Legends of the Dragonrealm Volume 2

THE SHROUDED REALM
PROLOGUE

Toos the Regent, ruler of Penacles, stared down at the rolled missive the courier had just left in his hands. Undistinguished as it looked, the crimson-tressed ruler knew it for a thing of potentially great importance. It was the latest in a series of communications he had had with Cabe Bedlam, the warlock of the Dagora Forest. They were comrades of some fifteen years, and spellcasters both.

As he carefully broke the seals, both seen and unseen, he pictured in his mind the youthful visage of the warlock. Cabe’s more regular features contrasted sharply to his own older, foxlike image, and it was hard to believe that so much knowledge and power rested within a man who was less than a third of the regent’s own hundred-plus years. Of course, Cabe would probably look the same even when he was two hundred. There were benefits to having a talent for spells.

Alone in his study, Toos unfurled the parchment and started to read.

My greetings as ever to the regent, it began.

Toos chuckled. Cabe insisted on using the self-chosen title as much as possible. Each year, the people of Talak had presented the former mercenary with the crown and each year Toos had declined it. Someday, his lord and master, the Gryphon, would return and on that joyous occasion, he would return control of the city-state to him and quickly and quietly resume his position at the legendary monarch’s side. No one had, so far, succeeded in eroding his determination, for the regent was the most stubborn of men.

Dismissing his thoughts, Toos continued reading, suspecting he already knew much of what the warlock’s communication was going to reveal.

The death of Drayfitt of Talak still leaves a dark blot in what has been, for the past two years, a relatively peaceful time. His papers, of which there seem an endless tide, fill all corners of the room at the time of this writing. My wife and children claim I neglect them and I am apt to agree. Still, it was not my choice to begin this project, since the Gryphon, a scholar at heart, would have eagerly plunged into this mire, which I, instead, must battle through. Unfortunately for both of us, he is across the sea and there is no news as to when he and his brood may return. That leaves it to me, though I’ve not yet been able to figure out why. Since I am the chosen one, however, and it’s you who read the fruits of my research, I will once more make no apologies for my rambling style and merely continue on.

My admiration goes out to Drayfitt. I find it difficult to understand a fraction of what he’d gathered even with so much knowledge passed down directly to me from my grandfather, Nathan. One thing I have discovered is that my own pet project will go for naught. The information concerning the mysterious Vraad is, at best, a thin veneer of half-hinted legends and exaggerated rumors masking a gulf of ignorance as vast as the Void itself. The bulk of his work perished at the hands of Mal Quorin, advisor to King Melicard I of Talak and agent of evil for the late and truly unlamented Dragon King, Silver. King Melicard, whose capable queen, Erini, I trust to keep him honest, assured me that what I received was all that remained. Those writings by Drayfitt that I have succeeded in organizing will be sent to you by separate couriers, likely a drake-human pair, as I would prefer to keep the two races working together as much as possible.

These, then, are my conclusions concerning the Vraad, of whom poor mad Shade was the last-I hesitate to use the word “living”-representative.

Toos found suddenly that he was sweating despite the coolness of the evening.

Drayfitt used many words to describe them, but arrogant and frightening seem to sum them up best. If I read his notes correctly, at their peak they were able to tear the heavens and earth asunder… you recall what Shade, in his final moments, did to the army of the Silver Dragon. Not a trace left. That was nothing. I think when you read some of what I am sending you, you will see as I did how fortunate we were that it was only Shade who defeated death for so long. The greatest irony in all this is that they were also our ancestors. We have the Vraad to thank for being here instead of that place I mentioned in several of the earlier missives, that twisted world they called Nimth.

I’ve found even less on that dark, fearsome domain than I have on those who once dwelled there. The Vraad left it a ruined place, abandoning it like the gnawed core of a srevo. The succulent flesh of the fruit had been eaten; they had no use for what was left.

Something must have gone awry, for they came here and vanished as a distinct race almost overnight… leaving us lesser spellcasters as their only legacy.

I’m sorry that there isn’t more. A pity the libraries beneath your kingdom have chosen to be especially vague concerning the Vraad, though somehow that doesn’t surprise me as much as it should. Darkhorse, our great, eternal friend, refuses my inquiries when he makes one of his rare visits-he still cannot accept that Shade is truly dead-and says only that the Vraad are better left a fading memory. Once, though, when he said that, I caught a wistful tone in his stentorian voice. It makes me wonder.

Gwen gives her love, you old fox. The children are fine… both human and drake. Yours, Cabe Bedlam

The regent allowed the parchment to roll closed, his mind sifting through what the warlock had and had not said. A world of Shades! A chilling thought. Standing up and walking over to the fire that kept his study warm, he threw the parchment into the greedy flames. It was difficult to say why he thought that necessary. There was nothing in the missive that was earth-shattering to him, not after the past notes. It was only that he found within himself, as Cabe had confessed he also had, a desire to forget anything concerning the arrogant, destructive Vraad… and a crippled, murdered place once called Nimth.