what the beast found so interesting. Then he felt the probe. It was surprisingly tentative for so powerful a creature, almost as if the ebony stallion were shamed by his own actions.
Mere moments later, the head of the beast snapped back. He scanned his surroundings in renewed fascination. “So that is it! Astonishing! So many things to learn!”
With an abruptness that left the elf’s mouth hanging, the darksome steed backed up, turned, and raced back in the direction it had been heading earlier. Faunon’s acute senses noted that there was no trail of any sort on the physical plane, though he did smell power of an unidentifiable sort. It was as if a ghost had come and gone, though that made no sense considering that he and Rayke had, in their initial encounter with the demon, heard the animal before they saw him.
“Are you all right?” Rayke asked from somewhere behind him.
“I’m… fine.” He was actually surprised that he was. The shadowy steed had owned his life for the duration of their brief meeting. Faunon could think of a dozen different ways he could have been killed. He had been thinking of them throughout his trial despite his best efforts not to. Had the demonic stallion noted those fears at all during his probe?
The other elf’s hands were around his torso as Rayke helped him to his feet. A quiver still ran through the former’s voice. “What is that thing? No horse! Not even one of ours! Was it a shapeshifter?”
“Yes, no, and maybe. I was too at a loss to think much about it while he was here. I doubt that was one of us, though. The sorcery needed for that sort of change would kill most of us! No, there was something wrong with that horror, as if he came from some place other than this world. Somewhere very different.”
The two stood staring at the spot the ghostly horse had abandoned. Finally, Rayke asked, “What did he want, Faunon? The way he spoke, he was looking for something. Do you know what?”
Rayke knew of the probe, perhaps had even been probed himself. Faunon shook his head. “I don’t know, but he found something in my mind that satisfied him… he was gentle about it, Rayke! He could have plundered my mind; I could feel he had the will to do so, but he didn’t!”
That part seemed not to concern his partner. Rayke continued to stare after their departed intruder. “Where do you suppose he went?”
“East. Straight east.”
Rayke grimaced. “There’s nothing that way.”
“Maybe he plans to go on straight to the sea… or beyond it.”
“Maybe.” The other elf’s eyes widened. “Do you suppose he had something to do with the death of these Sheekas?”
It was a thought that had not occurred to Faunon, and he had to credit Rayke for the concept. “I don’t know. We may never know.”
“I’d be happy with that. Let’s get back to the others, Faunon. Let’s get away from here before it decides to come back!”
There was no argument over that. They had discovered all that there was to discover-unless something else ran past them-and it would be dark before long. Faunon generally had no fear of the dark, but, after this encounter, he had a growing desire to be back among his fellows where there was the comfort of numbers.
As they hurried through the woods, moving nearly as silently as the shadow steed had, a nagging feeling grew in Faunon’s head. He was not one for signs and omens, being one of the newer generation of more practical elves, but he could not shake the sensation that the creature he had faced was yet one more hint of something vast to come, a change in the land as he and his people knew it. If the Sheekas were truly nearing the end of their reign, as the Quel had before them, then someone would come to displace them. The land had seen such change time and again, though the elves had never been part of that cycle, merely onlookers.
Ducking under a low branch, Faunon grew more troubled as his thoughts progressed. The Sheekas and even the Quel had been predictable creatures; the elves knew where they stood with those two races. Who was to say that the same would hold with their successors? Who would their successors be? There were no other races that could claim dominance.
There was little to justify his fears, but he believed in them nonetheless. As they neared the spot where the others were to meet them, Faunon discovered that he was, for the first time, hoping for the continued survival of the arrogant avians. The elves knew how to coexist with them, if no more than that. The next masters might feel that there was no need for his race to continue on.
They had escaped such a fate once before, when, legend had it, they had discovered the path that freed them of the horrors of the twisted world of Nimth and its lords, the sorcerous race called the Vraad. At least that was one threat that the elves no longer had to fear, Faunon decided, drawing what little comfort he could from that.
Nothing the future held could ever match the cruelty of the Vraad.
II
The colony had lasted for fifteen years now. This world did not bow to their will as the last had and, far more important, they no longer had the strength to back their arrogant desires. Now they were often forced to do things by hand that they once would have scoffed at performing so. It was a long, frustrating fall from godhood for the Vraad, for they had, back in dying Nimth, been born to their roles. They had escaped to this world from the one they had ruined with little more than their skins and had discovered too late that, for many, Vraad sorcery would not work here the way it had before… at least not without terrible effort and more than a little chance of the results being other than what they had sought.
Yet, for all they had succeeded in accomplishing during those fifteen long years, there were many who still could not accept that the godlike days of yesteryear were at an end. They had once moved mountains, quite literally, and some were determined that they would do so again-whatever the cost. Thus, those that had some success with their spells ignored the side effects and consequences.
Lord Barakas, patriarch of the Tezerenee, the clan of the dragon, was one. He had come to this world with the intention to rule it, not be ruled by it. Even now, as he and two of his sons sat in silent contemplation of the sight before them, the dreams of what might have been and what might still be filled his thoughts nigh on to overflowing.
He stared west, utilizing the tallest hill in the region so as to get a glimpse of not just the lands but the seas farther on as well. The riding drakes, great green creatures that more resembled massive but unprepossessing lizards rather than the dragons they were, had begun to grow restive. The patriarch’s sons, Reegan the Heir and ever-obedient Lochivan, were also growing restive. Lochivan was the slightest of the three, which by no means meant that he was small. It was just that Reegan and Barakas were two of a kind, huge bears with majestic beards; two giants who looked ready to bite off the head of any who dared so much as cough in their direction. All three riders bore the same coarse features that were dominant throughout the clan, though Lochivan’s were tempered a bit by some additions passed down to him by his mother, the Lady Alcia. He also had a mix of brown and gray in his hair. Barakas and his heir had darker locks, though a streak of silver had spread across the patriarch’s head over the last few years. Other than that, Reegan was a fairly good physical copy of the dragonlord. Beyond the physical, however, the resemblance ceased. The heir lacked much in terms of the patriarch’s vision.
The sun, directly above, continued to bathe them in heat. Lochivan shifted, trying to keep cool in the cloth padding and dark-green, dragon-scale armor that clan members fairly lived their lives out in these days. Long ago, when they had been lords of Nimth, it would have been less than nothing for him to utilize his skills to make the body-encompassing armor both cool and weightless. Here, in what he considered a damnable land at best, such effort meant wasted energy and nothing more. The magic of this world still refused to obey him with regularity. Only a few had any true power, and even fewer had abilities comparable to the Vraad race of old.
None of the three were among them, though the patriarch came near. Near but not enough for what he desired.
That was why neither Reegan nor Lochivan dared to disturb their father. This period of contemplation was all that kept him from striking out at random at his own people.
