lords. We communicate with them almost as little as you do. The others struggle to understand, to know their places. Some have even argued that this is proof we are now our own masters.
Dru grimaced. As before, he knew which one of his fellows the dragon spoke of.
I digress. Was there an undercurrent of annoyance with itself? Anxiety? Dru could not be certain, but there was something. However confident the guardian acted, the truth was otherwise.
They were few when it finally became obvious that they would not live to see the culmination-or failure-of their dream. They had us to do their work, but we were limited in what we could do.
The sorcerer found it hard to believe that such as this could be wanting in power. The guardian was power, even more so than Darkhorse.
We are… aspects… of their minds. Bits of personality traits. Your choice of the term “familiar” is as close as we can come. They formed us as such so that, together, we would preserve all that they were, should the worst befall them.
What part did the rebellious guardian represent, the Vraad wondered, and how dominant a trait was it?
There came a point, the ghostly figure went on, when the race had two options. They could use the Gate and seek out something, anything, that would revitalize their life force, give them the strength to continue on. It was an option steered toward failure and possibly even a quicker end to their kind. The second choice was the one that promised the most hope for their legacy, but like the first would mean a finish to all they had raised up over the millennia.
They chose the second. With it, though they would no longer exist as they were, they might still direct the course and final outcome of their grand plan. The true world might still one day greet the successors to the elder race.
Dru interrupted at that point, despite the uncomfortable feeling that the faceless ones were eyeing him with particular interest now. “Did they have no name? You say ‘they’ and ‘them’ but you give no name.”
He could almost feel the other’s embarrassment. It has been so long, manling, that we have forgotten it. Even we are not immortal, though it might seem that way. With the passage of century after century, we have become a little less than we once were. There will come a time when we will fade as a dying wind.
“Don’t they know their name?” Xiri asked, her eyes ever keeping track of the movements of the blank-visaged beings.
In what they allow me to still tell you lies the answer to that… and perhaps other things. You, Vraad, have talked of the ka and how one can travel with it to places the body cannot reach. So it was with the elders. You saw the pentagram in the place you call the room of worlds. An apt name that, for with the Gate they could observe or travel to any of their creations. This last time, however, they chose to do something different.
The dying race numbered no more than a thousand or so by the time they came to their final decision, a thousand where there had once been millions. The guardian’s tone was wistful, recalling the glory of those earlier days. In groups numbering close to one hundred apiece, they stepped into the room of worlds and never came out. Not until the last group was ready to enter did the founders deign to reveal what they were doing to their servants, their familiars.
We feared for them, but we were only the servants and so we obeyed when they commanded us to return to our duties and not interfere. We have never been allowed to interfere, save when they gave such orders. Still, their plan gave us fright, for it would place them beyond our limits, leave us with no one to guide us. You see, as with your kind, Vraad, their kas, their spirits, were liberated from their physical forms. The image of a hundred departing specters made both Dru and the elf uneasy, but they remained silent. Your people created for themselves new bodies so that they could continue as they had always been. The founders did not. They had chosen instead a receptacle that would contain their collective consciousness, but it was more than a body, much, much more. It was intended that in some way, they would always watch over the world that had spawned them. They would be their world as much as the trees, the fields, and the animal life were.
Dru blurted it out before the tale could go any further. “The land! The land itself! When I felt as if this realm would protect itself, it was more than my imagination, then.”
The land. You, elf. When you spoke of the land being alive, you spoke truer than you thought. It is. It has a mind, albeit different from what you might consider one. It knows what those who live upon it do and moves to affect things in its favor. Yet I think that such a change affected those who created us, for the land is different. It is and is not our masters. Until your interference, we had thought the land dead once more, the founders having passed on despite their determination. Fools we were to be so presumptuous. Subtlety is not our forte. We could not see what the land was doing… even when it sought to bring you here, Vraad.
“Me?”
The dragon shape moved, as if uncertain itself about what it said next. You or your kind. They have chosen to give the Vraad race a second chance.
“It wasn’t our own doing that weakened the barriers between Nimth and here?”
Hardly. The guardian paused again. When it spoke, it was already fading away. I have said as much as they desire me to say for now.
“What about our choices? What did they represent?”
A laugh, self-mocking, echoed through Dru’s head. I do not know. If you find out, I would be interested.
The chamber of the dragon lord rematerialized around them.
A golem put its hand on the dumbfounded spellcaster’s shoulder. Dru turned and fairly snarled at the creature before him. “What? What else do you want to amaze and confuse us with? Do you even understand what you’re doing? Are you so little a shadow of what you once were that you perform movements without truly thinking? Why did you even return?”
He knew the answer to the last question, at least, or hoped he did. The guardian had said that the Vraad had been given an opportunity to redeem themselves. If they failed, the experiment failed and the ancients’ dreams would die. The stolen golems gave the land hands to work with if it came down to the physical. Perhaps some elements of the presence had also simply yearned once more for solid flesh.
Dru got no further in his thoughts, for the faceless ones, for lack of a better name, indicated they wanted the twosome to follow them yet again. With little true choice in the matter, the sorcerer and the elf followed wordlessly. Xiri did shift over so that the two of them touched, but they did not so much as glance at one another during the duration of the walk.
Once more, they were returning to the room of worlds.
At the doorway, Dru and his companion finally exchanged looks of frustration. Were they to be shuttled back and forth from the two chambers until they collapsed?
The answer stood before them, its glimmering interior more reminiscent of a predator’s maw than a portal to other worlds.
This time, Dru could sense that there would be no last-minute reprieve. Whatever world the cowled figures had chosen was to be their new home.
Xiri had apparently realized this at the same time, for she tried to push her guide away and break a path to freedom for Dru and herself. As with her earlier attempt, when she had thrown the knife at one of their captors, the golem was barely affected. The elf, despite her speed and obvious battle skill, bounced off the side of the robed creature and into the unprepared sorcerer. It was all Dru could do to keep both of them from falling to the floor. As they regained their footing, their guides reached out and took each by one arm. Both prisoners discovered that struggling from that point on was impossible. Having attempted violence, they had been stripped of control over their very bodies. Helplessly moving in time to their guides’ steps, they walked to the center of the chamber and the patiently waiting Gate.
The spellcaster wished the guardian had not abandoned them back in the other chamber, but he knew that the mock dragon had really had little say. The guardians were used to obeying their masters blindly, and even though they had come to the point of questioning that blind obedience, it was not yet enough to save the two outsiders.
Vraad! the voice of the dragon guardian hurriedly called. They have faith in you.
That was all. One of the blank visages looked to the side, as if seeing to something. Dru felt the guardian retreat in something akin to fright.
They have faith in me? What did that mean?
The Gate shimmered again, causing renewed agitation among its dark denizens. They scurried, if it was
