ability to follow it to its conclusion. I told you about my time in the Void and how I finally escaped, didn’t I?”
“You are surely not suggesting…”
“Darkhorse can open… paths… into other realms. He did so for me that once.” Dru’s features relaxed for a moment as his memories surfaced, then, recalling his daughter’s predicament, the sorcerer continued. “I may be crazy, but it explains why I can find no trace. I’ve searched east as far as I dare, but I’ve known from the start that they didn’t head that way. No, I think that perhaps because they held Sharissa, Barakas was able to force Darkhorse to create a path for the Tezerenee to march through-a path I believe must extend, not to anywhere on this continent, but to a domain the patriarch hasn’t been able to forget despite the last fifteen years.”
“The Dragonrealm.” Gerrod said the name his companion could not, the cold tone in his voice much like the tone he might have used greeting his father, the clan master. It was almost too much to accept, but it was so very like the elder Tezerenee to plot such madness and make it work. Paths beyond this world that led to the Dragonrealm. His father, after years of bitter loss, at last having the means by which to build himself a grand empire. The magic of the creature called Darkhorse doing so easily what, to the warlock, was a feat even the Vraad at their most powerful would have had difficulty in performing.
Sharissa stolen.
“Will you help me?” Dru asked in expectation.
“What is it you want of me?”
“A way to follow them. I know you, of anybody, must have some theory. Silesti and I have more than enough volunteers. This time, the drake and his children will be made to pay!” The sorcerer’s hands crackled with power.
Gerrod marveled at the power before him even as he was revolted by it. Each time Sharissa had come to visit him, he could not help thinking how this same power had, under the control of the founders, made creatures like the Seekers from men who had once resembled the Vraad.
“You seem far more capable than I in this matter,” he pointed out. “If anyone has the ability, it’s you.”
The glow faded with an abruptness that made Gerrod blink. Dru put his face in his hands. “I can’t! Nothing I know is sufficient!”
“Your blank-faced allies-”
“Walk about as if all is right in the world! If I had less faith, I might believe they were, in part, responsible for no one finding out until after it was too late! A thousand souls and who knows how many drakes and other animals… and they vanished overnight!”
Recalling how their sorcerous servants had acted toward the creature from the Void, in the end exiling him for what was supposed to be forever, the warlock did not doubt that, from the first, the not-people had seen Darkhorse as an agent of chance disturbing their carefully crafted experiment. It was not beyond his imagination to visualize their pleasure at the shadow steed’s sudden departure. That Sharissa had also been taken was merely incidental.
Gerrod knew his belief in this was built on his own distaste for the featureless beings, but he cared not a whit. They were, in his eyes, the enemy. It was one of the few opinions he shared with his former clan.
He stared for a time at the one Vraad other than Sharissa he had truly come to admire. Dru ran his hands through his graying hair, the silver streak somehow remaining unmussed throughout the motion. Gerrod realized that Dru had probably not slept since discovering that Sharissa’s disappearance coincided with the departure of the Tezerenee. There was even enough worry left over for the monster the mage called friend, although Gerrod was only mildly interested in the ebony stallion’s fate. It was Sharissa who mattered.
The warlock came to a decision. It was not one Gerrod liked, but, he admitted, it was the only choice he could have ever made. “I may be able to do something. I need five days.”
“Five days.” There was no life in the master mage’s voice when he spoke. Dru Zeree was no doubt thinking what could happen in five days. His daughter might be dead or, as far as Gerrod was secretly concerned, suffering a fate worse than death.
Becoming a Tezerenee through marriage to one of his siblings, likely Reegan.
It was no secret that the patriarch coveted her abilities. He was likely convinced that she would pass her powers down through her children-a possibility to be considered, the warlock admitted to himself. Dru saw Sharissa as only a hostage for Darkhorse’s cooperation, which was just as likely. Given time to recover his reason, he would recall the second choice, too. By then, however, Gerrod hoped circumstances would change.
“Five days, yes. I want you to do something for me during that time.”
“What?”
Gerrod leaned forward, whispering as if the two of them were being watched… and who could say for certain that they were not? “Keep a careful eye on the not-people. Note what they do and do not do. Observe what they observe.”
“What is it you expect me to find?” Given a task, Dru Zeree was restored to life. His love for his daughter was a weakness, but Gerrod knew that it could also be strength. Yet, where he himself was concerned, the warlock thought love was fine, but not when it went so deep that it prevented one from thinking straight. He considered himself fortunate that he had never reached such an extreme. Those who cared too much, be it for one of their own blood or even a lover, tended to allow themselves to be drawn into foolhardy predicaments.
“It is too soon to say,” he said, finally responding to the other’s question. The warlock was sincerely thankful that his visage was more or less obscured from the other Vraad. It would not do for Dru to see his expression at this moment. “Trust me that it’s necessary.”
“All right.”
“There is no more to say, then. Good day to you, Master Zeree.” Gerrod turned away and pretended to reorganize his notes. He heard Dru shift for a moment, as if the latter was uncertain how to handle the curt dismissal. Gerrod continued to play with the sheets until the silence had stretched more than a minute. At last, with a casual air, he turned back to where Dru had stood. The sorcerer was nowhere to be seen. The warlock shook his head. For all his ability, Dru Zeree was helpless without Gerrod’s aid. Under other circumstances, it might even have been comical.
Rising, he began to search among his few belongings for a box he had stolen, unbeknownst to either Zeree, from their citadel back in Nimth. Master Zeree might realize that the request for five days was a ploy, although the warlock doubted that. It was best to begin now, however, on the off chance that the sorcerer might return early for another reason. If so, Dru would find that Gerrod had exaggerated a bit about the time he needed for preparations. Not five days, but rather five minutes. Five minutes or not at all… if he succeeded in finding the box he sought.
Gerrod pulled aside a ragged bit of cloth that had once been a bag and stared down at his prize. He picked up the box gently and carried it over to the floor, opening it even as he knelt.
The warlock mouthed a few nonsensical syllables as he surveyed the contents, the sounds acting as a memory trigger that slowly began awakening the power that slumbered within him. From the box, he picked out a single perfect crystal, a prize from Dru Zeree’s lost collection. You will do for a focus, I think. What, he wondered, would the other Vraad do if they knew that he had recaptured some of what they had lost in crossing over? What would they offer him for a return to at least a shadow of their glory days, their days of godhood?
What would they offer him for the chance to truly call upon Vraad sorcery without draining their own lifeforce?
Nothing he wanted.
His nose began to itch. Gerrod sniffed the air. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine he had returned to Nimth. The same sweet, decaying smell permeated everything. It was always so when he dared to awaken the link he had wrought. The seemingly impenetrable barrier that the founders’ sorcerous servants had placed around Nimth had finally given in to his onslaught, albeit at great cost. Gerrod could now draw strength from the world of his birth and use it in this one rather than burn away his own lifeforce as his brethren did. However, there were limits. Even though he had breached the barrier, the warlock could not widen it. He had tried more than once, risking the contamination that Vraad sorcery spread in small doses over his new homeland… and himself. Perhaps it was even some subconscious hesitation on his own part that made him fail to open the breach further; he could not say.
Still, it was not enough. With time, he suspected he could extend his life span, but not truly give himself the immortality he had come to desire. There had to be another way.
What if one could bind the sorceries of the two realms together…? Gerrod found himself abruptly wondering.
