“As if they had been bypassed, protected… or perhaps healed,” he added, suddenly feeling that the last was closer to the truth.
“Protected by what? Certainly not the Sheekas. They would have protected themselves first, I think.”
“Perhaps by whoever fought the bird people and then vanished,” Faunon suggested. Likely, they would never know. This land, which his own people could not claim as their birthplace, having fled to here, as legend put it, from the horrors of another world countless millennia ago, had an air of mystery about it that defied the efforts of the elves. Faunon himself knew that the Sheekas and the Quel had not been the first masters here; that, in fact, several other races had preceded them. This was an old world despite its vitality.
Rayke sighed. “Are you going to begin that again, Faunon?”
“If need be! It isn’t enough to know that the Sheekas have suffered a calamity that may speak the end of their reign; we have to know if their disaster has the potential to reoccur! If we—”
Something huge went crashing through the trees, sounding as if it had fallen from the sky at a remarkable speed. Faunon, whirling, caught sight of a huge black shape moving in and out of the trees that finally registered in his mind as a horse… but what a horse! A stallion, to be sure. He stood taller than any that the elf had ever seen and ran with a swiftness that the wind would have been unable to match. If the steed was responsible for the din they had heard, he had changed his ways in swift fashion, for now the animal ran as silent as the shadows he so resembled.
“What is that?” Rayke whispered. He had turned pale. Faunon knew that his own visage matched in shading.
“Let’s follow it!”
“Follow it? Do you see how fast it runs? We will never catch it!” The other elf sounded almost relieved at the last.
“I don’t intend to catch it! I just want to see what it is! Follow me!” Faunon raced after the black beast, darting around and over obstacles as only one of his kind could. He did not hear Rayke, but he knew his companion had too much pride to stay behind. Not that it would have mattered to Faunon if he had. Catching a glimpse of this swift phantom was paramount in his mind, and he knew that it would require his best efforts to do that. Against many another creature, an elf’s speed would have proven a match; not so, this animal. He had known that from the start. What he also knew, however, was that the mighty steed raced toward an open field. There, his quarry would be quite visible, though distant. Faunon was not too concerned with the distance. Elves had excellent vision. Besides, like Rayke, he did not want to get too close to anything as massive and powerful as the black horse. He only wanted to ascertain its existence and the path it was taking. By no means had he ever thought of trying to do anything more.
The horse, however, had apparently had other ideas.
He almost ran into it and wondered how he could have ever missed seeing so terrifying a figure. It loomed over him, having somehow managed to turn back and come upon them without making a sound. Faunon did a very unelf-like thing and slipped, collapsing to the earth less than an arm’s length from the demonic stallion.
“I have come back, but this is not the place!” the fearsome figure bellowed down at him. It had long, narrow eyes of the coldest blue, eyes without pupils.
Faunon wished he had an answer that would please the ebony monster, but only air escaped his mouth. He could not even utter so much as a single sound.
“This is the place but it is not the place!” One hoof gouged a track in the ground. The elf was all too aware of what that hoof could do to his head if the steed decided to remove him.
The unnerving animal stared at him for a short time. Faunon held his breath throughout the study, wondering what the beast found so interesting. Then he felt the probe. It was surprisingly tentative for so powerful a creature, almost as if the ebony stallion were shamed by his own actions.
Mere moments later, the head of the beast snapped back. He scanned his surroundings in renewed fascination. “So that is it! Astonishing! So many things to learn!”
With an abruptness that left the elf’s mouth hanging, the darksome steed backed up, turned, and raced back in the direction it had been heading earlier. Faunon’s acute senses noted that there was no trail of any sort on the physical plane, though he did smell power of an unidentifiable sort. It was as if a ghost had come and gone, though that made no sense considering that he and Rayke had, in their initial encounter with the demon, heard the animal before they saw him.
“Are you all right?” Rayke asked from somewhere behind him.
“I’m… fine.” He was actually surprised that he was. The shadowy steed had owned his life for the duration of their brief meeting. Faunon could think of a dozen different ways he could have been killed. He had been thinking of them throughout his trial despite his best efforts not to. Had the demonic stallion noted those fears at all during his probe?
The other elf’s hands were around his torso as Rayke helped him to his feet. A quiver still ran through the former’s voice. “What is that thing? No horse! Not even one of ours! Was it a shapeshifter?”
“Yes, no, and maybe. I was too at a loss to think much about it while he was here. I doubt that was one of us, though. The sorcery needed for that sort of change would kill most of us! No, there was something wrong with that horror, as if he came from some place other than this world. Somewhere very different.”
The two stood staring at the spot the ghostly horse had abandoned. Finally, Rayke asked, “What did he want, Faunon? The way he spoke, he was looking for something. Do you know what?”
Rayke knew of the probe, perhaps had even been probed himself. Faunon shook his head. “I don’t know, but he found something in my mind that satisfied him… he was gentle about it, Rayke! He could have plundered my mind; I could feel he had the will to do so, but he didn’t!”
That part seemed not to concern his partner. Rayke continued to stare after their departed intruder. “Where do you suppose he went?”
“East. Straight east.”
Rayke grimaced. “There’s nothing that way.”
“Maybe he plans to go on straight to the sea… or beyond it.”
“Maybe.” The other elf’s eyes widened. “Do you suppose he had something to do with the death of these Sheekas?”
It was a thought that had not occurred to Faunon, and he had to credit Rayke for the concept. “I don’t know. We may never know.”
“I’d be happy with that. Let’s get back to the others, Faunon. Let’s get away from here before it decides to come back!”
There was no argument over that. They had discovered all that there was to discover—unless something else ran past them—and it would be dark before long. Faunon generally had no fear of the dark, but, after this encounter, he had a growing desire to be back among his fellows where there was the comfort of numbers.
As they hurried through the woods, moving nearly as silently as the shadow steed had, a nagging feeling grew in Faunon’s head. He was not one for signs and omens, being one of the newer generation of more practical elves, but he could not shake the sensation that the creature he had faced was yet one more hint of something vast to come, a change in the land as he and his people knew it. If the Sheekas were truly nearing the end of their reign, as the Quel had before them, then someone would come to displace them. The land had seen such change time and again, though the elves had never been part of that cycle, merely onlookers.
Ducking under a low branch, Faunon grew more troubled as his thoughts progressed. The Sheekas and even the Quel had been predictable creatures; the elves knew where they stood with those two races. Who was to say that the same would hold with their successors? Who would their successors be? There were no other races that could claim dominance.
There was little to justify his fears, but he believed in them nonetheless. As they neared the spot where the others were to meet them, Faunon discovered that he was, for the first time, hoping for the continued survival of
the arrogant avians. The elves knew how to coexist with them, if no more than that. The next masters might feel that there was no need for his race to continue on.
They had escaped such a fate once before, when, legend had it, they had discovered the path that freed them of the horrors of the twisted world of Nimth and its lords, the sorcerous race called the Vraad. At least that was one threat that the elves no longer had to fear, Faunon decided, drawing what little comfort he could from that.
Nothing the future held could ever match the cruelty of the Vraad.
II
THE COLONY HAD lasted for fifteen years now. This world did not bow to their will as the last had and, far more important, they no longer had the strength to back their arrogant desires. Now they were often forced to do things by hand that they once would have scoffed at performing so. It was a long, frustrating fall from godhood for the Vraad, for they had, back in dying Nimth, been born to their roles. They had escaped to this world from the one they had ruined with little more than their skins and had discovered too late that, for many, Vraad sorcery would not work here the way it had before… at least not without terrible effort and more than a little chance of the results being other than what they had sought.
Yet, for all they had succeeded in accomplishing during those fifteen long years, there were many who still could not accept that the godlike days of yesteryear were at an end. They had once moved mountains, quite literally, and some were determined that they would do so again—whatever the cost. Thus, those that had some success with their spells ignored the side effects and consequences.
Lord Barakas, patriarch of the Tezerenee, the clan of the dragon, was one. He had come to this world with the intention to rule it, not be ruled by it. Even now, as he and two of his sons sat in silent contemplation of the sight before them, the dreams of what might have been and what might still be filled his thoughts nigh on to overflowing.
He stared west, utilizing the tallest hill in the region so as to get a glimpse of not just the lands but the seas farther on as well. The riding drakes, great green creatures that more resembled massive but unprepossessing lizards rather than the dragons they were, had begun to grow restive. The patriarch’s sons, Reegan the Heir and ever-obedient Lochivan, were also growing restive. Lochivan was the slightest of the three, which by no means meant that he was small. It was just that Reegan and Barakas were two of a kind, huge bears with majestic beards; two giants who looked ready to bite off the head of any who dared so much as cough in their direction. All three riders bore the same coarse features that were dominant throughout the clan, though Lochivan’s were tempered a bit by some additions passed down to him by his mother, the Lady Alcia. He also had a mix of brown and gray in his hair. Barakas and his heir had darker locks, though a streak of silver had spread across the patriarch’s head over the last few years. Other than that, Reegan was a fairly good physical copy of the dragonlord. Beyond the physical, however, the resemblance ceased. The heir lacked much in terms of the patriarch’s vision.
The sun, directly above, continued to bathe them in heat. Lochivan shifted, trying to keep cool in the cloth padding and dark-green, dragon-scale armor that clan members fairly lived their lives out in these days. Long ago, when they had been lords of Nimth, it would have been less than nothing for him to utilize his skills to make the body-encompassing armor both cool and weightless. Here, in what he considered a damnable land at best, such effort meant wasted energy and nothing more. The magic of this world still refused to obey him with regularity. Only a few had any true power, and even fewer had abilities comparable to the Vraad race of old.
None of the three were among them, though the patriarch came near. Near but not enough for what he desired.
That was why neither Reegan nor Lochivan dared to disturb their father. This period of contemplation was all that kept him from striking out at random at his own people.
“How far do you think it is?” Barakas suddenly asked. His voice was flat, nearly emotionless. That hardly meant he was in a quiet mood. Of late, the patriarch had become mercurial, going from indifference to rage at the blink of an eye. Many Tezerenee wore marks of his anger.
Lochivan answered the question, as he always did. Reegan might be heir apparent, but he lacked subtlety, something needed for times like this. Besides, Lochivan knew the answer that would suffice; it was the same one he had given his father for the past three weeks. “Not far enough to escape our grasp forever. Not by far.”
“True.” The Lord Tezerenee’s eyes did not focus on the lush lands below, but at the glittering sea near the horizon. His prize lay not on this continent but across the stunning expanse of water in another land. He had even given it its name, one that had spread to this place though he himself could not think of it as anything but “the other continent.” Across the seas lay his destiny, his Dragonrealm.
“Father.” Reegan spoke quietly, but his unpredicted interruption could only mean that he had some news of importance to convey. Reegan would never dare speak to his father without a very good reason for doing so.
Barakas looked at his eldest son, who indicated with a curt nod that the others should turn their attention to their left. The dragonlord shifted so as to see what had caught Reegan’s eye and gritted his teeth when he saw the reason.
One of the Faceless Ones. It was a parody of a man, having no features whatsoever, not even hair or ears. It was as tall as a normal man and wore a simple, cowled robe. It was also facing—if one could use the term—the three riders, watching them with its nonexistent eyes and unperturbed by the fact that the trio was now staring back.
“Let me cut it down, Father!” Reegan’s voice pretended at disdain, but a barely noticeable quiver revealed the fear that the creature stirred within his breast. Lochivan, too, was discomforted by the sight of the harmless-looking being.
“It is forbidden to do so,” Barakas reminded his son, his own voice taking on a steely edge. He, like his sons, would have desired nothing more than to crush the interfering horror beneath his mount’s clawed feet or cut it to ribbons with his sword. Anything to wipe its existence from this world.
“But—”
“It was forbidden by the Dragon of the Depths!” the patriarch snapped, referring to a being he had, over the past decade, come to think of as the Tezerenee dragon totem come to life. When the Tezerenee had faced annihilation at the hands—talons—of the bird creatures in that other land, the god had burst forth from the ground wearing a body of stone and molten earth. It had scattered the Sheekas, or Seekers, as the Vraad preferred to call them, with only words. It had taken the surviving clan members and sent them to this continent to join their fellow Vraad, utilizing only the least of its power in the process.
Two things that the Dragon of the Depths—the Lord Tezerenee’s own name for the entity—had commanded had remained with Barakas. One was that there might come a time when the Tezerenee would return to the Dragonrealm in triumph. Lord Barakas yearned for that day. The other thing touched him in the opposite manner. His god had ordered that the Faceless Ones be left unharmed. They were to be allowed to do what they desired or else.
For the Tezerenee, that was almost unthinkable. They shared more than a legacy with the unholy creatures; they shared a common origin, at least in the physical sense. It was one that kept them from ever truly feeling comfortable among their own people, even though most of the other animosities had died over time.
Barakas took up the reins of his mount. “Let us be gone from here! This place no longer soothes!”
Reegan and Lochivan acquiesced with great eagerness.
Steering their drakes around, the three urged their animals back in the direction of the city. They had some slight difficulty at first, for these animals were not mindbroke as had once been the way. Mindbreaking back in Nimth had been a simple process by which the Vraad had taken the will of their mounts and shattered it, leaving an emptiness that the master could fill as he deemed necessary. It had always made
for very obedient steeds. Unfortunately, mind-breaking now had a high casualty rate and the Tezerenee could ill afford to lose many drakes. Unlike the western continent, where the Tezerenee had intended to go, drakes were fairly scarce on this continent.
Another fault among many that this place had, as far as Barakas was concerned.
The mounts finally gave in to their riders and, building up speed, raced up and over the winding landscape. The crimson cloaks that Barakas and Reegan wore, designating them as clan master and heir apparent, respectively, fluttered madly behind, looking almost like bloodred dragon wings. The refugees’ city lay in a valley and so much of their trek was downhill, though smaller hills forced them to take a route that twisted back and forth often. Here, the drakes held an advantage over their equine counterparts. Their claws dug into the slope, preventing them from stumbling forward and throwing their riders to their death. Horses had their own advantages, true, many more than the reptilian mounts, but a riding drake was more than just a beast that carried a Tezerenee from one point to another. It was a killing machine. Few things could stand up to the onslaught of a dragon, even as simpleminded a one as the mount below the patriarch. The claws would slice a man to segments; the jaws could snap a victim in two without strain.
Most important, they were the symbol of the Tezerenee.
The city soon rose before them, from the distance looking like little more than one massive wall. The new inhabitants had rebuilt the encircling wall first, making it almost twice the height of its first incarnation because their overall loss of power had made them fear everything. The city itself had been a vast ruin when the Vraad had first come, an ageless relic of the race from whom they—and countless others, it appeared—had sprung. Those ancients had been far more godlike than the Vraad could have ever hoped to be, easily manipulating their descendants into a variety of forms. They had sought successors to their tired, dying race. In what could best be described as irony, their final hope lay in one of their earliest failures—the Vraad. The Lord Tezerenee’s kind had been abandoned to their world, a construct of the ancients, where it was supposed they would kill themselves off. Instead, the Vraad had outlasted nearly everyone else. Only the Seekers still held on, but they were already in their decline, so the Dragon of the Depths had said.
Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. II Page 67
