It appeared the consistency of marble, this thing before her, but Sharissa knew that if she touched the long, sleek wing or the muscular torso, she would not feel stone, but rather feather and flesh.
“The Dragonrealm is ours, and without even a fight,” Lady Alcia said with satisfaction. Sharissa looked up, unable to think of anything sufficient to say. The matriarch added, “My husband is disappointed. He so much looked forward to a good battle… with us winning, of course.”
As she spoke the last, one hand absently scratched at the reddish area on her neck.
IX
From the tower in which his private chambers lay, Barakas Tezerenee watched the vanishing of his wife and the others. Sharissa Zeree would be suitably impressed with the way of things by the time Alcia was finished. Her encounter with the elfin prisoner had been perfectly orchestrated, as he had expected. There lay potential in that meeting; unless he missed his guess, she would try her best to speak to the prisoner in private… although it would not be so private as she believed.
All things come together, the patriarch thought in satisfaction. He patted a square container upon which the mark of the Tezerenee had been emblazoned.
“Father?”
Barakas turned and faced Lochivan, who had materialized, as was proper, on one knee with his head bent downward. “All goes well, my son?”
“Yes, my lord. Sharissa is in the chamber even now. By this time, she is aware of the nature of the corpse.”
“Perhaps she can tell us what happened. That would be an added prize.”
“Does it matter so?”
“We must strive to further ourselves. If the legacy of the avians can aid us, so be it.” The patriarch looked down at his son. “You are a few minutes early.”
Lochivan did not look up. “I deemed it more beneficial to our goals that I depart the chamber. Sharissa is not comfortable in my presence.”
“She will have to learn if she is to marry your brother.”
This time, the younger Tezerenee did look up. His helm hid much of his visage from his parent, but Barakas knew his son’s mind. “Is that necessary, Father?”
Barakas started to scratch his wrist, but fought down the urge. “I listened to you. I allowed you to use that sycophant to drop off your little gimmick. You had raised good points. Now, I see that we no longer have to worry about Dru Zeree following us… not, at least, for quite some time.”
The kneeling figure did not speak, knowing there was more to come.
“Your toy failed. She fought it, proving she has a will worthy of the Tezerenee. The cross-over had not yet commenced, and her interference might have brought the rest of the Vraad down on us, something I did not wish at the time.” Something caught the corner of his eye. He turned, but all he saw was the box sitting on a table. A simple magical test of the barriers proved they still held, so he knew that it was not an escape attempt he had noted.
Lochivan made the mistake of looking up. Barakas returned his attention to his son. “I find I am more than satisfied that taking her was the correct maneuver after all. Reegan needs a strong hand to guide him. She will be that guiding hand once I have molded her properly.” He folded his arms. “Now, do you still have qualms?”
“No, sire.”
It was a lie and they both knew it, but the Lord Tezerenee also knew that he could rely on Lochivan to obey him in all things. “Very well. You are dismissed.
…Wait.”
“Sire?”
“Tomorrow, I want a force ready to ride to the mountains, ground and air forces.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Go.”
Lochivan vanished without even rising. It was an act that attested to the rejuvenation of the Tezerenees’ power. They were not yet the masters they had once been in Nimth, but that day could not help but be drawing near, the patriarch believed.
He started to turn back to the window once more, when, for the second time, something caught his eye. It was gone before he could do any more than register its existence, but the Lord Tezerenee froze where he was, for there was something familiar about the shape, a shrouded, possibly human shape.
Quickly moving to the box, he touched the seal. There had been no trick-ery; the box was, indeed, still protected against assault from both without and within. He felt the presence trapped inside stir to renewed fury.
“Struggle all you like, demon,” Barakas whispered to the one imprisoned within. “You will bow to my control, or else I’ll leave you in there and lose you somewhere in the deepest cavern I can find.”
The struggling subsided. Fear was gaining ground. Barakas had introduced Dru Zeree’s deadly companion to a place even worse than the emptiness of the Void. It had not been difficult to uncover the shadow steed’s principal weakness. He feared to be alone.
In the box, there was not even the nothingness of the Void to share Dark-horse’s fate, only the ebony creature himself.
“That’s better. If you behave yourself, I will even let you see Lady Sharissa again.” It would serve as a lesson to both. He would see that she was helpless despite being free to move about, and she would note that even a might as great as he was little challenge to the Tezerenee.
It was the next step in breaking their will.
Removing his hand from the box, Darkhorse’s ungodly prison, Barakas scratched at his throat. He still wondered about the image. Was it a trick of his eyes, eyes that had, of late, not seen as well as they should have? Was it just his imagination? If so, why pick that one image to conjure to life?
Why would he imagine the startled vision of his traitorous son, Gerrod?
Something had gone wrong terribly wrong and he didn’t know what to do and he didn’t know where he was and how he had ended up here but the last thing he remembered was almost reaching his goal but his father had been there, hadn’t he?
“Stop it!” Gerrod screamed at himself, not caring a whit at the moment how mad he must look. He put his hands to his ears as if by doing so he could silence his own inner voice. Yet, the insane thoughts rambled on for several breaths before the warlock was finally able to bring himself under control.
In perverse fashion, it was his father’s words that provided the willpower.
We are the Tezerenee. The name Tezerenee is power. Nothing is greater than our will.
Until this moment, those words had always struck him as contradictory and simplistic. For all his father’s speeches, only one will really mattered among the clan of the dragon-the patriarch’s, of course. Now the words reminded Gerrod that his father would not allow madness to rule him so easily. The Lord Tezerenee would fight it with as much strength as he would a physical foe. It all depended on how you focused that strength.
Gerrod would not allow himself to fail where he knew his father would succeed.
Through silent contemplation, he brought order to his thoughts and quelled, if not cast out, the fear. It occurred to him then that he had closed his eyes upon losing his hold on his destination and had not opened them again.
From the darkness of his inner self, Gerrod found himself thrust in the light of… nothing?
For lack of a better term, he was willing to call his surroundings white, though white implied something, if only light and color, and this was neither. It was simply a vast nothingness.
“Dragon’s blood!” he hissed, momentarily slipping to a favorite Tezerenee oath.
He was floating helplessly in what could only be the emptiness that Dru Zeree had tried so desperately to describe, but always in so very inadequate terms. Gerrod could see why. Nothing, no words, could match the truth. There was no description that could do justice to the Void.
Calm. He had to remain calm. Master Zeree had escaped this place, and so would he.
What had happened? Gerrod recalled his brief intrusion into the real world and the sudden vagueness of his destination, as if the teleport spell no longer had a certain path to fix upon. His father had been there, a risk the warlock had been willing to face, but not the dweller from the Void. Why? The spell should have brought Gerrod to Darkhorse, unless there was some unforeseen barrier…