The guilty look she flashed at him made Gerrod stop.
“I’m sorry, Gerrod. Actually, I mostly rode out to explain to you why I was gone and how I won’t be able to come here for a while.”
Anger and a sudden, unreasonable feeling of having been betrayed stirred the hooded Tezerenee’s baser instincts. He came within a breath of reaching out with his mind to a source of power she could not know he controlled, one that would allow him to strike out at random with sufficient results to assuage his bitterness.
“Too much is happening right now,” Sharissa went on, oblivious to his warring thoughts. “If Darkhorse is to stay among us, he has to be made a familiar sight to the others. There’s talk among many of Silesti’s faction that my father will use him to put an end to the triumvirate. They think he plans to rule from Sirvak Dragoth as some sort of despot, if you can believe that!”
“Your father?” The anger dissipated. How could anyone who knew Dru Zeree believe the sorcerer would ever desire to rule the Vraad? The elder Zeree was nearly as much a hermit as he was. He had only agreed to be part of the triumvirate in order to keep Silesti and Barakas from killing one another and the rest of the Vraad in the process.
“Would that be so bad?” the demonic steed asked, his voice booming. “Friend Dru is a remarkable creature! He would only do good for your kind!”
“It was toilsome enough to get them to live with one another, let alone follow another Vraad’s commands. Master Zeree is admired by many, but, in the eyes of our folk, the triumvirate guarantees that no one Vraad’s will can be law. We are a very suspicious, individualistic race.”
Darkhorse shook his head again, a habit, Gerrod realized, that signaled the beast’s confusion.
“I’ll try to explain later,” Sharissa said. She gave the warlock an apologetic smile. “I will be back… and you could come to see me once in a while.”
“Perhaps,” was all he said in reply. They both knew that he would never voluntarily return to the city. That would mean contact with his clan, possibly with his father.
Sighing, Sharissa stepped to the side of her inhuman companion. Darkhorse bent his legs in a manner that would have crippled a true steed and lowered himself so that she could mount. Gerrod saw the creature’s back ripple and shape itself to conform to the rider.
“It won’t be too long,” the sorceress added, trying to make the best of things. “Father can only do so much. He needs my help in all this.”
He said nothing, knowing that any words escaping his lips now would do nothing but weaken their friendship. That might make her decide never to return. Then he would be completely isolated from his kind.
“Good-bye, Gerrod.” Her smile was a bit feeble, possibly because she could not read his shadowed face and, therefore, did not know if he was angry or merely hurt. Sharissa knew how much he looked forward to her visits, and the warlock had assumed that she also looked forward to them. At the moment, he was not so certain anymore.
“Watch yourself,” the Tezerenee blurted. “Never trust a sleeping drake, remember?”
“She has nothing to fear while I am near!” roared Darkhorse. He laughed at his own unintentional rhyme.
“As you say.”
The ebony stallion turned toward the direction of the city, reared, and was already off before Gerrod could even raise a hand in farewell. Sharissa waved back at him for a brief time, but the lightning speed with which the astonishing creature ran forced her to soon abandon that act in favor of further securing her grip on his mane. Within moments, the duo were dwindling dots in the distance. Gerrod had wondered why she had ridden all the way out to him merely to tell him she would not be able to stay, but now he saw that, to Darkhorse, the distance separating the city from his habitat was little more than a short jaunt. Their much slower arrival had been planned; a speeding Darkhorse might have been mistaken for some dire threat.
“So understanding about some things, yet still so naive about others.” He hoped she was correct about his father. Barakas was hardly the type to sit calmly while a potential threat such as the ebony terror represented was allowed to roam among the Vraad at will.
Knowing he was now safe, Gerrod removed both the hood encompassing his head and the glamour masking his features. It was good that Sharissa was, to a point, predictable. She had the skill and power to teleport from the city to here, but she would not make use of that ability. Her uneasiness when it came to the spell was what kept his secrets safe from her. As long as Sharissa gave him the time, he could hide what he was becoming and what he had discovered.
She would have been shocked if she had seen his unprotected visage. Even his erstwhile parents would have likely felt some sympathy for his plight, especially as they would soon follow him… as all Vraad would.
His hair was turning gray, and there were lines gouged into his skin that only age could have wrought. The others had never thought about how their sorcery was what so extended their life spans, but he had found out the truth the hard way. His own experiments, which had taxed his lifeforce further, had turned him into a creature older in appearance than either Dru Zeree or the patriarch. He could have been his own grandfather, the warlock thought in sour humor.
Sharissa would have sought to aid him, but he wanted nothing of her sorcery. He would not give in to this world, become one of its creatures. Gerrod was certain that the Vraad faced either death from old age or, if they surrendered themselves completely to their new home, a worse fate. Dru had told him of how the Seekers and others like them had once had the same ancestors as he. The founders’ experiment had altered them, made them monsters. He was no more willing to fall to that fate than he was willing to let the decay of his body take him. Somehow, someway, he would save himself.
Whatever or whoever the cost, he reminded himself as he stared at the empty horizon over which Sharissa and Darkhorse had disappeared.
“What is the purpose of this?” Rayke wanted to know. He was tired, and when Rayke was tired he grew incredibly irritable. The other elves kept silent, knowing that this was between him and Faunon. It was yet another tiny stab at the latter’s authority, which had grown a bit strained of late, what with Faunon’s insistence on exploring every hole in the ground, no matter how small.
Faunon, contrary to their belief, would have welcomed interference. Rayke was making him irritable. Had they not been told to be thorough? With the bird people in disarray, this was the perfect opportunity to make a better study of the outlying cave systems dotting the southern edges of the mountain range. The one they now stood before had all the marks of once having been used on a regular basis by either the avians or someone else.
“Try to hold your voice down to a mild eruption,” he whispered at Rayke. “Unless you are so eager for a fight you are purposely shouting loud enough for every Sheeka in the world to hear.”
“At least that would be something more worthy than this poking around holes,” the second elf muttered, nevertheless speaking in much quieter tones.
“This will not take long. If this one does not extend into the mountain deep enough, then the others will not, either. If they do go farther, then the council will want to know, just in case they decide the time has come to claim the cavern aerie.”
Rayke grimaced. “The council would not sanction anything as energetic as a footrace, let alone an assault on even a near-abandoned aerie.”
For once, they found common ground. “They would be fools not to take advantage of this. Think of what the birds must have stored in there. Look at what we found just lying scattered about the countryside!”
One of the other elves shook a sack he carried. It was about the size of his head and quite full. The sack represented the party’s greatest treasures, the enchanted medallions that the avians generally carried or wore around their throats. The precision and power of such artifacts was legend even among the elves, but there had been few for the race to study, for the bird people guarded them jealously and most were designed to destroy themselves if their wearer perished. These had not. If Faunon was correct, they had simply been abandoned. Why, he did not know. That was for the council to decide; they enjoyed endless theoretical debate, especially when it meant they could ignore more pressing matters.
Let them play with these while others take up the gauntlet, Faunon thought. We’ll make this world something more than merely a place we ended up. We’ll make a future for ourselves! Deep inside, he knew that he was
