use when the Vraad settled in their new world… if they did.
“Hold up,” he whispered to Darkhorse. The phantom steed came to a halt and Dru dismounted. For their purposes, he preferred to continue on foot.
“Worlds within worlds within worlds…” Darkhorse was saying. “What fun it would be if we entered and found a way to yet another! Just imagine if they went on forever!”
“I’d rather not! Nimth is the only world I want… my Nimth,” he added quickly, noting his companion ready to argue the point again. Studying the buildings, Dru settled on the largest, the one whose towers they had seen from beyond the walls. “That’s where I want to go.”
Not waiting for Darkhorse, the sorcerer crossed the courtyard. He heard a chuckle from behind him. “And has impatience now become a virtue?”
Dru ignored him, fairly rushing through the open doorway. The main hall sparkled; he had not doubted it would by this point. From the doorway the sorcerer had just entered, Darkhorse stepped within, his hooves making the same clap-clap sound they had when he had followed Dru and the avians into the one rounded edifice. The sounds echoed throughout the building.
For reasons he could not explain, the Vraad felt ashamed of the harsh noise Darkhorse was making. The castle touched him in an unusual way; Dru felt as though the sounds violated a peace that had reigned here for thousands upon thousands of years. It was a different sensation than what he had felt in the ruined city. There, he had felt the ghosts of memory and the remnants of power. Here was tranquility, a rare thing to a Vraad. If he died, this was where Dru wanted to be laid to rest. Here, he could-
The sorcerer shivered. Beside him now, Darkhorse asked, “Is there something amiss with you?”
“No. Nothing.” Merely, Dru thought, that he had been almost willing to lie down right here and now and wait for death to claim him.
More cautious now, he strode ahead. There were two massive iron doors at the end of the hall, each more than twice as tall as the Vraad. Somehow, he could feel their importance. Behind them were the answers to the endless questions filling his mind. Whether he understood those answers was yet another question, but one Dru was willing to live with for the time being.
Putting a hand out to where the doors came together, the sorcerer pushed gently. The hinges groaned, but access was still denied him. He pushed harder, leaning into the two doors, but was granted no greater success than in the initial attempt.
Putting his shoulder to the crack, Dru angrily threw his weight against the obstructions. For his trouble he received a sore shoulder. Even though there was nothing to indicate that the way was locked, the Vraad could not get the doors to swing back.
“Perhaps if I-” Darkhorse began.
“No!” This was one that the angered spellcaster wanted for himself. Worn beyond his limits, Dru could no longer check his Vraadish temper. It swept over him, a crimson curse that seized control of his body. Shouting words he would not recall later, Dru raised his left hand and brought it down on the massive metal doors.
With a spark that seemed to course from his fist to the entire doorway, the Vraad opened the way. “Opened” was perhaps misleading. What actually happened, if Dru could still believe his eyes, was that the two doors flung back, going the full turn of their hinges and then tearing free of the walls themselves. While the two watched, Dru in dismay and the shadow steed in growing amusement, the doors, now free of all restriction, teetered for a breath… and then fell with a resounding clatter that shattered forever any remaining feeling of tranquility that the spellcaster might have retained.
“Nicely done,” Darkhorse commented wryly. He had quickly developed a knack of sarcasm equal to any Vraad.
“It wasn’t… I didn’t…” Dru gazed at his fist, then at the battered doors.
“Would it be of interest to mention that the boundaries of this place seem to have suffered from your calm, collected solution?”
Dru turned and eyed the walls of the hallway. An intricate system of fine cracks ran along each wall. The ceiling and floor had suffered from a similar network of these skeletal branches, and Dru could see where bits of ceiling had fallen. “I did this?”
“It seemed a reaction to your power. I noted resistance, but you overwhelmed it.”
His madness had defeated the shrouded realm’s resistance… that is, if this was still the shrouded realm. He wondered how well it would work back in the ruined city. There was also the question of what these side effects had to do with it. They were too akin to what Nimth suffered each time the Vraad utilized their abilities. Was this how his world’s death had begun? Were the Vraad going to destroy their new home as well?
Too many questions. Dru snarled and turned back to the chamber that his fury had finally allowed him entry to.
His eyes widened to saucers and his mouth grew dry. It seemed the realm beyond the veil was not yet depleted of surprises.
Before him, obscured by robes that made them resemble lumpy sacks; knelt more than a hundred figures. They had their backs to the newcomers and all faced a clear crystal in the center of a pentagram that covered the entire floor. The crystal stood on a bronze, pyramid-shaped platform. As with all else, the ages had been unable to touch either the focus, for that was what the sorcerer knew the crystal to be, or the base upon which it stood.
Dru backed up a step. The figures remained motionless despite the noise and damage he had caused. They were, he noted quickly, lined along the points, corners, and sides of the pattern, creating, by themselves, a second pentagram atop the one etched in stone.
“Where did they come from?” he whispered to Darkhorse. The tall Vraad knew that they had not been there when the doors had fallen.
His companion did not reply and a glance at the creature’s equine visage helped little. Darkhorse’s eyes stared vaguely at the chamber, as if he had trouble seeing anything in there at all. A repeat of his question gave Dru an equally silent response.
Admittedly more secure now that he knew he could summon up tremendous power-despite the effect Dru knew it likely had on the land-the sorcerer stepped forward again. He made no attempt to walk silently, knowing that any folk who could ignore the earsplitting sound of two gigantic metal doors collapsing would hardly notice his footfalls.
Dru studied the area with his higher senses, noting how the lines crisscrossed exactly at the point where the focus stood. There were secondary lines as well, weaker links that followed the pattern of the pentagram… and piercing each cowled figure from back to chest.
He blinked, then squinted, returning his vision to the normal plane. There was something wrong with the meditators. Too much of what he saw already reminded him of something else, something back in Nimth.
“What do you do?” Darkhorse asked from behind him. A few hesitant steps informed him that his companion was following the sorcerer inside.
“I don’t know,” he muttered, running one hand through his hair as he pushed himself toward the nearest of the baggy forms. Was he mad to risk himself?
Stretching his left hand forward, calmly this time, Dru touched the figure.
Tried to touch it. His hand went through in much the same manner as it had in the wraithlike forest. Both emboldened and frustrated, he waved the hand back and forth, trying to draw some response.
“They don’t exist,” Dru finally told the shadow steed. “They’re ghosts… no… they’re memories.”
“Memories?”
Nodding, the fascinated mage walked around the one he had tried to touch. Its visage was fairly covered by the hood, but he saw that the being before him had been human and male. The visage was disquieting in some ways, though. It was and it was not the features of a Vraad. Not quite elfin, either. The man’s eyes were open and in them Dru noted an age far greater than the figure’s appearance would appear. So great, in fact, that any Vraad would have been but a toddler in comparison. “You can still feel the vestiges of their power if you stand among them. It was so intense that even after all this time, the shadows of their faces and forms have been imposed upon reality… burned into it, you might say. I think my use of sorcery, even Vraad sorcery, was all they needed to grow substantial enough to see.”
“All I know,” the majestic stallion snorted, “was that they unnerved me. I could make no sense of their existence whatsoever.” It was a deep admission, coming as it did from the amazing creature.
