Legends of the Dragonrealm Volume 2

XX

It seemed much too soon and far too late when they arrived at the outskirts of the walled citadel of the Tezerenee.

“The gates are open,” Faunon informed them while they were still a distance away. His eyes were much better than theirs. Once it would have been next to nothing for the Vraad to alter their eyes to their needs, but none of those with the elf even voiced the thought, not with the unpredictability of sorcery.

“I hear nothing but the birds in the trees,” Gerrod added. “The citadel is silent.”

Sharissa glanced at the patriarch and saw that his hands gripped so tightly around the reins that it was a wonder the reins did not snap. She could see that he wanted desperately to ride as swiftly as he could through the gates and see what had befallen his empire, but the training that he himself had imparted upon the clan held him back. No warrior went riding madly into danger unless he had something in mind.

The sun of a new day was barely over the horizon. No one spoke of Lochivan’s tragic struggle, for fear of the look that crossed the patriarch’s countenance when that event was even hinted at. Besides, now was the time to worry about what lay before them-and whether or not it might be better to turn and ride away.

“Stay together,” Barakas finally muttered. He started to urge his mount forward, but Sharissa reached over and put a hand on his arm. He looked at her with nearly dead eyes.

“A suggestion… and a request.”

“What?”

“Darkhorse. He’ll help us here, especially when he knows I mean to enter regardless of his protests. It would be the best for all our sakes.”

“Very well.”

She blinked in surprise, watching as he lifted the box so that it rested on his lap. The ease with which she had convinced him worried her at the same time that it cheered her. Much of the patriarch’s indomitable spirit had died over the past days. There was no predicting what he might do in his present state, and the sorceress had no desire to become part of some death wish. Still, she had sworn to help him for the time being, and she would not break that promise.

To herself Sharissa admitted again that she wanted to know what had happened-provided she survived that knowledge, too.

The Darkhorse who fled from the box this time was a greatly subdued creature. He did not shout, nor did he stamp and gouge the earth to show his fury. Instead… he wavered.

“What… what is it now, dragonlord?”

“Darkhorse!” Sharissa was stunned by the tentative tone of his voice. He had almost as little spirit as the patriarch. Her sympathy for the clan master dwindled to a shadow of itself as she wondered what sort of punishments he had meted out to the eternal.

“Sharissa.” Darkhorse bowed his head low and would not look her in the eye. The ice-blue orbs seemed dimmer than she recalled.

“Will he be all right?” Faunon quietly asked her. “It almost seems that we might have to protect him.”

“Even if he cannot, he will be better off free of that horrible device!”

The patriarch stirred himself. “Demon, your friend has requested we seek your assistance. The citadel of my people may now be a deadly trap to all those who enter. We might have need of your considerable power.”

“My power is not so considerable now,” the shadow steed muttered. “I have trouble keeping my form even. Why ask, anyway? You have my life in your hands. Merely command me as you have before.”

Barakas looked down at the box in his hands. He looked at Sharissa. A spark of life still remained in his eyes. To the ebony stallion, he replied, “I made a pact with the Lady Sharissa. A pact of freedom if she will do this thing for me. That pact includes you.”

He threw the box to the ground with as much strength as he could muster.

Darkhorse’s horrific prison shattered with such ease that Sharissa and the others could only stare at it for several seconds.

“Hurrah,” murmured a sardonic Gerrod in the background.

Life, or something akin to it, returned to the Void dweller. Darkhorse laughed, relief from the strain of so agonizing a captivity vying for dominance. He was still very weak, but now he at least had spirit. Sharissa smiled.

“I owe you much, patriarch, for what you did to me, but I will abide by my friend’s pact. When this is done, however, we depart and, should your path and mine cross again, there will be a reckoning.”

The warriors reached for their weapons, but Barakas waved them off. “I expected no less.”

The shadow steed, still wavering in form, turned to face the party’s objective. “Then let us be on with this task. I yearn for an end to this.”

Grimacing, the young sorceress urged her mount forward. She, too, yearned for an end, but wished he had phrased things differently.

Gerrod rode up to where she and Faunon were and pressed his animal between theirs. The elf frowned in his direction, but kept silent because of the warlock’s friendship with her.

“I have something for the two of you… small tokens of luck, nothing more.” He reached out and handed each of them a small crystal. “Humor me and keep them with you.” Before they could ask what he intended, the warlock was behind them again. No one else had paid particular attention to the exchange, so concerned was the rest of the party with their kin who had remained in the citadel.

Darkhorse trotted several paces ahead of them as they neared the Tezerenee settlement, he being the one least likely to face injury if surprised. Sharissa’s eyes narrowed as she studied the open gate. It was not merely open, but almost off its hinge and very battered, as if something had sought to break through-but from the inside.

The riding drakes stirred and began sniffing the air.

“They smell blood,” Faunon said, his eyes not leaving the battered gate.

“How do you know?” she asked. She could see no sign of blood, but that did not mean there was none.

“I can smell it, too. An acrid, coppery smell it is.”

“Silence!” hissed the patriarch.

Maintaining careful hold of the reins of their animals, the party reached the open entranceway. The broken gate left more than enough room for a massive drake to pass through. Darkhorse paused and turned to the humans.

“Do I enter?”

“What do you sense?” Sharissa asked in a quiet voice.

“Everything and nothing!” He glared at Barakas. “I can no longer trust my senses.”

“Enter, then,” muttered the lord of the Tezerenee. “Enter, scan the area, and return to us.”

“I live to serve you,” mocked the unsteady stallion. He turned back to the huge arch and trotted inside.

Sharissa nearly held her breath the entire length of his absence. She recalled how it had felt to combat Lochivan and Ivor, both of whom had displayed astonishing potential in sorcery. In being transformed into these abominations, it seemed that the Tezerenee were also being adapted to the powers of the land itself. Why not, if the renegade had wanted them to be the new masters? Certainly with foes like the Seekers and the Quel still living, the new kings would need all the skills they could acquire.

Darkhorse returned. He was puzzled. “There is nothing that I can see or sense in any other way. This place is a chaotic maelstrom of force. If there is anyone here, I cannot tell you.”

“No bodies?” Gerrod asked, much to the shock and anger of his former clansmen.

“There is blood, but no bodies, not even bits.” The ebony stallion smiled humorlessly at the patriarch.

“We enter, then,” was all Barakas had to say in turn.

The citadel was in ruins. Many of the smaller buildings had been completely leveled; others missed walls or parts of the ceiling. Rubble was strewn everywhere. One of the towers had collapsed, crushing the building below it. Even part of the surrounding wall had been battered.

“Random violence,” the elf commented. “There seems no purpose in any of the destruction. Some of it looks as if the attacker ceased in midstream and departed.”

“There is one consistency,” Sharissa remarked. Lord Barakas turned at the sound of her voice. She pointed at one of the battered walls of a building that still at least partly stood. “Most of the rubble, save for the damage to the protective wall, lies in the courtyards and open areas.”

“Meaning?” the clan master asked, not caring for her delay in stating the point.

“Meaning that the destruction came from within the buildings for the most part, then spread out here.” She defied him to counter her claim with any of his own.

His only reply was “We will move on and see how the rest of the place fares. Only then will we investigate inside.”

He was stalling and everyone knew it, but no one wanted to be the first inside the buildings-where the true carnage might be awaiting them.

A short time later, they noticed the prints in the earth. They had come across drake prints throughout their search, even before they had entered the citadel, but not so many as this. There were prints everywhere, many of them bloodstained. Sharissa was intrigued despite herself by the thoroughness with which the drakes appeared to have scoured this area.

At the clan master’s command, two of the remaining warriors rode forward for a piece and vanished around some buildings.

“Where did you send them?” Sharissa asked, not liking anything that lessened the strength of their party.

“To verify something for me. They will be in no danger. The other gateway is not far from here.”

“And us, Father?” Gerrod asked, his eyes darting here and there as if he expected a hundred Lochivans to leap out at them.

“We dismount. I need see no more of the yard. It is time to investigate the buildings.”

Knowing the futility of arguing, Sharissa and her companions dismounted in silence. Two Tezerenee took charge of the steeds. As the sorceress smoothed her clothing, she happened to glance up at Darkhorse.

She could see through him!

“Darkhorse!” All thought of the ghostly citadel pushed aside for the time being, Sharissa ran over to the eternal and tried to touch him. His eyes were closed, and his form seemed wracked with pain.

“I… I am weaker than I supposed, Sharissa! I fear that I will be very ineffective for quite some time!”

“But you will be all right?”

“I… believe so.” Darkhorse opened wide his eyes and glared at his former captor. “My apologies… for… any inconvenience, dragonlord! I do not know what could be the matter… with me!”

What remark the patriarch was to make would remain lost, for the two Tezerenee given the unenviable task appeared around the corner. They seemed anxious but not frightened, a good sign as far as the sorceress was concerned. Anything that frightened the Tezerenee was not something she had any desire to face.

The two dismounted the instant they reached the party. Both knelt before their lord.

“Speak.”

One warrior, taller and thinner than his companion, said, “It is as you supposed, Lord Barakas. There is a great trail formed by the gathering of many drakes and leading out of the other gateway. The gateway itself is far more battered than the one we entered by. I would have to say a great exodus occurred here.”

Barakas looked around to make certain the others had heard. His gaze fell for an extended time upon Sharissa.

“How long ago was this exodus?” Gerrod asked.

The second Tezerenee looked at his master, who nodded permission to him to reply to Gerrod’s question. “A week, we decided. A few traces are older, a few younger.”

“It started so soon…” Barakas studied the two scouts. “You saw no life.”

“More blood and the remains of a riding drake, my lord,” the first one responded. “It still wore part of a bridle. One of its own had killed it.”

One of its own or something just as savage? Sharissa wondered if the same thought was going through the mind of Barakas. Why would two riding drakes struggle? They were trained to work beside each other. It would take fear or bloodlust of unbelievable proportions to make them turn on each other.

“We have our answer, then,” the patriarch announced, turning so that he looked at everyone. “There was danger and people died, but the many trails indicate that the bulk of the clan has abandoned the citadel, choosing to go south, I suppose.”

“Why would they abandon this place?” Gerrod asked, ever, it seemed, seeking to estrange himself further from his progenitor. “Something must have made them. Where is it, Father? Where did it go? Not after them, I think. There is still something here. Can you not feel it?”

“I feel nothing.”

“So I have noticed.”

Barakas reached for his son, but the warlock was too swift. Sharissa came between them.

“Stop it! Lord Barakas, if the others rode off, we should follow them, not remain here and risk encountering trouble that might prove too great for us to handle!”

The patriarch cooled down. “Perhaps you are correct. Perhaps we should-” He broke off. “Alcia!”

“What about her?”

He looked at the sorceress as if perplexed she would ask such a thing. “She’s in the great hall!”

The rest of the party stirred, wondering how the lord of the Tezerenee could know that. Sharissa hesitated, then asked, “What makes you say that?”

“I heard her voice, of course!” Barakas looked at his companions as if they had all turned deaf. “She just called to us! She needs our assistance!”

Sharissa and the others stared at him.

“Bah! My ears are still good even if yours aren’t!” He turned away and started toward the building in which the great hall lay. Though they had not heard anything, three of his warriors followed close behind. The other two remained with the riding drakes. Sharissa’s companions looked to her, knowing that her oath bound them here.

“We could leave now,” suggested the elf. “There seems nothing to accomplish here, and I do not like the thought of following someone who imagines voices.”

Gerrod turned and stared after his father. “I thought I heard a sound like a voice…”

Sharissa frowned. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I made out nothing distinct. Certainly not my mother calling us! I think I’d recognize that!”

“I wish I could feel anything that made sense!” she muttered. Sighing, the spellcaster started after the vanished Tezerenee. “I think we’d better follow him.”

Something large hissed. Sharissa ignored it, thinking it merely one of their mounts, when Faunon put a hand on her shoulder and hurriedly whispered, “Sharissa! To your left!”

Staring out from the broken doorway of one of the nearby buildings, a savage-looking drake blinked at them. It was more than twice the size of the steeds, a true dragon. From the way it moved, it had just woken up. Reptilian eyes glared at the tiny figures and then at the suddenly apprehensive mounts. The two Tezerenee struggled to maintain control over the simple beasts.

“We rode right by that thing!” whispered Gerrod. “My father seems to have grown lax in his abilities as a warrior and a leader. He should have never-”

“Never mind that now!” Faunon touched the hilt of his sword, but then thought better of it. He glanced at the riding drakes, and Sharissa realized he was looking for a bow and quiver. There were at least three, but reaching them meant attracting the further attention of the waking horror.

With a hopeful smile on his face, the elf winked at her and took a step toward the mounts.

The dragon focused on him, growing more alert with each second.

“Go, elf!” urged Gerrod. “It will come for us soon enough! If the bow increases our odds, it will be worth it!”

As if the hooded Tezerenee’s words were its signal, the dragon broke through the wall, hissing as it struggled to drag its entire body through the gap it had made. Faunon rushed to the nearest bow and started removing it and the quiver from the shifting drake.

Sharissa knew that he would get only one shot off. She also knew that Faunon could have used his sorcerous abilities but feared that the repercussions, as he had hinted, might be worse than the attack. The sorceress, on the other hand, had no such qualms.

She raised her hand and repeated the spell she had cast on Lochivan.

Dust rose around the dragon. It roared, snapped at the particles flying about, and then shook its head.

A wild force struck Sharissa and sent her falling back. Gerrod only partly succeeded in stopping her fall. The hard earth jarred her and made it impossible to focus.

“It’s moving faster!” Gerrod roared. Through blurred eyes, she noticed his face strain with concentration, as if he sought to unleash a spell of his own despite his acknowledged aversion to the magic of this world. Behind them, the two sentries were shouting loudly, but she could not turn her head enough to see either them or Faunon.

A large, dark shape burst into her field of vision and raced to meet the charging leviathan head-on. Even with her vision watery, Sharissa recognized Darkhorse. “No!”

Weak from the teachings of Lord Barakas, the shadow steed was nearly little more than a true shadow. Yet, his presence could not be denied by the dragon, who moved to deal with this sudden rival.

“He will hold it, but for how long?” the warlock asked as he pulled Sharissa to her feet. “That thing struck back at you with power far greater than Lochivan’s, did it not?”

“Yes… that’s right.”

“As I feared.” She felt him stiffen and looked to see what bothered him so.

Another dragon, identical to the first, was climbing out of the ruins of an-other building behind the party.

“It is as if they were waiting for us to come!” Faunon, the quiver looped over him and the arrow already nocked, drew a bead on Darkhorse’s adversary. He let loose instantly, but the dragon, as if sensing the new assault, somehow twisted enough so that the arrow, destined for one of its eyes, bounced off thick scale. “Rheena!”

The riding drakes were beyond control. Several hissed at the coming monstrosities, making Sharissa wonder if it might not be better to let them loose. Surely a dozen of them could easily dispatch these two.

A third hiss told them that things might not be so simple after all.

They’re coming from everywhere! she realized.

There was a scream from where the Tezerenee had been struggling with their steeds. Gerrod suddenly pulled her to the side, toward the steps where Barakas had gone. Faunon followed almost instantly, nearly falling on her. A huge brown-green form dashed past her.

“The riding drakes have broken free!” she warned her companions needlessly.

“Much to the regret of all, especially the two poor fools my father left to hold them!” Gerrod rose, pulling the other two up with him. “One was trampled. I don’t know what happened to the other, but I know that was his scream!”

Around them, chaos was coming to full bloom. The freed drakes scattered, some running and some turning to fight the intruders.

More dragons were creeping out of the ruins.

“This is mad!” Gerrod coughed as the dust raised by one of the drakes floated about the trio. “How could we not even sense so many? Where did they come from?”

“Don’t you realize, Vraad?” Faunon snarled, waving an arm in the general direction of the creatures. “These are your loving relations!”

“Impossible!”

A familiar laugh echoed in their heads.

A new race of kings… it said, the voice dwindling in intensity with each word, as if the renegade guardian were fleeing now that its work was done.

“So much for the vaunted power of the other guardians and their masters!” the warlock muttered. “That thing has been waiting for us! It probably kept them silent so it could teach us a fatal lesson for not obeying it before!”

So it seemed, although Sharissa could not see how the outcast could have known they would come when they did. Still, that was a worry for another time. Right now their lives were all at stake. The rampaging monsters were all around them, cutting off any hope of escape through the gateways. It was doubtful that they could have outrun the horrors anyway.

“This way!” Faunon called, pointing in the direction the patriarch and the others had gone. There was still the question of what was happening to them. If the outcast guardian was responsible for the voice the patriarch had though was his bride’s, then it could be nothing good.

They started up the steps and were halfway when she recalled Darkhorse. He was still engaged with the one dragon, dancing about and entrancing it much the way a snake might entrance its victim. The eternal, however, had little strength now, and against a creature that had already proven its natural magical abilities, the shadow steed stood a good chance of being defeated. Whether he could die or not was something Sharissa had no desire to discover.

“Darkhorse! This way!”

He seemed not to hear her. She began retracing her steps, but Faunon and Gerrod pulled her back up.

“Look before you run!” Faunon reprimanded her. He turned her head so that she could see the dragon making its way toward them. Unlike the others, who seemed more a mix of browns and greens like the riding drakes, it had a silverish cast to it and eyes that gleamed with more intelligence. It avoided the battling drakes and stalked the tiny figures with true purpose.

“But Darkhorse…”

“You know he only stays because you do! He’ll leave when you are safe! Take her, Tezerenee!”

Gerrod did, securing a hold while the elf readied his bow. With the elf backing them up, they continued to climb the steps. Faunon released an arrow once he was at the top, but it hit just before the dragon’s forepaws. The shot brought them a few seconds, but little more.

“And I used to pride myself on my shooting!”

“I think the dragon might have had something to do with it!” Gerrod suggested as he pushed Sharissa on. “I felt a tug, as if it made use of sorcery in its defense!”

“Rheena pray for us if it did!”

The doors of the building were open and, to their surprise, undamaged. Once through, Sharissa and Gerrod closed them while Faunon stood back and kept watch just in case. When the doors were finally bolted, they took a moment to catch their breaths.

“Where… where can my father be with all this commotion?” the young Tezerenee asked between gulps of air.

“The great… the great hall is where he said he would be,” Sharissa suggested. “It’s our best bet!”

“And then what? Sharissa, do you think your sorcery can teleport us out of here?”

She had already wondered about that and suspected that the answer was no. Even if the guardian was truly gone, the wild magic inherent in the dragons outside was wreaking havoc upon her own abilities. There was also Faunon’s warning about utilizing their powers during this time.

If it came to life or death, however, she would do what she could and damn the consequences.

They jumped away from the door as a massive weight pushed against it, causing the hinges to creak dangerously.

“Gerrod!” a voice without called.

“Dragon’s blood!” the warlock nearly choked as he stepped farther and farther back from the doors. His pale visage was the color of bone. “I know that voice, but which one? Esad? Logan?”

“It hardly matters! I think the time has come to retreat from the doors!” Faunon suggested. “Sharissa! Do you know the way we have to take?”

He had only had limited access to this building. Gerrod had never even been inside here. Sharissa was the only one familiar with the building’s design, not that the path was that difficult. Time was, however, of the essence.

She nodded. “Just follow me!”

Ignoring the severity of their predicament, the elf asked, “Do you think we’d rather wait around here?”

They could hear the dragon trying to break its way in as they ran, and it was obvious that the doors would not hold too long. Sharissa hoped to find the patriarch and then lead the party to the upper floors, where it would be impossible for the dragons to reach them. So far, they had seen none with wings, but that might not remain so. If these dragons were what she thought they were, then wings might be merely the next step in their evolution.

Together we can do something, she kept telling herself. With my power, Faunon’s, and what the rest can contribute, we should be able to teleport us all to safety.

Should was the optimum word.

So engrossed was she in the planning of their escape that she nearly fell across the body lying across the closed doors of their destination.

“Careful!” Faunon caught her. It seemed that someone was always catching her. Sharissa felt brief pangs of frustration, but forgot her aggravation with herself when she saw who-or rather, what-she had nearly tripped over.

It was one of the Tezerenee. His head had been nearly severed from his body, but with good reason. With his helm off to one side, the trio could see that he, like Lochivan, had progressed through a part of the transformation.

“He was perfectly normal when we last saw him!” Gerrod objected.

“But he isn’t now!” Sharissa forgot about the body and rushed to the doors.

“Help me get these open… and pray we don’t find another like him waiting for us!”

They heard yet another hiss down one of the corridors. Heavy thuds warned them in advance that this part of the citadel was not empty.

The doors proved not to be bolted, but something had been placed behind them that made it difficult at first to push them open. The combined efforts of the three, not to mention the knowledge that another dragon was only minutes from discovering them, proved superior to whatever held back the doors.

Sharissa peeked in as the doors spread apart and barely held back a gasp.

Lord Barakas stood with his sword out before him, as still as a marble statue. The great hall was in ruins, and she saw part of the mangled corpse of one of the patriarch’s remaining two men. The other was nowhere to be seen, although it was almost a certainty that he, like the first, was dead.

Facing the clan master from where the thrones had once stood was the largest of the dragons that any of them had yet seen in the citadel.

“Now what do we do?” Gerrod asked.

The hissing in the corridors had multiplied. Sharissa did not think they had any choice, especially since it sounded as if the outer doors were beginning to give. She gritted her teeth and replied, “One dragon is always better than two or three!”

They stepped inside, and Faunon and the warlock quickly closed and bolted the doors behind them.

Barakas and the dragon before him had still not moved. It was as if they were waiting to see who would look away first. The dragon, a huge, emerald and black beast, bled from a number of cuts around its eyes and throat. Part of the patriarch’s armor was in tatters, and he looked to be bleeding, although it was hard to say since his back was turned to them. Sharissa wondered why the dragon looked so familiar and then realized the monster resembled the ancient dragonlord in the ruins of the founders’ settlements. Was this what the renegade had wanted the Tezerenee to become?

Reptilian eyes glanced the trio’s way, but Barakas, oddly enough, did not choose to strike. The dragon, turning its attention back to the patriarch, almost appeared disappointed in his lack of effort.

Barakas, never taking his eyes from the dragon, called back, “Get out of here! I command you! Go on without me!”

“We would like to, Father,” Gerrod responded with a touch of sarcasm in his tone, “but the family insists we stay for dinner!”

Outside the great hall, they could hear the hissing of more than one drake.

“Gerrrrod?” The dragon leaned forward, completely ignoring the armed Tezerenee, yet Barakas still made no move. “Gerrrod.”

“Gods!” The warlock stumbled back as the jaws opened, and they stared into the beast’s huge maw.

The behemoth suddenly recoiled. Sharissa thought it looked ashamed and horrified by Gerrod’s reaction. The mighty head turned and reptilian eyes stared down at the patriarch. “Let it be donnne!”

Before their eyes, the dragon struck at Lord Barakas, but in so clumsy a manner that its lower jaw missed the top of the clan master’s helm by several inches. The attack also left the dragon’s throat completely open, but even then, Barakas hesitated before striking. When he finally attacked, it was as if his draconian adversary had purposely left itself open, for it delayed in withdrawing its head.

The patriarch’s sword, propelled by his tremendous strength, went up through the throat, the back of the jaws, and directly into the brain of the beast.

The silence of the tableau lent an eerie feel to it. Making no sound despite the horrible pain it felt, the dragon pulled back. Barakas remained where he had been since the threesome had entered, defying almost certain death if the thrashings of the dying creature proved very violent.

Yet, the dragon did not thrash. It twitched as it moved, and the blood, a trail that began on the chest and hands of the clan master and continued back to the dais, continued to pour from the wound like some hideous river. With so much pain evident, it was surprising to all of them that the dragon seemed almost at peace.

Heavy thuds against the doors reminded Sharissa and her companions of their own danger. They moved closer to the center of the great hall. Barakas still had no eyes for them; he only seemed interested in the death of the leviathan. As it began to settle into the final moments of life, the patriarch walked slowly toward the dragon’s head. The eyes, already glazing, watched him with what interest the dying beast could muster. It made no attempt to snap at him. Barakas knelt beside it and, removing his gauntlets, began caressing his adversary on the neck.

“Lord Barakas,” Sharissa dared call out. “We need to leave this place! The others will be through those doors before long!”

He looked up at them. There was no life in his voice as he said, “I killed her.”

“You cannot kill them all, though, Father!” the warlock argued, evidently thinking that the patriarch was intending to take on each and every beast as it came.

Sharissa understood what Gerrod did not and tried to keep him from saying anything more. “Lord Barakas! Is there another way out of here that might lead us to a safer place?”

“I killed her because she asked me,” he replied, rising and staring at his son.

“It was a struggle for her to keep her own mind, but she was always the strongest besides myself. I almost thought she might have fought back the foul magic as I had done.”

Gerrod’s eyes jerked from his father to the dead beast. “Dragon’s blood, Father! that… that cannot be-”

“Yes, Gerrod. That is my Alcia.”

“That thing is-was mother?” The younger Tezerenee, Sharissa realized, had never taken the transformations and followed them to their logical conclusions. If one Tezerenee was affected, they all were, even the lord and lady who ruled. Barakas had survived through his incredible will. The Tezerenee still back at the caverns had probably survived in part because of his very presence. Of course, there was also the possibility that the renegade guardian had acted more cautiously in the caverns, considering that the region was a former stronghold of its creators.

A downpour of heavy thuds left cracks in the walls and ceiling of the chamber. Sharissa stood directly in front of Barakas and forced him to look at her. “Barakas! Is there a place we can go from here where the dragons won’t be able to reach us?”

Behind the helm, his face screwed up in thought. He almost looked pained by the effort. She pitied him for what he had been forced to do, but there was no helping Lady Alcia anymore. Now was the time to worry about those still living.

He finally shook his head. “No. Nothing. The other entrances lead out into the main corridors.”

“Which we know to be filled with our friends,” Faunon remarked. He had the bow ready. The first drake through would have little room to navigate, making it a perfect target for one of his skill.

“We’re trapped, then,” she said. “Unless we teleport from here.”

“Very risky!”

She indicated the buckling doors. “Compared to that?”

“A communal effort will be needed. I doubt I have the power to either tele-port us or open a gate long enough for us to go through. Do you think you could do it?”

“No.” That had been one of her first considerations. A communal effort was the only choice she had discovered. Sharissa had hoped the elf might suggest another. “We’d best get to it, then! Gerrod! Are you up to it?”

The warlock slowly nodded. “Yes. Anything to be away from this damnation! What about my erstwhile father?”

The clan master had retreated into his other world again. His dreams had been shattered, and one of the strongest driving forces behind that dream, the Lady Alcia, was dead at his own hands. If anything could have broken the powerful Vraad’s will, this could… and had.

“Hold on to him. We’ll take him along. I can’t leave him in here like this.”

Hinges creaked as the dragons pounded away. Sharissa felt weak probes searching for them. The drakes were going through a change that entailed more than physical transformation. They were being adapted, as the guardians had said, and part of that adaptation was an affinity for the sorcery of this world. Sharissa hoped that the remnants of her party would be gone before the dragons became too skilled.

They stood in a small circle, holding each other’s hands. Sharissa acted as the focus, drawing strength from her companions, even the somnambulant lord of the Tezerenee. Faunon suggested drawing an image from his mind and sending them there, but she lacked the concentration to do so. That left only a blind teleport, risky but their only hope.

“Wait!” Gerrod released her hand and dug into his clothing. He removed a crystal identical to the ones he had given to his companions earlier. “Take this and concentrate on the elf’s thoughts!”

“What will happen?”

“I gave you the other ones because the Quel use them for reading and translating thoughts! They work from a distance, and I thought it would be a good way for me to find you if we got separated. I should have told you, but that’s not important now! If you concentrate on your elf, what he thinks will be transmitted to you!”

She took the crystal and did as he described, finding with joy that Faunon’s thought image was so clear that it was almost as if they were already there. She focused on the location.

The dragons’ probes grew stronger. Inhuman emotions began to seep through, biting at her concentration.

The chamber faded.

The chamber reappeared.

“No!” They fell in a heap, shaken by the reversal. Sharissa felt a mind that she knew to be draconian laugh at them. Do not leave ussss, Sharisssssa Zereeee! Do not take our lordssss from ussss!

From the way Gerrod jerked, she knew he had heard the dragon, also. It was the same one that he had identified as one of his brothers.

The doors burst open, swinging back so hard they crashed into the walls and sent bits of rock flying.

The dragons swarmed toward them, the silver one in the front.