“The city of the elders fell to time,” Dru whispered, again shamed of his kind. “Before a fraction of the same time has passed, this place will be a foul blot in comparison.”
“A ruin is a ruin,” Xiri said, more to mollify him than because she believed in the simple statement. “What do you hope to find here?”
“Nothing. I hoped that there might be someone. They can’t have all crossed over. Not so many and not so quickly. This was done by those left behind… the ones I’m supposed to help.”
“What do we do now?” Xiri clearly did not want one of their choices to be to remain in this dark and ugly place. Dru was not so fond of the idea himself. He had hoped part of the city still lived, that some of the magic that enabled it to serve the Vraad still functioned. From what his higher senses told him, nothing had been left undamaged. There would be no food, no water.
It seems I am destined to never eat a normal meal again! The guardians and their masters had removed his hunger and thirst more than once, but they were not available. Dru glanced at his companion. Could Xiri’s sorcery provide them with the sustenance they would be needing before long? “Can you conjure food and drink?”
She mulled it over. “After what happened, I think I might be able to, but there could be a better way.”
“Such as?”
“If we work the spell together, as we did more or less before, then it should be possible.”
It made as much sense to Dru as anything else had in a long time. “Let’s try it, then. We shouldn’t go on without dealing with the problem. I’d hate to think what would happen if we needed food or water in some desperate moment and found we couldn’t do a thing about it.”
He began first this time, determined to keep the forces of Nimth under control from the start. The slow work annoyed him; it was like learning the use of his sorcery all over again. After a moment’s consideration, the spellcaster decided that this was what he was doing.
“I have it,” he told her.
Nodding, Xiri reached out and coaxed the power to work with her. The firm hold that Dru’s consciousness had on it prevented a magical assault akin to that taking place during the teleportation attempt. He felt the elf turn the land’s binding force to the task she had wished completed.
The sorcerer blinked. The abrupt completion of the spell left him dizzy. Xiri, too, was trying to reorient herself. Dru looked down at the broken courtyard floor.
A loaf of bread, some fruit, a bit of meat, and a jug of some liquid made an incongruous image when surrounded by so much destruction.
“Better than I could have hoped,” he said, smiling.
They split every item into equal portions, save the contents of the jug since neither of them had thought to conjure cups. Dru was surprised when Xiri sank her teeth into the meat. He had supposed that being an elf she would abhor the thought of eating the flesh of some wild creature, even if what they ate now was actually magical in origin.
“Eating meat does not decrease my spiritual nature,” she said, swallowing a piece. “Wasting meat would. A diet of plants is lacking in a few necessities. There are a few I know who believe it is the only way we can become more than we are now, but I notice they are usually the ones lacking in strength and mind as time progresses.” With her fingers, Xiri tore off another piece. “I do give thanks to the creature that provided me with sustenance, though it might be impossible in this case since the beast never existed.”
The jug proved to contain wine that tasted vaguely familiar to Dru. It took him several swallows to recall that it was one of his own creations. He wondered if the spell had somehow tapped into his own mind, then decided that it was a matter for a more peaceful time.
It took only minutes to satisfy themselves. Dru noticed that the food and drink had materialized in quantities exactly matching their present needs. Again, it was a thought for another day, but he did want to ask Xiri if she had planned it so or somehow the spell itself had known. He rose and stared in the direction of his own domain. A part of him wanted to fly directly there to see if Sharissa was there. She should have crossed over, but the signs and what the one guardian had said hinted that more than a few Vraad had been abandoned by Barakas. Unless they had dragged her to the pentagram themselves, the Tezerenee had likely just forgotten her. Dru could not say why, but he felt that left to her own devices, his daughter would still be here.
“Dru! There is another nearby!”
The sorcerer sensed it, too. It was almost as if the newcomer had literally popped into the city… and why not if he or she were a Vraad?
Someone laughed. It was loud and lacking somewhat in sanity. Male, that was all the duo could tell other than the fact that they were mere seconds away. It was as if he had been searching for them.
“What should we do?” Xiri asked, deferring to Dru since this was his world, his madness. She knew little about the Vraad and looked as if she would have liked to keep it so.
“We find out who it is.” A dangerous decision, the sorcerer knew, but it might also be their best way to find out the state of things. Between the two of them, he felt they had a definite edge over the newcomer. It was even possible that they would find the intruder friendly. Not likely, of course, but still a possibility to consider.
The real reason, though Dru would have denied it after all he had been through, was that he was simply curious. His unexpected exodus had only temporarily cooled his inquisitiveness.
With the care only experience can bring, Dru and the elf made their way through the rubble of the courtyard and toward the sound of laughter. Neither was too concerned with silence. The newcomer’s laugh continually rose so high in volume that they doubted he could have heard them even if they had stood behind him and shouted.
Xiri was the first to see him as she peeked around the corner of a roofless building that had been, as far as Dru’s memory served, the place where he had first discussed his theories of ka travel with the patriarch. “He just sits there and laughs!”
Dru, looking over her, held his breath. “Rendel?”
It was indeed Rendel. The Tezerenee, clad in torn garments and looking as if he had risen from a harsh burial, sat on a battered bench. He was silent for the moment save for the gasping sounds he made as he gulped in air. Readying himself for another round of madness, Dru decided. What was Rendel doing here and where had he been?
“You know him?”
The tall Vraad nodded, unmindful of the fact that the elf had her back to him. “I’m going out there.”
“You should not!”
Her words went unheeded. Dru stepped out and walked toward Rendel, trying, all the while, to maintain an image of confidence he knew to be false. When he saw that the Tezerenee intended to laugh once more, Dru called out.
“Rendel! It’s me! Dru Zeree!”
The other Vraad leaped to his feet and shook his head. He was silent, though his mouth kept forming words.
“Rendel. I’m real. Where have you been? What happened to you?”
“What happened to me?” Rendel almost began laughing, but found the strength to resist. “What has not happened to me? You should ask that!”
Dru forced his own voice steady. “All right, Rendel. What happeened? Tell me.”
“It took everything away from me.” The tattered Tezerenee’s eyes revealed his close battle between sanity and madness. “Took it all away! I had worked so hard, given so much up!”
“Who did? Who took it from you?” Rendel’s lost prize did not concern Dru so much as what power had returned him from the realm beyond the veil to dark Nimth.
“A dragon. It rose from the depths of the earth… only it was not a dragon! It was the earth!”
A dragon formed from the earth itself? One of the guardians. One with a fondness, it seemed, for the form of that particular leviathan. “The guardian brought you here?”
If Rendel noted the familiarity with which Dru spoke of the ancient familiar the latter had befriended, then he made no sign. “Sent me here. Said it had already interfered more than it had been allowed. Assumed that if I made it back to… to where I was… from Nimth, then I was meant to be there.” His eyes snared Dru’s. “But there is no way to cross! We are trapped here, Master Dru!”
The brown-and silver-tressed spellcaster hesitated, wondering whether his response would weaken or strengthen Rendel’s sanity. He also wondered if he really wanted to tell the Tezerenee his belief.
