Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. II

by Richard A. Knaak

  He started down the hill, his eyes focused more often on the decaying citadel than the path he took. Twice he almost tripped, which would have ended with him rolling the rest of the way, but luck was always with him.

  At the bottom, he almost tripped again, but this time because the body in his path was so much the color of the earth it lay half-buried in, that he almost did not see it in time.

  Dru’s entire situation altered in the single breath it took the sorcerer to recognize the form for what it was. Near him, the horse waited silently. It no longer seemed impatient, but rather expectant.

  The Vraad reached down and touched the corpse. It lay on its stomach, but he could tell it was manlike at least. Nearly as tall as the spellcaster, it had worn finely crafted cloth garments that crumbled when his fingers ran across them. To Dru’s shock and wonder, the body, too, crumbled, collapsing within itself and blowing away with the breeze. Nothing remained after the first few seconds save a collection of fragments, mostly decor from the clothing.

  How old? Dru wondered. How old and in what way would one have to die to be preserved like this?

  The ravaged city no longer seemed such a wondrous place to visit. The sorcerer wiped dust from his eyes and glanced back up the way he had come. It would not be too terrible a climb….

  The sun was little more than a tired remnant of its once-glorious self. Climbing the hill might not be so terrible, but could he find his way back to his companion? Even granting that Darkness stood out even in the… the true darkness… he was still too far away for Dru to locate immediately. In the dark, the spellcaster might wander off in the wrong direction.

  “Serkadion Manee!” Dru cursed his own stupidity. His powers and senses now functioned, at least somewhat. It would be a simple matter of focusing on—

  Something snagged his left foot and threatened to topple him to the ground. Dru looked down to see the foot, up to and including the ankle, sink beneath the rocky surface. The grip that held him was tight enough to cut off circulation. His first attempt to free himself was to kick at the slowly encroaching ground. When his mind registered the idiocy of that act, the Vraad threw caution to the wind and summoned forth his powers as best he could. Whether they worked sufficiently or not, he would strike at the underground nemesis with everything within him.

  The earth shook violently and the hillside threatened to collapse on the sorcerer. It was not the result Dru had intended and he wondered whether he had hastened his own death. Then whatever had hold of him lost its grip and the startled spellcaster fell back, arms akimbo as he sought uselessly to halt his descent. Dru stuck the ground hard.

  A huge, monstrous shape rose out of the earth, filling Dru’s vision. The Vraad looked into a visage of savagery, a long-snouted, red-orbed beast that seemed to glitter. The creature was covered with a natural body armor and stood on two bulky legs. It had clawed appendages large enough to grasp him by the neck and rip his head off, if it so decided.

  The terror let loose with a maddened hooting noise that threatened to pierce Dru’s eardrums. It raised a claw, obviously intending to rend the sprawled Vraad’s midsection. The harried sorcerer desperately sought for control, hoping to make one last strike with his haphazard skills. The claws came down.

  A black aura surrounded the attacking beast. It let out one frightened hoot, and toppled toward its intended victim.

  Dru had, at the very least, enough sense to roll away from the collapsing figure. He had no idea what had happened, save that he had escaped death again—with help from someone or something. The sorcerer ended his rolling by returning to his feet, crouched low in case of a second assault. There was none.

  Cautiously approaching his would-be killer, Dru frowned. The creature blended into the region around him with the exception of little spots of glitter buried in the folds of its armor. Suspicions already forming, Dru carefully prodded the huge corpse.

  It collapsed the way the first had.

  At the same time, the Vraad heard the flutter of wings. He looked up.

  More than a dozen copies of the avian horror that had tried to kill him back in Nimth hovered overhead. The largest of them wore a medallion about its neck and cradled the artifact with one of its hands. Dru had no doubt that this was what had killed the armored creature.

  It was now focused on him.

  VIII

  AMONG THE CELEBRATING Vraad, enmities began to spill over the mental dams in what could best be described as the first forerunners of one massive flood of hatred.

  Gerrod noted it first in a Vraad called Lord Highcort, a pretty man bedecked in huge, glistening baubles. Highcort wore rings on each finger and was clad in a robe of majestic purple, giving him the appearance of some jaded monarch. The object of his wrath was a female who had once been his mate, or was it twice? She wore nothing but a multicolored streamer of light that occasionally revealed her charms for the briefest of times. Her hair hung low over her face, almost obscuring her eyes. She was presently taller than Highcort, though that could change depending on their moods. What her name was, Gerrod could not recall.

  Highcort had evidently had no such trouble finding names for her. The last was the least in a long line that had initially alerted Gerrod to the argument down in the courtyard. “Minx! I grow annoyed at your toying! If you will not cease your diatribes, then I will have to remove the troublesome tongue that makes them!”

  “You’ve been trying to remove that tongue for years, Highcort! What’s the matter? Have I struck so close with the truth that you cannot take it anymore?”

  The male gritted his teeth. A haze started to form around him, first simply a cloud, then a whirlwind that began circling around.

  What the woman was doing, Gerrod had no idea, but he could sense her own powers at work.

  Just as the two were about to strike, a pair of dragon riders materialized above them. Both Vraad turned their attention skyward, knowing where the more dangerous threat lay.

  “What is it? What goes on?” His father’s booming voice pulled the hooded Tezerenee from the window. Gerrod found he was disappointed that the combatants had not been allowed to continue. At least the others would have been thoroughly entertained and the mutterings would have ceased for a while.

  “We can’t mislead them for much longer, Father. The feuds are starting to brew anew.”

  The Lord Tezerenee was presently hunched over charts and notations that Gerrod and Rendel had made concerning the passage over to the Dragonrealm. Barakas absently stroked the head of the small wyvern perched on his armored shoulder as he digested both what lay revealed before him and his son’s warning.

  Reegan, ever a champion of the head-on charge, slammed a mailed fist onto the table and, ignoring the splintered remnants where his hand had gone through, said, “They should be brought under control, informed of who is in command here! If they knew their true standing, they would abase themselves before us and beg for a place in the new kingdom!”

  Gerrod had had enough foolishness. The words escaped his mouth before he considered that he was turning attention away from his brother and back onto himself. “A kingdom we can no longer promise to deliver to them!”

  His father jerked straight, causing the wyvern to flutter off in shrieking panic, but the Lady Tezerenee, standing to his left and just behind him, put a steady hand on his shoulder.

  “Hush, darling. Gerrod is correct. The thing to do now is recoup our losses and see if we can salvage some sort of victory.”

  “I would rather recoup the heads of Ephraim and his band.” Barakas took a deep breath, which threatened to exhaust the air supply in the room, and calmed himself. He turned away from Gerrod, who let out a silent sigh, and focused on one of the coven assigned to monitor Rendel’s passage. They had given up trying to keep the body alive; it had passed away shortly after the initial news that the cross-over itself was in danger. “Esad! How many golems remain?”

  The newcomer knelt instantly. “Father, there are some two hundre
d plus golems ready. That is the best we can say at this point.”

  “Acceptable.” Barakas scratched his chin. “More than enough for us to cross over and still have some left for those we deem our allies. As for the rest”—he shrugged uncaringly—“they, being mighty Vraad, should be able to fend for themselves.”

  Which still did not answer the initial questions raised earlier, Gerrod thought bitterly. What had actually happened to Ephraim and those of the clan whose task it had been to create and shape the golems? Those shells were to act as the Vraads’ receptacles when their kas passed across to their new domain. When it was reported that they had not responded to a summons, the Lord Tezerenee himself had gone out to find the reason why. All they had found were the pentagram etched in the dead soil and a few minor items that individuals in the band had carried with them. There had been no sign of a struggle and no misty apparition marking an intrusion by the other domain.

  The patriarch was of the opinion that the band had somehow crossed, abandoning their bodies in some well-hidden cave so as to delay discovery of their deed. It was possible to create a lifeline of sorts that would enable the kas of each of them to cross, down to and including the last man. Such a task would require the first arrivals to remain linked mentally with those to follow. It was that part of the plan that Rendel had abandoned earlier.

  “It is settled, then.”

  The gathered Tezerenee, mostly the combined sons and daughters of the lord and lady, grew silent, whispered conversations dying in midsentence. When no one else dared to ask, Gerrod took the burden onto his shoulders, as it always seemed he did, despite a continuing lack of gratitude on the parts of his siblings. “What is settled, Father?”

  Lord Barakas glared at his son as if Gerrod had turned into an imbecile. “Pay attention! Our course is settled! We begin transferring over to the Dragonrealm before this day is over. I will summon those who will join our ranks. The announcement will go out that they will be but the first, overall order being done by lottery.”

  “They will never believe that.”

  The patriarch gave his son an imperious glare. “They will believe that because I will stake the bond of the dragon on it.”

  So it had come to that, the younger Tezerenee marveled with distaste. The fine line of honor!

  In truth, his father could not be said to be lying, for lottery was to have been the original system, albeit with a few strings. The supposedly random pattern of who would depart first had been first suggested by Rendel. Gerrod’s elder brother had reminded them that no Vraad felt they should come second to another. The lottery, with a promise that no influence would be made when the names were chosen, had subdued many arguments. What the other Vraad did not know, however, was that only certain names went into the first batch. Those were the ones Barakas knew could either be turned or bullied into submission. The rest would have eventually found themselves offering up their own wills in return for survival.

  With the rampant displays of Vraad sorcery going on even now, Nimth would not last half as long as had once been supposed. The Vraad, certain of their continued existence, assumed that there was no reason to hold back and were celebrating accordingly.

  Gerrod, his mind on such thoughts, abruptly found his air cut off and his body being dragged by some invisible force around his neck toward his father. The Lady Tezerenee gasped, but that was the only sound other than Gerrod’s futile attempts for breath.

  “You are proving yourself to be quite inadequate, my son,” the patriarch said in the smooth voice that unnerved all, especially those for whom his words were intended. “I left you to organize the transfer. Its control escaped you. I left you to organize the creation of the golems, our hope for the future. Control of that escaped you as well. I placed the young Zeree female in your hands… and now she has run off to her father’s citadel, no doubt.” The spell holding Gerrod ceased, leaving the younger Tezerenee to gasp in precious air. “You constantly question my wisdom when you cannot trust your own.” Barakas turned from him to his bride. “I have done all I can with our son. If he cannot redeem himself, there are others willing to take his place once the cross-over commences.”

  Lady Alcia started to protest, but noticed something in her husband’s eye that warned her to remain quiet.

  Barakas took her arm and started to lead her out. As the two departed, the patriarch calmly commanded to those behind him, “Begin the transfer. Reegan, you control it.” The Lord Tezerenee gave Gerrod one last withering glance. “As for you… find out what the Zeree hatchling has in mind that she first holds back information and then sneaks off to the protection of her father’s domain. If you manage to succeed, there will still be a place for you.”

  Gerrod nodded, keeping his visage composed since his father’s sorcerous reprimand had knocked the hood back. Deep inside, however, he seethed. His progenitor was insane, highly so, though there were none here who would back up such a notion. Each of the “failures” mentioned had hardly been the fault of Gerrod, yet it was on him whom the iron hand of Barakas had fallen. Simply because he would not be one of the clan. How Rendel managed all this time, the young Tezerenee could not say, but he now understood that there might have been many reasons Rendel had chosen to abandon them.

  When the lord and lady of the clan had departed, Reegan regained his nerve and began giving orders. Most of them were more apt for going into battle than organizing the cross-over, but he had been given control of the plan and there was nothing Gerrod could do about it. With his eldest brother in charge, though, he wondered whether any of them would make it across.

  He began to wonder again if he really wanted to cross at all.

  It was a ridiculous thought. Here, he only faced death. In the realm beyond the veil, there was a chance for survival. Even despite his feeling that colonizing the so-called Dragonrealm would not prove so simple as his father had thought, it was better than remaining here and watching Nimth simply rot away over the centuries. He would not even survive long enough to see its end.

  That in mind, Gerrod drew his cloak about him and departed from the domain of Dru Zeree.

  IN THE SELFSAME castle that Gerrod sought to reach, Sharissa berated Sirvak. The familiar crouched before her, pitiful but still unremorseful about its actions.

  “You disobeyed me, Sirvak! How many times do I have to tell you before you understand that?”

  “Understand, mistressss! Only obeying master’sss ordersss! No one but you to enter here!”

  “Father isn’t here! I’m trying to save him and she can help!” Sharissa waved a hand in the direction of a bemused Melenea.

  “Calm yourself, sweet thing,” Melenea said soothingly. “I’m certain Sirvak meant well. You cannot expect it to so easily disobey an order given to it by Dru. After all,” she added, smiling at the nervous familiar, “it has a limited imagination, a limited mind.”

  Sirvak dared a hiss at the intruder. Sharissa would have been dumbstruck if she knew all that the beast struggled with in that “limited mind.” Powerful as it was, the familiar was next to nothing to Melenea now that she was inside. With the defenses of the citadel behind it, Sirvak could have matched her and more. Inside, however, the familiar faced her with only its own abilities. Sirvak feared for Sharissa’s life if it dared reveal what it knew of the enchantress. From experience, the winged beast knew that Melenea would not hesitate to kill both of them. Sirvak could only wait and hope.

  Dru was greatly to blame and even the familiar would have acknowledged that. Unwilling to reveal to his daughter any more than he had to about his past indiscretions, he had forbidden the familiar from speaking of those like the beautiful but dark sorceress. That command had now come back to haunt them. Sirvak hissed again, not so much at the enemy before it but at the unfortunate beast’s own inability to protect its charge.

  Sharissa, unmindful of the mass confusion in the beast’s mind, stared it back into silence. “No more! You said you had something for me, something that might hel
p us find Father! What is it?”

  The creature looked from its mistress to the hated one and back again, frustration written across its odd visage.

  “Sirvak, this is Father’s life we’re talking about!”

  Reluctantly, the familiar told her. “The crystalsss. All information liesss in the crystalsss. Can predict when rip will open again, perhapsss.”

  It was obvious that the creature was uncertain and the idea did not sit well with Sharissa, either. Melenea watched them both, waiting, it seemed, for some explanation. Sharissa realized that her friend did not know about the spell her father had cast and explained it, going into careful detail as to how the crystals recorded images and sorcerous energy so that Dru could later study those memories at his leisure.

  Melenea was fascinated. “Dear wonderful Dru! I always knew he was a brilliant thinker! So much potential in this! Do you realize the advantages this could give one over rivals?”

  Sharissa had never considered that point but could understand how gaining knowledge of the magical patterns of both Nimth and what the Tezerenee called the Dragonrealm could teach a sorcerer ways of better utilizing the natural power. That was hardly a consideration now, however.

  “What Sirvak says is true,” Sharissa replied, forgetting Melenea’s comment. “The crystals might lead us to another tear, another intense appearance by the shrouded realm. It might even show us a way to travel there with little danger.”

  The other Vraad’s eyes glowed, a sight that Sharissa found both fascinating and disturbing. She had never seen such a sight before. There was so much that Melenea could teach her….