“Verraketh Talembar …”
Floating several feet above the ground, the ghostly man bowed his regal head. “Yea, wizard, thou doth know me well.” His colorless eyes flickered down to Kellen. “Greetings, scion of Talembar, child of my blood.”
Kellen regarded the ghost with calm, curious eyes. “Hello, Grandfather,” he said simply.
Mari drew in a sharp breath. “Grandfather” was hardly the proper term to describe Kellen’s relationship to Verraketh. With thirty “greats” in front of the word, perhaps. Despite her fear and wonder, a thought occurred to her.
“I don’t understand,” she said, shivering. “How is it that you appear to us as a man, Verraketh, and not as the Shadowking you were when we … when you … perished beneath Iriaebor?” She swallowed hard, realizing this might seem a rude question to someone she’d had a hand in killing. “If you don’t mind my asking,” she added hastily.
The ghost shrugged. “Forsooth, why should I care, Mari Al’maren? The concerns of the dead are not those of the living. Yet I will tell thee, this form doth mean nothing. Once, I was a child as Kellen stands now. I couldst as easily have chosen that form over this. It matters not. In death, I shall forever be all that I was in life—babe and child, minstrel and mage, and yea, Shadowking as well. Still, I choose to appear to thee in this manner. Is it well with thee, Mari Al’maren?”
Mari nodded dumbly. Who was she to argue with a ghost about what form he should take?
Ferret cleared his throat nervously. “Excuse me, Verraketh, your … er, ghostliness. My friends seem to be a little more accustomed to dealing with spirits than I am. You see, most of the dead people I’m familiar with aren’t nearly so active as yourself. Anyway, I was just wondering …” The thief screwed up his weasely face. “Let’s see. How can I put this tactfully? Are you going to be killing us anytime soon?”
The ghost’s mirthful laughter echoed from all directions, an eerie but not altogether unpleasant sound. “Fear not, gentle thief. I bear thee no grudge for thy actions in my tomb beneath Iriaebor. Thou and thy companions did free me from the dark thrall of the Shadowstar, and let me at last find peace in death. For that, I thank thee.”
Ferret bowed in his saddle. “Don’t mention it.”
“Then why have you come to us?” Mari asked, emboldened by the spirit’s words.
“To help thee,” the ghost replied. “So that the metamorphosis that made me into the Shadowking shall not be worked once again upon my scion, Caledan Caldorien. For only thou doth have the power to save him.”
“How would you help us?” Morhion asked, his blue eyes gleaming.
“Listen,” Verraketh intoned. “On the other side of yon dark ridge doth lie the vale in which I discovered the Shadowstar after it fell from the sky. There also lieth the heart of Ebenfar—the throne from which I once did rule as Shadowking. There is a secret to the vale, a secret unbeknownst even to the shadevari. A secret that, were it known, doth have the power to defeat the Shadowstar.”
“A secret?” Mari repeated. “What do you mean?”
Verraketh explained. “Long ago, there did echo in the vale a strange and wondrous music. Some claimed that it was an echo of the song the gods sang at the time of the forging of the world. If this is so, it is beyond my ken. Yet one thing I do know. When the Shadowstar fell into the vale, it was hot and molten, and before it could cool and grow solid, the music that echoed in the vale did infuse the Shadowstar, becoming a part of its being. Ever after, the music of the vale has had the power to quell the medallion. Thus the song is the key to defeating the Shadowstar. It was a fragment of that music that my son, Talek Talembar, wove into the shadow song with which he did defeat me once.”
“Then when Caledan enters the vale, the echo of the song will nullify the Shadowstar. We’ll be able to get it away from him!”
Verraketh shook his head. “It shall not be so easy as that, Mari Al’maren. Thou seest, when I was Shadowking, I feared the music of the vale. I sought to mar it, and alas I succeeded. By mine own hand, the ancient song of the vale is flawed, and as long as it is flawed, it is powerless against the Shadowstar. Therefore, thou must seeketh to restore the song.”
“But how—” Mari began. Her words were interrupted by a shriek from above. She gave Morhion a startled glance. He nodded, confirming her fear.
“The shadevari have found us,” the mage said grimly.
“Go,” the ghost of Verraketh ordered. “I shall find a way to delay the Eyeless Ones.”
“But what about the song in the vale?” Mari protested. “How are we to restore it?”
“There is not time for me to explain the way,” Verraketh said curtly. “If indeed, after all these centuries, I would even remember how. It is up to thee to find a way to restore the Valesong.” His voice rose thunderously. “Now go!”
Another bloodcurdling cry rent the air. This time, the companions did not hesitate; they urged their mounts into a wild gallop. As they rode, Mari risked a glance over her shoulder. The ghost of Verraketh had vanished. However, she noticed that the sky had grown darker. Even as she watched, the clouds began to swirl in a spiral, faster and faster. High above, the unseen shadowsteeds screeched again, and this time their cries were not cries of hunger but of anger. Ghost or not, Verraketh was doing something that the winged steeds of the shadevari did not like.
The four horses raced toward the distant ridge that lay between them and the vale of the Shadowstar. Mari gripped Farenth’s mane with white-knuckled hands.
“Hold on, Caledan,” she whispered urgently. “We’re coming as fast as we can. Hold on just a little while longer …”
But the cold wind snatched the words from her lips.
Hooves clattering against loose stone, Mista scrambled up the last few feet to the summit of the knife-edged ridge.
“Good girl,” Caledan said, leaning forward in the saddle to stroke her neck. Despite the chill, her pale coat was flecked with foam. “I knew you could do it.”
Mista nickered uncertainly in reply. She did not like this place. Nor did Caledan. He gazed down into a dark hollow in the blasted landscape. The vale of the Shadowstar.
“Well,” he said. “We’re here.”
Though he had never seen this place before, Caledan had an eerie sense that he was coming home. Perhaps, in a way, he was. A thousand years of shadow magic ran in his veins. This was where it had all begun.
The vale itself was not so much a valley as it was a crater—a circular pit gouged into the surface of the world by a terrible, otherwordly force. The walls of the vale were formed of jagged black stone. Hot steam rose from countless fissures in the crater’s floor, creeping around a jagged spire of rock that stood like a sentinel in the vale’s center. He shut his eyes, and he could almost see it: the fiery streak plunging down through the sky to strike the ground with a flash as bright as the sun and a sound as deafening as two worlds colliding, leaving in its wake a gaping wound on the face of Toril.
Caledan opened his eyes and studied the steep slope leading down into the vale. Slowly, he dismounted. His joints ached fiercely, and he was horribly dizzy. Somehow he managed to stand upright.
“I’m afraid this is where we part ways, old friend,” he said haggardly.
Mista gave a firm snort, stamping her hoof in protest.
Caledan shook his head. “You can’t make it down that slope, Mista, and you know it. Frankly, I’m not certain I can, either.” He sighed. “But I have to try.”
The ghostly gray mare let out a worried nicker.
He encircled her strong neck with his arms. “I swear, I will come back for you, Mista, if it is at all in my power. I think that you’re the only one I really remember now. I know that there are others … others who were important to me once. But I don’t know their names anymore, or their faces.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Damn, but I hardly even remember my own name anymore.”