Darkhorse shook his mane in obvious discomfort. “I understand friendship, little Dru, but love is beyond me! That he was a good memory to you is all I can comprehend!”
The shadow steed laughed then, an abrupt thing that jolted all three of his companions. One eye twinkled at Sharissa. “But come! Let us speak of joy! Darkhorse has found his friend at last! This is a good thing! I have missed your guidance, friend Dru, your knowledge of the countless things abiding in this cluttered multiverse!”
“And I welcome the chance to talk with you, but I have other tasks that require my attention. My kind depend on me, Darkhorse. A decade and a half is not enough to ensure the future of the Vraad, especially as weak as we have become.”
“Then what of your offspring… an interesting word. Did she truly leap from you?”
Sharissa chuckled and was joined by her parents. Darkhorse’s random lapses in the understanding of language was one of the many things she recalled about the creature from her father’s tales. The leviathan was, in many senses, the child that Dru had described. It only proved how different his mind-set was from those of humans and elves. So knowing and powerful, yet so naive and defenseless in other ways.
“I would be happy to spend time with you, Darkhorse, as long as you understand that I, too, have duties to perform.”
“Duties! Tasks! How you must enjoy them, so important do they sound!”
No one tried to correct him. Besides, Sharissa realized, she did enjoy much of her work. There was still so much to learn about their new home. The deep maze of catacombs and chambers beneath the city had barely even been touched. Gerrod’s discoveries, which she had completely forgotten about in all the excitement, now beckoned once again. It was still a welcome change, considering her first twenty years of life had been confined mainly to her father’s domain.
“It’s settled, then.” Dru stifled a yawn. He and Ariela were early risers, often already active well before dawn. The couple always ceased what they were doing, however, when it came time to watch the sun rise over the horizon. Sharissa joined them now and again, but always kept to one side. Her parents lived in yet another world of their own when they watched the arrival of day together.
“You are weary,” Darkhorse pointed out, ever ready to state the obvious. “I recall that you enter into the nothingness you call sleep when this happens. Is that not so?”
“Yes, but not immediately.” The elder Zeree rose. “I know you don’t sleep, Darkhorse, and you rest only on occasion, so is there some distraction I can offer you?”
The ebony stallion glanced at Sharissa. “Will you also be entering sleep?”
“Not for a while.”
“Then I will join you for a time, if you do not mind?”
She looked from Darkhorse to her parents. “I was planning to return to my own chambers back in the city. Will that be all right?”
“The other Vraad are likely still leery of him, but if you stay together, there should be no problem.” Dru smiled at his former companion. “Try not to frighten too many people… and keep your lone wanderings to a minimum until I’ve spoken to my counterparts in the triumvirate.”
“I will be the image of discretion and insignificance! No one will take notice of me!”
“I doubt that.” The master mage chuckled. “A few of those fine folk might even benefit from a jolt or two, now that I think about it!”
“Do not encourage him, Dru,” Ariela warned, though she, too, laughed at the vision of still-arrogant Tezerenee running across the shadow steed in the dark of the moons.
Sharissa kissed both her father and her stepmother on the cheek. In Dru’s ear, she whispered, “How are things progressing?”
“I pick up something here and there. I’ve expanded the dimensions of this little dreamland of mine… and I think the changes are making some sense at last. Have you talked to Gerrod?”
“He refuses to leave his dwelling and he’s grown more distant, almost like a shadow.” Sharissa paused. “Gerrod still insists the lands are trying to make us over again, that we’ll become monsters like the Seekers or those earth diggers you mentioned, the Quel.”
A bitter smile replaced the pleasant one Dru had maintained up to this point. “We were monsters before we ever crossed to this world. We only wore more attractive masks then.”
“The people are changing… I mean… not like Gerrod said, but becoming-”
“Will you two be whispering to one another all evening? If so, perhaps I might as well accompany Darkhorse back to the city.” Ariela’s arms were crossed, and she wore an expression of mock annoyance.
“I’m leaving,” the sorceress said, dressing her words in a more pleasant tone. To Darkhorse, she asked, “Will you follow me?”
“Would you like to ride, instead?”
“Ride?” She had not thought of that. They had walked the entire way from the rift to the courtyard because she had not thought of Darkhorse as a mount, but rather a being much like herself. Ride a sentient creature such as this, one that her father termed a living hole?
“You need have no fear! Little Dru rode me quite often! I am stronger, more swift, than the fastest steed! I do not tire, and no terrain is my equal!”
His boasting eased her concerns. “How could I resist such superiority?”
“I only speak the truth!” The demonic horse somehow achieved a semblance of hurt.
“I believe you.” She went to his side and, once he had knelt, mounted. There was no saddle, but the fantastic creature’s back moved beneath her, shifting into a more comfortable form. If only all horses could make their own saddles!
“Take hold of my mane.”
She did, noting that it felt like hair despite knowing that it was not.
“Take care, both of you,” Dru said, waving.
“We’re not going on any great journey, Father!”
“Take care, anyway.”
Darkhorse roared with laughter, though Sharissa was not certain as to why, and reared.
They were racing through the gates of the citadel and down the grassy meadow below before she had time to realize it.
It may have been that Darkhorse felt her stiffen, for he shouted, “Have no fear, I said! I will not lose you!”
She wondered about that. When Darkhorse had mentioned he was swift, she had still pictured his speed in terms of an actual mount, not the creature who had raced toward the city from the western shore in a matter of minutes. Now, Sharissa flew. Literally flew. The ebony stallion’s hooves did not touch the ground; she was certain of that. Her hair fluttered straight back, a pennon of silver-blue reflecting in the light of a moon that was not one of those existing outside of this domain.
They were through the rift and once more in the ruined square before Sharissa even thought to ask if Darkhorse knew where the tear was located. Now she understood her father’s vivid yet unsatisfying telling of his rides with the black steed. One had to experience it to understand.
The days ahead, Sharissa decided, would be interesting indeed.
In the citadel that was and was not his, the sorcerer and his elfin bride walked arm in arm to their chambers, not even bothering to watch Sharissa and her fearsome companion depart, for Dru knew the Void dweller’s ungodly speed well. Thus it was that neither noticed the return of the Faceless Ones, the not-people, at the exact moment that Darkhorse and his rider returned to the true world. They stood without the walls, all those who had chosen to return to flesh and blood, and stared with sightless gazes after the vanishing duo. If Sharissa could have seen them now, she would have noted a different emotion than the uneasiness she had observed in the one in the city.