“Could he… could he have become like Lochivan?”
“Could we have missed a dragon?” he responded. “Better yet, could a dragon have missed us?”
She tried to scan the area, but the trees blocked what little light the moons were willing to give them. “He seemed frightened of something!”
“Likely he was reliving his disasters. That would be enough to shake anyone. He might even have been dreaming of the death of his mate.”
Tzee…
“Did you hear something?” she asked.
“Nothing. I am too worn to even listen. I am sorry, Sharissa, I truly am. If I could find his trail, I would keep going. The only thing I can say is that we could come back here in the morning and see if a trail reveals its secrets to us.”
Where might Barakas be by then? Faunon was correct, though. They stood no chance of finding the patriarch. She doubted the light would change things. Barakas was gone. Gone forever, the final victim, Sharissa hoped, of his ambition to create an empire.
The irony was, his legacy was an empire-and of the very creature he had raised up as the symbol of his clan.
They returned to their encampment and settled down again. Sleep was not so soon in coming this time, but when it did, Sharissa was thankful to find it deep and dreamless.
Tzee…
It was difficult to breathe. Sharissa rolled over, trying to ease the constriction in her lungs.
Tzee…
She thought it was a dream at first, but then it occurred to her that if it was, she should not have been thinking so. She should have been enmeshed in it.
Tzee…
Rolling onto her back, Sharissa opened her eyes.
Her nightmare stared back at her.
She screamed, and was not ashamed that she did. Anyone would have screamed at the dark, cloudy mass atop her, a mass from which countless eyes peered at her. A sound kept echoing in her head, a sound that originated, the terrified sorceress was certain, from the horror above her.
It was the scream that sent it fleeing. She heard Faunon’s voice as he shouted to her and watched in fear and amazement as the unnerving mass rose swiftly and fled into the deep woods. The elf chased after it, but it moved with the grace and daring of the fastest hawks and was gone even before he took a dozen steps.
All the while, Sharissa heard the same nonsensical sound in her head. Tzee… Tzee… The sound did not die away until long after the nightmare was over.
“Sharissa! Rheena, I will never forgive myself for being so stubborn! I broke my vow and tried to take the entire night’s watch! It… that thing… must have come just after I dozed off!”
The sun was just rising, but the Vraad barely noticed it. Though the creature, whatever it was, had fled, she could not help feeling that they were still not alone, that someone else was still watching them.
“I have never seen anything like that!” the elf exclaimed, holding her as much for his comfort as he was for hers. “It made a sound in my head-”
“‘Tzee,’” she said. “It kept repeating ‘Tzee.’”
“That was it!”
“Tezerenee?” Sharissa whispered to herself.
“What?”
“Nothing.” She cared not to think about it any longer. The possibility unnerved her more than the dragons had. She rose from the ground, allowing Faunon to aid her. There was still something not right. “Faunon, do you sense anything?”
His eyes narrowed, and he glanced about the area. “I had not given it much thought, not with that thing around, but… could it be it has not left after all?”
That might be the answer, but Sharissa could not accept it. This was something she had felt before, a familiar presence or presences. Not the guardians, but…
Stepping away from Faunon, the sorceress faced the seemingly empty woods. “Very well! You’ve been polite! You’ve not shocked me! I know you’re there now, so you might as well come out!”
“Who are you-” The elf forgot his question as several figures slowly emerged from the trees. There was no place they could have been hiding. One moment they had not been there, the next they were. A dozen at least, all wearing the same long, cowled robes and moving with the symmetry that only they could accomplish. One might have thought they were all of one single mind.
The not-people, the Faceless Ones as others had called them, circled the Vraad and her companion.
“Sharissa! Do they mean us any harm?”
“One never knows,” she answered truthfully. “I hope not.”
A wan smile touched his face. “Since I have met you, my Vraad, I have been in one constant state of disarray. I never know what to expect!”
“I’ve fared no better,” she admitted. One of the blank-visaged beings separated from the rest and stopped before her. “You’re here.” The sorceress tried to act as brave as she sounded. “What now? Why have you come?”
In answer, the long figure raised its left hand and pointed. They looked.
Like the Faceless Ones, it was standing where it could not have been standing a breath or two earlier. It was wide enough to admit both of them, though that was not what first drew their attention. As ever, it was the artifact itself that commanded the viewer’s gazes. Standing there was an ancient stone arch-way upon which scurried a multitude of tiny, black, reptilian creatures in one seemingly endless race. The gray, stone archway covered with ivy was only one of many shapes this thing had, but each one radiated a feeling of incredible age and the notion that this structure was more than the portal it appeared to be. This was a thing alive.
“My father calls it the Gate,” she informed Faunon. “A capital on the noun. He always felt it was more of a name, not a description.”
“Is it truly alive?”
A shrug. “Was that thing that attacked us alive? I’m beginning to think that this is a world as insane as Nimth.”
The leader pointed again.
“It wants us to enter, I think, Sharissa. What do you suggest?”
She did not trust the Faceless Ones completely anymore. They had an agenda of their own, and she was certain it did not always match that of her folk. Still, she could think of no reason to refuse-and wondered then if the cowled beings would even let her. “I think we should go through. I think it might be for the best.”
He squeezed her hand. “We go through together. I have no desire to be left behind.”
That thought frightened her. Would the not-people do that to her? Did Faunon have no place in their plans? Sharissa tightened her grip and nodded to the one before them. “Together, then.”
Acting as if it wanted to assuage their fears, the leader led the way to the living portal. The featureless figure did not even pause. As it walked through the arch, they saw a flash and then the image of a building that the sorceress had no trouble recognizing.
Her face lit up. “Follow it! Now!”
They fairly leaped through.
On the other side, she paused and took a deep breath. Faunon caught the smile on her face and relaxed. “Are we there?”
She indicated the magnificent citadel on the top of the hill. Between the two and the grand structure was a well-groomed field of high grass and blossoming flowers. Sharissa could not recall a sight that had ever filled her with such relief and happiness. She started to run, pulling Faunon along and shouting to him, “This is home!”
So thrilled was Sharissa that she would later have trouble recalling the trek from where they had materialized to the gates where her father and stepmother had been waiting.
“Theywanted us outside,” Ariela told her stepdaughter. “We wondered why. I often wish they would at least create mouths with which to talk.”
