Legends of the Dragonrealm Volume 2

XVI

There were still angry Vraad moving about what remained of the communal city, but most had departed. Ever distrusting of their brethren, the majority had returned to the safety of their private domains, there to brood and pout at the trick that had been played on them. They would be so engrossed in their self-pity and their eternal plots for vengeance that they would probably never get around to devising their own ways of escaping… something the Tezerenee had proved quite able to do.

It was those few who still remained, still seeking to find some stray ally of the dragon clan or merely desiring to unleash their frustration, who worried Gerrod. Having had one attempt at teleportation misdirected, he was not looking forward to a second try at any point in the near future. Sharissa shared his fear in that respect, which was why the two of them still remained in hiding, despite the occasional passing of a blood-thirsty sorcerer. The room they presently called safety was a tiny storage chamber in a flat, black building on the opposite side of the city from the building where the Lord Barakas had made many of his fine speeches of cooperation, including the one in which he had seemed to promise that all Vraad would indeed be crossing into the new world.

Oddly, it was Dru’s daughter who had finally had enough. She stalked over to her hooded companion and leaned over him, arms crossed. “The great and powerful Tezerenee! To think that I was afraid of you! What have you brought us to? How could you abandon Sirvak?”

Gerrod had no answer for the first question and he had already answered the second one more than a dozen times in the past few minutes alone. That, by no means, prevented Sharissa from asking it again. With her father gone, Sirvak was all she had. She no longer trusted Melenea, which, as far as the young Tezerenee was concerned, was the only good that had come of the whole incident.

“I told you, child! Sirvak flew out one of the windows the moment I snared you! It is likely back in your domain, awaiting us!” He looked up at her, more than matching her glare. “Try and remember that for at least a second or two, will you? I need to think!”

“Maybe one of those grateful folk outside would be willing to help you think! You’ve done nothing but brood since we found this place!”

He started to snap back at her, then saw that she spoke the truth. He was acting much like those he had always despised. The Zeree whelp had not helped his situation, however. He spread his hands wide and replied, “I would welcome whatever masterful plan you have conceived during all the time you’ve been berating me.”

Sharissa clamped her mouth shut and gave him a stare that should have, by rights, burned a hole through his head.

“I thought as much.” Stimulated by both her words and his growing shame, Gerrod pushed himself harder.

“Have you noticed something?” she asked, disturbing the peace he had finally gained.

“Besides the inability on your part to remain silent for more than a breath?”

She ignored his remark. “For all the damage they did to the city, it should have been far worse.”

“I think they’re doing an admirable job.”

“I mean that they’re in the same predicament as we are! They can’t trust their spells!”

Gerrod straightened, feeling very stupid. He had understood that when dealing with Melenea, understood it because he knew she lived near an unstable region. The warlock had not considered it in respect to Nimth as a whole. Sleep. I need sleep! That was why he could not think straight. When was the last time he had slept? “And so? What else does that suggest to you?”

“I don’t know.” Sharissa looked crestfallen.

The Tezerenee slumped again. “Waste of time!”

“At least we could accomplish something if we were back home! I haven’t given up on Father! I know he’s alive somewhere!”

The eternal optimism of the child, Gerrod thought bitterly. It did gall him, however, to sit here, virtually helpless. He was used to acting-not without thought, of course-but what could he do? The business with Melenea was not finished; he knew her too well to think she would simply lie down and wait for the end of Nimth. No, to her thinking, he had made a master move. Now, it was her turn… and, perhaps, that was the fear that kept him sitting in this hole rather than doing his best to find a way to cross. As much as he despised the company of his clan, the shrouded realm did represent continued life and that was the hooded Vraad’s primary goal now that he had the Zeree child.

He had hoped she knew more than she had let on, but such was not the case. The information was there, but…

Fool! His laughter, full and vibrant, brought a panicked look from Sharissa, who could not understand what he found so amusing. She would not have understood how the laughter was both a sign of his relief and his way of mocking himself for being so blind. He stood up and, in his merriment, took Sharissa and hugged her tight. Even after he finally released her, she stood there, stunned into immobility.

It was not his fault entirely. Tunnel vision was a trait that his race could claim as one of their most dominant features. A Vraad who deeply believed in or desperately wanted something would concentrate on that one thing with an obsession that would make them ignore a hundred more reasonable solutions or beliefs. It was what had kept many a feud going for centuries. It was why few Vraad mixed with one another for more than a few years, if that long. It was a stubbornness of sorts, one that made a solution to the eventual death of Nimth and its inhabitants impossible, for that meant putting aside their arrogant belief in themselves and working in cooperation with one another.

“We’re leaving! Somehow, we’re leaving! Even if we have to walk back to your domain!”

“Why? What do you have in mind?” Sharissa was smiling, caught up in his enthusiasm and the dream of returning to the citadel of pearl.

“We’ve both been wrong. You wanted to find a way to bring your father back here. So did I. Why?”

“I… he’s my father!”

Gerrod sighed. “And you worry about him. Fine. Let me rephrase it, then! What was he hoping to accomplish?”

“He hoped to find a different way to cross over to the realm beyond the-oh!”

“He found one! He has to be over there! Why bring him here, something we don’t know how to do, when we can follow him there! If it worked for Master Zeree, then it should work just as easily for us!”

The fear had returned to mar her delicate features. She was not unattractive, he knew, but she had a way of grating on him that the young Tezerenee could not explain even to himself. “What is it now?”

Sharissa described her father’s departure, including his struggle to escape.

Gerrod saw the problem instantly. “Then we shall be careful not to teleport during the change. That leaves us with only two more problems.”

Emboldened once more-and evidently more willing to trust him now that he had made concrete suggestions in regard to her father-Sharissa responded, “One is the timing. It fluctuates. We don’t know how long we might have to wait… if it will happen at all.”

“Oh, it will.” Having had both Dru Zeree’s notes and those of his brother’s to add to his own knowledge, he probably now knew more about the unstable regions of Nimth than anyone did, especially concerning the rapid rate of growth they had achieved. Nimth did not have half as long as his father had once believed. Of course, the Vraad would still all be dead before then, the wild magic of the world and their own stupidity a combination they could not possibly survive. “I doubt we’ll have to wait for very long.”

He started walking to the door, deciding that things were not yet desperate enough for sorcery, but she stopped him with a question. “What was the other problem?”

Gerrod looked at her in surprise. “Surviving long enough to get there.”

Dru shook his head at the creature who stood near the Gate. If it came down to it, he would fight them with his fists and his teeth. A spell might be beyond him, but he would not go passively back into the Void.

The golem gestured again… and the Vraad’s body obeyed even while the mind began to struggle against it.

Something flashed in the light of the chamber, a metallic missile that flew toward the pointing golem with remarkable accuracy. It would have struck the being squarely in the side of the throat… had it reached its target.

Less than a foot from the open flesh, the blade Xiri had thrown in a futile attempt to save him ceased moving and fell straight down. It did not even make a clatter when it struck the floor. The assembled golems, even the one who had stood beside her, failed to even look her way. They remained intent on the portal and the Vraad, who was nearly at the base of the huge artifact.

Only two or three steps from an eternity of endless nothing, Dru’s body stopped. In the short walk, he had sweated profusely. Somewhere out in the Void, Darkhorse wandered, possibly looking for a way back, unless the guardians had broken yet another of their rules and removed that knowledge from his mind. It was a slim hope, but if they did send him through, the shadowy steed might find him again.

If not, Dru would float forever.

He readied himself, waiting the final push that would send him falling into the Void. When it did not come, he tried to observe the one who had forced him to this point. It was impossible; though the Vraad’s eyes could move, his head would not. He was transfixed before the Gate.

When his body became his once more, the sorcerer was so startled he nearly condemned himself to the very fate he had thought the faceless ones had planned for him. A hand caught the back of his robe and pulled him to a position farther from the menacing portal. The Gate closed off the pathway to the Void. Its sleek companions increased their pace once again, ever chasing one another over and over the artifact’s surface.

“Dru!” Xiri had her arms around him in a grip worthy of a Seeker. None of their “hosts” moved to separate the two and so they held one another tight in relief. Finally, the elf whispered, “I thought they would walk you straight into that… that…”

“It’s the Void.”

Her eyes widened. “Why do you suppose they put you through that torture?”

He shrugged. He had no intention of second-guessing the masters of this place if he could avoid it. Their ways were as different as those of the Seekers, perhaps even more so.

Hands reached out and finally pulled the two free of one another. A pair of the golems, possibly the same two who had led them into the chamber, took the intruders by the arm and indicated the doorway. Puzzled but relieved to be away from the Gate and its deadly potential, the Vraad and the elf accompanied them without protest.

Their guides walked them swiftly out of the room of worlds and back down the magnificent hallway. It was evident within seconds that they intended to deliver their charges back to the chamber of the dragon lord. Dru and his companion exchanged bewildered expressions even as they were ushered inside.

Nothing had changed within, which was almost a disappointment to the sorcerer. He had nearly expected the huge figure of the dragon lord to suddenly squat down, stare them in the eye, and speak. It did stare at him, but only as its counterpart in the ruined city had. Any life the statue contained was strictly a figment of Dru’s nerve-wracked imagination.

A second pair of the faceless beings entered the chamber and moved past the foursome. It began to irk the Vraad that he could not tell any of them apart. Had he not followed them through the rift and into the castle, ever mindful of the numbers, Dru might have wondered if there were only a handful who ran back and forth merely to fool their two prisoners into believing they were many. The sorcerer knew it was a foolish thought, but his predicament was tearing at his sanity. There might actually come a point, he feared, when he might prefer the Void to remaining among the faceless ones any longer.

The newcomers stepped up to the figurines and passed their hands over each. A few of the statuettes were removed and hidden from sight, somehow, in the robes of the two. With what was evident satisfaction, they backed away and indicated the remaining artifacts. Dru and Xiri were led forward.

“They want us to choose,” the elf whispered.

She was correct. One of their unsettling companions indicated each of the fantastic figurines, then pointed at the two reluctant outsiders.

Dru studied the carvings. Choose a figurine, but for what reason and what result? Would the wrong choices kill them?

Most of the figures were of creatures magical in nature. There was the gryphon, the dragon, a unicorn, a dwarf, an elf-he glanced sideways at Xiri at that point-and others whose names escaped him. Included also were beasts and a few human figures.

“Let me choose first.” Xiri did not wait for his answer. She reached out and took hold of the elf. A reasonable, safe choice. Both waited for some grand reaction, but still nothing happened. One of the golems eventually took the figurine from her hands and replaced it among the others.

The sorcerer held his breath as he tried to choose. There seemed no particular purpose to what he was being asked to do. It was tempting to reach out and seize the statuette that most resembled a Vraad, but for various reasons he chose not to. He glanced at the gryphon again, thinking of how much it resembled Sirvak, and nearly picked it up. Then his eyes focused on the dragon, almost a miniature version of the overshadowing form before him, and he almost chose that one instead.

While he debated his choices, the faceless ones waited patiently. Dru knew, however, that he would have to make a decision soon. His hand wavered by the dragon, then by the gryphon.

Abruptly, the Vraad withdrew from the artifacts. He met the eyeless gaze of one of their disturbing hosts and said, “I make no choice at all. I want nothing from here.”

An interesting choice.

The chamber had vanished. Dru, Xiri, and their silent companions stood within a place of darkness. The sorcerer did not have to ask to know where he was, especially when two gleaming eyes formed and the vague outline of a huge dragon emerged partway from the black depths.

The voice that had filled his head was the only one that would have given him hope at this late point. “You’ve returned.”

From the glance Xiri gave him, it was evident that she, too, was included in the conversation.

Yes, both choices affect the outcome, the guardian whom Dru had labeled first among the commanding voices added with mild satisfaction. They are pleased with your choice, though it also confuses them.

As if in response to the mock dragon’s words, the blank-visaged figures withdrew to arm’s length of the Vraad and the elf.

“Are they your masters? Was I correct in my assumptions?”

The hesitation that followed chipped away at the confidence that had only just been returning to the spellcaster. After a time, however, the half-seen entity replied, Yes and no.

“Yes and no?” This from Xiri. “How can they be your masters and yet not be your masters?”

To explain that, I would need to explain their final leaving… a cross-over of a different yet similar sort than what the Vraad have undertaken.

The guardian’s words were both confusing and enlightening. “If they will permit you, please do.”

I am not exactly certain if they permit me or do not care. What inhabits your golems are a shadow of our lords. We communicate with them almost as little as you do. The others struggle to understand, to know their places. Some have even argued that this is proof we are now our own masters.

Dru grimaced. As before, he knew which one of his fellows the dragon spoke of.

I digress. Was there an undercurrent of annoyance with itself? Anxiety? Dru could not be certain, but there was something. However confident the guardian acted, the truth was otherwise.

They were few when it finally became obvious that they would not live to see the culmination-or failure-of their dream. They had us to do their work, but we were limited in what we could do.

The sorcerer found it hard to believe that such as this could be wanting in power. The guardian was power, even more so than Darkhorse.

We are… aspects… of their minds. Bits of personality traits. Your choice of the term “familiar” is as close as we can come. They formed us as such so that, together, we would preserve all that they were, should the worst befall them.

What part did the rebellious guardian represent, the Vraad wondered, and how dominant a trait was it?

There came a point, the ghostly figure went on, when the race had two options. They could use the Gate and seek out something, anything, that would revitalize their life force, give them the strength to continue on. It was an option steered toward failure and possibly even a quicker end to their kind. The second choice was the one that promised the most hope for their legacy, but like the first would mean a finish to all they had raised up over the millennia.

They chose the second. With it, though they would no longer exist as they were, they might still direct the course and final outcome of their grand plan. The true world might still one day greet the successors to the elder race.

Dru interrupted at that point, despite the uncomfortable feeling that the faceless ones were eyeing him with particular interest now. “Did they have no name? You say ‘they’ and ‘them’ but you give no name.”

He could almost feel the other’s embarrassment. It has been so long, manling, that we have forgotten it. Even we are not immortal, though it might seem that way. With the passage of century after century, we have become a little less than we once were. There will come a time when we will fade as a dying wind.

“Don’t they know their name?” Xiri asked, her eyes ever keeping track of the movements of the blank-visaged beings.

In what they allow me to still tell you lies the answer to that… and perhaps other things. You, Vraad, have talked of the ka and how one can travel with it to places the body cannot reach. So it was with the elders. You saw the pentagram in the place you call the room of worlds. An apt name that, for with the Gate they could observe or travel to any of their creations. This last time, however, they chose to do something different.

The dying race numbered no more than a thousand or so by the time they came to their final decision, a thousand where there had once been millions. The guardian’s tone was wistful, recalling the glory of those earlier days. In groups numbering close to one hundred apiece, they stepped into the room of worlds and never came out. Not until the last group was ready to enter did the founders deign to reveal what they were doing to their servants, their familiars.

We feared for them, but we were only the servants and so we obeyed when they commanded us to return to our duties and not interfere. We have never been allowed to interfere, save when they gave such orders. Still, their plan gave us fright, for it would place them beyond our limits, leave us with no one to guide us. You see, as with your kind, Vraad, their kas, their spirits, were liberated from their physical forms. The image of a hundred departing specters made both Dru and the elf uneasy, but they remained silent. Your people created for themselves new bodies so that they could continue as they had always been. The founders did not. They had chosen instead a receptacle that would contain their collective consciousness, but it was more than a body, much, much more. It was intended that in some way, they would always watch over the world that had spawned them. They would be their world as much as the trees, the fields, and the animal life were.

Dru blurted it out before the tale could go any further. “The land! The land itself! When I felt as if this realm would protect itself, it was more than my imagination, then.”

The land. You, elf. When you spoke of the land being alive, you spoke truer than you thought. It is. It has a mind, albeit different from what you might consider one. It knows what those who live upon it do and moves to affect things in its favor. Yet I think that such a change affected those who created us, for the land is different. It is and is not our masters. Until your interference, we had thought the land dead once more, the founders having passed on despite their determination. Fools we were to be so presumptuous. Subtlety is not our forte. We could not see what the land was doing… even when it sought to bring you here, Vraad.

“Me?”

The dragon shape moved, as if uncertain itself about what it said next. You or your kind. They have chosen to give the Vraad race a second chance.

“It wasn’t our own doing that weakened the barriers between Nimth and here?”

Hardly. The guardian paused again. When it spoke, it was already fading away. I have said as much as they desire me to say for now.

“What about our choices? What did they represent?”

A laugh, self-mocking, echoed through Dru’s head. I do not know. If you find out, I would be interested.

The chamber of the dragon lord rematerialized around them.

A golem put its hand on the dumbfounded spellcaster’s shoulder. Dru turned and fairly snarled at the creature before him. “What? What else do you want to amaze and confuse us with? Do you even understand what you’re doing? Are you so little a shadow of what you once were that you perform movements without truly thinking? Why did you even return?”

He knew the answer to the last question, at least, or hoped he did. The guardian had said that the Vraad had been given an opportunity to redeem themselves. If they failed, the experiment failed and the ancients’ dreams would die. The stolen golems gave the land hands to work with if it came down to the physical. Perhaps some elements of the presence had also simply yearned once more for solid flesh.

Dru got no further in his thoughts, for the faceless ones, for lack of a better name, indicated they wanted the twosome to follow them yet again. With little true choice in the matter, the sorcerer and the elf followed wordlessly. Xiri did shift over so that the two of them touched, but they did not so much as glance at one another during the duration of the walk.

Once more, they were returning to the room of worlds.

At the doorway, Dru and his companion finally exchanged looks of frustration. Were they to be shuttled back and forth from the two chambers until they collapsed?

The answer stood before them, its glimmering interior more reminiscent of a predator’s maw than a portal to other worlds.

This time, Dru could sense that there would be no last-minute reprieve. Whatever world the cowled figures had chosen was to be their new home.

Xiri had apparently realized this at the same time, for she tried to push her guide away and break a path to freedom for Dru and herself. As with her earlier attempt, when she had thrown the knife at one of their captors, the golem was barely affected. The elf, despite her speed and obvious battle skill, bounced off the side of the robed creature and into the unprepared sorcerer. It was all Dru could do to keep both of them from falling to the floor. As they regained their footing, their guides reached out and took each by one arm. Both prisoners discovered that struggling from that point on was impossible. Having attempted violence, they had been stripped of control over their very bodies. Helplessly moving in time to their guides’ steps, they walked to the center of the chamber and the patiently waiting Gate.

The spellcaster wished the guardian had not abandoned them back in the other chamber, but he knew that the mock dragon had really had little say. The guardians were used to obeying their masters blindly, and even though they had come to the point of questioning that blind obedience, it was not yet enough to save the two outsiders.

Vraad! the voice of the dragon guardian hurriedly called. They have faith in you.

That was all. One of the blank visages looked to the side, as if seeing to something. Dru felt the guardian retreat in something akin to fright.

They have faith in me? What did that mean?

The Gate shimmered again, causing renewed agitation among its dark denizens. They scurried, if it was possible, even more frantically than earlier.

Nimth greeted the sorcerer’s eyes. He took a deep breath, waiting for it to change to the Void or some other place, but Nimth still beckoned after nearly a minute had passed.

He was to go to Nimth… and they had faith in him. Faith to do what?

“Is that… is that Nimth?”

“Yes.” Dru looked at Xiri. “They want me to go there. I think they want me to bring the Vraad to this world.”

The concept still did not sit well with the elf, though both knew she no longer hated Dru. He, however, was only one Vraad. Dru himself had told her how terrible his kind could be.

“They’ll change when they’ve been here for a time. They have to. The land won’t accept them any other way.”

“What about me?”

He had not thought of that. “They can probably send you to your own people. You can prepare them for our coming.” The Vraad smiled in a cynical way. “Providing they aren’t as bloodthirsty as you, we should be able to live together.”

“I am not going back to my people, not yet.” Xiri looked up into his eyes with a determination worthy of any of his own race. “I think it would be better if I came with you back to Nimth.”

“You don’t want to do that. Not when there must be so many bitter Vraad. Not now.”

“Yes.” She took hold of his hand. He could not have peeled her hand from his even if he had wanted to do so. “Now. With you. I want to see this through to the end.”

Dru looked up and met the sightless gaze of one of the ancients. Even without eyes of any sort, he could feel the creature absorbing every movement, every facial expression. The golems saw more than many who had perfect vision.

“We’re stepping through now,” he told it.

To his surprise, the blank visage dipped in what might have been a nod. The way before them cleared. The Gate waited expectantly, pulsating, it seemed, to the sorcerer’s rapid heartbeat.

Tightening his own grip on Xiri’s hand, he led her into the portal and onto the soil of treacherous Nimth.