Legends of the Dragonrealm Volume 2

IX

Dru woke to a new dawn not even knowing when he had blacked out. The last thing he recalled was the sudden descent of a number of the bird people, creating, in the process, a circle around him. He had tried to act, his mind screeching that he moved in slow motion, but was too late. The blackout occurred then.

His bonds held when he tested them. Attempts at spells left his head pounding at first and then filled with a buzzing that would not depart for several minutes. He gave up after two attempts, knowing that he was very much a helpless prisoner. With escape impossible for now, the sorcerer began to work on satisfying his ever-hungry curiosity. Studying his dusky brown captors in the early morning light, Dru supposed that they were nearly all male. None of them had any special characteristics that were visible, but four of the avians appeared adult even though they were shorter and slighter than their companions. Not knowing any better, he assumed these were the females. If so, the birdlike creatures were great believers in equality, for the four smaller ones worked as hard as the rest and were treated with equal respect.

The avians were little more familiar with this territory than Dru was; it was evident from their jerking movements, their constant vigilance. Territory had been secured, but they were surrounded by unknown lands. Likely, they were also more at home in trees, mountainsides, and, of course, the sky. His captors were in awe of the abandoned city and more than a little afraid of it as well, though they tried to hide both emotions under a mask of arrogance worthy of Barakas. Dru tried to speak to them, but all he received for his attempts were slaps across the face and unintelligible squawks. From their gestures during one of those sessions, he suspected that they had a way of communicating with him, but had debated whether it was necessary to do so. In the end, his captors chose to merely drag him along.

Dru wondered about the beast they had saved him from. Judging by the reaction of the bird creatures, its death was a cause for celebration. Like the killing of a blood enemy, he noted. It would not have surprised him if a war was going on between these two horrific races. From what little experience he had enjoyed so far, neither seemed any better than his own race and bloodshed was quite a favorite pastime of the Vraad.

That they had killed the other figure, the one that the sorcerer assumed must have been one of Barakas’s elves, went without saying. What interested Dru most, despite the danger he was in, was why his captor and members of two other races would come to this place. What did it have that they all wanted so badly? Granted, most of his ideas were pure conjecture, but Dru was fairly certain he was on the right path.

As they grew nearer and nearer to the avians’-and his own, admittedly-goal, Dru wondered what had become of Darkness. A wild notion that his captors had instigated the entity’s odd withdrawal passed quickly from his mind; certainly they would not have left such a threat at their backside. Neither had they been the ones responsible for his horse’s odd actions. The avians had totally ignored the steed other than to initially note its presence. Horses were apparently common here and one wandering loose in the vicinity of the ancient city was beneath their concern. It had, in fact, wandered off at some point after his blackout. The trail it left steered to the north, but that was all Dru knew, unable to track it farther.

Up close, the ruins were even vaster. The outer walls had been more than five times the sorcerer’s height; massive fragments of some still remained standing. The towers, those that had not collapsed, were much taller and easily comparable to anything the Vraad had created. Little remained of any writing or decoration; they had been worn away by the weather of millennia. The city was incredibly old. It had probably already been in ruins when the first of the Vraad race proclaimed themselves.

The party stood near what had been the city gates, the avians evidently preparing themselves mentally for entering the ruins. Only Dru noticed the tremors when they first began and, being so used to such in Nimth, he hardly paid attention.

The ground suddenly ripped open as huge, clawed hands tore at those above.

Dru, stumbling madly away from one claw, instantly recognized the creatures attacking them. The thing that had tried to kill him had not been alone, though the truth of that was only just sinking into the minds of the party. Dru swore at his captors while he tried to evade another grasping hand sprouting from the earth by his right foot. His captors should have searched more carefully; he had assumed they knew to do that much. Like some of his former rivals, however, the birds suffered from too much pride in themselves. They had been certain that they had contained the problem. Now, the problem threatened to contain them.

With a pain-filled shriek, one of the taller creatures was pulled swiftly into the earth regardless of the fact that the jagged crevice was too small for his winged form. Before Dru’s disgusted and horrified gaze, the avian was reduced to a mass of mangled limbs and blood that, after all too long a time, completely sank into the soil. The Vraad renewed his efforts to evade the hands groping for him, wishing that, as his captors were belatedly doing, he could take to the sky.

Of the fourteen avians, all but the unfortunate who had just died made it into the air. Several reached for their medallions.

The air proved no more of a haven than the ground had been. From the earth rose one of the snouted monstrosities, a deep, challenging sound accompanying its appearance. It carried with it a needlelike spear as long as its body. The spear was hurtling toward the avians before the attacker was even completely free of the soil. Its accuracy was perfection itself; another of the bird people died, plummeting to the ground no farther than a yard from the hapless Vraad. The spear stood like a banner, one that had been planted so firmly into the victim’s chest that it even came out the other side.

The avians finally struck back. Dru steadied himself, expecting the foul mummification spell he had witnessed earlier. Instead, a mist formed swiftly around the monster that had come to the surface. The sorcerer frowned. The intended victim hooted its contempt, waving one arm to dispel the light fog. It did not clear, despite the beast’s attempts, but rather continued to thicken, so quickly, in fact, that the blinded earth-dweller was, after only a breath or two, no longer visible. A breath, perhaps two, passed, and then the wind, which itself had pounded fruitlessly at the fog, finally began to have an effect, slowly banishing the magical mist.

When it had at last cleared, there was no sign of the hulking creature it had enveloped. He might have never been, save that the earth was still marred by his initial eruption to the surface.

Another of the winged beings fell prey to a perfect strike, but that was where the newcomers’ luck ended. Two more that rose to the surface suffered the same fate as the first; a fourth shriveled to a stomach-wrenching mass directly in front of Dru. After that, the assault ceased. Either the avians had killed all of their adversaries or the underground dwellers had retreated.

In pairs, the surviving creatures descended to deal with their dead. Two separated from the rest and took hold of the sorcerer, lifting him high into the air before he even had the breath to protest. Accompanied by a third, they made for the city, passing over the ruins of the gateway instead of trying to walk through.

Dru was brought unceremoniously to the ground in what had been a well-crafted street but was now a jumbled pile of smooth, broken stepping stones.

The Vraad had finally had enough. Bound and with death likely facing him, he turned on his captors, almost daring them to strike him down, and shouted, “Listen to me! I don’t know what you search for, but tell me and I can help! At least have the courtesy to talk to me! I may know something you don’t! I demand that you listen to me!”

He doubted that he knew much of value to his captors, but was not about to reveal that to the avians. The trio stared at him with identical one-eyed looks. Under the unblinking gazes, Dru shifted impatiently.

Without warning and with a speed that left Dru breathless, the two avians who had carried him suddenly stepped forward and took him by the arms. Uncertain as to what they planned, the Vraad could not help struggling, though he might as well have been a tiny child fighting a raging wolf, so powerful a grip the creatures had. The third one, once he saw that the sorcerer was held tight, slowly stepped up to his prisoner, halting within arm’s reach and glaring haughtily at the human.

A clawed hand thrust out so swiftly that the spellcaster did not even have time to fear for his life. The leader’s long hand covered the upper half of Dru’s visage. The palm flattened against his forehead.

The world about him altered, shifting from a scene of long-lost glory to a dark and unsettling place. Somehow, his mind knew this to be a cavern in one of the mountains of a chain-across a vast sea? Yes, it was true. Darkness had brought his tiny companion to the realm beyond the veil, but apparently there was more than just one continent. He had been right in assuming that the bird people were unfamiliar with this land. They had traveled here after an arduous journey that had cut their numbers by a third before they even reached the shore of this place. All this Dru knew through feelings and images filling every niche of his mind.

Dru’s view of the cavern widened until he realized that the central cavern housed a vast chamber that had, in the far past, been used as a throne room or a temple. A dim light illuminated the cavern, but its source was not readily noticeable. There were bizarre stone effigies, things that seemed alive in their own way. Some were human, some were not, but the amazing detail of each remained as testimony to the skill of some ancient master. The Vraad recognized something inherent in the tall statues, in the ancient chamber itself, that reminded him of the ruined city, as if both had been built by the same race despite the gulf of water separating them.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” he asked the avian leader, even though the latter was not visible to him for the moment. “You found the cavern and traced its origin to here.”

A sensation that somehow indicated acknowledgment coursed through him. He did not try to comprehend how the sensations could possibly be translated into replies; that demanded much too much time of its own. Dru knew only that he had guessed correctly about the ruins and the winged creature had informed him so in its own way.

Dru watched as a figure he recognized as himself searched the city alongside the-Sheeka? — seeking something. The… there was the name again, the Sheeka, but somehow it did not work with him. The seekers… yes, the observing sorcerer decided, they were the Seekers. It was as apt a name as the one Darkness had chosen for himself and much more tolerable to the Vraad’s ears and mouth.

The Seekers had found something-what it had been was carefully kept hidden from the sorcerer’s mind-in the cavern, and that had led them to their journey to this other continent. Unfortunately, it had also led their bitter rivals, the ground diggers, to the same place. Dru tried to catch the term for the enemy, but the avian used only the most derogatory symbols for the huge monstrosities, none of which were at all suitable to the mage. He did gather, however, that the other race was more ancient than his captors’ was and its power was waning… but not fast enough, as far as the avians were concerned. That might have merely been the arrogant opinion of the party’s leader, but Dru took it at face value for the time being.

As abruptly as he had been thrust into the cavern, the Vraad was shifted to another scene, this time of vast rookeries, some natural, some created, and the glory that was the Seeker people. Their world, a combination of nature and design, began to fascinate Dru more than the reason for their being on this side of the world. The avians melded the forms of trees and hills with elaborate living quarters that might easily have been constructed by the mage’s own race. It was evident that much of their society demanded that the Seekers be groundlocked at times and so it was no surprise that their buildings resembled those of the Vraad. Cities like these dotted most of the other continent, allowing the race to breed yet not destroying the nature.

Recalling his own world, Dru envied the skill of his captors.

The leader chose that moment to remove his hand from his prisoner’s forehead. Dru had been correct in his assumption; the taller ones were the males.

Although it was guesswork at best in trying to read the more subtle expressions of the birdlike beings, the sorcerer caught what appeared to be a look of disgust and amazement on the leader’s visage. It then occurred to him for the first time that the unique method of communication that the Seekers utilized worked both ways. Dru had unwittingly revealed to them his own origins, including the all-important fact that he was not of this world!

The Seekers evidently needed no physical contact to communicate with one another, for the look of revulsion spread to the two holding him still. He knew they were considering Nimth and its decaying state. He knew also what they must think of him, one of those responsible for spoiling a once-wondrous world.

He was not questioned further, which surprised him. Whatever the avians sought here, they considered it of far more importance than a lone representative of a decadent race from beyond. When the rest of what remained of the party materialized over the walls and landed around them, careful this time to observe the ground beneath their feet, the leader did not even take time to allow the others to digest what he had torn from Dru. Nonetheless, the Vraad was fairly certain that all of them knew what he had let slip, if only because of the difference in the disdainful glances they gave him at various times. Before, it had simply been arrogance at one who was not a member of their “superior” race. Now, it was that arrogance, but peppered with the look Dru’s own race reserved for those Vraad with tastes even too perverse for their brethren to accept.

With Dru in their center, the two guards still holding him by the arms, the party journeyed deeper into the remnants of the city. Now and then, members would flutter off for several minutes, inspecting nearby structures and getting a cloud’s view of the ruins themselves. Gradually, they began to steer toward the east. It was not the center of the city, but it was where the greatest of the rounded buildings lay. So great a building, in fact, that it could have easily housed the several thousand individuals who made up the Vraad race.

The sun was already nearing its zenith when they came upon the cracked and rubble-strewn clearing between themselves and the huge structure that his captors had chosen as their ultimate destination. Dru wondered briefly what, if anything, was happening to Darkness. He had hoped that the entity would revive before the Seekers located their prize and decided they needed their “guest” no longer.

One of the avians squawked and reached down to pluck something from the fragments covering most of the area before them. This had likely been a square, complete with statuary, but one of the towers nearby had completely collapsed and the remains were scattered all over, making even travel awkward. Several treacherous crevices crisscrossing the square bespoke of just a few of the possible dangers awaiting them.

It was not some shard from a crushed statue that the Seekers had noted. Things could not have been that simple. Rather, the object turned out to be a small pouch made of leather and decorated with symbols. Dru’s own view was cursory at best, but he thought it looked akin to the style of the clothing the dead elf-if it had been an elf, that was still not clear-had worn. That was probably the case; the Seekers were certainly upset about it. Dru was caught between renewed hope and increased fear. This third party might be his salvation, providing he survived any pitched battle between his captors and them, but they also might prove no more hospitable than the avians had been. At this point, however, Dru was willing to take the chance.

The discovery of the pouch changed the attitude of the party. Already having lost three of their number-after having lost so many during the crossing of the seas-the Seekers evidently felt they could not spare any more of their kind. It was thus that Dru found himself walking before them, within easy enough range to be struck down if he attempted to escape, acting as unwilling first scout. Each Seekers had a hand on the medallion that they wore on their chests. Their vision identical to that of true birds, they kept one eye on their destination and the other on the ruins around them, waiting for any potential ambush.

Nothing happened. Dru reached the steps of the building and turned, uncertain as to whether the leader wanted him to continue on or not. The response he received indicated the latter, at least for the time being. The Seekers gathered at the steps, the sorcerer once more under the watchful gaze of two he suspected were the same ones who had acted as his jailers before. He still had trouble telling them apart, save for the leader, who somehow Dru could readily identify, now that they had linked minds.

After some silent discussion that the Vraad could only guess at, he was prodded up the steps. Though they had survived relatively intact, there were places that needed only slight encouragement to collapse, which they did several times for the bound spellcaster. It took more than twice as long to climb than it should have and Dru was out of breath by the time they reached the top.

Dru was tugged back from the doorway he had been about to walk through. He cursed the avian who had pulled him and who had nearly succeeded in sending him falling backward down the way he had come.

“What now?” he grumbled, more to himself than the avian who had manhandled him.

A Seeker, one of the females, moved in front of Dru and kicked at the rusted relics that had once been doors. They fell with a clatter that not only vibrated through Dru, but echoed again and again all through the building. A layer of dust rose up, creating a miniature storm. After allowing the dirt to settle again, the Seekers prodded their captive on. The female stood aside as he walked through the doorway, wondering what fate awaited him. A Vraad would have had a thousand lethal snares awaiting intruders, even if that Vraad had died a thousand years before. As old as the ruins seemed, they were in fairly remarkable condition. His fear of some lurking danger was soothed in no way by the actions of the avians, who obviously wanted him to act as a sacrificial lamb.

The builders of this edifice had not been raised on Vraadish ways, though, for nothing struck him down, no ancient spell tore the flesh from his skin, and no metal bolt pierced his chest. The structure, at least the front hall, was safe. Dru would have sighed in relief, but his companions shoved him forward again, eager to explore this place.

Reptilian eyes met his own as he moved into the first chamber, a black place without windows. A maw, opened wide enough to swallow the entire party, beckoned. In the darkness of the windowless room, Dru believed he had finally come face-to-face with one of the Lord Tezerenee’s dragons. Only when one of the Seekers summoned forth light did he realize that what he had seen was actually a huge stone representation. Dru froze where he was, but no one disciplined him for his actions; the avians were as overwhelmed as he was.

Unlike the dragons of his own world, big, lumbering beasts that acted as little more than pets and steeds for those like Barakas, this dragon was a monarch. The unknown artist had chosen to keep its vast wings folded-likely because of the difficulty it would have caused with the statue’s balance-but it was still the largest, most majestic of its kind that the Vraad had ever seen. Here was a leviathan who ruled through both power and intelligence. There was no denying what the sculptor had intended; this was a master of all it surveyed, one who could outwit all but the craftiest of adversaries.

Unbidden returned the question of what had happened to the race that had ruled from here.

Excitement rose among the Seekers; they had recognized a row of items lying on a dais before the overwhelming statue. Dru only now noticed them, the eyes of the giant continually drawing his own despite his efforts.

The dais was more of a display, a platform on which tiny figurines that looked distinctly familiar to Dru stood even after all so much time. In this place, he did not question that. The city, for all its decaying state, was remarkably preserved for having been abandoned so long. The platform and its contents were the only items in the room, which was not to say it was bare. The walls, the floor, even the curved ceiling, were covered with somewhat surreal representations of worlds and races, most of whom the Vraad could not identify. He saw a tiny sphere that contained a Seeker and another that contained one of the avians’ enemies. There was also what Dru assumed was an elf and another that reminded him too much of his own kind.

What is this place?

So many races were represented, but only he had eyes for them. The Seekers were far too interested in the figurines, squawking like excited children… like Sharissa.

Dru wondered if she was safe. In the citadel, she would have Sirvak to watch over her, but he knew that being his daughter, she would be seeking some clue as to his fate. That worried him, for it would be easy for her to gain the notice of one or more of his rivals and, especially, the Tezerenee. They might see Dru’s accident as a new means of escape from Nimth, but it was not past the patriarch’s madness to assume that Barakas might choose to destroy Dru’s work. It would, after all, weaken the Lord Tezerenee’s tightening grip on his fellow Vraad.

A crash made Dru turn back to see what was happening with his captors. Four, including the leader, had been inspecting the artifacts. The care with which they had studied each minute curve of each figurine spoke volumes of their interest. Now, however, something had occurred that infuriated them. The leader had taken one small statuette and flung it at the towering figure of the dragon lord, as Dru was coming to think of it. The relic had shattered, spreading fragments about the room, but the statue had been unmarred.

The sorcerer watched silently. Bitter avians abandoned the figurines, returning to the rest of the party. The leader, frustration and anger at the forefront, pointed at the entranceway, indicating that Dru was to lead them back out. He dared one last glance at the majestic dragon and again felt it return his gaze. The Seeker leader, however, had no patience left and swung a taloned hand at him. Dru fell back, the taste of blood on his tongue, and would have collapsed to the floor if not for his two bodyguards. They kept him on his feet until he had recovered his wits, then pushed him forward, always staying close behind.

In the same manner as they had inspected the first room, the party went through the next dozen. If anything, they were more disappointing than the first. More than one turned out to be nothing but a pile of mortar and rock, the ceilings having collapsed long ago. A few of those chambers that were still whole held nothing but generation upon generation of dust. If the occupants had died here, it had been so long ago that their corpses, even their skeletons, had faded away with time.

They found no trace of the other intruders, although, with the jagged and rocky surfaces they clambered over, it would have been near impossible to find any sort of tracks. Dru suffered over the worst of the treks, his bound arms making it impossible for him to protect his face when he slipped forward. Concerned with their own footing, his two guards often could do nothing for him. By the time they had explored the first floor, the Vraad’s face and body were one mass of bruises and cuts. Given the opportunity, he could have easily repaired the damage, but his health was low on his captors’ priorities. Dru wondered why they had bothered to even keep him alive, so unconcerned did they seem.

The sun moved ever closer to its daily death. The Seekers’ leader grew more and more frustrated and his emotions were echoed by the others. Dru was beyond caring; the sorcerer only wanted to lie down, go to sleep, and wake up in his castle of pearl. He wanted to never have found the tear, the hole between this place and Nimth, even though that meant bowing to Barakas and his clan.

At what had once been the stairway leading to the upper floors but was now a jumble of rock, the Seekers finally lost their last reserves of patience. A look from the leader sent four of them leaping into the air. Dru stirred briefly from his worn musings to watch them fly through the hole where the upper portion of the steps had once led. Although it was a dangerous move, considering there still might be foes lurking somewhere nearby, the avians had chosen to split their numbers in order to facilitate their mad search.

Dragging the harried sorcerer with them, the seven remaining creatures continued their scouring of the main floor. They had come to such a point of desperation that they began to sift through the wreckage of each chamber the instant they entered. Under the watchful, one-eyed gaze of the leader, who held Dru while the search progressed, the avians picked at whatever seemed out of the ordinary among the chunks of ceiling and wall. A few items that they unearthed encouraged them and stirred Dru’s curiosity. One or two artifacts that the birds seemed to puzzle over, he recognized but was careful to pretend otherwise. Slowly, some of the ancient race’s prowess was revealed to the sorcerer. They knew much about crystal magic, that he could tell from the glittering fragments that the avians shoved rudely aside in their quest. What the Seekers sought, however, evidently had nothing to do with that; they seemed far more interested in objects that represented forms, such as dragons, animals, and things that might have been, in a vague way, referred to as human.

The leader, who still held him by the arm, suddenly cocked his head to one side, as if listening to something outside. Dru strained, but heard nothing but the clatter of rubble as the avians tossed bits of ceiling away in order to burrow deeper into the wreckage. A breath later, the rest had paused in their work, also listening.

Dru heard nothing save the beat of his own heart… until he realized that the clap-clap pattern could hardly be coming from him if the others heard it. No, the sounds issued from an unknown location near the main hall, and were getting closer by the second.

Rising, the Seekers looked to their leader. He eyed Dru, then tugged the spellcaster around him and tossed him toward the doorway. Stumbling, Dru stepped out into the corridor. The unsettling clap-clap sounds continued to rise in volume, in some way as familiar to the sorcerer as the icons had been earlier. He tried to recall what made that sort of sound, but his attempt to harness his scattered thoughts into something functional was cut off by a harsh shove from the Seekers’ leader. Lacking any choice in the matter-and that was becoming too common a way for one who had grown knowing there was little he could not have-Dru walked slowly down the corridor in the direction of the noise’s source. The avians followed, spreading out as they moved. Two took to the air, hovering near the ceiling.

The sounds echoed continuously throughout the vast structure, almost to the point where it grew difficult for the hapless sorcerer to estimate where he had to turn. He turned back, and as if knowing his confusion, the leader pointed ahead.

“Thank you,” Dru whispered in bitter tones. There was no hope of avoiding a confrontation with whatever sought out the party. It did not sound like the massive creatures who burrowed beneath the earth-the Vraad would have expected their footfalls to be near silent, considering that blood enemies lurked somewhere within the edifice-and neither did he think it was the elves, whom he had still not seen. They, too, would have taken more caution.

What then lurked in the main hall and had the effrontery to move without care of detection into a place of possible danger?

He was so near now that the clap-clap sounds made it impossible to wonder further. The avian leader put a taloned hand around his neck, essentially turning the Vraad into a living shield. The two of them, with the others following as if all were puppets commanded by the same strings, stepped into the main hall and, all too soon, the confrontation.

Behind him, the avian started, almost losing his grip on the human. Dru could in no way blame him.

It was a stallion of the deepest ebony, an impossible and grand creature more massive than any the sorcerer had ever seen. As it slowed to a halt, the clap-clap noise, the sound of its hooves striking the hard surface of the floor, died. The steed stood taller than either the human or the avian. The animal shook its head, sending the wild mane fluttering. It looked at the two tiny figures before it as if they were specks of dust needing to be swept away and began pawing at the rock-hard floor.

Dru tried to step back, but the leader’s stiff form prevented him from doing so. Before the eyes of the party, the stallion continued to paw at the floor with its hoof… and was quickly succeeding in gouging a crevice in it!

The steed lifted its head high and, instead of a loud neigh, laughed at their dismay.