What is this place?
So many races were represented, but only he had eyes for them. The Seekers were far too interested in the figurines, squawking like excited children… like Sharissa.
Dru wondered if she was safe. In the citadel, she would have Sirvak to watch over her, but he knew that being his daughter, she would be seeking some clue as to his fate. That worried him, for it would be easy for her to gain the notice of one or more of his rivals and, especially, the Tezerenee. They might see Dru’s accident as a new means of escape from Nimth, but it was not past the patriarch’s madness to assume that Barakas might choose to destroy Dru’s work. It would, after all, weaken the Lord Tezerenee’s tightening grip on his fellow Vraad.
A crash made Dru turn back to see what was happening with his captors. Four, including the leader, had been inspecting the artifacts. The care with which they had studied each minute curve of each figurine spoke volumes of their interest. Now, however, something had occurred that infuriated them. The leader had taken one small statuette and flung it at the towering figure of the dragon lord, as Dru was coming to think of it. The relic had shattered, spreading fragments about the room, but the statue had been unmarred.
The sorcerer watched silently. Bitter avians abandoned the figurines, returning to the rest of the party. The leader, frustration and anger at the forefront, pointed at the entranceway, indicating that Dru was to lead them back out. He dared one last glance at the majestic dragon and again felt it return his gaze. The Seeker leader, however, had no patience left and swung a taloned hand at him. Dru fell back, the taste of blood on his tongue, and would have collapsed to the floor if not for his two bodyguards. They kept him on his feet until he had recovered his wits, then pushed him forward, always staying close behind.
In the same manner as they had inspected the first room, the party went through the next dozen. If anything, they were more disappointing than the first. More than one turned out to be nothing but a pile of mortar and rock, the ceilings having collapsed long ago. A few of those chambers that were still whole held nothing but generation upon generation of dust. If the occupants had died here, it had been so long ago that their corpses, even their skeletons, had faded away with time.
They found no trace of the other intruders, although, with the jagged and rocky surfaces they clambered over, it would have been near impossible to find any sort of tracks. Dru suffered over the worst of the treks, his bound arms making it impossible for him to protect his face when he slipped forward. Concerned with their own footing, his two guards often could do nothing for him. By the time they had explored the first floor, the Vraad’s face and body were one mass of bruises and cuts. Given the opportunity, he could have easily repaired the damage, but his health was low on his captors’ priorities. Dru wondered why they had bothered to even keep him alive, so unconcerned did they seem.
The sun moved ever closer to its daily death. The Seekers’ leader grew more and more frustrated and his emotions were echoed by the others. Dru was beyond caring; the sorcerer only wanted to lie down, go to sleep, and wake up in his castle of pearl. He wanted to never have found the tear, the hole between this place and Nimth, even though that meant bowing to Barakas and his clan.
At what had once been the stairway leading to the upper floors but was now a jumble of rock, the Seekers finally lost their last reserves of patience. A look from the leader sent four of them leaping into the air. Dru stirred briefly from his worn musings to watch them fly through the hole where the upper portion of the steps had once led. Although it was a dangerous move, considering there still might be foes lurking somewhere nearby, the avians had chosen to split their numbers in order to facilitate their mad search.
Dragging the harried sorcerer with them, the seven remaining creatures continued their scouring of the main floor. They had come to such a point of desperation that they began to sift through the wreckage of each chamber the instant they entered. Under the watchful, one-eyed gaze of the leader, who held Dru while the search progressed, the avians picked at whatever seemed out of the ordinary among the chunks of ceiling and wall. A few items that they unearthed encouraged them and stirred Dru’s curiosity. One or two artifacts that the birds seemed to puzzle over, he recognized but was careful to pretend otherwise. Slowly, some of the ancient race’s prowess was revealed to the sorcerer. They knew much about crystal magic, that he could tell from the glittering fragments that the avians shoved rudely aside in their quest. What the Seekers sought, however, evidently had nothing to do with that; they seemed far more interested in objects that represented forms, such as dragons, animals, and things that might have been, in a vague way, referred to as human.
The leader, who still held him by the arm, suddenly cocked his head to one side, as if listening to something outside. Dru strained, but heard nothing but the clatter of rubble as the avians tossed bits of ceiling away in order to burrow deeper into the wreckage. A breath later, the rest had paused in their work, also listening.
Dru heard nothing save the beat of his own heart… until he realized that the clap-clap pattern could hardly be coming from him if the others heard it. No, the sounds issued from an unknown location near the main hall, and were getting closer by the second.
Rising, the Seekers looked to their leader. He eyed Dru, then tugged the spellcaster around him and tossed him toward the doorway. Stumbling, Dru stepped out into the corridor. The unsettling clap-clap sounds continued to rise in volume, in some way as familiar to the sorcerer as the icons had been earlier. He tried to recall what made that sort of sound, but his attempt to harness his scattered thoughts into something functional was cut off by a harsh shove from the Seekers’ leader. Lacking any choice in the matter-and that was becoming too common a way for one who had grown knowing there was little he could not have-Dru walked slowly down the corridor in the direction of the noise’s source. The avians followed, spreading out as they moved. Two took to the air, hovering near the ceiling.
The sounds echoed continuously throughout the vast structure, almost to the point where it grew difficult for the hapless sorcerer to estimate where he had to turn. He turned back, and as if knowing his confusion, the leader pointed ahead.
“Thank you,” Dru whispered in bitter tones. There was no hope of avoiding a confrontation with whatever sought out the party. It did not sound like the massive creatures who burrowed beneath the earth-the Vraad would have expected their footfalls to be near silent, considering that blood enemies lurked somewhere within the edifice-and neither did he think it was the elves, whom he had still not seen. They, too, would have taken more caution.
What then lurked in the main hall and had the effrontery to move without care of detection into a place of possible danger?
He was so near now that the clap-clap sounds made it impossible to wonder further. The avian leader put a taloned hand around his neck, essentially turning the Vraad into a living shield. The two of them, with the others following as if all were puppets commanded by the same strings, stepped into the main hall and, all too soon, the confrontation.
Behind him, the avian started, almost losing his grip on the human. Dru could in no way blame him.