Shifting form again, Darkness once more tried to berate his companion into movement. Behind the blustery tones were undercurrents of fear and excitement. “You can protest all you want, little Dru, but I have brought you home! Even if you cannot remember it, I can!”
That was the other thing that kept Dru from moving on, the shadowy blot’s insistence that this was Nimth. Even after the sorcerer had given Darkness permission to search his memories again, the entity had argued that he had not made an error. Dru had decided not to push too hard; Darkness had an ego as great as his interior, the latter of which seemed to go on into infinity when the spellcaster stared long enough.
Somewhere along the way, Dru had chosen to think of the creature as male. Perhaps it was the deepness of the blot’s voice or perhaps it was the overbearing arrogance. In some ways, his companion reminded him of Barakas. Knowing that Darkness could pick up the thought, Dru had buried it deep. He suspected Darkness already knew how he felt about the patriarch of the dragon clan.
“I want to try something,” Dru finally said. “When I’m through, then we can move on for a short while.”
“What is a ‘while’?” Darkness pulsated. Despite the light of the two moons and the stars, the lands around them were barely visible. Darkness, however, was blacker than the night, so much so that he almost stood out as a beacon.
Dru knew better than to try to explain time to a creature who dwelled in a place that itself did not comprehend the concept. Instead, he concentrated on a tree before him and muttered a memory-jogging phrase.
The tree should have withered, should have dwindled to a dry husk and crumbled before his eyes. It did nothing, but a black death spread across the grass beneath the sorcerer’s feet. He leaped away, forgoing pride for safety.
“Good! Now we can depart!” Darkness rumbled, ignorant of the failure of the Vraad’s spell.
“Wait!”
“What is it now?”
Kneeling by the blackened, dead blades, Dru tried to inspect the damage in the dim illumination. As he had spoken the fanciful phrase, he had felt the familiar twinge as the essence of Nimth bowed to his overpowering will, but it had been checked by a fierce protesting force from the shrouded realm itself. The sorcerer touched the grass, only to have it disintegrate into a fine powder. Dru cleared his throat at the thought of what might have happened if he had remained standing on the spot.
This world will not bend to us so easily as the last, he concluded nervously. This was not just spell failure; this was a battle of wills, so to speak. He already knew that a second or even a third attempt would gain him the results he had intended, but that was only a pitifully tiny victory. Like Nimth, which had turned mad from the massive abuses of Vraad sorcery, the stronger the spell the more this domain would battle back.
Suddenly, a world-heavy weariness swept over the frustrated Dru. He slumped back, visions of a land swallowing up each and every Vraad dancing about his tired mind.
The entity Darkness shifted closer to him, the two icy orbs staring down at him in what the Vraad vaguely recognized as anxiety for the sorcerer’s well-being.
“You are fading? You lack essence?”
“I’m tired.”
“What is that?”
“It means that I must lay for a time in quiet. Probably until after the sun has returned.” When that was, Dru had no idea. Time felt different somehow, almost as if the shrouded realm moved more swiftly.
The creature seemed annoyed that nothing else would be accomplished for now, but evidently understood that his tiny associate was lacking in many ways. “What shall I do while you lay down?”
“Remain nearby. I cannot protect myself as I thought I would be able to. I’ll have to ask for your aid in case something tries to attack me.”
“They would not dare! Not while I am here!”
Dru winced. “One more thing. Please make as little sound as possible while I sleep… lay down, that is. It will help me to recover my strength sooner.”
“As you wish,” Darkness replied in a rumble only slightly less deafening.
The sorcerer grimaced, but consoled himself in the fact that anything nearby would get as little sleep as he did. Still kneeling, he looked around for a more comfortable place to rest. At the moment, he was too tired to trust another spell, yet there was no area around him that looked inviting. Dru sighed and, pulling his cloak tight around him, simply lay down where he was. He wondered briefly at the sudden intensity of his exhaustion, then drifted off.
“Are you rested yet?”
Dru straightened with a start, turning his head this way and that. The sun was just over the horizon and the sounds of the day were already well into their second movement. Gradually, his eyes focused on the huge, ungodly thing next to him.
Darkness was a contrast to all around him, un life surrounded by life. Even the period in the Void, where the gigantic horror had been the only thing visible other than the helpless Vraad himself, could not compare to the scene now unfolding before Dru. Yesterday, he had been so turned around that he had failed to notice it. Now, though, Darkness’s disturbing form fairly shouted at him. This was the creature who had befriended him.
“Are we to do nothing again? You promised that once you were whole we could move on! I want to see all there is to see! All this solidity!”
The rest had aided in rebuilding Dru’s reserves, but not completely. Nonetheless, the sorcerer himself was now eager to move on, if only to get a better idea of what he might have to face. He also wanted to find the way back, something he now knew still existed. At a vague point in his slumber, it had occurred to his unconscious mind that the fact that he could still draw upon his power in Nimth meant that there was a gap between the two realms. One of them had to be like the tear that he had fallen prey to. This time, though, he would not run. This time, Dru would make use of the rip in reality.
He stood up and looked the Void dweller straight in the two pupilless eyes. “Let us go.”
“At last!” Like a child unleashed from his studies, Darkness bounded forward, a hole of black space frolicking among the trees. Dru heard the frightened cries of birds and watched as many flew into the sky at insane speeds. In the woods themselves, small animals departed with equal haste.
Both amused and dismayed by the entity’s antics, the spellcaster followed close behind.
Dru had tried to map as carefully as he could the translucent sightings, but none that he had studied resembled this one; though, being in a forest, it was possible that he just did not recognize where he was yet. He supposed it did not really matter save that he was interested in locating Rendel and the Tezerenees’ point of arrival. Dru imagined the countless dragon-borne golems, a sea of still, blank-visaged beings who contained no true life of their own, who were merely vessels for the migrating Vraad. The sorcerer shuddered. If-no-when he found the way back, the Tezerenee plan would be abandoned. Barakas might still desire to cross and seize control of a body, if only because of their draconian origins, but none of the others would.
“Something watches us.”
“Where?” Dru could sense nothing, but he knew how faulty his senses might be.
“It is gone now.” Had he shoulders, Darkness would have shrugged off the incident.
Dru would not allow that. “What was it? Where did it go?”
His nebulous companion seemed more interested in a stream that was just coming into sight ahead of them. Darkness had never seen water and was visibly attracted to its fluid nature. Dru was forced to repeat himself, this time in much more demanding tones.