The riders looked to their clan master for further orders. Barakas Tezerenee considered, then said, “Take them west. Do not come back until there is a victor… or until both of them are dead.”
With a renewed flapping of their huge wings, the dragons rose swiftly into the air. In seconds, they were mere dots in the sky to even the most skilled of observers. In less than a minute, they were out of sight.
Barakas scanned the remaining Vraad-who were still uncharacteristically silent-and finally said in the same tone of voice he had used to dispose of Silesti and Dekkar, “May the spirit of the coming be with you.”
Without another word, he turned, visibly dismissing the throng from his interest, and eyed the waiting Dru.
Dru inclined his head briefly toward the patriarch. “I came as you directed.”
In the next instant, the Lord Tezerenee was standing beside him. Sirvak, who had a distinct dislike for anything of draconian nature, let out a low hiss. Dru quieted him while Barakas looked on, a cold smile playing across his lips.
“It is only fitting that you should be here, Zeree. This is your doing as well as mine.”
The intended compliment did nothing for Dru, though he pretended to be honored. “The credit goes to you, Barakas. To you and your sons, Rendel and Gerrod.”
For the first time since he had arrived, the patriarch looked uncomfortable. Dru noted with particular interest his discomfort at the mention of those two sons. “Yes. Yes, they’ve done their parts. You laid the groundwork, though.”
Below, the other Vraad had returned to their other interests, Dekkar, Silesti, and even the watchful Tezerenee forgotten for the most part. Barakas laughed harshly.
“Weak fools! Children! If not for us they’d still be bemoaning their fate!” He took Dru by the arm. “Come! The tests draw near, Zeree. I want you to be there when the time comes.”
The world around them seemed to curl within itself.
When it had unfurled again, their surroundings had changed. They were now in a vast chamber in which nearly a dozen Tezerenee sat on the outline of a pentagram, one at each point and corner of the design. A single hooded figure sat quietly in the center, different from the rest by nature of the long cloak, scaled tunic, and high boots he wore. Wisps of ice-white hair dangled free of the encompassing hood, identifying him readily enough for Dru.
“Father.” Another Tezerenee, clad identically to the one in the center, knelt before the clan patriarch. Barakas deigned to put a hand on his son’s hooded head.
“Gerrod. Explain what occurs here.” Beneath the calm tones, there was an undercurrent of suspicion and the first traces of righteous fury.
Gerrod looked up. In contrast to most of the male members of the Tezerenee, he was handsome. Dark hair hung down slightly on an aristocratic visage that took greatly from his mother’s side. He was slim compared to such as Barakas or Reegan and hardly the warrior type. He and the still figure at the heart of the pentagram might have been twins, so much did they resemble each other. Yet, there were more than a thousand years separating their births. Twins they were, but in the soul, not the body.
“Rendel couldn’t wait, Father,” Gerrod informed Barakas, speaking with much more calmness than Dru thought he himself would have been able to muster.
“Couldn’t wait?” Suddenly it struck Dru what Gerrod was implying.
The younger Tezerenee inclined his head toward his father, shivering slightly as the patriarch’s grip on his head tightened. Barakas could crush his son’s skull like a piece of soft fruit if he so desired.
The Lord Tezerenee glanced imperiously at his companion. “Rendel, it seems, Zeree, has jumped the chasm. His ka is now over there-in the Dragonrealm.”
II
“The what?”
Stirred by the tensing of its master’s body, Sirvak opened its eyes and hissed. A small wyvern perched on a ledge returned the familiar’s angry sibilation and stretched its wings in challenge. Dru silenced Sirvak with a few whispered words while a single glare from the Lord Tezerenee quieted the wyvern.
Lord Barakas smiled, a feeble attempt, if it was one, to reassure Dru. “Forgive me, Zeree. We have come to call the realm beyond the veil the Dragonrealm. Since no one else has put forward a name for it, we thought this one would do just as well.”
We meaning you, Dru thought sourly. The patriarch of the Tezerenee, who had personally raised the dragon up as the symbol of his clan, knew he had the rest of the Vraad at a distinct and unique disadvantage. Each day, since the first discovery that another domain, unblighted, lay just beyond their own, Barakas Tezerenee had worked to ensure that it was he who commanded the situation. When the first mad attempts at crossing over physically had failed shamefully, Barakas had turned his talents to studying the works of his rivals. It was only because of Dru’s own experiments that he now shared in the successes of the clan. He had devised what had become the Vraad’s hope, the Vraad’s triumph.
It galled the rest of the race and made Dru careful as to whom he spoke with. Vraad were nothing if not vindictive.
A disturbed Dru, in an attempt to keep from commenting on the Tezerenee’s presumptions, studied the prone form of Rendel. The patriarch’s son might have been dead, so limp was his body. It was quite possible, in fact, that Rendel was dead, his ka trapped in some endless limbo. What the Tezerenee proposed to do was lofty, even by Vraad standards.
Which left another question, one that Barakas had, as yet, left even his “partner” in the dark concerning.
Of what use was transferring the ka of oneself if there was no suitable vessel awaiting it at the other end of the journey?
The Lord Tezerenee had promised success to his rivals and counterparts. Even he knew better than to fail in those promises. Failure would erode not only his standing with those outside of the clan, but with the rest of the Tezerenee themselves. He had trained them to be too much like himself and that, Dru Zeree had always thought, was the most dangerous mistake that Barakas had ever made.
As fearful as they were of their lord, enough Tezerenee banding against him would send even the overwhelming Barakas to the dragon spirit he so revered.
“Rendel’s… enthusiasm… is commendable.” With great effort, Barakas removed his hand from Gerrod’s head. Dru was certain he heard the younger Tezerenee exhale in relief, though that would have been considered a sign of weakness by Gerrod’s parent. The patriarch’s son rose and stepped quickly aside.
Walking at a measured pace, Barakas led Dru forward. The method of ka travel was his own idea, but one, in his mind, that he had always restricted to Nimth. After all, where else had there been to go besides the Vraad’s own world?
The realm behind the veil-the shrouded realm, as Dru had first called it-had altered the lives of the near ageless Vraad as nothing else had. The ghostly domain had flaunted its rolling hills and lushly forested lands in their faces as far as they were concerned because, quite simply, it could not be touched.
Some had immediately scoffed, claiming the trees and mountains that superimposed themselves on Nimth’s own battered and unstable landscape had been nothing more than a prankster’s illusion. No one laid claim to the supposed trick, however, and it soon became obvious that this was no mirage after all. With that, the Vraad began to study the place in earnest… as a second home.
When was the last time the sky was blue? Sharissa had asked her father once. Dru could not recall then as he could not recall now. Not in her lifetime, short as that had been so far. Of that he was certain. Nimth had started dying long ago. Its death was a slow, lingering one that might go on for millennia… save that long before then it would be unsuitable even for the Vraad.