Legends of the Dragonrealm Volume 2

V

Gerrod kept his head down as he stood by his father, thankful that the bulky cloak he wore covered so much of his body. Barakas could not see-at least Gerrod thought-that his son was trembling.

Rendel would not have been treated with such scorn. That was true as far as it went. Rendel would, however, face much worse if he did not contact the clan before long. It was not due to any problem with the spell; Rendel had either left the region where he had crossed over or simply refused to respond.

That had only been the latest thrust. The outsider Zeree’s departure-and his refusal to return-were eating at the patriarch as nothing else had. For the first few minutes Lord Barakas had ranted and raved. Then he had fallen into one of his deathly silent moods. Gerrod, who had been the object of his parent’s anger more than once, would have preferred the ranting.

“I wonder what he plots?”

The question, the patriarch’s first spoken words in over two hours, caught Gerrod and the others assembled by surprise simply because they had all been resigned to waiting in silence for the rest of the evening. That was how things normally went. A change in tradition now meant disaster for someone.

“The outsider?” Gerrod ventured.

“Zeree, yes, who else?”

Rendel. Perhaps Ephraim. Are you so blind, Father? The young Tezerenee wanted to shout at the clan master, but knew what results that would bring.

“You said nothing more to him than what you told me?”

“Nothing of importance, Father.” Nothing save his desperate words toward the end.

“Leave it alone, Barakas dear.”

The throaty voice belonged to perhaps the only member of the Tezerenee who could dare to speak back to the patriarch. She strode elegantly into the chamber that the clan had usurped from the city as sort of a second throne room. Clad in green scale, a living warrior queen, she stood nearly as tall as Lord Barakas himself. Her face was more striking than actually beautiful, but the grace with which she moved-or even breathed-was such that it added an entire dimension to her that most female Vraad lacked. The newcomer was desirable, but where Melenea had been a temptress, this woman was a queen.

The patriarch moved to take her hand. “Alcia.”

Around them, the rest of the Tezerenee, Gerrod foremost, knelt before her in obeisance. Most of the clan whispered, “Lady Alcia.”

Gerrod and a few select others simply said, “Mother.”

“The others are getting restless out there, Barakas. You might have another duel or dozen if you don’t let them enjoy themselves.”

“I gave them permission.”

“You have dragon riders perched on every roof nearby. They don’t draw the comfort from them that you do.” She smiled through perfect lips, assuring him that she, unlike the Vraad outside, did share his appreciation.

“It will be done.” Barakas pointed indifferently toward the nearest of his people and snapped his fingers. The appointed messenger rose, bowed to his lord and lady, and vanished. “Where have you been, Alcia? Were you looking for someone?”

“Hardly. I was accosted by that she-devil earlier, though, the one Reegan seems so fond of.” She stared pointedly at their eldest. Not all of the patriarch’s sons were hers, indiscretion a fact of life for beings with countless millennia on their hands, but the heir and Gerrod were. Rendel was also. It sometimes amazed Gerrod that he and Rendel were related to a creature like the burly Reegan.

The heir, titled so only because Barakas felt it necessary to appoint his eldest to such a role, looked sheepish. His lust for Melenea was an open secret with the Tezerenee, made more comical in some eyes by the fact that the temptress could, when she so desired, make him look like nothing more than a great pup. Alcia did not care for her people, especially her offspring, to be made fools of even if they themselves had had a part in the process.

“Have you been outside in the last hour?” Alcia asked her husband.

“No. There have been complications-minor ones-with the various aspects of the cross-over. I’ve been busy sorting them out.”

The Lady Tezerenee tensed. “Rendel! Is something wrong? Has he-?”

“Rendel is fine,” the patriarch lied. No one dared to contradict him, although Gerrod was sorely tempted. “He proceeds with his tasks. There’s nothing to worry about. You had something you wished to convey to me, however.”

“Yes. The city is being buffeted by powerful winds. The protective spells seem to be weakening.”

“It’s to be expected. Nimth is weakening. That’s why smooth progression of our work is so important. Gerrod!”

The hooded Tezerenee leaped to his feet and straightened as his father whirled on him. “I await your command.”

Barakas looked him over, as if seeking fault. Alcia, on the other hand, beamed proudly. Reegan and the rest might be her husband’s, but Rendel and Gerrod were her favorites. Unlike most of the clan, she had been born an outsider, and in those two sons, the matriarch saw her identity passed on.

“You seem to get along with Master Zeree fairly well,” the Lord Tezerenee commented. “I give you the task of visiting his domain and bringing him back here. It looks bad when one’s partner seems… reluctant to be present at the culmination of his work.”

“We don’t need him, Father!” growled Reegan.

Gerrod smiled from within the shadowy confines of his hood. When Reegan spoke, it was generally to put his foot in his mouth.

“We don’t need him!” the heir continued. “The outsider gave us everything of use! Let him take his place in the courtyard with the rest! Better yet, see that he gets left behind!”

Barakas stood silent for several moments. Then he walked over to his eldest and slapped him across his furred visage. It was not a gentle slap, Gerrod noted with some satisfaction. The heir struck the stone floor end first, causing a yard-long crack along the surface. Lady Alcia remained stone-faced throughout the incident.

“He was given the bond of the dragon-my bond of honor! Never speak that way again unless I permit you!” Barakas focused on his younger son. “Go, Gerrod! Leave now!” The patriarch’s voice was more of a dragon’s roar. The young Tezerenee hastened to obey, folding within himself and vanishing from the room instantly, secretly gleeful to have any excuse to be far away from the mad rabble he was forced to call his family.

Emptiness.

What could one do with so much emptiness?

That was the question that pervaded Dru’s thoughts as he continued to float helplessly in… in… this void, he finally decided. It was a shorter, more succinct name and, more importantly, had pushed back his boredom for at least a hundred or so breaths.

Breaths. There was no way of telling time here, if time was even a familiar concept in this nondimension. The number of breaths he took was the only way he could make any estimate. Even then, it was tricky, for Dru had discovered earlier that it was not necessary to breathe in the Void.

He was at a loss as to what to do. Several failed attempts had proven to him the uselessness of Vraad sorcery here. That had come as a shock. Even with all the chaos on Nimth, Dru had never conceived that there might be a time when he had no sorcery at his command. There had been times when he had abstained from the use of it, but he had always known the magic was ready should he need it.

In growing desperation, he had tried pushing himself along with his arms and legs, an awkward parody of swimming. There were problems with that, however, chief among them being that it was impossible to tell if he was making any progress. Everything looked the same and he could feel nothing on his face. He soon gave the attempt up. Where was there to go, even if he was moving? There was nothing to see from his position save for more nothing.

A part of him did marvel at this place, however. The realm beyond the veil had been amazing enough, but this was truly something the Vraad had never conceived of in all their years. What was the Void? he wondered. Just emptiness? If he had accidentally fallen into it, had others? If so, what had happened to them?

With nothing else to do, Dru chose to rest. He was only now feeling the exhaustion caused by his transition from Nimth to this place. Perhaps, the sorcerer hoped, when he was rested he would be able to conceive a feasible plan. Perhaps something in his surroundings would change by the time he woke.

No sooner had he closed his eyes than he opened them again with a start. Suddenly Dru felt refreshed, as if he had slept for hours. The Vraad frowned, puzzled at the change. What could have given him so much energy?

Then a tiny orb floated into his range of vision. It shocked him at first, being the one object other than himself that he had seen, but then he recognized it as one of his own possessions. As he retrieved it, he noted other objects from his pockets. They all floated in lazy fashion about his person. Two questions were answered then. He was moving, albeit at an incredibly slow rate, else his belongings would have been scattered farther apart. He had also slept, yet there had been no feeling of time passage. It dawned on Dru then that he might float here for the rest of… of whatever… with only sleep to entertain him.

It was a Vraadish version of hell.

One by one the sorcerer retrieved his errant possessions, studying each in turn in the hopes of finding something that would aid him in his escape from this horrible place. They were all useless trinkets now, even the ones that had once been his most powerful tools. Everything he had derived from Vraad sorcery… and he could not touch upon that here, it seemed.

In a fit of anger, he took a hand mirror, once used for scrying but now only sufficient for staring at his frustrated features, and threw it from him. To his horror, while the mirror went one way, he went the opposite. Not far at first, but far enough so that the remainder of his escaped items were now out of reach.

The horror was quickly exchanged with an almost childlike glee. He could travel. There might not be anything to find, but at least Dru now knew that he could explore. His exploring was limited, however. Waving his arms did little to keep him moving; throwing an object in the opposite direction-a nebulous term at best-was the only way to assure himself of momentum.

Reaching into one of his voluminous pockets, he pulled out the orb that had originally begun the present chain of events. It was no more than a piece of metal now, but one that should start him on his way. Using the other floating trinkets as his means of perspective, the sorcerer threw the orb. His momentum was not great, but he slowly returned to somewhere very near his earlier position. Utilizing the cloak he wore, Dru scooped up as many of the other pieces as he could. He might need them later.

The drifting spellcaster’s present course took him nowhere in particular, which was the only place to go in the Void. Nonetheless, he now had purpose. As he floated, an act he more or less had to assume, he kept watch for something, anything, that might also exist here.

His euphoria passed into boredom again without one change in his surroundings. Dru could not say whether he had been floating for a very long time, but he knew that more than a thousand breaths had passed before he lost count. Still his eyes were greeted with nothing, great and endless quantities of nothing. There was nothing as far as the eye could see. Dru wondered if he would know when he finally turned completely mad at the sight… if one could call emptiness a sight.

Then, an object in the distance caught his eyes. It was only a speck, but, in so much emptiness, it stood out like a glittering crystal beacon. Dru discarded another of his items and altered his direction. Perspective was a problem, he realized. The object might be very close and very small or it might be far, far away and larger than his castle of pearl.

More than two hundred breaths passed before he was close enough to make out what it was. Deep disappointment vied with the simple pleasure of actually touching something else.

It was a rock. A jagged, brown rock that looked as if it had been torn from some hillside.

Through sheer luck, he had aimed himself near enough so that the rock would pass within arm’s reach of him. As the two of them closed the gap, Dru stretched his left arm out, intending on taking hold of the object and using it to send him in another direction.

He caught the rock… and was sent spinning away madly, his arm twisted back and wracked with mind-piercing pain. The rock continued on its oblivious way.

Despite the agony, the calculating portion of Dru’s mind knew what had happened. He had assumed, because it seemed to float so serenely, that the massive stone had been moving slowly. Not so. The Void had played him for a fool. Perhaps the rock had been falling when it entered this place; he could not be certain. Dru only knew that what he had tried to catch had been moving faster than the swiftest steed, so fast, in fact, that it had broken his arm.

It was an arm that would remain broken, too, for he had no sorcery with which to repair it.

With deliberate effort, he forced himself to put the broken limb back in place. It was a difficult enough task, what with the unceasing spin. Dru screamed readily, unashamed to do so since no one would hear him. Pain gripped him without pause. Once he had the arm back the way it should have been, he pulled off his cloak and turned it into a sling of sorts.

The pain still rocked him, but Dru knew he would have to live with that. His next quest was to cease his twirling before he grew too dizzy. The arm was draining his strength too much already.

How could he stop himself? Dru reached into his pocket, but the angle at which he was spinning made it an awkward movement that in turn put pressure on his broken limb. The Vraad screamed again and nearly passed out.

“It does! It makes sounds! Loud ones!”

The voice seemed to boom within his head. Through tear-drenched eyes, Dru hurriedly scanned his vicinity. More nothing, yet… he had heard a voice. Felt was perhaps just as good a description, but the point was that he was not alone.

So where was the other?

“Hello, little one! Do you talk? I am coming to you!”

“Where?” the sorcerer managed to choke out. His arm was on fire now; at least, that was how it felt.

“You do talk! Patience, patience! This is one is not far!”

Dru screamed once more, but not because of pain. He screamed now because the emptiness to his right had suddenly burst into a huge, ever-shifting field of darkness. His first thought was that it was the point of intersection and he had somehow been drawn back to it. Then it shifted form, as if an inky liquid. It was no liquid, however; Dru, staring at it, felt himself seem to fall toward the thing, as if it were a bottomless pit and he had been thrown into it. Fear battled with pain.

The massive blot changed form again, solidifying a bit. The falling sensation passed.

“There! That is better!”

“What-what’s better?” He could still see no sign of the newcomer. Was the blot his method of travel? Is that why Dru had felt he could fall into it? Hope for an escape from the Void stimulated him. “Where are you?”

“Here! Where else is there, little voice?”

“But…” The sorcerer’s gaze narrowed on the inky darkness through which he had expected the other to enter. “Are you… is that…”

This time, he saw the darkness quiver. “You are a funny thing! I will not have you join with me yet!”

The blot was no path, save perhaps to death. It was, despite Dru’s inner protest, a living thing. It was the voice he had heard in his head.

“What do you mean about ‘joining with you’?”

The sensation of falling into the darkness overwhelmed him once more. It lasted only a moment, however. That was far and away more than enough for Dru. It was all he could do to keep from passing out.

“I have not taken from you, have I? You seem to be less than whole.” The thing sounded annoyed, as if it had underestimated itself.

“My arm… this”-he indicated the broken appendage-“I injured it badly.”

“Injured?”

Did this monstrosity not comprehend pain? the sorcerer wondered. Perhaps not. How could one harm a blot?

“It does not work properly.”

“Silly little voice! Take it in and make another!”

Now it was Dru who did not comprehend again. “Take it in?”

“As I.” A crude limb formed, little more than a narrow bit of darkness. It stretched forth for nearly a yard, then slowly sank back into the primary mass of the blot. “How else?”

Dru shook his head, partly in response and partly because it kept him conscious. “I cannot do what you do and the way I heal does not work here.”

“Too bad! Would you prefer I take you now? You will no longer know pain.”

“No!”

“Your voice grows! I must try that!” The blot commenced with a variety of sounds, some higher and some lower than what so far had passed for its voice. Dru did not interrupt; if such entertainment took the creature’s mind from the prospect of devouring him, then so much the better. As it was, the agony continually raking through his system was making it impossible to think of any other way to save himself.

The ever-shifting creature’s interest in the noises it was making soon waned. “Not so much fun after all! Tell me, one of many voices, why you cannot do like I do?”

It took Dru a moment to realize his unnerving companion was speaking of the broken arm again. “I am a man. A Vraad. We can shift our forms, but not like you and not without sorcery.”

“What is sorcery?”

This creature did not know what sorcery was? The Vraad was astonished. Based on what little he had already seen, Dru was certain that the entity was part inherent magic itself. How else to explain its existence and its method of travel?

If he could somehow get it to take him back to Nimth…

“It’s…” Pain made him grimace. “It’s an ability that allows one to change things about them.”

“What is there to change? With the exception of curious little entertainments-like you-all is as it always is.”

Dru shook his head. “Not where I come from. If I was there, for instance, I could make this arm work properly again. I could make the hair on my head”-he indicated each part of his body that he spoke of in case the creature did not understand-“so long that it would go down to my knees.”

“Is that all? I know this ‘sorcery’!”

“So I thought. Tell me-do you have a name?”

“Name?”

“I am Dru. Dru is my name. If we had a third voice with us and he wanted to speak to me but not you, he would say something like ‘I will speak with Dru.’” The explanation sounded weak to the sorcerer, but it was the best he could do. Unconsciousness was becoming more and more inviting and he did not dare let that happen until he was certain he would wake up again.

The mass of darkness grew and shrunk, twisted and reshaped itself. Several breaths passed before it finally replied. “I am ‘I’ or ‘Other.’”

“No…” Dru held his forehead as he tried to think. “That’s not what… not what…”

“Come! This is too interesting! Do not fade away!”

The Vraad shrieked as raw power filled his being. He felt both omnipotent and helpless. The world was at his beck and call, yet he was the lowest form of existence. Pain and rapture tossed him from one to another like a rag doll.

He was suddenly himself again and the initial sensation was like striking the earth after falling from the highest peak. When that had passed, Dru found himself feeling stronger and more alive than he had ever felt before. The amazed spellcaster undid the makeshift sling; his arm was whole again!

“You were saying I could not be called ‘I’! Why is that?”

Dru flexed the arm. It was perfect. “You did this?”

“You did not finish explaining this thing about names and I thought I would help if I gave to you a little of I!”

“Thank you.” His mind as clear of fog as the Void was of everything but itself, Dru asked a question that had just occurred to him. “How is it we can speak? Are you-?”

“We speak because I wished to speak! That is nothing! I want to know about names!” The darkness shifted menacingly.

The entity had somehow picked at his surface thoughts, the sorcerer suspected, and learned the language of the Vraad instantly in that way. Yet, it did not understand many concepts, which either meant that it lacked the power to delve deeper or it had not wanted to damage him. Dru was willing to bet on the latter.

“Perhaps I shall take you now.”

“Names!” Dru shouted with such vehemence that the living hole shifted away despite its obvious superiority. “What do you want to know?”

“Know? I want a name! Can I be Dru also?”

“That wouldn’t do for you.” A huge, living pit of darkness bearing his name! It might have been humorous if his predicament had not been so tense.

“What, then?”

What, indeed? If he could give the creature some name it found entertaining enough, it might reward him by helping to find a way out of here… providing there was one.

Descriptions! Descriptions were always a good starting point! “Let’s draw a name from the way you look and act.”

“I act like me!”

“But what are you? Powerful, ever-changing, dark, compassionate…” Dru trailed off, hoping his strange companion would pick up on the flattery while it pondered what it wished to be called. At this point, ingratiating himself in any way to the shifting horror seemed his only hope.

“I am all that and more, but ‘Powerfuleverchangingdark’ is too long a name for my tastes! I want something short, like you have!”

The sorcerer was willing to just fling names at the monster and let it pick one, but he suspected that such an act might just bore the entity into forgetting the entire thing. If that happened, the blot might decide it was time to absorb him.

The mass of darkness pulsated, evidently pondering its choices so far. Apparently unable to come to any decision, it flowed nearer to the hapless mage and said, “I see only me! I cannot describe me! Give me more to choose from!”

Dru took a deep breath. Much of what he would have liked to have said would probably stir the dark creature to anger. Still, it might pick up on something… “I was not whole when you first came to me, so my thoughts were muddled… there was a burst… the darkness was suddenly there before me… where there had only been emptiness before.” The nebulous form was still. “I thought you were a hole yourself, an emptiness that led to… to a place far from where I float now. I-”

“I like that! That will be my name!”

“Your name?” Already? What had he said?

“Not so short as yours, but I am more than you! It has good, strong sounds!”

After a brief moment of soul-searching, the Vraad dared ask, “What is your name now?”

“I am the Darkness! Does it not ring with me?”

“Ring with…” Dru could not help smiling. “Darkness is truly a good name for you!”

Darkness shifted form again and again, openly gleeful about its new possession. “A name! I have a name! It is a good thing!”

“No one can take it from you, either. No matter what they do it will always be yours.” The sorcerer was reminded of Sharissa as a tiny child. The blot-Darkness, Dru corrected himself-was as much an infant as a godlike entity.

Sharissa. Thinking of her made Dru double his efforts now to gain his odd companion’s aid.

“I’ve helped to give you that name, Darkness,” he pointedly reminded the other. “Will you give me something now?”

“You wish to be taken? Very well-”

“I do not wish to be taken! No, I want you to help me find my way home. You have the power, don’t you?”

Swelling, Darkness responded, “I can do anything… and if I cannot, then Other I can!”

Dru puzzled over the being’s words. “‘Other I’?”

“The one from which Darkness was formed, of course!”

“Of course.” The sorcerer decided not to press, suspecting he would not care for the answer.

“So tell me… Dru… what ‘home’ is.”

Another concept his companion did not understand. “Home is where I came from, where I stay when I am not doing anything-hmmm-where I was made.” He spread his arms wide. “The Void is your home, though you were only made in one particular portion of it.”

An appendage rose from the creature’s disturbing form. It came toward Dru, pausing only a foot or two from him. To his surprise, part of it folded away, revealing… an eye. It was an ice-blue eye with no pupil and a stare that made the Vraad turn away before he became lost in it. Darkness pulled the ghastly eye away, using it to scan their very meager surroundings.

“This is called the Void? I did not know that!”

Dru was beginning to have visions of floating for the rest of his existence, trying to fight his way through a convoluted conversation with something that half of the time viewed him as a meal. “Do you understand what I mean?”

Stentorian laughter nearly deafened the mage. He put his hands to his ears, but the effect that had was less than negligible. The laughter went on and on until Dru thought his ears would burst. Then, as quickly as it had begun, the raucous sounds died.

“That was entertaining!”

“What… was?”

“I got bored listening to this voice so I thought I would listen to your other one as well! It says such humorous things! Fright is a fun thing! Do I frighten you much?”

Piecing together the full situation from the mad comments of Darkness, Dru realized that the unnerving creature had chosen to spy upon his thoughts. It now knew of the sorcerer’s fear and desperation. There was no saying how deep the probe had been, but it had been deep enough.

There was no sense lying… for now. As he worked to shield future thoughts, Dru answered, “Yes, you frighten me very much, Darkness! You remind me too much of what my kind are like, what I was once like! You could swallow me up with hardly a care! You’ve invaded my mind! Shouldn’t I be frightened?”

To his surprise, the entity contracted until it was only half its original size. The eye stalk sank back into the depths from which it had come. “I did wrong, it seems. I understand that now. I understand more, having listened to your inner voice.” Darkness sighed, a sound so human that Dru could only stare in astonishment. “I will help you however I can to take you home.”

“Thank you.”

Darkness grew jubilant again. “So, my little friend! Where is it?”

Dru had been so desperate to get this far that he had not even thought about what to do when the moment came. “It’s…” He paused. How could he explain to Darkness what he himself did not understand. “I… wasn’t prepared when I was thrown here.”

The inky blot laughed again, albeit much quieter this time. The sorcerer silently thanked him for the sake of his ears. “You are such an entertaining little Dru! Are all Drus like you?” Before the Vraad could explain how names worked, Darkness continued, “Give me access to your inner voice again! Let me experience your arrival again!”

It made sense to let Darkness survey his memories of the incident, but Dru could not help feeling as if the creature might tear his mind apart seeking those particular memories. They were not surface thoughts; they were conscious and subconscious impressions that even under the best of circumstances the Vraad would have been hard-pressed to recall.

“Come, come! Are you afraid of me? I am gentle!”

Shuddering, Dru finally nodded. When there was no reaction from his amorphous companion, he realized that Darkness did not know what the nod meant and quickly added, “Go ahead. Do it.”

He expected the worst. He waited for the blot’s probing to wrack his mind. Dru waited for something, anything, but felt only his own heart as it beat anxiously.

“But this is fascinating! Unbelievable! I must see these things! So much… so much filled Void! How do you stand being so cluttered? How can you not feel squeezed together?” As Darkness spoke, his shape contracted farther until he was only a little larger than the floating spellcaster. There was awe in his thunderous tones, awe at the existence of so many things, so many solid things.

Dru feared that the blot had experienced too much, was no longer able to cope with the situation, but that was dispelled when Darkness suddenly expanded again, growing and growing and growing… until it seemed he-he? — would fill the entire Void with his ebony self.

“I must go there! I must go with you! The forms! The… the…” Darkness apparently had no words for many of the things he had experienced in Dru’s head. The Vraad made a note of that; his nebulous friend was not perfect.

“Can you find a path out of here?”

“To be sure! Can you not feel the many ways? Can you not feel the paths that cross through here? There are endless choices, though some I will avoid since you are so fragile! I think I know the best way!”

Hope sprang to full life within the breast of the sorcerer. Freedom would soon be his! At the moment, it mattered not to him that his freedom would also mean letting the creature sorcerer loose upon Nimth. Darkness was no worse a threat to the world than the Vraad race had ever been, and with power once more his to command, he believed that he could hold his own against the black entity.

His thoughts were interrupted by yet another change in his unnerving companion. Darkness was contracting again, but now his form was also shifting. More and more, he resembled a crude black mouth, like the maw of some huge beast. The maw was disturbingly close to Dru and was getting closer with each passing breath.

“Darkness! Wait! What are you doing?”

Did the mouth actually smile? “Have no fear, little Dru! I am only making myself into a form that will be able to carry you! I will not, as you constantly fear, take from you! You have given me too much entertainment and I owe you! In fact, I owe you for an entire existence! To think of all that solidity together!”

Closing his eyes and gritting his teeth, Dru waited for the creature to envelop him. When he felt nothing, the sorcerer dared look.

“Serkadion Manee!” He floated in the center of a huge bubble in which there was no light save two pinpricks of an ice-blue color. There had been no feeling of transition, no sense of being swallowed whole. He breathed a sigh of relief, then nearly choked when the two blue dots swelled and became a very real pair of glittering eyes that lacked pupils.

“You are whole?”

“Yes… yes. Thank you.”

“You will be cushioned in here. I will let you see how we travel. Perhaps you will be able to do it yourself… should you need to, that is.” Darkness’s understanding of the Vraad language was becoming stronger and stronger. Except for an excess of formality, he spoke as well as any Vraad.

The bubble began moving; Dru knew this only because Darkness informed him of the fact. The sorcerer tried to brace himself for anything, then realized the futility of the attempt. What could he do, lacking power as he did?

For a long time-several hundred breaths, by Dru’s count-nothing happened. The Vraad watched as emptiness was replaced by more emptiness. His companion spoke little during that period, a sign that this was a tense situation even for the nearly omnipotent creature. Safe and secure within, Dru began to wonder more about the thing now calling itself by so apt a title as Darkness. Was it a demon of legend? Serkadion Manee’s books had mentioned the summoning of such spirits, but no Vraad living now had ever succeeded in summoning them. It had long ago been assumed that demons were either the products of great imagination or golems of fanciful design. Yet, his companion certainly fit the descriptions of a demon.

Could it be, Dru pondered, that some being much like Darkness had been the truth behind the legends?

He was never able to answer his question, for in the next breath, Dru collapsed, his mind suddenly a chaotic cornucopia of intense sensations. Pain, happiness, fear, sadness, indifference, anger… he went through each emotion in the blink of an eye. Other feelings that he could not exactly identify intermingled with the rest. The Vraad crawled to his knees and put a hand to his head. Darkness said nothing, but the bubble that was his form trembled constantly. The sorcerer fell again, but struggled forward even still. His eyesight was blurred, giving him liquidy images of the same emptiness that he had become so sick of and-

And was there something out there now?

Still Darkness did not speak, but Dru knew that the “demon” did not have the effort to spare for such a minuscule thing as conversation. His unearthly companion had located what appeared to be the way out of the Void and the two of them were even now breaking through. The emptiness had finally been replaced, but by what was hard to say for certain.

It looked very much like a pale path of light… a path that, when Dru looked behind them, seemed to run on into infinity. Ahead of them was a different tale. The path continued on for some distance-as well as the Vraad could judge-but then faded away slowly until it became-Dru forced his eyes to focus-until it became a mist very much akin to that which had blanketed the wraithlike forest.

“Free!” the sorcerer hissed without realizing it.

His joy turned to panic as the path before them suddenly split into one and then countless identical paths that turned in all directions and faded away in the same manner as the first. Which one led to his world, the Vraad fretted silently, and where did the others go?

One path that Dru did not want Darkness taking was a single path that appeared to curl within itself like some perpetual double loop. It was exceedingly inviting, for reasons that Dru could not define, yet it also filled him with a sense of mortality, of the death that had nearly claimed him. He breathed a sigh of relief when his companion ignored it.

At some point, the overwhelming assault on his brain had ended. Dru hardly felt comforted by that fact, faced with what seemed the impossible task of choosing a path.

“So many…” he whispered. To Darkness, the hapless sorcerer quickly asked, “Do you know which one?”

The icy orbs stared at him in resolute silence. Whatever decision Darkness had come to, the Void dweller had chosen not to include the tiny, insignificant human in it. Perhaps that was for the best, but Dru could not help feeling a bit of Vraadish indignation at the exclusion.

They alighted onto one of the paths.

Around them, the others faded completely away.

Darkness had made his decision and there was no time to turn back. Already, the incredible creature was nearing the mist. Dru closed his eyes, hoping that a repeat of the onrush of sensations was not in the offing. Hoping, too, that they would not be destroyed or, worse yet, left again marooned in the midst of the hellish Void, this time with the knowledge that there was no escape.

Absorption by Darkness would be preferable to an eternity here.

They plunged into the mist… and a tear-a literal rip in the emptiness-opened wide before them. Dru waited for some horrific assault on his mind and body. It never came. A brilliant glow temporarily blinded him.

“Through!” Darkness laughed gleefully, a child who had succeeded in some great task his parent had set for him. “I am Darkness! I am truly amazing!”

Dru made no attempt to argue with him. He only wanted to step onto the scarred surface of Nimth and take his daughter into his arms. At this point, he was even willing to take Barakas in his arms. Anything, so long as he was free again… and once more a mighty Vraad.

“Such a wonderful place! Are all these green things the trees that I learned of from your inner voice?”

Green things? Trees?

Dru frantically pressed himself against the clear body of his “demonic” savior and peered at the world to which he had been brought.

Trees, hundreds of trees, a vast forest, greeted his eyes. A mountain range stood proud in the background.

A resplendent blue sky completed an image of beauty and tranquility.

“So overwhelming! Nimth is truly a wonderful place!”

The Vraad could not respond. In his desperation to be free of the Void, he had forgotten of the two lands, the two worlds, buried in his memories. Darkness, as was his way, had dug only so far into those memories… and had pulled up the most recent, the most vivid.

The wrong ones.

Darkness had brought him to the other side of the veil… and to the shrouded realm.