The ebony stallion glanced at Sharissa. “Will you also be entering sleep?”
“Not for a while.”
“Then I will join you for a time, if you do not mind?”
She looked from Darkhorse to her parents. “I was planning to return to my own chambers back in the city. Will that be all right?”
“The other Vraad are likely still leery of him, but if you stay together, there should be no problem.” Dru smiled at his former companion. “Try not to frighten too many people… and keep your lone wanderings to a minimum until I’ve spoken to my counterparts in the triumvirate.”
“I will be the image of discretion and insignificance! No one will take notice of me!”
“I doubt that.” The master mage chuckled. “A few of those fine folk might even benefit from a jolt or two, now that I think about it!”
“Do not encourage him, Dru,” Ariela warned, though she, too, laughed at the vision of still-arrogant Tezerenee running across the shadow steed in the dark of the moons.
Sharissa kissed both her father and her stepmother on the cheek. In Dru’s ear, she whispered, “How are things progressing?”
“I pick up something here and there. I’ve expanded the dimensions of this little dreamland of mine… and I think the changes are making some sense at last. Have you talked to Gerrod?”
“He refuses to leave his dwelling and he’s grown more distant, almost like a shadow.” Sharissa paused. “Gerrod still insists the lands are trying to make us over again, that we’ll become monsters like the Seekers or those earth diggers you mentioned, the Quel.”
A bitter smile replaced the pleasant one Dru had maintained up to this point. “We were monsters before we ever crossed to this world. We only wore more attractive masks then.”
“The people are changing… I mean… not like Gerrod said, but becoming-”
“Will you two be whispering to one another all evening? If so, perhaps I might as well accompany Darkhorse back to the city.” Ariela’s arms were crossed, and she wore an expression of mock annoyance.
“I’m leaving,” the sorceress said, dressing her words in a more pleasant tone. To Darkhorse, she asked, “Will you follow me?”
“Would you like to ride, instead?”
“Ride?” She had not thought of that. They had walked the entire way from the rift to the courtyard because she had not thought of Darkhorse as a mount, but rather a being much like herself. Ride a sentient creature such as this, one that her father termed a living hole?
“You need have no fear! Little Dru rode me quite often! I am stronger, more swift, than the fastest steed! I do not tire, and no terrain is my equal!”
His boasting eased her concerns. “How could I resist such superiority?”
“I only speak the truth!” The demonic horse somehow achieved a semblance of hurt.
“I believe you.” She went to his side and, once he had knelt, mounted. There was no saddle, but the fantastic creature’s back moved beneath her, shifting into a more comfortable form. If only all horses could make their own saddles!
“Take hold of my mane.”
She did, noting that it felt like hair despite knowing that it was not.
“Take care, both of you,” Dru said, waving.
“We’re not going on any great journey, Father!”
“Take care, anyway.”
Darkhorse roared with laughter, though Sharissa was not certain as to why, and reared.
They were racing through the gates of the citadel and down the grassy meadow below before she had time to realize it.
It may have been that Darkhorse felt her stiffen, for he shouted, “Have no fear, I said! I will not lose you!”
She wondered about that. When Darkhorse had mentioned he was swift, she had still pictured his speed in terms of an actual mount, not the creature who had raced toward the city from the western shore in a matter of minutes. Now, Sharissa flew. Literally flew. The ebony stallion’s hooves did not touch the ground; she was certain of that. Her hair fluttered straight back, a pennon of silver-blue reflecting in the light of a moon that was not one of those existing outside of this domain.
They were through the rift and once more in the ruined square before Sharissa even thought to ask if Darkhorse knew where the tear was located. Now she understood her father’s vivid yet unsatisfying telling of his rides with the black steed. One had to experience it to understand.
The days ahead, Sharissa decided, would be interesting indeed.
In the citadel that was and was not his, the sorcerer and his elfin bride walked arm in arm to their chambers, not even bothering to watch Sharissa and her fearsome companion depart, for Dru knew the Void dweller’s ungodly speed well. Thus it was that neither noticed the return of the Faceless Ones, the not-people, at the exact moment that Darkhorse and his rider returned to the true world. They stood without the walls, all those who had chosen to return to flesh and blood, and stared with sightless gazes after the vanishing duo. If Sharissa could have seen them now, she would have noted a different emotion than the uneasiness she had observed in the one in the city.
V
Three days had passed. One day he might have understood, but not three. Sharissa Zeree did not ignore her promises. She had said she would come, and he had prepared for her-three days ago. Now he could sense her nearing presence, at last, but there was another with her, one who fit nothing in his experience. Sharissa had brought someone with her, but who it was defied his abilities. He knew only that the two of them would be within sight of his hut in little more than a minute.
Hardly enough time to prepare himself. The glamour cast three days past had faded.
What goes on here? Gerrod Tezerenee wondered as he pulled the hood of his cloak about his head, carefully assuring that his features would be shadowed. With so little time available, it was possible he might blunder and cast a spell of insufficient strength. It would not do for her to see what had become of him… though eventually all Vraad might suffer the same fate. How ironic that he should be one of the first.
His eyes on the window facing the southwest-and the city he avoided with a passion-the warlock tried to concentrate. He had to finish before she was too close, lest she notice his conjuring and wonder. Dru Zeree’s daughter was far more knowing than she had been when they had first met. Then, she had been a woman in form but a child in mind. Now, Sharissa walked among the Vraad as one to whom those thousands of years her senior paid homage. She was the sorceress.
A tiny figure on horseback materialized at the horizon. Gerrod frowned and lost his concentration. A single rider. Sharissa. What she rode upon, however, was like no steed he had ever known. Even from here he could see it was taller than the tallest horse and stronger, the warlock suspected, than any drake.
It dawned on him then that what he felt was the ebony mount. It was the source of great power that he had sensed.
The pace the creature set ate swiftly at the distance separating Sharissa from the hut that Gerrod presently called his home. Cursing silently, he forced himself to concentrate again on the glamour. It would be a hurried, confused thing, but it would have to do.
A light wind tickled his face. Gerrod allowed himself a sigh of relief. It was no true wind that had touched him, but rather one that indicated his spell had held. He wore his mask once more.
“Gerrod?” Sharissa was still far away, but she knew that, at this distance, the Tezerenee could hear her with ease.
There was no time to locate a looking glass and inspect his work. He would just have to hope that he had not given himself some horrible disfigurement. That would be bitter irony, indeed.
It was late afternoon, which meant that the sun was more or less behind the newcomers. Gerrod knew he would have to work things so that it was Sharissa and her-what? — that had to suffer the sun. He dared not let the
