Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol II - By Richard A. Knaak Page 0,175

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.

“It was Dru-sized! How does this solid move as it does? It seems almost like me! Look how it races and shapes itself! It went away. It was there and then it was not there.”

It took the Vraad a moment or two to understand that the latter portions of the creature’s comments were in response to his question. “The watcher simply vanished?”

“Yes, yes!” Darkness moved closer to the water. A rough limb extended from its central mass. The limb dipped into the water. “What a truly fascinating sensation! This is the most fun yet! Come feel it, little Dru!”

Dru glanced around, wondering where the unknown watcher had vanished to after its discovery by Darkness. He wished he had asked the entity to alert him more cautiously about intruders. He wished he could trust his own senses better.

Water splashed all over the sorcerer. Darkness was tossing the clear liquid about, awed at how it allowed itself to be scattered all over the area and yet seeming to re-form in the steam. Dru was reminded once more of how childlike the astonishing creature actually was. No, he thought, it would never do to thrust Darkness among the other Vraad. His innocence would be his downfall.

Shaking his head and momentarily putting his present worries aside, Dru wandered over to the stream and kneeled down to drink. He cupped his hands and swallowed mouthful after sweet, cool mouthful, allowing it to dribble down his chin and onto his gray clothing. To his left, Darkness stopped playing, now interested in the novel entertainment his tiny companion was performing for him.

“You are taking it within you! I did not know you could do that! We are much alike!”

Dru paid him no mind. With the acknowledgment of his thirst, he was forced to acknowledge his great hunger as well. It stunned him to think that he had not thought of either since arriving here, almost as if he had not, until his first drink, actually been a part of this realm. The spellcaster stood, eyeing the forest around him. It appeared much more real now; his higher senses now functioned more as they should have. He could even sense the passage that the unseen watcher had taken when it had departed. Darkness had been correct; it had vanished. What it was, however, remained a mystery.

Aside from hunger, other functions were now demanding their due. Dru spent more than an hour near the stream, the bulk of time involving the picking of berries from a lengthy expanse of bushes and fruit from a tree overshadowing the stream just south of his original location. Darkness took everything as part of his continual game of discovery, much to the Vraad’s annoyance.

When he was at last ready to depart, Dru had a destination in mind. The intruder had been in the woods to the north and the stream originated from somewhere in the same direction. That meant that there might be civilization there. There was also a distant chain of mountains that Dru hoped might be the ones Barakas had mentioned once or twice. Rendel would be there, directing efforts on this side of the veil, so the tall Vraad assumed.

Their journey that day was uneventful, something Dru felt very grateful about. While he walked, the sorcerer continually investigated the binding structure of this world. With his higher senses, he surveyed the lines of force running gridlike throughout everything. It was a much more basic, more stable pattern than Nimth’s spirals, stronger, too. This was indeed a world that would resist the coming of the Vraad.

A chill wind came up at that point, a wind in Dru’s mind. The uncomfortable idea of a land consciously resisting outside invaders stirred. He shook his head, trying to rid himself of such a mad concept. The idea retreated, but did not leave. Dru threw himself back into the trek and his studies and was able to at least temporarily bury the unnerving theory.

Surprisingly, it was Darkness who called for a halt as the sun neared the evening horizon. The entity was unusually