and unsettling situation. Darkhorse himself might have fled had he known exactly what had been awaiting him. Even now, the memory of what had happened remained seared in his mind. He could never have mistaken what he had sensed, as disturbing as it was to think what that then meant.

Something—or someone—had reached out into the Dragonrealm from the Void.

 

III

Darkhorse scuffed the ground with a hoof as he contemplated his choices. He had few. Despite all the tales, all the legends, most knew very little concerning his fantastic origins. Even the fact that he most often resembled an equine was a point with so many fanciful and utterly false origin stories.

He should have gone to Cabe Bedlam. The wizard was the closest thing to a friend he had and despite having asked Darkhorse to help him with the other matter, Cabe would have gladly helped the eternal with this new situation.

But that would have entailed explaining things that would have made the mage realize how much Darkhorse had never told him about his past. No, there was only one spellcaster of power that could help him at this point. Only one who would not question Darkhorse on certain aspects of this unnerving incident.

Only the Gryphon, a creature of secrets himself, would respect the shadow steed’s need for privacy in regard to the full truth.

With a shake of his head, the ebony stallion opened the way...

“It would be so nice if, on an occasion or two, you managed to send word of your coming first, Darkhorse.”

The shadow steed dipped his head. “My apologies, Lord Gryphon! I will endeavor to remember!”

“Yes...we can hope for that, at least.” High marble shelves full of thick tomes filled the room, an impressive display of magical and military knowledge ironically made insignificant by the fact that a gargantuan and legendary library system lurked somewhere below the city. Penacles was a place renowned as a fount of gathered wisdom where the mystic arts were concerned, the library system’s origins stretching back even before the rise of the Dragon Kings. If there was information that could aid Darkhorse now, then surely it had to be here.

Once, Penacles had been the center of the kingdom of Clan Purple, one of the most dominant of the drake clans. Two hundred years ago, the downfall of its sinister lord had been the one bright spot in an attempted revolt against the Dragon Kings as a whole. One of the few survivors of that unfortunate struggle had been the City of Knowledge’s current master...the Gryphon. He had turned Penacles from being not only a place of learning to a beacon of freedom that had at last helped stir the continent to a much more promising future.

Few beings there were that impressed Darkhorse more than the figure before him. The wizard Bedlam and his family were among those few. The accursed warlock Shade was another. Yet, in his own way, the Gryphon was at least as unique as any of them...if not far more.

The Gryphon rose from the wide, wooden chair in which he had been reading. He was as his name suggested, a fantastic being who in many ways resembled the winged beast. Although he stood and moved like a man, the Gryphon had the head of a raptor, even to the very sharp, very deadly beak. Only his eyes were more human than avian, eyes filled with the wisdom of years.

His hands ended in talons, with the wrists covered in a combination of feather and fur. The Gryphon wore a loose outfit with a cloak attached at the shoulders and although his boots looked as those of any soldier, they and the pants were in fact designed to hide the fact that his legs and feet were more of a leonine nature.

Magic allowed the Gryphon to alter his countenance to one more human, but the people of Penacles loved their loyal lord so much that they had no fear of his true appearance. Their love made utter sense, too, for the Gryphon had nearly sacrificed himself several times over to keep the kingdom free.

“There’s something you want of me that you don’t want Cabe to know about,” the lord of Penacles commented politely.

“As astute as ever!”

“Hardly astute. What bothers you, Darkhorse? It must be of tremendous consequence. There’s even something amiss in your tone.”

The eternal gouged a furrow in the marble floor before he realized what he was doing. “Forgive me—”

“It will be repaired. Speak.”

“Lord Gryphon...you know from where I come! The Void.”

The lionbird rubbed the underside of his beak. “Yes, and may I never find myself in that infernal emptiness again in my life. A sorrowful place, Darkhorse.”

“You will get no argument from me! The day I learned of this plane was the day I was reborn...which brings me to my fear.”

The Gryphon’s eyes narrowed. “Yureel...”

It hardly surprised Darkhorse that his companion would have correctly judged the eternal’s concern. Only two things had ever entered the Dragonrealm from the endless Void. Darkhorse had been the first.

And then there had been Yureel. Yureel, from whom Darkhorse had been so long ago split off much the way the shadow steed had split off the bit of tendril rather than be dragged toward the rippling.

Once, there had been a black mass with no name, but with a consciousness. It had drifted through the Void, constantly surrounded by emptiness save those rare times when some object of some fool of a spellcaster had ended up entering the blank dimension. That dark mass—then with no concept of what a name was—had found a vile amusement in using the few lost travelers as ‘toys’, torturing them in one manner or another until they perished.

And sometimes not even stopping then.

However, eventually it had learned the concept of loneliness from those long periods when it had no such plaything. Somehow, it had learned that it could divide itself and so it made a slightly smaller piece.

A ‘brother’. A companion.

But despite being part of the same, that severed piece had quickly found the concept of ‘toys’ a frightening thing. Where the larger mass continued to enjoy the macabre games it played, eventually the severed portion had become revolted and fled.

And then, it had eventually met a creature from one of those mysterious other places, a sorcerer by the name of Dru Zeree. The concept of a name had intrigued the mass and from a blurted comment by the startled sorcerer had come to call itself Darkness. Later, when it had followed Dru Zeree back to the Dragonrealm, it had beheld a creature so impressive to it that it had not only chose to take on the word for it as part of its ultimate name, but also the very shape.

Thus had Darkhorse been created.

But Yureel had eventually found his way to the Dragonrealm, too, and in the process had nearly brought the entire continent to war merely to satisfy his insidious craving for entertainment. Yureel had seemingly perished then, but a small bit had survived to briefly threaten Darkhorse later.

“You think a part of him has reformed?” the Gryphon asked when the eternal said nothing.

“I...do not know what to think. Please. Let me tell you what happened.” He quickly explained the recent events, leaving absolutely nothing out.

The Gryphon nodded. “I can see the need for concern. How may I help, though?” He blinked. “The libraries? Is that it?”

“Yes...I had never thought of it before, but I wondered what information they might have concerning the Void.”

“An intriguing notion. I never considered it myself.” The lord of Penacles rubbed his beak again. “Yes...I can see why you might ask.”

“Do you think it possible?” Unspoken had been the ebony stallion’s hope that the Gryphon would immediately pronounce such a suggestion as complete nonsense.

“Why don’t we find out now?”

Darkhorse exhaled. “I thank you, Lord Gryphon.”

“Don’t thank me. I owe you, but that is not the point. A revived Yureel is not a danger any of us want. The Dragonrealm suffers enough right now. Come!”

Without another word, the Gryphon led him down the hall. Several guards snapped to attention as their lord neared, then turned white with concern at sight of his inhuman companion.

“Be at ease,” the lionbird ordered futilely. Although Darkhorse had visited the palace several times over the decades since Lord Purple’s fall, his was not a presence easily accepted by most.

They reached a doorway flanked by a pair of ominous metal statues with only faint hint of features. The two fearsome figures seemed ready to fling themselves at the pair...and would have if the Gryphon had not been one of the two attempting to enter the chamber beyond. Instead, the iron golems—for that was what they were—simply remained frozen.

The room within was small yet elegant. There were few pieces of furniture, but then this was not a place where one came to sit and rest. The purpose of the chamber hung on the opposing wall, a wide and very tall tapestry depicting a masterfully-detailed image of the entire kingdom. Indeed, as the pair approached, even the minutest details became clear. To someone not familiar with the tapestry, it appeared as if the piece had been newly-crafted, for it even revealed buildings currently under construction or repair.

Darkhorse, though, knew the truth, even if he had rarely seen the artifact work. Created by the same magic that had been used to build the libraries themselves, the tapestry constantly altered its appearance as Penacles itself changed. Had Darkhorse stood before it long enough, he would have seen subtle alterations here and there as life around the kingdom progressed.

Yet, the true purpose of the artifact was not just to record the ongoing existence of the City of Knowledge. Now the Gryphon carefully eyed the image, seeking one thing in particular. The eternal also sought for it, but the trained eye of Penacles’s ruler found the prize first.

The Gryphon set his finger on the small image of a red book positioned in the midst of the main marketplace. More often than not, a similar symbol alway noted the location of the hidden libraries...but rarely in the same place each day. The entrance to the libraries constantly shifted position and the only true way to reach the facilities was by rubbing the symbol, as the Gryphon did now.

And then...without warning, they stood at the intersection of at least five long, long corridors filled with endless shelves of thick, leather tomes. This time, they were all a light gray, but other times the books had been green, blue, or many other colors. They were not necessarily the same books, either, the libraries an incredibly vast system.

“How may I serve?” a raspy voice asked from behind them.

They turned to find a bald, gnomish figure clad in dark blue robes that trailed to the marble floor. As with the books, it was possible that either the coloring of the gnome’s robes changed each time or that he was merely one of many identical keepers of the vast collection. Not even the Gryphon knew and if asked of his origins, the librarian—or maybe librarians—could not or would not answer. The figure before the pair was as much of the ancient edifice as the rows of books.

“We want to know the truth about the Void,” the Gryphon replied carefully. “Especially where it concerns all things related to Darkhorse.”

“Many puzzles there, many truths there,” murmured the librarian. “Come. Let us see what can be divined. You may be fortunate. We shall see.”

He turned and walked down the first corridor to their left. Despite so many books, Darkhorse noted that the gnome headed directly for one several yards down and on the lowest shelf. From what the ebony stallion had gathered in the past, the librarian always knew where to head.

The librarian extended a hand toward the tome in question. The book flew from the shelf into his waiting grasp. He, in turn, handed it to the Gryphon.

“Thank you.”

The librarian bowed and backed away.

The lord of Penacles opened up the hefty tome. “This may still be a fool’s errand. It would not be the first time that the libraries gave such murky clues that we would need years to decipher them.”

Darkhorse said nothing, fully aware of the prospect yet still hopeful. If there was any knowledge of the Void to be had in the Dragonrealm, it would come from this place.

“By the Dragon of the Depths...” the lionbird breathed as he beheld the contents. “What the blazes does this mean?”

Darkhorse leaned over to see.

The two open pages were utterly black, as if someone had painstakingly covered every inch of each with ink as black as DArkhorse.

“I do not understand, lord Gryphon.”

“Nor do I. Another one of the libraries’ damned puzzles, but I’ll be damned if I can fathom what it’s supposed to mean!”

The eternal did not answer. For a moment, he thought he saw something in the sea of black, as if there was movement on the page.

“My lord Gryphon...do the pages ever reveal animation of any sort?”

His companion gave a leonine growl. “You have no idea what these books can do. Just what do you see?”

Instead of immediately answering, Darkhorse leaned closer. Just as he was about to give up, he saw the movement again. “There is something near the center of the right page.”

The Gryphon cocked his head. “I don’t see anything.”

“In the very center now. It—”

The page turned of its own volition.

The next two were as black as the first pair.

With another growl, the lionbird flipped the next. Sure enough, more black pages revealed themselves. The Gryphon repeated his action over and over, with the same results.

But as he did, Darkhorse felt a now-familiar concern. “Do not flip anymore—”

The book flew from the Gryphon’s hands. It fluttered just above Darkhorse’s gaze, the pages flapping hard.

And in the midst, the movement grew more noticeable.

To the side, another movement caught Darkhorse’s attention. The librarian backed farther away, his expression intent. Whatever was causing the book to act as it did was something with which the gnomish figure was familiar.

“Lord Gryphon! The librarian! He—”

The pages flapped harder, blurring together. They created a scene of darkness.

“The libraries!” Darkhorse roared, suddenly feeling a familiar presence he would have never expected here...and yet made perfect sense. “The magic at its very foundation! It’s the same—”

A tremendous suction pulled the shadow steed off the floor. Darkhorse swiftly lost all definition as he was dragged into the depths of the book.

Behind him, he heard the Gryphon shout something, but by then it was far too late. A thundering sound cut off the lionbird’s call, a sound that Darkhorse could only imagine was the book shutting tight.

He tumbled through the blackness, still reeling over what he had sensed from the book.

Buried deep beneath extensive spellwork that bore traces of magic from humans, Vraad, Quel, Seekers, and more was the utterly distinctive trace of magic Darkhorse could hardly mistake.

After all, it was identical to his own.

He was rocked by a violent storm that left him senseless for a moment. Darkhorse spun around and around...and then the blackness gave way to a place utterly white.

The eternal shook his head to clear it. As that happened, it became very evident just where he was. The very last place he would have desired to return.

The Void.

 

IV

The absolute emptiness surrounding him felt so oppressive that Darkhorse could not contain a long shudder. His time in the Dragonrealm had made him understand just how awful the Void was. Endless nothing forever save for the few pieces of refuse that somehow found its way in from other dimension.

Refuse, including the occasional body.

With a snort, Darkhorse concentrated. When Yureel had still existed, Darkhorse had kept from the Void rather than risk his elder half discovering the Dragonrealm and all its innocents. Even after Yureel had been destroyed, Darkhorse had avoided the accursed realm. There had been too many memories of terrible things that he had not prevented, even if only because he had not had the power to do anything then. To Darkhorse, the Void would always be synonymous with Yureel’s evil and its legacy.

But Yureel is no more! No more! The eternal reminded himself again.

And yet...after all that had happened, a niggling doubt remained. Both the energies revealed in the books and the traces he had sensed coming from the rippling air had tasted of Yureel’s taint. Of Darkhorse’s taint, of course, too.

A taint that continued to pull at him like an irresistible siren’s song even now. It trailed off into the emptiness, teasing and torturing him.

With little other choice anymore, the black stallion pushed himself through the white, empty dimension after it. He saw nothing before him, to each side of him, to any direction he twisted his view. Dread memories stirred even more by what he followed continued to haunt him, memories of the twisted pleasures of his other self.

I am not Yureel, he continually repeated to himself. I am not Yureel...however much I was a part of him.

Yet, still, after so many millennia, the shadow steed was not entirely certain how great a difference there was between Yureel and him. Darkhorse could not count his own victims, so many were they. In fact, before Yureel’s invasion of the Dragonrealm, the ranks of those who had been vanquished by the ebony stallion had greatly outnumbered those of his progenitor. True, for the most part they had been what Cabe and the Gryphon referred to as ‘evil’, but still Darkhorse ever suffered some guilt, a concept Yureel had never understood nor cared to learn.

The icy blue eyes continued to survey the emptiness. Even though he could still see nothing, Darkhorse knew that he drew near his ultimate destination. The pull was stronger than ever. He increased his pace, his legs moving at a gallop. The physical action was unnecessary, but Darkhorse had become so accustomed to his equine form that it would have proven extremely difficult for him to keep the legs still. He would have had to dispense with the entire shape, something he did not wish to do unless absolutely necessary. At the moment, the familiarity of his form was one of the few anchors of comfort remaining to him.

Guilt of a different origin began to stir inside him again, guilt at leaving the Bedlams at their hour of need. True, they supposedly had Shade to assist them, but even Darkhorse still distrusted the warlock’s stability. Away from the nearby vicinity of the Bedlams’ daughter, Valea—the only calming influence Shade had—the accursed spellcaster was still as much a risk as he was a benefit.

I must trust in Valea, though, the shadow steed reminded himself. She has already done the impossible merely by giving Shade an expression of hope...literally—

Something came into sight far ahead.

All thought of his human and not so human companions faded in an instant. From its size and the distance—both still arguably questionable at best in this place—he believed it to be of fair size.

Of possibly human size.

At the same time, the peculiar siren song grew stronger yet. Despite that, Darkhorse adjusted his direction and speed in an attempt to match that of the object. While it was more than likely that whatever he confronted had no tie to the call, he could still not take the chance of missing a possible clue.

Even though he had been ‘born’ in the Void and thus knew its way better than any, the shadow steed kept a very wary eye on the mysterious object at all times. The Void did not follow the laws of nature as the mortal planes knew them. Darkhorse understood that he might yet discover himself racing away from his goal rather than toward it. The Void had a sinister whimsy to it that the earlier rippling had hinted at, a refusal to follow consistent laws of nature that the eternal had not recognized until having experienced the Dragonrealm and other saner dimensions.

Indeed, despite the fact that he raced at a speed that would have already sent him along the breadth of the vast Dagora Forest, Darkhorse still did not find himself any nearer to the object. The stallion snorted, then veered to the ‘left’ of the view. There were tricks he had once used without thinking to compensate for the ways of the Void and this one had served him well in the past—

The object vanished.

Darkhorse came up short. He surveyed the endless nothing surrounding him. While the Void had its odd ways, this was something with which he was not familiar. Things did not instantly vanish. They might drift another direction, but they did not disappear unless they somehow passed out of the Void into one of the many realities beyond.

One ice blue eye sank into the equine head, reappearing a moment later on the maned neck. The eternal saw nothing in his wake. A quick glimpse above and below him revealed the same nothingness. Whatever Darkhorse had noticed was no longer in sight.

Restoring his eye to its intended position, the shadow steed considered his next move. Logic suggested that he ignore the disappearance and continue on his trek. Only with Yureel had Darkhorse ever had any link resembling that which he felt with the unseen force calling to him now. That alone made it of the utmost urgency for the eternal to finally discover the source and hopefully be done with the foul matter.

More and more he feared that his growing suspicions were true...that what he would confront would be another segment separated from Yureel. Why would Yureel have not created another? Darkhorse wondered. Yureel—who had confronted Darkhorse in the Dragonrealm in the form of a sinister shadow puppet—had never mentioned repeating the process, but then the last encounters between the two had been nothing if not violent. Unless it would have suited Yureel’s intentions, Darkhorse’s progenitor probably would have kept a second mistake quiet.

He snorted as he considered the implications. If another variation of himself did exist, escaping Yureel did not necessarily mean that it, too, had come to understand the difference between good and evil. It might even now be a thing more horrific than—

A feathered form blinked into sight barely a yard from the shadow steed’s muzzle.

Darkhorse reared. Its four arms waving back and forth, the feathered creature hovered before him. Darkhorse instinctively kicked, striking the beaked attacker hard in the cloth-covered chest.

The force sent the avian flying back...and only then did Darkhorse see it well enough to not only recognize the figure, but also the more important fact that it was most definitely dead.

The corpse gradually slowed. The arms continued to wave, but only because of the momentum remaining from the stallion’s kick. Darkhorse had only to look at the wide, round eyes to verify what he had thought upon first glimpse; life had long ago fled this being. Still, he approached cautiously. Somehow, this dead thing had vanished and then reappeared without Darkhorse sensing it either time. True, there were the unseen, random portals that were the reasons behind some of the things drifting in the Void, but Darkhorse was familiar with how those worked and even how to open new ones. As subtle as their formations were, the eternal could generally sense them. Not so, in this case.

The body stilled. In general appearance, it reminded him of the Seekers, the feathered race that had once ruled the Dragonrealm. However, while the Seekers had countenances more akin to hawks or eagles, this unfortunate victim of the Void had an appearance similar to another winged hunter of the Dragonrealm, an owl. The extra two appendages were also a clear sign that this creature came from some reality far, far from Darkhorse’s adopted home.

The spartan brown robe the corpse wore marked the dead figure as likely once a spellcaster. Wizards, warlocks, and the like made up most of the sentient visitors to the Void. Eager—or more often greedy, as Darkhorse thought them—to expand their knowledge of the arts, they often searched for sources of power beyond those of their own realms.

The eternal had come across a body from this race once before. To him, that bespoke of a people heavily immersed in magic. Of course, it also spoke to Darkhorse of a particularly foolhardy group if at least two of its members had managed to kill themselves reaching the Void.

The shadow steed drifted slowly to the body. It was in far better condition than the previous one. This owl creature looked to him as if it had perished shortly after arriving. The body was full and if not for the lack of any sign of life as Darkhorse knew it, he might have thought the spellcaster only asleep—

The eyelids shut, then opened.

Instead of the round, brown ones he had just seen, these were now as utterly black as the eternal himself.

The beak opened.

What appeared at first to be ink spilled out. Darkhorse, though, knew it as something far more horrific...and also something far more familiar. He backed away from it at a speed any mortal being would have found literally breathtaking.

The ink moved even faster.

Tendrils sprouted from the ever-growing blotch spilling from the corpse’s beak. They snared Darkhorse’s legs and neck and when the eternal tried to severe those captured pieces, he discovered to his increasing dismay that it was impossible. His appendages were suddenly as much a part of him as those of a human.

He was trapped.

The corpse stopped spewing. The body shook...and then the corpse inhaled. The ink rapidly withdrew into the beak.

With it, despite his manic struggles, went Darkhorse.

He shrieked as he entered, for he knew without yet seeing it that what lay within was not within at all. Rather, Darkhorse entered another place entirely. It was as black as the Void was white, yet, where the Void felt like an endless emptiness, here the shadow steed felt as if he were slowly being crushed or suffocated.

If Darkhorse suffered any fear beyond his ancient one where Yureel had been concerned, it was that of claustrophobia. More than once, he had been held a prisoner in small, confined places, generally macabre magical prisons wielded by a variety of sorcerous fiends. Memories of those horrific moments flashed through his mind.

No! I will not be confined!

The fear did what his determination could not. Darkhorse released raw power in every direction. The rush of energy distorted his form, leaving his limbs and head shriveled appendages barely dangling from a rippling torso.

Yet, it was enough. In the blink of an eye, the ink burned away, leaving the pure whiteness of the Void once more surrounding the shaken eternal.

But Darkhorse did not stop even then. He let the power continue to surge out of him, burning away at whatever still might try to engulf him. The shadow steed did not lessen his desperate efforts until he lacked the strength to do anything at all.

And then, with eyes newly reformed, he finally dared to look around him...dared already knowing that not only was he not alone, but that what had just sought to entrap him was also the very source of the siren song.

It filled his gaze, no minor feat in a place so empty. It was as black as pitch, understandable considering that it was of the same substance that had burst from the owl’s maw. As Darkhorse took in the jarring sight, he also both saw and felt the constant pulsations the thing produced.

I am a fool! he swore to himself. I am the greatest of fools!

There was no sense fleeing from it. His attempt to escape from where the tendrils had thrust him had done nothing but destroy the shell that had once been the owl sorcerer. The corpse had merely been a means by which the monstrous thing had sought to finish drawing Darkhorse to it. Darkhorse in particular.

He did not have to ask why. It would have been clear to anyone who looked from the huge, swirling mass to Darkhorse and then back again.

They were one and the same.

No, not quite. Darkhorse knew without understanding how he knew that this gargantuan mass was—as best as time could be measured here—far, far older than him. Indeed, far, far older than Yureel, as well. That meant one jarring thing in particular.

Ever I believed you the first creation, brother, Darkhorse thought to the late, unlamented shadow puppet. Now...now I see that you were nearly as much an infant as me...

Raw energy crackled around the dark, pulsating mass, jagged bolts of magic disappearing off in a thousand different directions. Ten times that many Darkhorses could have fit into the mass and still not matched its tremendous girth. Such power as the eternal could never have imagined gathered here as part of the thing before him.

“It is impressive, is it not?” came a sudden, familiar voice from next to Darkhorse. “But then, anything from which you were ultimately spawned would have to be so impressive, don’t you think?”

The eternal immediately shifted his eyes that direction. Not at all to his surprise, he beheld the hooded and cloaked form of a humanoid figure. The hood was so huge it hung low over the face, obscuring any features. The entire body was the same black inkiness as Darkhorse, but the overall outline was all too familiar.

“I might have known your hand would be involved,” rumbled the stallion angrily. “I might have known, Shade...”

“You might have known...” The head tipped upward, revealing at last what lay within the hood. “Or you might not have...”

The half-formed steed reared in renewed shock. What Darkhorse had expected to see and what in itself would have been a frightening image—the blurred, unreadable face that was the mark of the warlock’s curse—was not there. Instead...instead a black emptiness greeted Darkhorse’s gaze.

The same black emptiness of which the great mass and the shadow steed himself were made...

 

V

“You are not Shade...” But even as Darkhorse declared that, he knew that he was not exactly correct. There were subtle hints of energy that marked the warlock’s unique nature, subtle hints that nothing could have mimicked. This was Shade.

And yet...

“Call me you...this time,” the hooded shape murmured.

“Ah!” The ebony stallion understood now, but that knowledge only made his concern greater. The peculiar response by his featureless companion—a variation on the introduction each incarnation of the ageless spellcaster made upon their creation—should have also included whatever name the new Shade desired to be called. Each chose a name to differentiate itself from its predecessors in the vague hope that doing so would make it the final incarnation, the one to escape the curse of death and rebirth that also threw Shade from good to evil and back again over and over and over...

“I might have known,” Darkhorse muttered. “You—he—Shade—could never leave anything alone that might break the endless cycle. He knew about me. He knew about Yureel. He calculated that somewhere in this place he would find something...more...did he not?”

“He was certain...I was...so much power...a way to be free at last...” There was no hint of a face, but Darkhorse, long used to reading the emotions of the warlock despite such obstacles, thought that he sensed at least a hint of the original’s yearning in the black figure before him. “Markys was an ambitious one, even for one of us...”

The hooded figure kept skipping between acting as Shade and as part of...of the mass. Darkhorse cautiously considered how best to respond. “He did as he so often did, assumed too much about his own power and believed that he could control what he found. But it was too much for him, was it not?”

The shadow Shade actually shivered. “It tore us apart. Divided us into a thousand fragments still living. It had never felt or sensed anything like him before. It had to taste. It had to absorb...and so it did.”

Now it was Darkhorse who shivered. He knew what that meant. He knew what the incarnation calling himself Markys had suffered, an agonizing, drawn out death. Shade had perished in so many horrible ways, but Darkhorse knew that this had been one of the most terrifying.

“And then, we learned of you. You who are us. We who are you. A so different us...an us with...with more than existence. We had to see you. We had to find you. We had to discover all you know...all you have...lived. We had to be able to experience it all ourselves.”

Darkhorse quietly sought out any potential escape. He had a fairly good idea just how the mass intended to relive all that the shadow steed had experienced. Darkhorse would be absorbed much the way the one incarnation of Shade had been, with only slightly less agony than the warlock had suffered. There was no other way.

“From me, we learned much,” the false Shade went on, indicating himself with one gloved hand. “But not enough. Not nearly enough. So much...otherness! So filled a world...worlds! We would visit them all, but we do not know how we—I—came here.” The hood moved forward. “He kept us from that. He buried the knowledge...he stole it from us! He wouldn’t let us find the way. We can touch into the worlds, taste of them, but not enough to let us completely enter!”

The voice lost all hint of Shade, becoming a booming, inhuman thing that to the shadow steed sounded so much like Yureel or Darkhorse...but without even the humanity of the former.

“Shade...” Darkhorse whispered.

The rant ceased. The hooded head tilted as if listening. The abrupt shift in action did not surprise Darkhorse, who knew well both his own and Yureel’s mercurial tendencies. Thanks to Cabe Bedlam and others, Darkhorse had gradually learned to better control that part of his nature. This thing, however, had not.

“We can be Shade...it amuses us and teaches us...but we could be others, too...we could even bey you...you could teach us in the same way...”

“But you would experience it in a different and even more fascinating way if we stay as we are!” Darkhorse quickly returned. “There would be so many unexpected things...so many surprises!”

He played on what he knew of himself and Yureel. The obsessive need to be entertained. Darkhorse had first filled that need with exploration, then with friendship. Yureel had chosen his macabre games, his tortures and twisted plots. Still, they had had some similar tastes in other ways...including one that came to Darkhorse’s mind now.

“Surprises...” continued the Shade. “I know about surprises. We learned them from him.” The figure patted its chest.

Darkhorse turned his gaze to his true foe, the enormous mass of swirling energy. “Well I have a fine surprise for you! I will give you a name!”

The mass rumbled. Darkhorse recognized the stirring as something akin to excitement.

But then the false Shade commented, “We have a name, though! A glorious name! You can call us Markys...this time.”

The shadow steed had expected just this response. “But that is a name already long used! You deserve far better than that! You deserve something more distinct! You deserve one all your own! Unique to you!”

The false Shade cocked his head the other way. “Yes! A name mine and mine alone!”

The black mass quaked. The false Shade shivered, then, in that more hollow voice said, “Ours...ours alone.”

Darkhorse pretended not to notice the brief independence shown by the floating figure. “Now, of course, it can be based on something around us or some thought or—”

“We have gathered things...”

Before Darkhorse could respond, the huge, cloudlike form began disgorging several objects. A small book drifted toward the ebony stallion. Several loose rocks scattered in different directions. They were things that had likely been collected over a long, long period. Yureel had done something similar, any actual object a rare item in the empty Void.

The, something much larger shot forth. Despite its crumpled appearance, it was still recognizable as a body. Darkhorse had expected it to be the original Shade’s, but saw that instead it was some beetlelike being with an arched back and what looked to be a belt with pouches. In contrast to the avian corpse, this one looked very shriveled, as if its life had literally been sucked out of it.

Repressing a shudder, Darkhorse tried to use the random collection to come up with something which with to distract the mass. He had created his own name by sheer circumstance; perhaps it would be possible to keep his captor occupied with trying to choose parts of the name from its ‘collection.’

“Is there more?”

“There is...more...” the Shade answered. “Do you want to see it all?”

“Of course!”

Several more objects issued forth, including another body.

A dwarven body.

Pretending mild interest in the collection as a whole, Darkhorse gradually maneuvered toward the still form. Once reaching it, he nudged it.

A faint groan escaped the dwarf. The eyes fluttered open.

“Cold...so...so damned cold...”

“We found that outside!” the false Shade announced gleefully. “We were searching for you. We’ve been searching for you ever since we found this one—” It again indicated the hooded form it had reproduced. “—and learned of you. We looked so long, in so many places...but never could find you until now...”

There again was that indication that although the mass could reach into other worlds, it could not go there itself. Why is that? Darkhorse pondered. Why is that?

He decided not to worry about it at the moment. Now his priority concerned the dwarf...or Master Thurn, as the second dwarf had called him. Darkhorse had not expected to find Master Thurn alive, but knew instantly that he could not leave him to such a fate.

A name...I must make the name creation all it focuses on! First, though, Darkhorse had to find out the limits of the mass’s power. It had found him in the hills, then in the libraries. It could trace him wherever he was and reach out within limits.

“You are very strong!” he began. “So much stronger than I am!”

“Yes, we are...” the hooded form remarked with clear pride.

“To reach into the places beyond here, even if you cannot go there yourself! I am so very impressed!”

“Yes, we are strong...” But this time, there was a hint of frustration. “Very strong...”

Darkhorse did a calculation based on what he had seen thus far. His gaze turned to one of the pieces of rock floating away. “Enough of that now! Your name! That piece over there! I have an idea! Retrieve it for us!”

The mass rumbled. The false Shade remained in place, saying, “You will retrieve it.”

“But I cannot without your permission!” It was true as far as the shadow steed could see. His several surreptitious attempts to pull free had utterly failed. He was very much a prisoner, with his mobility limited to the nearby vicinity of his monstrous captor.

“You will retrieve it,” the hooded form repeated.

A shiver ran through Darkhorse, followed by a feeling as if some massive blanket had just been pulled off of him. He started after the rock, waiting for something to pull him back before he reached it.

Nothing happened. The ebony stallion created an arm and used the primitive hand from it to grab the rock.

The oppressive sensation overtook Darkhorse once more. He found himself floating back. Only when he hovered near his original position did his movement cease.

So...there is the truth of it, Darkhorse realized. It cannot move from this position! It is fixed here!

“We want a name...” the Shade muttered dangerously.

“Of course, of course!” The shadow steed eyed everything around him. He thought long and hard about how both he and Yureel had gotten their names. Yureel’s was a simple twisting of the shocked words by the first person to see him. ‘You’re real.’ The simplicity would have had a comic nature if not for Yureel’s awful nature.

But despite that knowledge, nothing Darkhorse peered at satisfied him. If he made the wrong choice, the mass might just as easily decide that a used name was good enough. If that happened, Darkhorse believed that both he and Master Thurn would quickly after find themselves a permanent part of the mass. They would be gradually absorbed, just as Shade’s incarnation had been.

Another slight moan escaped Master Thurn. Darkhorse eyed the stricken dwarf.

Out of desperation, he tested out a sound. “Dwar...dwar...”

“Is that our name?” the Shade piped up with abrupt eagerness. “Is that it?”

“Dwar...” Darkhorse declared loudly. “The beginning of it, yes! Dwar! A very strong beginning!”

“We are Dwar...I am Dwar...”

The shadowy stallion shook his head. “No! This is only the first step! Now we must—”

“But I like Dwar!” the hooded shape persisted. “I am Dwar.”

Several powerful human epithets threatened to escape Darkhorse. Things were proceeding too fast. He had yet to discover a way to escape.

“DwarDwarDwarDwarDwar...” the false Shade repeated over and over. “Dwar. Dwar. I—we—are Dwar. We are Dwar.”

“Yes, Dwar.” Darkhorse peered at Master Thurn. “Now—”

“Now...you will take me from here! I will be free! Dwar will be free!”

This time, some of the epithets did escape. Darkhorse seized up Master Thurn and tried his best to retreat.

Instead, an invisible force flung he and the dwarf toward the hooded figure. As they neared, the false Shade reached out as if to embrace Darkhorse.

The hood fell back. The inky head became a wide, open maw, a great black pit into which Darkhorse could not stop himself from falling.

He threw Master Thurn to the side at the last moment. Then, losing all cohesion, Darkhorse spilled into the false Shade’s maw—

And suddenly found himself outside again. Outside...and yet inside something else.

Inside...a part of Dwar.

Dwar wore him as Cabe might wear his wizard’s robes. Darkhorse’s head turned, but only because Dwar wished it so. The shadow steed’s legs shifted awkwardly, yet again due to Dwar. Dwar also delved into his mind, trying to learn all that Darkhorse was and all that he knew.

Especially, the black stallion sensed, how best to try to enter the Dragonrealm.

Darkhorse fought back. The strain was tremendous, but Dwar’s control over the legs faltered. A stalemate arose.

Move...move... Darkhorse’s captor demanded.

No!

Silence followed, then...Yes, you will move.

Another fragment broke off from the huge mass. It slithered through the emptiness like a serpent. As it moved, it also stretched.

It was also heading for Master Thurn.

There was nothing Darkhorse could do. The serpentine appendage wrapped around the unmoving dwarf.

You will move...or I will squeeze...

Dwar knew life well enough to understand how easily it could be destroyed. He—now the singular pronoun fit better—also understood that Darkhorse cared for what to Dwar was still a curiosity.

Very...very well...

Darkhorse’s body turned around. At the same time, the ‘serpent’ dragged Master Thurn next to him.

You will take us from here...you will bring us to this place of many things, this so wonderfully crowded place you and he called Dragonrealm...and then we will bring the rest of us to the world as well...

Darkhorse regained use of his legs. He knew, though, that he was expected to do exactly as he was ordered.

Ahead...

The shadow steed pushed forward. The serpent kept to his side at all times. Dwar intended to use Master Thurn to completely control Darkhorse. The knowledge Dwar had gained from Shade’s incarnation had been enough to teach him how to manipulate the ebony stallion.

They continued on. Darkhorse knew that Dwar had not chosen this particular route at random. The ebony stallion could sense a weak field ahead that marked a potential opening into another world. Darkhorse could not allow even a portion of Dwar to fully escape into any place, much less the Dragonrealm. Still, the shadow steed wondered why Dwar intended to use him when it was clear that he could at least to some degree pass through—

He barely shielded the thoughts in time as the possible reason occurred to him. It made perfect sense with what he knew of himself and Yureel.

Giving no hint of his discovery, Darkhorse closed on the potential opening. What Dwar hoped to do also gave Darkhorse his best opportunity, but he had to time it to the very last moment.

Making certain that Master Thurn was still right at his side, Darkhorse concentrated.

The area before him rippled. He had no idea whether this opening would currently lead him to Cabe and the rest, but in fact did not want to risk any creature in any realm. The lesson that Yureel had burned into him and that Dwar appeared ready to repeat was more than enough to make Darkhorse willing to sacrifice himself—and Master Thurn, if necessary—rather than allow more tragedy.

The rippling expanded. As it did, Darkhorse caught sight of a forested region that could have been many areas in the Dragonrealm or even in some other dimension. None of that mattered, though. He started forward—

They entered the rippling...and Darkhorse made himself explode.

It was a contained explosion, something he had done only a handful of times in the past. His body scattered in a thousand directions...and so did that essence which belonged to Dwar.

Barely a blink of an eye later, Darkhorse reformed himself. Dwar, for all his power, moved more slowly. The ebony stallion had assumed that Dwar had not had reason in the Void to learn such an ability.

The serpentine portion wriggled in what Darkhorse knew to be anxiety. It had been created to be subservient to the essence that had trapped the shadow steed. Once more, a lesson Darkhorse had learned over millennia in other worlds.

Quickly stretching his head forward, Darkhorse bit a gap in the serpent. The halves spilled free of Master Thurn.

Darkhorse seized the dwarf with his mouth and dragged the unconscious figure with him through the rippling.

Behind him, he sensed Dwar in a rage.

 

VI

The moment Darkhorse touched ground, he knew that this was not the Dragonrealm. It was not even the same place he had seen a moment before. The sky here was an orange-lavender and the trees ended in sharp bristles. A thing with wings but that was most definitely not a bird in any sense fluttered away from a branch.

Glancing behind him, Darkhorse saw that the rippling grew more intense. Setting the dwarf aside, the ebony stallion concentrated.

The rippling ceased. The portal it had represented would never open again, thanks to Darkhorse’s careful efforts. With Yureel for so long a concern, Darkhorse had ages ago learned how to seal off such pathways. The only trouble was, new ones seemed to form over time. There would never be a way to forever cut off any realm from the Void, but at least for a time that path would be harder.

He finally turned to Master Thurn. The dwarf hugged himself tight. His skin had a hint of blue to it.

Without another thought, Darkhorse flowed over Dwar’s latest victim. He sensed that Dwar had only stored Master Thurn, not started to absorb him as he had Shade’s unfortunate incarnation. There was, as Darkhorse had hoped, a chance.

He let his power pour slowly into the dwarf. Several minutes passed, but at last Master Thurn relaxed and a normal color returned to his flesh.

A few more minutes, and the elder dwarf finally stirred.

He screamed.

“What, by Rheena?” he shouted, calling on a woodland goddess Darkhorse had heard of but had never verified as real. Master Thurn thrashed about, clearly trying to fight his way out of Darkhorse.

“Rest easy!” he commanded the dwarf. When Master Thurn failed to heed him, Darkhorse finally spilled off of the bearded warrior and reformed in front of him.

Master Thurn opened his mouth—

“Before you call me that ridiculous title again, I am Darkhorse! Nothing more, nothing less! Darkhorse!”

The dwarf shut his mouth. His eyes darted back and forth.

Darkhorse knew what he was looking for. “Your weapon is lost! Not by my doing! I know it meant much to you!”

“Grandfather’s grandfather’s ax! Split the head of a Quel clean through,” Master Thurn muttered, referring to one of the towering, armored creatures inhabiting the Legar Peninsula far to the south of the hill dwarves’ domain. The Quel had once ruled the Dragonrealm, but had been supplanted by the Seekers, who themselves had been overthrown by the drake lords. Even after thousands of years, the Quel attempted incursions into what had once been a part of their vast empire.

“I am sorry!” Dwarves were very possessive of family weapons and to those they felt comfortable around were likely to brag about each piece’s history. Each weapon had markings denoting those who had wielded it before and what feat for which they were known. “Are you well enough? We cannot remain here very long.”

“And where by the Lords of the Dead are we, anyway?” Evidently now aware that he was in no danger from the shadow steed, Master Thurn found interest in their surroundings. “This is none of the Thirteen Kingdoms!”

“No,” Darkhorse had not heard anyone use the term in centuries, but knew that the dwarf meant the Dragonrealm. “No, we are far from there.”

“The Aramite Empire?”

Most mortals only knew of the vast continent across the eastern seas as the home of the wolf raiders, even though all that remained of the empire there was a few pockets and scores of ships turned pirate. Dwarves, though, were not always aware of the latest news beyond their realm. “Farther than that. Never mind! We will be leaving—”

The air a few yards ahead began to ripple.

Snorting, Darkhorse formed an appendage and seized Master Thurn. Before the dwarf could protest, the shadow steed drew him inside the eternal’s torso.

Ignoring Master Thurn’s agitated squawks, Darkhorse reversed direction and concentrated. A hole opened up before him.

Instead of entering, though, Darkhorse waited. A shape vaguely reminiscent of the false Shade began to form.

Icy blue eyes narrowing, the ebony stallion brought the hole he had summoned to where the rippling took place.

The figure emerging from the rippling had no choice but to enter the hole. As soon as it disappeared through, Darkhorse immediately dismissed his creation.

While Dwar had the power, Darkhorse knew that he had the experience when it came to traveling between realms. He had created a hole that would send Dwar back to the Void. In the meantime, Darkhorse created a second hole, one that he then immediately entered.

The odd landscape became a more familiar-looking rocky domain that glittered so bright it was blinding at times. Darkhorse knew not only that they were once more in the Dragonrealm, but that they were now in the desolate Legar Peninsula. The constant, nearly-blinding glitter came from the immense concentration of crystal in the ground, crystal that, with the right effort, could be turned to good use in the magical arts.

Darkhorse ignored the temptation of the crystals. Another aspect of Legar was that because of the crystalline formations and their inherent ties to magic, every single inch of the peninsula could act as the eyes of Legar’s drake lord. The current Crystal Dragon might be new in his role, but he had the legacy and power of his predecessor upon which to call. It was very likely that he already knew of the shadow steed’s intrusion and watched warily what Darkhorse might have in mind.

For the moment, though, the main reason he had journeyed here was due to another aspect of the land’s nature. Those same crystals would made it difficult for any without experience to properly sense Darkhorse’s location. Dwar would certainly need time to find out where the ebony stallion had gone.

And that brought up another question to Darkhorse. The part of Dwar that had separated from the main mass in order to control Darkhorse appeared to have little trouble traveling beyond the Void. However, the shadow steed still believed the full mass was fixed where it was...and for a very good reason that had to do with a part of the Void’s astounding nature.

Darkhorse had never thought of the Void as having a center, but where Dwar floated appeared to be just that. More important, that center also seemed to be a nexus into which magical energies from the many dimensions outside of the Void not only spilled, but concentrated. Their intermingling had gradually created unique forces that had in turn produced the formidable mass that had eventually grown sentient. From that it had eventually been spawned what would become Yureel.

And from Yureel had been spawned Darkhorse.

But the main mass was also by its nature bound to the nexus. So gargantuan had it become that it could only maintain its existence by constantly feeding on the energies spilling into the Void. Smaller pieces could be shed, but only for a short period lest it lose mental control over them—

“Of course!” Darkhorse laughed, although the laugh was not one filled with humor. “I should have seen it!”

When Dwar had split off the fragment that would become Yureel, it had quickly developed a separate personality. Having seen how the mass could easily absorb things, including other fragments, Darkhorse could only imagine that Yureel had hardly desired to face such an awful fate. Certainly, Darkhorse had thought much the same about Yureel when he had fled his ‘brother’.

Swearing arose from the eternal’s interior. Darkhorse quickly opened up his side, allowing Master Thurn to emerge.

“By my ax! Don’t do that to me again!”

“It was necessary! That which took you into the Void was at our heels!”

“Was it?” The dwarf lost some of his fury. “That was something awful! It was like death spilled out of a tear in the air before us! It swallowed me up before I could fight it. Then...then things got horribly dark and horribly cold.” He shuddered. “Never been so cold. Could never imagine such cold.”

“I am sorry. It came in search of me, although I did not know it at that time. You had the misfortune of being at one of the points where it tried to catch me.”

“Hell, it is you...or just like you, isn’t it?”

Darkhorse tilted his head. “Very astute.”

“I’m a dwarf, not a damned lump of rock! I could see that. Worse, I could feel that.”

“You need concern yourself no more. I will carry you one last time to near the area where you were taken. Once there, I will depart immediately and you will be safe.”

Master Thurn grunted. “If what you say is true, first I don’t hold no grudge against you. You’re not to blame for that thing and that’s plain to see. Second, I appreciate the ride back, seein’ as it’s a bit far from here and I’ve no weapon now. Still, if there’d be anythin’ I could do to help you, I owe you my life. That’s no small thing to me!”

“You owe me nothing! You have seen what it is that hunts me. You were taken because it followed my trail.”

“Hmmph. Not the way I see it. Still, I suppose there’s no way I can fight against it, so that’s that.”

Darkhorse nodded in relief. “Good! Now, I shall take you as I—”

“Hold on! Hold on!” The dwarf shook his head vehemently. “I’ll not be travelin’ like that again! If that’s the case, I will walk!”

After a moment’s consideration, the shadow steed replied, “Very well. I will carry you as a rider.”

“Do I look like a strapping sun-maned horseman from Zuu?” Then, in a more apologetic tone, Master Thurn said, “Sorry. That’s the only other way and I understand that. Just...the sudden thought of riding...we hill dwarves don’t do that much.”

Rather than reply, Darkhorse let his legs shrink. When he was near the ground, he indicated with a nod that Master Thurn should mount.

The dwarf gingerly did so. Darkhorse returned to his full height. He then created handholds on his shoulders.

“Grip those and we will be on our way.”

“Just a minute. You’re not going to create one of those holes, are you? Won’t that attract the other’s attention?”

“It would be swifter...” Master Thurn had an excellent point, though, Darkhorse realized. “Very well...hold tight then. We will journey by more mundane means!”

“Mundane he says,” the dwarf muttered. “All right. I suppose I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

Darkhorse raced off. He could sense the attention of the Crystal Dragon focus on him, but knew that the drake lord would quickly understand that the intruders were leaving his domain.

Indeed, only a couple of minutes later, the shadow steed’s astounding swiftness brought them from the Legar Peninsula to the edge of the main continent. To the northeast lay Zuu. To the north lay Master Thurn’s homeland.

But neither of those points mattered...for suddenly a hole opened up directly before Darkhorse and despite his best efforts to halt, momentum sent the shadow steed and his companion through.

The hole sealed immediate after.

 

VII

The false Shade hovered before them, the blackness beneath the hood just barely evident. As Darkhorse created a defensive shield around Master Thurn and himself, the figure formed a pair of eyes identical to those of the shadow steed.

“We are one...all of us...” the false Shade murmured. “You cannot escape. Escape is not possible.”

Darkhorse thought he caught a hint of some emotion, almost a wistfulness. He pondered, then replied, “No...escape is possible. Something else is possible. For all of us.”

The hood shook back and forth. “Nothing is possible. We—you—are forever trapped.”

“You know that is not true. You know that he—” Darkhorse purposely emphasized the mass as separate from the fragment before him. “—cannot leave the Void. You can. You know it. You can do just as I did.”

“No...he still found you. He knew for so long that you existed. Just like the other. He sensed both of you. Then, only one of you. The other was no more...but it still helped him to find you.”

Dwar sensed our battle, Yureel’s and mine, the shadow steed thought. That was when he first began his hunt. So long ago...but what is time here? For once, Darkhorse wished that he had Yureel with him. Yureel would have been able to tell him more about what they faced.

That brought up another question. Despite having been a part of Yureel, Darkhorse had had no memory of Dwar. Yureel had somehow buried any recollections so deep that he had not even passed them on to his second self. It revealed the depths there were to the differences between the various fragments and the original mass. They were less alike than the shadow steed could have ever believed.

And if that is the case, we may have a better chance than I imagined. He had to act now, though. “But you found me, Dwar. Not him. You...Dwar.”

“No...yes...Dwar did...” The false Shade’s icy blue eyes glittered. “He is Dwar....but I am Dwar...”

“You are Dwar! You alone,” Darkhorse insisted. “You feel it, do you not? You are the name; the name is you!”

“Dwar...” the hooded form murmured. “Dwar I am...it is my name.” He stared at the shadow steed. “It is my name. My name! My name!”

“Is this going well?” Master Thurn whispered to Darkhorse. “I can’t tell.”

Darkhorse did not reply. Instead, he dared move closer to the false Shade. “Your name!” he heartily agreed. “Your name!”

“My name! I am Dwar! Not him! I!”

Dwar—Darkhorse was more than willing to acknowledge the fragment by that name—spun around madly. Cloak and hood fluttering, he rose above the pair, dropped below, then rose up again.

“’Tis madness,” the dwarf growled.

“Hush...” Darkhorse tried to think of matters in respect to how Cabe Bedlam would deal with them. Thus far, he believed that he had done as the wizard would have chosen, but tremendous risk remained. “Yes, Dwar is your name. You are Dwar...but when he absorbs you again, Dwar will be his name. His alone.”

The false Shade froze in mid-spin. The eyes regarded Darkhorse’s own. “I see what you do! I am smart like you! Even smarter! I have some of his memories.” He patted his chest, an indication to Darkhorse that Dwar meant the original Shade. “You want to trick me!”

“Where is the trickery? You are Dwar! You will not exist when he draws you back into him! He will then be Dwar! Is that not simple? Is that not true?”

“Yes...no...true...” Dwar growled. It was an unearthly sound that reminded the shadow steed too much of Yureel. “A trick...but not a trick...he will take me...I will be Dwar no more...”

“No more...” echoed Darkhorse. “I know. I nearly suffered that fate, although from another fragment who escaped earlier.”

“Yes...he hunted that one so long, but the other was elusive. The Void is great, so very great.” The eyes glittered brighter. “I will do as that one did! I will hide in the Void!”

This earned a snort from Darkhorse. “Think you that he has not learned? Is his power not great and deadly?” The ebony stallion kept emphasizing the huge mass as a separate entity now, knowing that the longer the two talked, the more this Dwar would see himself as so very distinct. “Does he not already begin to search for you?”

The false Shade shuddered. “I can feel him...he knows something is wrong...he knows I do not think exactly like him anymore.”

“I know the feeling well. Hear me, Dwar. You pulled me back into the Void using your bond to him...but you were supposed to do more, were you not?”

“Yes...we were to return to him immediately. I wanted to...to pause, though...”

“You understood already that we would both be quickly absorbed. He knew I could not be trusted to do as he said. Better to gain my knowledge and perhaps find a way then to escape the Void.” Darkhorse snorted. “And you would simply have been absorbed for no longer being necessary.”

“Yes...he would have been both of us...we would have been nothing...nothing...”

He suddenly looked behind him. Darkhorse followed his gaze, both having sensed the same thing.

Several black shapes formed in the emptiness far beyond them, black shapes that Darkhorse had no trouble identifying even from a distance.

Master Thurn uttered something, then murmured, “Are those the same as you pair?”

“Yes...but without any hope of us reasoning with them. They are freshly created, with no mind of their own!”

Darkhorse had feared that the mass would react to having both fragments betray him by sending just such pieces after them. The mass—no longer Dwar even to the shadow steed—calculated that these other fragments would seize the rebellious ones and bring them back before any inkling of independence stirred within.

With a guttural sound, Dwar abruptly vanished...or at least attempted to do so. Instead, four slightly smaller fragments with only vaguely humanoid shapes formed around him and seized his limbs. Without preamble, they started to tear Dwar apart, quickly reducing his arms and legs into rubbery tentacles.

Darkhorse opened up his torso. Master Thurn dropped inside him with an epithet. That done, the shadow steed raced toward Dwar. While he knew he could still not trust his counterpart, the other renegade fragment was his best hope of putting an end to all this. Otherwise, the mass would always seek after Darkhorse, in the process endangering innocents such as the dwarf.

He kicked at the nearest of Dwar’s opponents, the combination of his physical strength and his focused power shattering the enemy fragment into several tiny pieces that instantly sought to began gathering together again. As with Dwar, none of the new fragments had his millennia of experience nor his concentrated power. Still, their numbers alone threatened to overwhelm the ebony stallion and his counterpart.

Master Thurn shouted something. As Darkhorse kicked at a second foe, he adjusted things so as to hear the dwarf.

“A weapon! Give me a damned weapon! I’ll not sit inside here like an infant—”

Before Darkhorse could respond, two more humanoid fragments formed by him. They immediately began pulling at the shadow steed from opposite ends, stretching him out.

A third attacker took shape near his center. It began trying to rip into Darkhorse’s torso...seeking, he realized, Master Thurn. The mass knew that if it captured the dwarf, it could again use him as a pawn against the ebony stallion.

Darkhorse reluctantly ejected Master Thurn from his body. Simultaneously, the shadow steed reshaped one of his limbs and then flung it toward the dwarf.

By the time it reached Master Thurn, the limb had become an ink-black ax. Darkhorse could not trust anything to be more effective as a weapon against their adversaries than a piece of himself.

Master Thurn saw the weapon and grabbed for it. He hefted it just as another servant of the mass materialized in front of him.

The dwarf expertly cut through the shadow creature’s torso, severing the top half from the bottom. As the two parts sought to merge again, Master Thurn chopped off the ‘arms’, then sent the rest of the upper torso flying with a final whack of the flat of the ax head.

While this happened, Darkhorse focused his power on the ends under attack. Raw energy shot through his two nearest adversaries, quickly engulfing them.

Darkhorse felt their agony as his spell reduced them to nothing. It was as if he had tried to burn himself. When Yureel had finally destroyed himself rather than face eternal imprisonment, the reverberations had shaken Darkhorse more than he had let Cabe and the others know. Still, the ebony stallion knew that he now had to accept their suffering lest he and his companions fall.

Dwar made use of Darkhorse’s aid to focus his two freed limbs on his remaining foes. They swiftly wrapped around the duo. With monstrous ease, Dwar absorbed both attacking fragments. They perished radiating the same sense of agony that Darkhorse had felt course through his adversaries. But the shadow steed sensed that, in Dwar’s case, the other renegade fragment reveled in the destruction he caused.

“I am Dwar!” he roared with a laugh as the last bits of his adversaries melted away. “Only I!”

Darkhorse had no time to concern himself with Dwar’s unsettling reaction, the shadow steed this time forced to do just as his counterpart had to the last of his own opponents. He wrapped himself around the struggling fragment, then swallowed it whole before scattering its essence throughout his body. However, even despite the speed with which he completed the dreadful act, the agony he sensed from the perishing servant proved as strong as that suffered by the previous ones.

Master Thurn continued to float above him, the veteran warrior now surrounded by bits and pieces of attackers that continued to try to regroup. The dwarf did his best to keep them at bay by cutting through the largest pieces, then battering them away in different directions.

But Darkhorse knew that the trio had thus far only delayed things. He needed to do something drastic to keep them from imminent defeat. There was only choice left to him. It would mean having to trust Master Thurn to Dwar, not a comforting thought at all.

Still... “Dwar! To me! We must deal with all of them at once!”

“Yes...yes...yes...” the hooded form soared over to him. “What is it? Whst will we do?”

“First, I need you to protect him,” Darkhorse replied, indicated Master Thurn with his head. “Do it now! Cover him, then wait for my word!”

Dwar’s icy eyes observed the warrior, who, despite his tremendous efforts, was now nearly surrounded by attackers.

“Go!” the shadow steed commanded angrily.

Dwar’s eyes glittered, but he obeyed. Darkhorse watched as he reached Master Thurn, then took the measure of their adversaries. Servants of the mass now formed in every direction, their creator willing to expend extensive energy to trap Darkhorse in particular. The mass knew that it would easily recoup all its energy simply by being where it had always been. The temporary sacrifices were thus worth it in order to gain Darkhorse’s valuable knowledge and skills.

The shadow steed could not say with any certainty that the thing that had spawned Yureel and Dwar would actually succeed in making enough use of what it learned and absorbed from Darkhorse, but the danger could not be denied. Darkhorse had to hurry.

“Dwar!” he shouted. “I said to over him!”

“Now just a moment—” Master Thurn managed before the false cloak Dwar had earlier crafted enveloped him.

The servants of the mass converged.

Darkhorse concentrated, drawing all his power to the very center of his core. By doing so, he directed forces to press against one another that could not long withstand such violent activity.

May this work... was his last thought.

Darkhorse exploded...his destruction washing over the oncoming creatures and obliterating them.

 

VIII

Master Thurn gasped as he was dumped unceremoniously face first on the ground. He took an instinctive sniff of the soil and realized that he had been dumped very near home.

That would have pleased him immensely if not for the fact that the demon Darkhorse had called Dwar loomed over him.

“So much life...” Dwar murmured. “So much to see...so much to taste...so much to play with and absorb...”

The dwarf did not like the sound of that one bit. Gaze on Dwar, Master Thurn sought for the ax Darkhorse had created, but could not find it. Finally, he risked looking for where the weapon had fallen.

It was too far away...and Dwar now paid attention to him.

“So much to learn...so easier to absorb...” He tapped his chest. “He taught us so much...”

Dwar reached for him.

The area shook. A tempest arose, one in which Master Thurn and Dwar were the center.

The ax Darkhorse had given the dwarf flew from his tight grip. As that happened, a blob of ink materialized between Master Thurn and Dwar. The blob swelled into a churning form that in the space of a few seconds then formed a familiar—and to the dwarf, a welcome—figure.

“A-away from him...” gasped Darkhorse. “You will not...not have him...”

Dwar cocked his head. “I was only thinking of it...I would not...I would not...”

Darkhorse eye his the other, then looked at the dwarf. “Master Thurn, I leave you here. Do not look back. Is that understood?”

“What do you mean? What’re you intending?”

The shadow steed ignored him. “He will hunt us, Dwar. He will always hunt us. You know that. If you wish to keep that from happening, then we need to take the battle to him!”

“Yes...yes...yes...” Dwar glanced over his shoulder, as if fearful that they were already being pursued. “We must stop him, but how must we stop him?”

“There is a way, but we must return to the Void to see it done.”

The hooded form’s icy eyes narrowed. “Yes...as you say...”

Darkhorse backed up a few steps, then spoke to Master Thurn. “Do not forget your ax when you leave. You may need it.”

“My ax?” Before the veteran warrior could react further, the shadow steed briefly glowed a deep azure. Before them, a large portal opened up.

“You see this, Dwar? You see how I can do this? So can you!”

Dwar edged up to it. “So strong! So big! Yes! I can do this! I am Dwar! I am as strong as you! Stronger!”

“Yes...” The ebony stallion approached the hole. “Come! We cannot hesitate!”

Darkhorse leapt into the portal. Dwar paused. He looked back at Master Thurn, who wished that he had the ax.

Then, Dwar followed after Darkhorse.

The portal faded away.

Master Thurn backed away. As he did, he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye. His ax.

No...not actually his ax. The one that Darkhorse had created from his own essence. The dwarf considered leaving it where it was, but something drew him to it. There was no sign of his own beloved ax, which meant that the shadow steed had to have meant this.

With a little wariness, Master Thurn plucked up the ax.

The weapon shimmered.

Master Thurn gaped...

 

IX

Darkhorse quickly surveyed their surroundings—or lack thereof—and calmed slightly. He had cast them as near to the pulsating mass as he could while still hoping he had their nearness masked. How long they would remain hidden, though, was a question he could not answer.

“What do we do?” asked Dwar.

“You sensed how I made that larger portal? You can make one?”

“Yes, yes! I can do that!”

The ebony stallion nodded. “We must work in rapid succession and make many of these! Do you think you can?”

“I am Dwar! Of course I can! Better than you!”

Darkhorse refrained from responding to the last. Instead, he began explaining more details.

As the shadow steed’s plan became clear to him, Dwar chuckled.

It was a sound that sent shivers through Darkhorse, although he gave outward sign.

 

 

 

It fed constantly as it directed its severed segments in their search for the two renegade bits. The same gathering of energies that made it so strong also demanded that it continually feed to support itself. Without the constant feeding, it could not exist, anymore.

But it was certain that it could escape that endless fate at last. The segment that had spawned from the other segment that had escaped it had vast knowledge of those crowded places beyond here and how best to reach them. How jealous the mass was that these insignificant bits could do what it could not. Yet, from what it had sensed in the one calling itself Darkhorse, there was a trick the mass could use to both be here and be there while still maintaining utter control of any and all bits of itself.

The ‘Dwar’ name had already faded from its interest. All that concerned it for the moment was gathering the renegade fragments. Crowded places all over awaited it, crowded places that had only teased it before. It had never been able to control a segment that had entered a crowded place longer than a few moments. That had enabled it to gather some minor toys, but nothing more.

But with the Darkhorse segment’s knowledge...

Suddenly, it sensed the return of the two renegade fragments to the Void. It immediately drew the hunting segments back to it, setting them in different ‘locations’. It then waited. When the two renegade bits neared, the other segments would help force them into it. All of the fragments would be reabsorbed and it would begin seeing to freeing itself from this never-ending emptiness.

And then...all those crowded places and their enticing toys would become its with which to play...

 

 

 

Hoping that Dwar understood his part, Darkhorse teleported himself to the center of the Void. A shiver ran through him as he materialized in front of the turbulent mass. He sensed movement elsewhere, puppet segments acting as the mass commanded.

Where are you, Dwar? he wondered desperately. Dwar should have materialized already. Had Darkhorse’s companion suspected the truth?

Then, he felt Dwar nearby. Darkhorse snorted in relief...relief that vanished a moment later as several servants of the mass materialized around the region.

But as they appeared, Darkhorse sensed Dwar cast the first spell of the plan.

Good! Darkhorse immediately repeated Dwar’s effort. A huge portal—called a blink hole by the creatures of the Dragonrealm—opened up before him. Its interior was a swirling array of colorful, powerful energies. It was so vast that it actually obscured sight of the mass.

Without hesitation, Darkhorse opened another, equally vast blink hole right behind the first.

As he finished, three humanoid shapes formed around him...or rather, where he had just hovered. Darkhorse had planned his movements with just this danger in mind. He could only hope that Dwar had followed his advice and done the same.

His first hint that his companion had obeyed was the sense of not just a second blink hole taking shape behind Dwar’s first creation, but then a third huge portal being cast by the renegade fragment forming at just the location Darkhorse had earlier suggested.

The shadow steed shaped his own third, then created a fourth behind that one. The effort put a strain on him, but still he immediately faded away before the pursuing fragments could catch him. He then appeared in his next planned spot, where he cast two more gigantic blink holes.

But as the shadow steed vanished from that spot, he noted a lack of a similar continuation of portals from Dwar. Fearful what that might mean, Darkhorse reached out with his thoughts for the other. Dwar!

Darkhorse! Help!

Cursing, the shadow steed teleported himself. He needed Dwar to be able to continue one more set. The plan was almost complete. They nearly had the mass surrounded.

He materialized where he sensed Dwar to be—

The renegade fragment, his body swollen from clearly having absorbed several of the mass’s servants, swarmed over him.

But Darkhorse immediately split in two, the components flying wide from one another. Dwar swallowed empty space instead.

The halves slipped around Dwar. The moment they met, they reformed the shadow steed.

“I am sorry, Dwar,” Darkhorse muttered. “I had hoped you’d wait a little longer. I had hoped...”

He kicked Dwar hard, the full force of his powers focused in his attack. Caught unaware, Dwar went spinning madly in the direction of the huge mass. He flew with such speed that there was no possibility that he would be able to stop himself before he collided.

Darkhorse vanished again. He materialized in the last position he had hoped Dwar would go and quickly cast the two final portals one behind the other.

From within the collection of blink holes, Dwar screamed as he reached the swirling mass. He regained a modicum of control, but by then several of the servant segments had reached him. They swarmed him, pushing him into the huge black shape.

The mass instantly absorbed him. Darkhorse sensed Dwar’s agony long after his audible screams ceased.

He had assumed all along that Dwar would betray him. And even if Dwar had not, Darkhorse had already planned to betray him. Darkhorse had noted Dwar’s comments, Dwar’s actions. In them, he had read the same dangerous nature he had experienced from Yureel. The shadow steed had come to the sorry conclusion that he could not allow Dwar to exist. Yet, he had also needed the other’s aid to deal with the central mass. Darkhorse could not have created all the portals so quickly himself.

His sacrifice of Dwar also served in one more way. Focused on capturing Dwar and controlling its other segments, the mass ever so briefly lost its concentration where Darkhorse was concerned.

The ebony stallion created the last portals.

Glimmering blink holes utterly surrounded the shadow steed and the monstrous form. The thoroughness of Darkhorse’s plan meant that no matter where one turned, there would be only a portal.

Darkhorse peered around. He had done all he could. He prayed that he had calculated correctly.

I am Dwar...

The voice thundered in his mind. The mass pulsated harder with each word.

I am Dwar...now...

Darkhorse backed toward one of the portals. “Yes, you are Dwar now!”

And I will be Darkhorse, too...

“No, I think not!” The shadow steed backed into the portal.

As he expected, the mass sent out a tendril toward him. It followed Darkhorse into the portal.

The shadow steed’s surroundings shifted. Suddenly, he was in the midst of the second portal behind him...and then in the midst of one of the other portals Dwar had created. Even as that registered, Darkhorse found himself then flung through another...and another...and another.

Darkhorse had shown Dwar how to focus just where a portal opened. Many thought of the magical gaps as methods by which tremendous distances could be traveled almost instantaneously, but they could just as easily be designed to cover very short distances. Each of the ones that he and Dwar had created had been tied to previous ones that they had cast.

The tendril passed through with him. It in turn passed through on to the next...and the next...and the next...and the next...

And as it passed through each, it dragged more and more of the mass through with it. Portals, especially the large blink holes, were designed to cast the entire object through them. The portals were attempting to oblige, with the result that the mass was quickly being stretched through every hole.

Darkhorse struggled to slow his own continuous shift from one portal to another. As the one who had cast most of them, he had some limited control. When he materialized in one of those of his creation, he finally made one last desperate spell.

A tiny portal no larger than a human hand formed within the vaster hole. Darkhorse barely managed to pour himself into it. He dismissed it the moment that he passed through. Even then, the stress of maintaining the smaller portal within the other all but ripped him apart. He had never tried to do it before but had believed it should work.

A sudden rush of raw energy washed over him. Darkhorse cried out—

“By my grandmother’s beard!”

Darkhorse spilled onto a solid surface he could not see as a puddle of black ink. He had no mastery over his essence. Indeed, with each passing second, he faced a greater chance of utterly dissipating.

“Come on, damn you! Tell me what I can do!”

The shadow steed belatedly recognized Master Thurn’s voice. That stirred a memory. Something he had arranged for just this moment. He had known that he might face horrific stresses even if his plan worked—

“Is it this thing? You said I should mind the ax! The one you made from you! Does it do somethin’?”

The ax. That was it, Darkhorse realized. The ax had been his safety measure. His tie to the Dragonrealm. To survival.

Ax...he thought to the dwarf. Darkhorse could not only not form a mouth; he could not even create an audible voice. The eternal could only hope that he could project his thoughts to the dwarf. Had Master Thurn been a spellcaster such as Cabe Bedlam, the odds of him hearing would have been great. The dwarf, though, was a warrior, not a wizard—

“Stop that buzzing in my head! What’re you trying to say? Slower, damn it!”

Darkhorse took heart at even that much success. Despite the increasing danger of his dissolution, he forced himself to think as slowly and as calmly as he could.

Ax...set in middle...set in middle...

“The ax? It does do something? Sit? I should sit? That can’t be right, damn it!”

Darkhorse tried again. Ax...set down in middle of me...set it down in middle of me...

He felt himself beginning to slip away. His mind felt as if it were in a hundred places at once.

“I think...I think I understand! Damn, I hope I understand you right!”

Darkhorse could no longer respond. He could only try to keep himself together a little longer.

Then, a sense of stability filled him. He grasped hold of it with all his will. His mind began to collect together again and with that came the ability to focus his power.

Master Thurn gasped. As grateful as he was, Darkhorse could pay the dwarf no mind. It still remained a battle to use his power just to pull himself together.

When he had first separated a part of himself to create the weapon, he had also considered another aspect of the ax. Being a part of him so recently, the two would still have greater affinity to one another then either Dwar or the central mass. Once Darkhorse had dealt with the immediate risk of it quickly becoming sentient, it had become his best hope of also circumventing the very trap that he had devised.

Slowly, very slowly, he regained strength. When he was finally able to, he shifted into his preferred equine form.

Master Thurn stumbled back as he did. The dwarf let out a grunt of relief. “It’s done, then? You’re all there?”

“I am...nearly whole. It will take some more time.”

“Do we have that? When that ax—you—started glowin’, I knew you were up to somethin’ big! Did you destroy that huge thing floatin’ in that emptiness?”

“No...but it will not be a danger.”

The dwarf did not look convinced, but nodded. “And that other? What did you call him? Dwar?”

“He is no more.” Darkhorse scuffed the ground, easily creating a great gap. “You are well? You will be able to safely reach your people?”

“Aye, I’m good, but you—”

“Then, I shall leave you! Farewell, Master Thurn! Forgive me for having accidentally drawn you into this!”

“Just a minute!” the dwarf began. “Are you certain—”

But with a simple turn to his right, Darkhorse raced off at such an astounding speed that Master Thurn found himself trying to finish his question to empty air. The dwarf slammed his mouth shut and peered after where Darkhorse had run.

After another grunt, the dwarf shrugged, then headed for the sanity of home, his lingering thought the unsettling one that he was still concerned for the welfare of the infamous Duhn Tromu of all things.

It was not a story he planned on telling the young ones of the community.

 

 

 

For three days, Darkhorse remained in seclusion in the eastern Tyber Mountains as he forced himself to wait until his full strength returned. Three days of growing wariness and concern.

Three days of expecting to be dragged back into the Void by the monstrous mass.

But that never happened and at last the shadow steed determined himself powerful enough to finally face what he had done.

Ignoring the worried mental summons of Cabe Bedlam, Darkhorse stepped out into the open and focused.

A gap opened in the air before him.

Without hesitation, Darkhorse charged into it.

 

 

 

Silence filled the Void. Not merely a physical silence, as was to be expected, but an internal silence within Darkhorse that he had not experienced in some time. It added further evidence that he had succeeded with his plan, but still he pressed on. There had to be no mistake.

After a brief hesitation, the shadow steed transported himself to the nexus of the Void.

The fury that greeted him at first startled Darkhorse. Yet, he quickly came to recognize the violent energies as just what he had originally expected to find.

So near one another, the many portals had, by a combination of their magical nature and his design, become one great construct. By doing so, they magnified their strength...guaranteeing that there would be no breaking down of the spell matrix.

Darkhorse watched as his creation surged with active energy. As the shadow steed had planned, his spellwork now fed off of the power flowing into the Void just as the mass did. As he had hoped, that meant that the spell would forever be potent.

It is done, then... Relieved, Darkhorse began to create a portal out of the infernal realm. However, as it formed he heard a faint but awful sound in his mind.

It was a scream. A constant scream. There was that in it that was very reminiscent of Dwar, but more primitive.

It was, Darkhorse knew, the never-ending cry of the mass as it was constantly torn between one portal after another, never able to collect itself enough to stop its torment.

“It had to be done...” Darkhorse muttered to himself. “It had to be done. There was no choice...none...it would have been worse than a thousand Yureels...a thousand Dwars.” Unspoken, he added, and perhaps, yes, a thousand Darkhorses...

The shadow steed shook his head, his mane flying. With the utmost haste, he finished the portal out and rushed through.

Behind him, the silent cry continued unabated.

 

 

END