Now it was her visage that shone scarlet, the smile faltering just a little and the eyes narrowing. Some of Dru’s confidence returned. He started to walk past her, indicating to Melenea, he hoped, that her presence bothered him so little that he felt no need to instantly teleport far away.
Her voice snared him as he continued up the steps. “Lady Tezerenee is here, Dru sweet. I think she, too, would like to give her love to Sharissa. She seems to have been looking for both of you, in fact.”
He stood on the steps, his face carefully kept from her sight… a futile gesture since his sudden immobility spoke volumes concerning the success of her barb. It was the one thing Dru had not expected because it was the one thing he thought Melenea could not understand.
With her low, knowing laughter cutting through his heart, Dru curled within himself and vanished from the stairway.
His new destination was far from the balcony on which Barakas Tezerenee, his eldest son Reegan, and a host of other Tezerenee stood, overlooking the expectant throngs. The patriarch was already into the thrust of his speech and his presence could be felt even from where Dru stood. Yet another shiver coursed through the tall sorcerer, but this time he could not say as to which reason was the cause.
“Masterrrr?”
Sirvak! In all that had happened, Dru had completely forgotten the familiar, despite it being perched on his shoulder and wrapped around the back of his neck. Despite its seemingly awkward size, the familiar could make itself virtually unnoticeable, an ability that Dru himself had personally added during Sirvak’s creation.
“What is it, friend?”
The familiar gently licked its master’s cheek with its long, narrow tongue. Being a part of Dru, it sometimes understood him better than he himself did. “Meleneaaaa.”
“She caught me unawares, nothing more.”
“Frightens, masterrrrr. Lady frightensss.”
“She’s disturbing, Sirvak, but hardly frightening.” The creature’s fears, however, transmitted themselves to him. He knew Melenea’s tastes-all too well-and knew her propensity for games that tended to leave others damaged or, at the very least, in disarray.
Dru shook his head. She had just been toying with him, nothing more. Petty cruelty was a streak common in the Vraad race and more so in the temptress. That was all it was.
And you make yourself such an open target, he scolded himself.
The sky flashed, the green and crimson clouds swirling violently as if in response to the explosion. Dru turned at the sound of thunder, wondering it if was going to rain for once. There had not been any rain for over three years now. If not for the powers of the Vraad, Nimth would have perished from thirst.
A second flash lit the heavens in the direction of his own domain.
A massive peak, clearly seen and as solid as any, stood in the distance, its white tip and vegetation- enshrouded base taunting him. Dru gaped.
It was-it had to be-a piece of the shrouded realm thrusting through the veil into his own world!
“There you are!”
Dru whirled around, but saw nothing. He glanced up and discovered the source of the voice directly above him. A Tezerenee riding a dragon. From where he stood, Dru could not make out the features of the rider. It could have been one of the patriarch’s sons or a cousin. In fact, if he had not heard the voice, Dru would have been hard-pressed to identify the newcomer as male or female without augmenting his vision again.
The rider urged his mount lower. “The Lord Barakas Tezerenee has dispatched myself and several others to search for you! You were to be at his side by the time he began to speak before the crowds!”
“I found it necessary to be away. It seems my absence had little effect on his speech, anyway.” Dru desperately wanted to leave the city, to explore the rift. If there was truly a physical way through…
The Tezerenee seemed horribly ignorant of the vast sight in the distance. He only had eyes for the object of his mission, a protesting outsider. “The clan master still desires your presence! You will return with me!”
Dru felt all the anger and frustration of the past hour battle against his slipping self-control. He eyed the rider and the beast. “I am not one of your toy-soldier brethren, Tezerenee! I come when I wish to! Matters have come up that demand my return to my own domain! You can convey my regrets to Lord Barakas, but not me!”
“You-”
“That is all I have to say to you, Tezerenee!” Raw power crackled like an aura around the narrow spellcaster, a sign of the fury within him straining to be released.
The dragon protested the difficulty of continuing to hover, but the rider ignored him. Dru matched stares with the airborne Vraad. At last, the Tezerenee signaled for the dragon to rise again.
“The clan master will be furious!”
“You may relay to him my apologies and my wishes for the best in the hours to come! I will contact him when it proves possible!”
In the end, it was likely the authoritative tone that backed the dragon rider away. From his time in the company of the patriarch, Dru had picked up on the voice that Barakas utilized to exercise his control. Trained from birth to obey that voice, the rider could not, in the end, match wills with Zeree. With a final muttered response that the wind, which had picked up despite protective spells surrounding the city, carried away, the Tezerenee rode off.
Dru sighed and smiled. Sirvak hissed in satisfaction. It was always nice to gain a victory, however small. The rider would probably wait until his master was finished speaking, rather than disrupt the patriarch’s great moment. That gave Dru a little more time before Barakas began trying to contact him. Time enough, if he hurried, to see his daughter.
The claws of his familiar tightened on his shoulder. The creature had gone from pleased to dismayed in only seconds. Even before he turned, Dru suspected what he would see.
The peak was fading. Slowly, to be sure, but far too quickly for Dru’s needs.
It was with a mixture of relief and anxiety that he vanished from the city only a breath later.
“SHARISSA!”
A soft mist settled around Dru as he appeared in the central chamber of his gleaming citadel. The pearl luster of his home generally filled him with a feeling of peace, of sanctuary. Not so, now.
“Sharissa!”
His call echoed through the corridors. When he had created this castle centuries before, he had added a spell that would relay sounds from one room to the next. For the most part, it had protected him from several angry rivals over the years and kept his most important work secret from even the best of his counterparts. In the twenty years since his daughter’s birth, Dru had essentially used it to locate her. Two people did little in the way of filling a void so large as this structure.
“Father?”
“Where are you?”
“In the theater.”
“Stay there.” Dru curled within himself and vanished again, almost losing Sirvak, who had carelessly assumed it was safe to climb off. The familiar let out an annoyed cry and dug its talons in deeper. This time, Dru winced.
The scene that he found himself in the midst of threw the sorcerer completely off balance. He was in a chamber filled with dancing couples. They twirled and twirled, completely ignorant of the towering figure caught in the center of the ball. To the side, a nonsensical group of animals that were also instruments played the music. A huge, furred thing, loosely related to Sirvak’s lupine half, beat on a drum in its middle while a four-legged monstrosity with a pipe-stem mouth played a merry tune.
One of the male dancers came within arm’s reach of Dru. The spellcaster’s eyes narrowed; it was his own face, but as it might look if he had allowed it to age more. Lines crisscrossed his features and the visage as a whole had filled out. Dru quickly turned and studied another dancer. Again, it was his face, but clean-shaven and with a somewhat bulbous nose. This one was also shorter by half a foot.
A quick scan revealed that all of the male dancers were variations on his appearance. Tall, short, fat, thin, old, and young… he was astonished at how numerous the combinations were.
Then his attention fell on the women.
They were Sharissa.
