Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol II - By Richard A. Knaak Page 0,148

signaled for the dragon to rise again.

“The clan master will be furious!”

“You may relay to him my apologies and my wishes for the best in the hours to come! I will contact him when it proves possible!”

In the end, it was likely the authoritative tone that backed the dragon rider away. From his time in the company of the patriarch, Dru had picked up on the voice that Barakas utilized to exercise his control. Trained from birth to obey that voice, the rider could not, in the end, match wills with Zeree. With a final muttered response that the wind, which had picked up despite protective spells surrounding the city, carried away, the Tezerenee rode off.

Dru sighed and smiled. Sirvak hissed in satisfaction. It was always nice to gain a victory, however small. The rider would probably wait until his master was finished speaking, rather than disrupt the patriarch’s great moment. That gave Dru a little more time before Barakas began trying to contact him. Time enough, if he hurried, to see his daughter.

The claws of his familiar tightened on his shoulder. The creature had gone from pleased to dismayed in only seconds. Even before he turned, Dru suspected what he would see.

The peak was fading. Slowly, to be sure, but far too quickly for Dru’s needs.

It was with a mixture of relief and anxiety that he vanished from the city only a breath later.

“SHARISSA!”

A soft mist settled around Dru as he appeared in the central chamber of his gleaming citadel. The pearl luster of his home generally filled him with a feeling of peace, of sanctuary. Not so, now.

“Sharissa!”

His call echoed through the corridors. When he had created this castle centuries before, he had added a spell that would relay sounds from one room to the next. For the most part, it had protected him from several angry rivals over the years and kept his most important work secret from even the best of his counterparts. In the twenty years since his daughter’s birth, Dru had essentially used it to locate her. Two people did little in the way of filling a void so large as this structure.

“Father?”

“Where are you?”

“In the theater.”

“Stay there.” Dru curled within himself and vanished again, almost losing Sirvak, who had carelessly assumed it was safe to climb off. The familiar let out an annoyed cry and dug its talons in deeper. This time, Dru winced.

The scene that he found himself in the midst of threw the sorcerer completely off balance. He was in a chamber filled with dancing couples. They twirled and twirled, completely ignorant of the towering figure caught in the center of the ball. To the side, a nonsensical group of animals that were also instruments played the music. A huge, furred thing, loosely related to Sirvak’s lupine half, beat on a drum in its middle while a four-legged monstrosity with a pipe-stem mouth played a merry tune.

One of the male dancers came within arm’s reach of Dru. The spellcaster’s eyes narrowed; it was his own face, but as it might look if he had allowed it to age more. Lines crisscrossed his features and the visage as a whole had filled out. Dru quickly turned and studied another dancer. Again, it was his face, but clean-shaven and with a somewhat bulbous nose. This one was also shorter by half a foot.

A quick scan revealed that all of the male dancers were variations on his appearance. Tall, short, fat, thin, old, and young… he was astonished at how numerous the combinations were.

Then his attention fell on the women.

They were Sharissa.

It did not surprise him, not really, since she had no one but the two of them to really go by. Nonetheless, as he watched the couples sweep across the floor, Dru was struck by a feeling of dread. Looking at them, he could see her as other Vraad would see her… fully adult and ready, physically, at least, to make her mark among them.

To use and be used, as was the Vraad way.

With a furious gesture, he dismissed the dancers. They dwindled instantly into tiny whirlwinds of dust, puppet images drawn from the life of the world itself. Unlike golems, who had some solidity and could comprehend orders, the dancers were no more than intricate toys, an art form that occasionally amused Vraad. He had taught it to his daughter when she was only a few years old and had been pleased with her immediate skill with the not-so-simple spell.

Dru was not