As if on cue, the two warriors holding the elf turned their prize away and once more began to drag him away. Sharissa started after them, but the bodyguards held her back.
“He was part of a force of elves that sought to come upon us through stealth and kill us. With the demon’s aid, we detected them and caught them by surprise.”
“You made Darkhorse aid you in killing them?” The sorceress doubted that the story was as Lady Tezerenee had told it. More than likely, the elves had been scouting the citadel, wondering what it was. Still, what was a party of elves doing on the eastern continent when—
“I see by your eyes that you’ve finally come to the realization. I wondered for a time whether or not your mind was functioning well.” Lady Alcia nodded, the smile on her face much akin to the one the patriarch wore when he was pleased with results. “Yes, this is indeed the Dragonrealm, Sharissa.”
“How could you… Darkhorse again! Everything you’ve accomplished is because of him! You still haven’t brought me to him! Is he dead? Injured?”
At a signal from the matriarch, the bodyguards politely but firmly began to guide a struggling Sharissa back toward the citadel. Lady Alcia walked before them, still acting as if she and Sharissa were amiable companions. “How do you kill a thing that does not, by any standards we know, live? He’s been disciplined, but no more than any other disobedient subject has. When he performs well, he is rewarded as well.”
“Rewarded?” Other than freedom, the Tezerenee could have nothing the shadow steed wanted.
“We want him to be a part of the clan’s destiny as much as we want you to be.”
“You want him to save you from the Seekers! Even Darkhorse won’t be enough to hold them back! He’ll probably laugh while the bird people tear your empire down around you!”
“The avians no longer represent a threat… at least, not one that we cannot deal with ourselves.”
Sharissa stretched forward, trying to come alongside the Lady Tezerenee. “What do you mean?”
Alcia considered the question for a time before finally replying, “It might be better to show you.”
“Show me?”
“We brought a few of them in for study. So far, we have not found a cause for their fate.” The matriarch had altered direction. The two bodyguards steered the helpless Sharissa after her. She did not struggle, for once truly wanting to follow. If what Lady Alcia had said was true, then there remained no force capable of withstanding the Tezerenee, especially if Darkhorse was their tool.
“You know,” her host remarked, stopping and turning around so that the two faced one another. “I think this would be an excellent opportunity to show you the true depth of our strength!”
“What do you…” Sharissa began, but Lady Alcia merely snapped her fingers…
… and they were standing in another chamber, a dark, dank place lit by torches. A Tezerenee leaning over a table looked up. Sharissa, still in shock from the unexpected teleport, did not immediately recognize his shadowed visage.
“You did that as if it were nothing! All four of us! But I thought that you—”
“The old ways are returning. It is as if Nimth is part of us again.” A smile, a Tezerenee smile, slowly spread across the striking face. “We are not the near gods of our past, but we are again a sorcerous power to be respected.”
“It’s as if our destiny is being drawn for us by the hands of the founders themselves,” added the figure by the table. “The day promised to us by the Dragon of the Depths has come.”
Sharissa struggled with her captors. “Lochivan!”
“I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me, Sharissa.” Lochivan wore no helm; he seemed actually sad, though she was not so willing to believe him after his betrayal. “I truly think it would have been best if—”
“That will be all, my son.”
“Forgive you, Lochivan? I wouldn’t—”
He vanished before she could finish. Sharissa ended with a scream of frustration instead.
“When you are more willing, the two of you should talk,” the Lady Tezerenee said in a calm voice. She pointed at the table. “For now, this is what should concern you. This is what you wanted to see.”
Sharissa blinked and glanced without care at the thing on the table. An artifact. A statue carved to resemble a Seeker. Of what interest…
“She does not understand. Bring her closer.”
In silent obedience, the two bodyguards brought Sharissa within an arm’s length of the table and its contents.
She gave it another glance… and could not pull herself away from the thing’s contorted form. The careful detail of horror, the avian eyes staring at death. The mouth open in futile rejection of fate. The awkward sprawl of the body.
It appeared the consistency of marble, this thing before her, but Sharissa knew that if she touched the long, sleek wing or the muscular torso, she would not feel stone, but rather feather and flesh.
“The Dragonrealm is ours, and without even a fight,” Lady Alcia said with satisfaction. Sharissa looked up, unable to think of anything sufficient to say. The matriarch added, “My husband is disappointed. He so much looked forward to a good battle… with us winning, of course.”
As she spoke the last, one hand absently scratched at the reddish area on her neck.
IX
FROM THE TOWER in which his private chambers lay, Barakas Tezerenee watched the vanishing of his wife and the others. Sharissa Zeree would be suitably impressed with the way of things by the time Alcia was finished. Her encounter with the elfin prisoner had been perfectly orchestrated, as he had expected. There lay potential in that meeting; unless he missed his guess, she would try her best to speak to the prisoner in private… although it would not be so private as she believed.
All things come together, the patriarch thought in satisfaction. He patted a square container upon which the mark of the Tezerenee had been emblazoned.
“Father?”
Barakas turned and faced Lochivan, who had materialized, as was proper, on one knee with his head bent downward. “All goes well, my son?”
“Yes, my lord. Sharissa is in the chamber even now. By this time, she is aware of the nature of the corpse.”
“Perhaps she can tell us what happened. That would be an added prize.”
“Does it matter so?”
“We must strive to further ourselves. If the legacy of the avians can aid us, so be it.” The patriarch looked down at his son. “You are a few minutes early.”
Lochivan did not look up. “I deemed it more beneficial to our goals that I depart the chamber. Sharissa is not comfortable in my presence.”
“She will have to learn if she is to marry your brother.”
This time, the younger Tezerenee did look up. His helm hid much of his visage from his parent, but Barakas knew his son’s mind. “Is that necessary, Father?”
Barakas started to scratch his wrist, but fought down the urge. “I listened to you. I allowed you to use that sycophant to drop off your little gimmick. You had raised good points. Now, I see that we no longer have to worry about Dru Zeree following us… not, at least, for quite some time.”
The kneeling figure did not speak, knowing there was more to come.
“Your toy failed. She fought it, proving she has a will worthy of the Tezerenee. The cross-over had not yet commenced, and her interference might have brought the rest of the Vraad down on us, something I did not wish at the time.” Something caught the corner of his eye. He turned, but all he saw was the box sitting on a table. A simple magical test of the barriers proved they still held, so he knew that it was not an escape attempt he had noted.
Lochivan made the mistake of looking up. Barakas returned his attention to his son. “I find I am more than satisfied that taking her was the correct maneuver after all. Reegan needs a strong hand to guide him. She will be that guiding hand once I have molded her properly.” He folded his arms. “Now, do you still have qualms?”
/> “No, sire.”
It was a lie and they both knew it, but the Lord Tezerenee also knew that he could rely on Lochivan to obey him in all things. “Very well. You are dismissed.
…Wait.”
“Sire?”
“Tomorrow, I want a force ready to ride to the mountains, ground and air forces.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Go.”
Lochivan vanished without even rising. It was an act that attested to the rejuvenation of the Tezerenees’ power. They were not yet the masters they had once been in Nimth, but that day could not help but be drawing near, the patriarch believed.
He started to turn back to the window once more, when, for the second time, something caught his eye. It was gone before he could do any more than register its existence, but the Lord Tezerenee froze where he was, for there was something familiar about the shape, a shrouded, possibly human shape.
Quickly moving to the box, he touched the seal. There had been no trick-ery; the box was, indeed, still protected against assault from both without and within. He felt the presence trapped inside stir to renewed fury.
“Struggle all you like, demon,” Barakas whispered to the one imprisoned within. “You will bow to my control, or else I’ll leave you in there and lose you somewhere in the deepest cavern I can find.”
The struggling subsided. Fear was gaining ground. Barakas had introduced Dru Zeree’s deadly companion to a place even worse than the emptiness of the Void. It had not been difficult to uncover the shadow steed’s principal weakness. He feared to be alone.
In the box, there was not even the nothingness of the Void to share Dark-horse’s fate, only the ebony creature himself.
“That’s better. If you behave yourself, I will even let you see Lady Sharissa again.” It would serve as a lesson to both. He would see that she was helpless despite being free to move about, and she would note that even a might as great as he was little challenge to the Tezerenee.
It was the next step in breaking their will.
Removing his hand from the box, Darkhorse’s ungodly prison, Barakas scratched at his throat. He still wondered about the image. Was it a trick of his eyes, eyes that had, of late, not seen as well as they should have? Was it just his imagination? If so, why pick that one image to conjure to life?
Why would he imagine the startled vision of his traitorous son, Gerrod?
SOMETHING HAD GONE wrong terribly wrong and he didn’t know what to do and he didn’t know where he was and how he had ended up here but the last thing he remembered was almost reaching his goal but his father had been there, hadn’t he?
“Stop it!” Gerrod screamed at himself, not caring a whit at the moment how mad he must look. He put his hands to his ears as if by doing so he could silence his own inner voice. Yet, the insane thoughts rambled on for several breaths before the warlock was finally able to bring himself under control.
In perverse fashion, it was his father’s words that provided the willpower.
We are the Tezerenee. The name Tezerenee is power. Nothing is greater than our will.
Until this moment, those words had always struck him as contradictory and simplistic. For all his father’s speeches, only one will really mattered among the clan of the dragon—the patriarch’s, of course. Now the words reminded Gerrod that his father would not allow madness to rule him so easily. The Lord Tezerenee would fight it with as much strength as he would a physical foe. It all depended on how you focused that strength.
Gerrod would not allow himself to fail where he knew his father would succeed.
Through silent contemplation, he brought order to his thoughts and quelled, if not cast out, the fear. It occurred to him then that he had closed his eyes upon losing his hold on his destination and had not opened them again.
From the darkness of his inner self, Gerrod found himself thrust in the light of… nothing?
For lack of a better term, he was willing to call his surroundings white, though white implied something, if only light and color, and this was neither. It was simply a vast nothingness.
“Dragon’s blood!” he hissed, momentarily slipping to a favorite Tezerenee oath.
He was floating helplessly in what could only be the emptiness that Dru Zeree had tried so desperately to describe, but always in so very inadequate terms. Gerrod could see why. Nothing, no words, could match the truth. There was no description that could do justice to the Void.
Calm. He had to remain calm. Master Zeree had escaped this place, and so would he.
What had happened? Gerrod recalled his brief intrusion into the real world and the sudden vagueness of his destination, as if the teleport spell no longer had a certain path to fix upon. His father had been there, a risk the warlock had been willing to face, but not the dweller from the Void. Why? The spell should have brought Gerrod to Darkhorse, unless there was some unforeseen barrier.…
A box. He recalled a box. There was something about it that had drawn him, something—
“You are not other I.”
“What?” Gerrod looked around, trying to find the source of the voice.
“Other I was becoming boring. Maybe you will be entertaining.”
“Who is that? Where are you?” the warlock shouted. He tried to turn around, but in the Void it was impossible to say whether he had achieved any result or not. Certainly, nothing but emptiness spanned his field of vision. It might have been a different nothing than the moment before, but how would he know?
“I am here.”
A vast hole opened up before the floating Vraad. Gerrod’s stomach began to turn. This was sounding too familiar to him. The hole quivered. Gerrod wondered how one could have a hole in the middle of emptiness. This was a part of the Void’s tendencies that he had never come to terms with even after mulling over the story for years. The natural laws that he was accustomed to had no meaning here. If the Void felt a hole could exist in the midst of what was basically a bigger hole, then so be it.
“You’re real!” Gerrod’s blurted remark was superfluous at best, but staring at this creature, even after having faced Darkhorse, he could not help but want to deny the sight before him.
“You have a funny inside voice. It makes all sorts of funny noises.”
It was reading his thoughts, the surface ones, at least. Dru Zeree had mentioned that Darkhorse had done the same—
“Darkhorse? What is a Darkhorse?” The black, bottomless hole grew larger, its borders coming within a few yards of the nervous Tezerenee.
The warlock kept a careful rein on his thoughts. Any loose notion would be easy prey for the creature… and there was no promise that it was as friendly as Darkhorse had been.
“Darkhorse is like you.”
“There is nothing like me.” The blot was proud of that fact. “There was other I, but other I is gone.”
“Darkhorse is other I. It… he has a new name.”
“A name?”
What sort of mind did this creature have, Gerrod wondered, that it could read his thoughts well enough to learn his speech but not understand various terms and ideas? Master Zeree had described a similar situation with Dark-horse, but not how irritating it could be. There were already too many emotions vying for mastery over the warlock without one more addition.
“What… is… a… name?” With each word, the hole grew larger. Gerrod now found himself truly having to worry that he would be devoured, swallowed, or whatever the case might be if the creature continued its growth.
“A name is what you call something. I am Gerrod. If you talk to me, you might mention my name so that I will know that you are speaking to me.”
“Gerrod, you are amusing, Gerrod. Gerrod, what else do you know, Gerrod? Gerrod, come and Gerrod entertain me further, Gerrod!”
“That’s not what I meant.” He wondered if it mattered that his visage was still covered by his hood. Would his annoyance and fear register to this bizarre horror?
The hole chose that moment to swell fur
ther. Gerrod tried to wave himself away.
“Why do you do that? Why do you wiggle your appendages so?”
“You… your body would swallow me! If you get any closer, I’ll die—” It could hardly understand that term. Gerrod hurriedly sought another. “I’ll be no more. I won’t be able to entertain you again!”
The blot paused, but its tone did not encourage the young Tezerenee. “You… fear… me.”
He could not deny it. “I do.”
“I like its taste.” The dweller from the Void seemed to consider things. At the very least, it was both still and silent for several breaths. “You are more entertaining than the other things I have met!”
“Others?”
“I absorbed them! It was fun, but this is more fun! I think I shall play with you!”
“Play?” Try as he might, Gerrod could not keep the quiver from his voice. Could it be that the spell, unable to fix upon one creature, had brought him instead to one akin to what he sought? How else to explain his meeting this brother of Darkhorse’s so soon after his debacle?
Was it that soon? Had not Dru Zeree said that time was not a consideration in the Void? How long had he actually been there?
I will not allow panic to rule me! he thought, teeth gritted. I have to get away from this thing before it loses interest in me and decides to… to… The warlock found he could not bring himself to complete his thought.
“Do something else for me!” the hole demanded.
What did he know about Darkhorse that he could use to divert the creature’s attention? “Can you make yourself take up less area?” He indicated with his hands what he meant. “Can you make yourself this big, for instance?”
The blot was suddenly the very size he had indicated. Gerrod blinked in astonishment at the speed with which the dweller reacted to his suggestion. He had known that the shadow steed was swift to react to things; Zeree had made that clear. What had not been clear was how swift those reactions were. He would have to be careful about what he did. Gerrod could not allow the monstrosity to know what was happening.
“Now what?” bellowed the blot, its voice still reverberating with harsh consistency in the human’s ears.
Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. II Page 78
