results he had intended, but that was only a pitifully tiny victory. Like Nimth, which had turned mad from the massive abuses of Vraad sorcery, the stronger the spell the more this domain would battle back.
Suddenly, a world-heavy weariness swept over the frustrated Dru. He slumped back, visions of a land swallowing up each and every Vraad dancing about his tired mind.
The entity Darkness shifted closer to him, the two icy orbs staring down at him in what the Vraad vaguely recognized as anxiety for the sorcerer’s well-being.
“You are fading? You lack essence?”
“I’m tired.”
“What is that?”
“It means that I must lay for a time in quiet. Probably until after the sun has returned.” When that was, Dru had no idea. Time felt different somehow, almost as if the shrouded realm moved more swiftly.
The creature seemed annoyed that nothing else would be accomplished for now, but evidently understood that his tiny associate was lacking in many ways. “What shall I do while you lay down?”
“Remain nearby. I cannot protect myself as I thought I would be able to. I’ll have to ask for your aid in case something tries to attack me.”
“They would not dare! Not while I am here!”
Dru winced. “One more thing. Please make as little sound as possible while I sleep… lay down, that is. It will help me to recover my strength sooner.”
“As you wish,” Darkness replied in a rumble only slightly less deafening.
The sorcerer grimaced, but consoled himself in the fact that anything nearby would get as little sleep as he did. Still kneeling, he looked around for a more comfortable place to rest. At the moment, he was too tired to trust another spell, yet there was no area around him that looked inviting. Dru sighed and, pulling his cloak tight around him, simply lay down where he was. He wondered briefly at the sudden intensity of his exhaustion, then drifted off.
“Are you rested yet?”
Dru straightened with a start, turning his head this way and that. The sun was just over the horizon and the sounds of the day were already well into their second movement. Gradually, his eyes focused on the huge, ungodly thing next to him.
Darkness was a contrast to all around him, un life surrounded by life. Even the period in the Void, where the gigantic horror had been the only thing visible other than the helpless Vraad himself, could not compare to the scene now unfolding before Dru. Yesterday, he had been so turned around that he had failed to notice it. Now, though, Darkness’s disturbing form fairly shouted at him. This was the creature who had befriended him.
“Are we to do nothing again? You promised that once you were whole we could move on! I want to see all there is to see! All this solidity!”
The rest had aided in rebuilding Dru’s reserves, but not completely. Nonetheless, the sorcerer himself was now eager to move on, if only to get a better idea of what he might have to face. He also wanted to find the way back, something he now knew still existed. At a vague point in his slumber, it had occurred to his unconscious mind that the fact that he could still draw upon his power in Nimth meant that there was a gap between the two realms. One of them had to be like the tear that he had fallen prey to. This time, though, he would not run. This time, Dru would make use of the rip in reality.
He stood up and looked the Void dweller straight in the two pupilless eyes. “Let us go.”
“At last!” Like a child unleashed from his studies, Darkness bounded forward, a hole of black space frolicking among the trees. Dru heard the frightened cries of birds and watched as many flew into the sky at insane speeds. In the woods themselves, small animals departed with equal haste.
Both amused and dismayed by the entity’s antics, the spellcaster followed close behind.
Dru had tried to map as carefully as he could the translucent sightings, but none that he had studied resembled this one; though, being in a forest, it was possible that he just did not recognize where he was yet. He supposed it did not really matter save that he was interested in locating Rendel and the Tezerenees’ point of arrival. Dru imagined the countless dragon-borne golems, a sea of still, blank-visaged beings who contained no true life of their own, who were merely vessels for the migrating Vraad. The sorcerer shuddered. If-no-when he found the way back, the Tezerenee plan would be abandoned. Barakas might still desire to cross and seize control of a body, if only because of their draconian origins, but none of the others would.
“Something watches us.”
“Where?” Dru could sense nothing, but he knew how faulty his senses might be.
“It is gone now.” Had he shoulders, Darkness would have shrugged off the incident.
Dru would not allow that. “What was it? Where did it go?”
His nebulous companion seemed more interested in a stream that was just coming into sight ahead of them. Darkness had never seen water and was visibly attracted to its fluid nature. Dru was forced to repeat himself, this time in much more demanding tones.
“It was Dru-sized! How does this solid move as it does? It seems almost like me! Look how it races and shapes itself! It went away. It was there and then it was not there.”
It took the Vraad a moment or two to understand that the latter portions of the creature’s comments were in response to his question. “The watcher simply vanished?”
“Yes, yes!” Darkness moved closer to the water. A rough limb extended from its central mass. The limb dipped into the water. “What a truly fascinating sensation! This is the most fun yet! Come feel it, little Dru!”
Dru glanced around, wondering where the unknown watcher had vanished to after its discovery by Darkness. He wished he had asked the entity to alert him more cautiously about intruders. He wished he could trust his own senses better.
Water splashed all over the sorcerer. Darkness was tossing the clear liquid about, awed at how it allowed itself to be scattered all over the area and yet seeming to re-form in the steam. Dru was reminded once more of how childlike the astonishing creature actually was. No, he thought, it would never do to thrust Darkness among the other Vraad. His innocence would be his downfall.
Shaking his head and momentarily putting his present worries aside, Dru wandered over to the stream and kneeled down to drink. He cupped his hands and swallowed mouthful after sweet, cool mouthful, allowing it to dribble down his chin and onto his gray clothing. To his left, Darkness stopped playing, now interested in the novel entertainment his tiny companion was performing for him.
“You are taking it within you! I did not know you could do that! We are much alike!”
Dru paid him no mind. With the acknowledgment of his thirst, he was forced to acknowledge his great hunger as well. It stunned him to think that he had not thought of either since arriving here, almost as if he had not, until his first drink, actually been a part of this realm. The spellcaster stood, eyeing the forest around him. It appeared much more real now; his higher senses now functioned more as they should have. He could even sense the passage that the unseen watcher had taken when it had departed. Darkness had been correct; it had vanished. What it was, however, remained a mystery.
Aside from hunger, other functions were now demanding their due. Dru spent more than an hour near the stream, the bulk of time involving the picking of berries from a lengthy expanse of bushes and fruit from a tree overshadowing the stream just south of his original location. Darkness took everything as part of his continual game of discovery, much to the Vraad’s annoyance.
When he was at last ready to depart, Dru had a destination in mind. The intruder had been in the woods to the north and the stream originated from somewhere in the same direction. That meant that there might be civilization there. There was also a distant chain of mountains that Dru hoped might be the ones Barakas had mentioned once or twice. Rendel would be there, directing efforts on this side of the veil, so the tall Vraad assumed.
Their journey that day was uneventful, something Dru felt very grateful about. While he walked, the sorcerer continually investigated the binding structure of this world. With his higher senses, he surveyed the lines of force running gridlike throughout everything. It was a much more basic, more stable pattern than Nimth’s spirals, stronger, too. This was indeed a world that would resist the coming of the Vraad.
A chill wind came up at that point, a wind in Dru’s mind. The uncomfortable idea of a land consciously resisting outside invaders stirred. He shook his head, trying to rid himself of such a mad concept. The idea
