“Shari darling, you may be correct! Wouldn’t that turn Barakas’s beard around? He’d be livid if he found out, you know.”
It was a confirmation of everything the younger female had thought of already. She knew she could not allow the Tezerenee to know the truth, no matter how much aid they were capable of giving her. With Melenea to help guide her, Sharissa was certain they could do it on their own.
“Why don’t you show me the crystals, sweet thing?” Melenea put a comforting arm around her shoulders. Sharissa took heart from the moral support.
Sirvak chose the moment to raise its head and cry out at something unseen. “Warning, mistresss! Someone stands without the bordersss of the master’sss domain!”
“Let me see.” Melenea withdrew from Sharissa and, as the young woman watched, stared blankly into space for a short time. When the eyes focused again, Melenea smiled wryly. “It’s your cloth-covered shadow. He’s trying to find a way around Dru’s defenses.”
“Gerrod?” They suspect, Sharissa thought in panic. Then she realized that they could not. No, Gerrod was here for the simple reason that his father had likely thrown it upon him to drag her back. Again, she felt sympathy for his plight, but not enough to give herself up. “He can’t get in. Father planned the defenses too carefully.”
Melenea was thoughtful. “If this were that mountain Reegan, I might be inclined to believe you, but this Gerrod has a sharp mind… a treacherous one. He might be able to outthink a series of spells.”
“Not if Sirvak is also monitoring things.” Sharissa turned back to the familiar. “See to it that he does not gain entrance.”
The magical creature looked upset, looked as if it wanted to say something else, but it finally bowed its head in obedience and simply replied, “As you say, mistresss.”
“Go now! What are you waiting for?”
With much hesitation, the familiar rose slowly into the air and, looking briefly at Melenea with an unreadable expression, flew off.
“Where is it going?”
“There’s a tower it uses for a roost. Sirvak prefers to observe from there.”
“It has preferences? How odd to find so much personality in a familiar! I’d forgotten! Still, Dru did create it, so it shouldn’t surprise me so much!”
Sharissa smiled at the compliment, then pointed at a hallway to her left. “This way. We bypass Father’s iron golem.”
“Then let us go. Let Gerrod hammer away until he exhausts himself.” The other Vraad made as if to teleport. When nothing happened, she tried again. It was only then that the young Zeree recalled the earlier troubles she and her father had suffered.
“The rift was near here. It makes some spells more difficult. We finally found it easier to just walk. I think Father actually grew to like the physical activity.”
“Did he?” Melenea sounded quite the contrary, but she finally shrugged. “I suppose it could be novel for a time. Very well, then. Lead on, Shari sweet.”
Sharissa found herself talking incessantly. There was something about having another woman to talk to that allowed her to say things she would not have spoken of even with her father. Melenea seemed so interested, too. Adding a point here or there and listening very attentively when the younger Vraad spoke of her mother.
“Father says I look like she did when they first met. I don’t know if that means anything; everyone keeps changing their appearances so. I don’t remember her. She died in some duel. It seems like such a useless way to die.” Sharissa looked at her companion. “I know I sound uncaring, but I’m not. It’s just that it was so long ago and I hardly knew her in the first place.”
An arm pulled her near the other woman. “I understand. The thing to do is harden yourself to the trials of life. To make everything, no matter how sad, into some sort of game. It is the only way to keep going after the initial four or five centuries. I have found life so much more fulfilling since I began looking at it that way.”
“A game?” Sharissa had difficulty with imagining all that had happened in the past few days as part of a game, but Melenea had the centuries of experience backing up her claim. Perhaps when this was over-if it was ever over-Sharissa would try to take her advice.
They came upon Dru’s inner sanctum. The two attempted to enter, but something refused to give them leave.
“I don’t understand this!” The young Zeree stepped forward and put a hand out. She met with no resistance and kept walking until she was completely inside. Melenea also put a hand out, but hers was repelled. Annoyed, she put the hand to her hair and tugged on one of the locks tracing her cheekbones.
“One of Dru’s safety precautions, lovely Shari,” the enchantress commented. Her smile was a bit forced.
“I’m so sorry!” Reaching out with her mind, Dru’s daughter disrupted the spell long enough for Melenea to walk through. “I grow so used to them that I sometimes forget, though I think this must have been a new one. It’s keyed only to Father and me and follows the changes in Nimth that I discovered before… before Father went out and…”
Again, Melenea was there beside her, giving comfort when it was needed. Sharissa wondered why she had stopped coming years ago, but did not dare ask. It was almost like having a sister-or even a mother-and she did not want to break the bond they had been forming.
“Oh, darling Dru! This is fabulous!” The comforting arms pulled away without ceremony as Melenea moved quickly toward the far side of the chamber and the glorious spectacle of the magical crystals. She eyed each and every one separately, it seemed to Sharissa, mouthing silent comments about the patterns and colors. The elder woman knew much about the use of crystals, that was evident. Sharissa’s hopes flamed higher; while she understood much of what her father had taught her, there were many things she suspected he had not thought she was ready for. Perhaps Melenea knew what to do.
After several long, agonizing minutes, the enchantress said, “The phantom lands… the shrouded realm as Dru called it; it affects the nature of Nimth, does it not? More so, I mean, than was assumed earlier.”
She did understand! Sharissa nodded rapidly, adding, “It has intruded in some places so much that like the ridge, no one can predict how sorcery will work. That was why Father waited so long before he tried to teleport away.”
Melenea nodded in turn. Sharissa had explained this to her earlier; had gone through each agonizing moment again and again. It had hurt her deeply to relive that time, but the other woman had insisted that she needed to know exactly what had happened.
“I wonder…”
“What?”
The enchantress shook her head. “Nothing. Idle thoughts, sweet one.”
Sharissa came over and pointed at the additions she had made. “There’s where I had to alter what Father had created.”
“That pattern should not be possible,” Melenea breathed in astonishment.
“Father said the same thing, but when he looked close, he saw that the other realm was intruding into our own. That was what sent us out to the ridge and…” She trailed off.
“Don’t trouble yourself with that anymore.” Circling the astonishing panorama once more, Melenea smiled. It was a smile unlike the others Sharissa had seen. This smile denoted satisfaction, great satisfaction. She wondered whether the enchantress had indeed discovered a way to recover her father.
“I think, pretty Shari, that you should add something here.” A thin, elegant finger pointed toward the very center of the spiral. “And here.” The finger now pointed toward a spot near the ceiling.
“Are you certain?” The locations that Melenea pointed to were certainly open to stable additions, but their purposes escaped the younger Vraad.
The brilliant smile banished her fears. “Oh, yes, Shari! We don’t dare go on until you add crystals to those two points.”
“All right.” Sharissa walked over to a case on a worktable. The lock spell protecting it was one she knew, having opened it often in the past. The case itself was wooden, with intricate scrollwork. Dru Zeree’s mark was upon it, emblazoned in the center. This was where he kept the crystals he used in his work.