Legends of the Dragonrealm Volume 2

II

“The what?”

Stirred by the tensing of its master’s body, Sirvak opened its eyes and hissed. A small wyvern perched on a ledge returned the familiar’s angry sibilation and stretched its wings in challenge. Dru silenced Sirvak with a few whispered words while a single glare from the Lord Tezerenee quieted the wyvern.

Lord Barakas smiled, a feeble attempt, if it was one, to reassure Dru. “Forgive me, Zeree. We have come to call the realm beyond the veil the Dragonrealm. Since no one else has put forward a name for it, we thought this one would do just as well.”

We meaning you, Dru thought sourly. The patriarch of the Tezerenee, who had personally raised the dragon up as the symbol of his clan, knew he had the rest of the Vraad at a distinct and unique disadvantage. Each day, since the first discovery that another domain, unblighted, lay just beyond their own, Barakas Tezerenee had worked to ensure that it was he who commanded the situation. When the first mad attempts at crossing over physically had failed shamefully, Barakas had turned his talents to studying the works of his rivals. It was only because of Dru’s own experiments that he now shared in the successes of the clan. He had devised what had become the Vraad’s hope, the Vraad’s triumph.

It galled the rest of the race and made Dru careful as to whom he spoke with. Vraad were nothing if not vindictive.

A disturbed Dru, in an attempt to keep from commenting on the Tezerenee’s presumptions, studied the prone form of Rendel. The patriarch’s son might have been dead, so limp was his body. It was quite possible, in fact, that Rendel was dead, his ka trapped in some endless limbo. What the Tezerenee proposed to do was lofty, even by Vraad standards.

Which left another question, one that Barakas had, as yet, left even his “partner” in the dark concerning.

Of what use was transferring the ka of oneself if there was no suitable vessel awaiting it at the other end of the journey?

The Lord Tezerenee had promised success to his rivals and counterparts. Even he knew better than to fail in those promises. Failure would erode not only his standing with those outside of the clan, but with the rest of the Tezerenee themselves. He had trained them to be too much like himself and that, Dru Zeree had always thought, was the most dangerous mistake that Barakas had ever made.

As fearful as they were of their lord, enough Tezerenee banding against him would send even the overwhelming Barakas to the dragon spirit he so revered.

“Rendel’s… enthusiasm… is commendable.” With great effort, Barakas removed his hand from Gerrod’s head. Dru was certain he heard the younger Tezerenee exhale in relief, though that would have been considered a sign of weakness by Gerrod’s parent. The patriarch’s son rose and stepped quickly aside.

Walking at a measured pace, Barakas led Dru forward. The method of ka travel was his own idea, but one, in his mind, that he had always restricted to Nimth. After all, where else had there been to go besides the Vraad’s own world?

The realm behind the veil-the shrouded realm, as Dru had first called it-had altered the lives of the near ageless Vraad as nothing else had. The ghostly domain had flaunted its rolling hills and lushly forested lands in their faces as far as they were concerned because, quite simply, it could not be touched.

Some had immediately scoffed, claiming the trees and mountains that superimposed themselves on Nimth’s own battered and unstable landscape had been nothing more than a prankster’s illusion. No one laid claim to the supposed trick, however, and it soon became obvious that this was no mirage after all. With that, the Vraad began to study the place in earnest… as a second home.

When was the last time the sky was blue? Sharissa had asked her father once. Dru could not recall then as he could not recall now. Not in her lifetime, short as that had been so far. Of that he was certain. Nimth had started dying long ago. Its death was a slow, lingering one that might go on for millennia… save that long before then it would be unsuitable even for the Vraad.

Gerrod shadowed them every step of the way. There was more beneath that hood than either Barakas or even Rendel knew, Dru suspected. Gerrod observed everything with a cunning eye. He was keenly interested in what the outsider his father had brought with him had to say about the spells cast here, of that much Zeree was certain. Interested in a way that puzzled Dru, for it was almost as if the younger Tezerenee hoped to find fault with what he himself had helped create under the very nose of his lord and progenitor.

“Here it is, Dru Zeree. The missing link in your work and our salvation.”

Following the grand wave of the Lord Tezerenee’s arm, Dru gazed upon a body. He knew what it was, having created such beings before, but the size and scope of it made any initial comment superfluous. Under the waiting gazes of his two companions, he dared to reach out and touch the nearer arm. It was warm and very much living to the touch. Dru wanted to shrink back from it, but knew that only he would suffer from such a cowardly act. The Tezerenee neither respected nor worked with those they considered lacking in nerve. At this point in the alliance, such an action might have been tantamount to suicide on his part.

“A golem made of flesh,” Gerrod informed him needlessly.

Had it been standing rather than lying flat on a marble platform, it would have come to Dru’s chest. The same height as Sharissa. Zeree had no idea why that should come to mind now, save that he had already been away from her longer than he had planned. It was also for her sake that he had accepted the patriarch’s original offer. A solution, however insane, that saved her life was worth entering the domain of a horde of ravaging dragons like the Tezerenee. It was not a Vraadish notion, to be sure. Most elder Vraad would have gladly given up their offsprings’ lives to save their own hides.

“You may be wondering about its… incomplete construction,” Gerrod prodded in a more daring manner.

Dru grunted. Incomplete, indeed! A poor excuse of a golem, taken on face value… or rather on faceless value, seeing as how it lacked a visage of any sort. In fact, it was lacking in much more than merely features. There was no hair, no mark upon its person. Its hands and feet, he saw, were little more than stubs at the end of each appendage. The golem was neither male nor female, an asexual, living puppet.

As a Vraad over three thousand years old, Dru had seen far worse than this… yet the golem had some quality about it that made him want to shiver. Some difference beyond its visual deficiencies.

Then it struck him as to what it was he sensed.

“This was grown, not fashioned from bits and pieces.”

Gerrod’s eyes brightened. For the first time, Dru noted how crystalline they were. Barakas, meanwhile, smiled approvingly at the befuddled spellcaster. He indicated to Dru that he should continue with his guesswork.

The narrow Vraad did, forcing himself to touch the golem’s bare torso again. The skin had a peculiar leathery feel to it, almost like…

“Not Vraad after all.” He ran his finger along the arm, forgetting, in his dreaming, the dread he had been experiencing previously. What did he know that felt like this?

It came to him and the realization rekindled his dread of the gloom. “This has been spawned from a dragon!”

“You see, Gerrod, Master Zeree has a nimble mind. A mind worthy of a Tezerenee.”

The hooded figure bowed, his reaction, if any, totally shrouded by the cloak. Dru wondered if Barakas simply pretended not to notice or was so caught up in his belief in his control of the Tezerenee that Gerrod’s actions escaped him.

That was a question for another time. “This is to be the vessel for the ka.”

“Yes.” Barakas reached out and caressed the golem’s shoulder as one might a lover. “The golem has no ka, being neither dragon nor Vraad. It is a shell, open to possession, that has no true essence, no life of its own. The only thing it carries is the inherent magic of the dragon. Only a carefully structured spell gives it the appearance of life. A Vraad ka, entering, will find no resistance to its presence and take it over completely. The golem is malleable; it will become what the Vraad wants it to become.”

“A superior body for a new world,” Gerrod added, speaking as if by rote. He had evidently heard his progenitor preach this often.

The Lord Tezerenee nodded approval to his son. “So it will be.” His attention returned to his guest. “It will be a true combining of our soul with the magic of the dragon. Through that, the Vraad will be more than they could have ever hoped.”

Dru kept his expression indifferent, but, inside, the disturbing feeling was growing. It was more than just the golem now. The Vraad had a new world awaiting them, but it was one that Barakas Tezerenee was mapping out to his own desires. The anxious sorcerer looked down at the still form lying next to them and could no longer repress the shudder.

“Is something wrong, Zeree?”

Before he could respond, Gerrod spoke. “Father, Rendel will need some watching for the next hour. Despite earlier expectations, he is not yet in the Dragonrealm. We have judged the cross-over to be a slower and more tedious process than originally calculated and his body must be kept well during that extra time. If I have your permission, I would like to discuss with Master Zeree what opinions he has concerning our progress here and the possible difficulties we may not have foreseen… unless, of course, you have need of him still…”

The Lord Tezerenee’s gaze measured Dru. “I have no need of him now. What say you, Zeree?”

“I would be only too happy to add whatever I could to ensure the success of your spell.”

“Very good.” The patriarch reached up and took Sirvak’s beaked countenance in his hand. Dru could feel the familiar’s nervous breathing against his neck, but Sirvak, to its credit, did nothing otherwise during the span in which the large Vraad studied it. When Barakas finally released it, the creature carefully lowered its head and pretended to resume its napping.

“A splendid piece of workmanship. How would it fare, do you think, against a wyvern?”

“Sirvak has a certain skill in combat.” Dru purposely smiled as he looked at the beast and scratched its throat. “As for wyverns… he killed both of them in under a minute.”

The patriarch’s face darkened, but he kept his voice composed. “A splendid piece of work, as I said.” To his son, he commanded, “I am to be notified the moment something occurs. The exact moment.”

“Father.” Gerrod bowed, staying in the subservient position even after the Lord Tezerenee had vanished in a verdant cloud that threatened to spread throughout the chamber. Finally standing, the younger Tezerenee dispersed the greenish mist through an open window with a violent twist of his hand. He glanced at Dru. “He’s quite mad, Master Zeree, even more than the rest of us.” When there was no response, he added, “And we would have to be mad indeed to think of toppling him. Come take a look at this.”

With that last peculiar twist, Gerrod had turned toward the pentagram and those who maintained the spell. Dru followed silently, thinking about how much truth there was in his guide’s words.

“You have, of course, thought of the one difficulty with my father’s plan, haven’t you?” With his back turned to Dru, Gerrod looked like nothing more than a vast piece of cloth hung up to air out. His steps were surprisingly inaudible, a contrast to the heavy thuds that generally accompanied his armored relations.

Dru knew what the hooded figure was talking about. “Your golem is here; how will he get it to the Drag-How will he get it to the other side?”

“It was my idea… mine and Rendel’s, that is. A matter of power, as Father would say. Power will always prevail if you have it in sufficient quantities.” A low laugh escaped the all-encompassing hood. “Father is such a philosopher.”

“And what was that idea?”

Gerrod turned and indicated the pentagram. At that moment, the smile on his face was all too much a copy of his father’s. “What one Vraad cannot do, perhaps more, acting in concert, can. A group like this is out in the middle of the phantom forest, sitting among trees that are not quite there, stretching forth with the might of the Tezerenee, and creating for Rendel-and those who follow-vessels drawn from sources of the shrouded realm itself.”

It made sense of a sort and would only work with such as the Tezerenee. Only they could gather enough Vraad willing to work together to have a chance at success, even if that success was no more than a ghostly hand invading a ghostly world. The Vraad could not travel physically to their new home, but their power would build them another path.

Dru blinked. “Are there dragons over there?”

“Of course. It was-let me see-a cousin or brother or maybe even a sister, I forget which, who saw it. You can imagine how thrilled Father was. Our destiny was clear then. Until we found the beast, Father had intended on using some of those damn elves.”

Whispers of creatures inhabiting the shadow lands had slowly circulated through the network of spies and allies among the various Vraad. The elves were the most interesting, being a race long extinct on Nimth. They had been the first to suffer at the hands of the early Vraad. As Serkadion Manee, a singular sorcerer who had decided to chronicle the rise of his kind, had written, the elves had been too peaceful and giving to coexist with the new race. They had vanished virtually overnight. Nimth had seemed to die a little then, if Manee’s words were to be believed.

Living elves meant only one thing to the Vraad. Slaves and toys. It burned deep within Dru that his initial reaction had almost been as terrible as that of the rest; he had thought of what it would be like to study one, to take it apart and see how it differed from his own kind.

Sharissa would have abandoned him there and then had she only known.

He realized that Gerrod was staring at him, the younger Vraad’s eyes glistening.

“I want it to fail.”

At first, Dru was uncertain that he had heard the other correctly. When Gerrod’s expression did not change, however, he knew that the sons of the dragon were indeed all insane. In the end, Dru could only ask a simple “Why?”

The hooded Vraad looked at him helplessly. He seemed unconcerned that anyone might hear his traitorous words-traitorous to both his clan and the Vraad race as a whole.

“I don’t know! I feel it sometimes, as if my head were about to split in two! That something very wrong awaits us, something that means death… and more… to the Vraad, all Vraad!”

Suddenly Gerrod stared up at the ceiling. His mouth drew shut, a tight, thin line across his countenance. His head snapped down a second later. The eyes that met Dru’s were full of both relief and despair.

“Rendel’s made it. I can feel him. His ka now definitely inhabits the realm beyond. Our success”-Gerrod hesitated, visibly tasting the words and disliking their content-“is a certainty now!”

For the second time in only a matter of minutes, Dru could not hold back the shiver that coursed through him.

Though it had no mouth, it screamed.

Though it had no eyes, it turned its head toward the dark, raging heavens, as if seeking some power to end its agony.

Its visage was blank. No mark, no hair, graced its head. There were no ears, though it seemed to listen. Naked, it stumbled to its feet, which had no toes, and grasped the tree it had fallen against with hands that were little more than stubs. It was a sexless being, devoid of any distinguishing feature over the expanse of its entire body. It could feel the elements warring around it, but could do little else.

It was a golem, the first to be grown and the first to be claimed by the Vraad.

A flock of wyverns, half as tall as the helpless creature staggering below but capable of tearing asunder predators thrice their size, huddled fearfully in the few trees dotting this area of the storm-drenched field. It was not the wind and the lightning that sent shivers through their reptilian forms. What they feared was the being feeling its way around the trunk of the tree on which many of them perched. It was not exactly the scent that stirred their anxiety, but a presence of power so foreign to their limited existences that it frightened them into immobility.

The faceless monstrosity guided a foot over the upturned root it had previously tripped over. As it did, bulbous growths sprouted from the end, twisting and shaping themselves into individual toes. The other foot was also whole now, though the change went unnoticed by the creature itself. It could only feel its pain.

The storm had swept across a clear evening sky mere moments before, but it was already at its height. As it vented itself, the thing paused, seeming to consider something.

It suddenly pulled back its fist and, for no apparent reason, harshly struck the trunk of the tree. The wyverns squawked in panic; the blow nearly cracked the trunk in half. Sorcery crackled in the air around the blind wanderer. As it pulled the hand back for a second try, blood dripping to the already-soaked earth, stubs emerged from the front, mad little points that stretched and wriggled, creating fingers and forming a true hand in the space of a single breath. The blow stopped in midflight, the hand’s owner only now becoming aware of what was happening. If its empty visage could have indicated anything now, it would have been pleasure-the pleasure of a dead man who had been given a reprieve.

It wiggled the fingers on both hands, seeming to admire the movement that it could not see. The storm was a thing forgotten. The creature put a hand to each side of its head, feeling for and finally locating the budding ears. Like a child, it became aware of yet other alterations in its form. Pale white hair sprouted with astonishing alacrity, lightly covering the body and richly overwhelming the top, back, and sides of the head. He was male, too, a fact that he had known always but could not have proven before this instant. The body itself grew until it was well over six feet in height and swelled as the rib cage expanded and muscles stretched into being.

As the torso transformed, so, too, did the blank countenance. A tiny protuberance rose near the center. Below it, a slit formed, first little more than a tear in the skin, but soon a gap that spread across the emerging visage. Above, two tiny folds twitched, the beginnings of eyes.

Through the thin-lipped mouth and the arrogantly curved nose, he breathed deeply, for the first time, the air of this land. A smile, with just a touch of self-congratulation imbued in it, curled into life. Teeth gleamed white.

The eyes opened, glittery, multihued orbs that saw everything and forgot nothing. For a time, they studied the eye of the storm, a black abyss that was no cloud but the remaining effect of his passage to this new world. Even as he watched, it began to recede, giving way to the heavens once more. He sighed in relief, pleased now where he had been in agony moments before.

Fully whole, Rendel gazed down at himself, assuring that all was in order. The smile broadened.

The chill wind, a last remnant of the storm he had helped cause, reminded him of his lack of protection. The smile died, replaced by a look of petulance with just a hint of confusion added. He gestured angrily at his form.

A dark suit of the finest scale, scale from the greater cousin to the hapless beasts above, wrapped him from neck to toe. A green cloak and hip-high boots completed the image of some majestic but frightful forest king. Rendel left the hood of the cloak back, enjoying the feel of the wind on his face. He laughed, his triumph, which he had begun to doubt more than once since his arrival, completely erasing the earlier pain and fear. That, of all things, pleased him most. To one who had suffered little in the areas of pain and fear before this day, such emotions were doubly strong.

The wind was dying down now. Rendel turned his gaze toward a distant chain of mountains. Among them, he spied a giant among giants, a peak that seemed to summon him.

Turning briefly to the field and the spot on which the golem had lain, the mage executed a low and somewhat sardonic bow. That done, he straightened and, without hesitation, walked off in the direction of the mountains. An arrogant smile dominated his features.

The wyverns watched him depart, now bunched together so tightly that they threatened the stability of their perches. Beyond them and hidden by the tall grass, something else watched the receding figure of the Vraad with deadly interest.