“You are not so bad, for an ancient and terrible enemy,” she commented without warning. “You might be elfin if not for your height and your odd visage.”
“And you,” he replied, starting back to the inner city as he spoke, “are not so mystically withdrawn as I thought elves were supposed to be.”
“There are always those caught up in the wonder of themselves. Most of us have learned to relax. We find we get along much better now. There was a point where we were nearly at war with ourselves, because of our strict, pompous ways.”
“What happened?”
She had moved ahead of him, again building a pace he had to work hard to match. “Our elders reminded us of the Vraad and how we were acting too much like them.”
Dru could only see the back of her head, but he was of the suspicion that his companion was smiling.
Throughout the return, they sensed no presence other than their own. Xiri pointed out that it was hardly proof that the two of them were alone and Dru readily agreed. He kept waiting for the end to come, for the magical beings to take them up like rag dolls and drop them wherever they had disposed of the avians.
What had they done to the Seekers?
Xiri froze. “Wait.”
“What is it?” He peered ahead, but saw nothing.
“I thought I saw a shape, elf or Vraad, but when I blinked, it was not there anymore.”
Darkhorse had said something similar… in the same region, Dru noticed. Who else was here? “Not a Seeker or a Quel?”
“Neither. I would recognize a Shee-Seeker, if you prefer, quite easily. No, it looked manlike, but incomplete.” She shrugged. “I cannot explain the last.”
Dru moved with more caution, expecting trouble at any moment. As for Xiri, the Vraad was unsettled by her almost casual manner. It was clear that she felt that at this point they had nothing to gain by stealth. A quick, direct march to their destination was what she obviously had in mind and Dru, understanding her more and more, knew the senselessness of trying to stop the elf now that she had decided on her course of action.
Before he was ready to be there, they had arrived at the square where the rift waited.
“I do not see anything.”
“Did you see anything before I burst into sight?”
“No,” she admitted. “It just seems wrong to not see something.”
“If it had been so visible, the Seekers would have found it before either of us.”
“But would the guardians have let them?” she countered.
It was one of many questions he could not answer. The sorcerous creatures had likely interfered because of the number of intruders, not the mere fact that there had been intruders in the first place. They had not disturbed Dru and Darkhorse after their initial attempt to frighten the duo away. In what was a somewhat naive manner of thought, they had probably hoped the two would leave without disturbing too much. The mage was astonished at how rule-bound such godlike beings were, even considering the fact that they had been as familiars to their ancient masters. To remain at their tasks this long, with the cracks in their ranks only beginning to form, was astounding. Yet, if the one sinister guardian was a sign of what was to come, Dru worried that the future held even greater danger than the refugees from Nimth had ever imagined could confront them.
“No one has stopped us so far. We might as well go on.” Though Xiri made it sound like a suggestion, Dru understood that it was more of a gentle nudge. Without realizing it, he had already stepped back a foot or so, as if his deep fear were stealing control of his body.
“It was this way.” The reluctant sorcerer urged his legs into motion, leading his elfin companion to where he estimated the rift would be.
They saw nothing save more ruins. Dru began to worry that he had lost the gap, that they would wander this area for hours and find nothing but more rubble. Xiri would think him a fool…
“There!” the elf shouted, her voice almost gleeful.
He saw it now, a tiny tear just below eye level. In that tear was a glimpse of another place, a wondrous place.
I said so! I said they would return! They must be removed! The savage voice in their minds made both explorers fall to their knees. Dru needed no help in identifying the creature that ravaged his brain merely by speaking.
Should not! came the voice that the Vraad had deemed the fourth. It sounded reluctant, as if it, too, no longer believed that noninterference was possible.
They had their chance! They betrayed our good faith! roared the attacker. Dru held his head, trying to keep it from bursting. They-
Dru’s mind cleared.
Beside him, Xiri rose, her body trembling. “What happened? Where did they go?”
The sorcerer shook his head, then regretted the action as the world swam. Of the mental intrusion by the guardians, there was no trace. It was as if they had been cut off… or fled.
“Something frightened them.” His head cleared.
Dru and his companion heard the scuffling sound at the same time. Xiri was the swifter of the two, so she was first to turn and see what stumbled toward them. It did her little good; the sorcerer could read the confusion on her visage even as he himself was turning to see what new twist the once-supposedly peaceful world had for him.
The newcomer shambled toward them, clad in a simple robe and cowl that covered its body all the way to the earth. It stumbled again, walking as if it did not really know where it was going. Not surprising, as far as Dru was concerned, considering it had no eyes. It also had no ears, nose, mouth, or hair… in fact, no markings whatsoever.
One of Barakas’s golems, larger than before, but instantly recognizable as such.
How had it gotten here, when the cross-over had been set to occur on the other continent?
Dru forgot that question, forgot all thoughts, as the faceless golem was joined by a second and then a third.
Then they began swarming out of the ruins from all sides, the Vraad, the elf, and the rift their obvious destination.
XV
A taloned hand thrust itself into his scarred face, making new trails of blood.
Rendel did not scream. He had stopped screaming after the first day. That did not mean that the pain was any less, however.
Images swarmed into his tortured mind. Humans in dark dragon-scale armor, at least a hundred. The death of a flock member, who had watched and relayed the information. The realization that these were as Rendel was.
“So… what do… you need me for?” They obviously knew everything. Why then would his captors turn to him? Did they not know, too, that he had betrayed his kind, seeking, in typical Vraadish fashion, to rise above the rest by deceit? He shivered slightly, both from his anticipation of the torture he was certain was coming and the simple fact that they had stripped him of his clothing, allowing the damp, cool air to play havoc with his unprotected body.
The aerie overlord pulled away his hand and stepped back while two females brought water and some sort of meat to the prisoner. Rendel had a blurry view of his surroundings, not that he needed it. The Tezerenee already knew what the aerie looked like, a natural set of caverns within and beneath the mountain he had dubbed Kivan Grath. It was the chief aerie of the bird people since their setbacks in a war with what looked like two-legged armadillos, if the images Rendel had been shown were correct. The avians still controlled most of the continent, but their adversaries had a nasty habit of springing suicide raids from underneath the earth that had caused the collapse of more than one of the lesser dwellings of the race. The purpose had not been the death of the warriors; it was the next generation of avians that had suffered. The young, not yet able to fly, had suffered heavy casualties.
