Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol II - By Richard A. Knaak Page 0,207

projects, such as those he and Rendel had been working on, were forever abandoned. The Tezerenee could take nothing with them.

It was Rendel’s notes Gerrod wanted. Rendel knew more than he did about the shrouded realm. Not all of it had been shared with his closest brother, though Gerrod doubted they had been as close as he had once supposed. You left me behind with the rest, brother dear. He only hoped that Rendel had also left behind his work. It was quite possible that his elder sibling had destroyed everything so as to keep that much longer whatever advantages he had uncovered in his research.

Fortune was with him. Not only were the notes he sought easy to locate, but they had been so meticulously organized that Gerrod found the proper sections within seconds. Evidently, Rendel was unconcerned about what these notes contained. They verified what he had read in Dru Zeree’s notes and added new information that the outsider had not known… or perhaps purposely ignored, dealing as they did with the region in which Melenea made her home. Gerrod allowed himself a quick, triumphant smile and closed the book. He knew that there were other notes, much more well hidden, but there was no time to search for those. What he had would suffice, anyway.

“So it is you.”

“Mother!” Gerrod turned on her, wondering desperately how she had been able to sneak up on him and also wondering if there were others behind her whom he also could not sense.

“I came back to see our home once more. Silly sentimentalism, isn’t it, my son?” The look on her face was unreadable, suggesting both mockery and truth.

“Some would not see it so,” he responded in neutral tones, hoping she would draw her own conclusions.

“The plan falls apart, Gerrod.”

He had suspected as much, but hearing it from the mouth of one of the few he trusted, the hooded Vraad shivered. “What happens now?”

Her smile held no humor in it, only bitter irony. “It would seem that the golems, not all of them but a great many, have vanished.”

“How many are left, Mother?” The noose he had felt tightening around his neck since his last confrontation with his father began to choke him.

“Barely enough for the clan. To assuage suspicions, Barakas has selected a few outsiders already.”

“And me?”

“For the moment, there is still a place for you. You know that much of the anger your father throws at you should rightfully be directed at Rendel?”

“I know.” Gerrod smiled darkly. Rendel was his mother’s favorite, but he saw no reason to hide his feelings of betrayal.

“You are your father’s sons in the end, Gerrod.”

“Speaking of dear Father—much as I’d like to avoid doing so—you may tell him that Melenea has the Zeree brat. It was not my fault; she must have been the one who instigated the girl’s departure in the first place.” Whether that was true or false, he could not say. What it would do, however, was steer some of the trouble from his shoulders to those of the enchantress. Perhaps even Reegan, Melenea’s toy, would feel some sort of backlash.

“Leave her, Gerrod. There’s no time to get her out. As it is, she probably would have been left behind, regardless.” There was a trace of regret in his mother’s face, but she was hardly willing to risk one of her offspring being left behind. Alcia despised Melenea as much as any being did, but there were higher priorities than the daughter of Dru. “I do not think Barakas will wait too much longer before he decides to finish the cross-over. Some of the outsiders have been raising a fuss. The coming has broken up.”

Gerrod rubbed his chin. “How long left?”

“By dawn, your father wants everyone over. He will be the last to go.”

“How brave.”

She gave him a silent reprimand. “I cannot promise he will hold a place for you even that long.”

“Then damn him, Mother!” He would have thrown the notebook, but recalled in time what vital information it held. “Perhaps I’m better off here!”

Lady Alcia wrapped her cloak about herself. In the flickering light, she looked as if she wore a shroud. “It may be so, my son.”

Gerrod found himself alone. Snarling, he buried the notebook in the deep confines of his own cloak and also departed, leaving the keep of the Tezerenee and possibly his own future to the whims of crippled Nimth.

WHERE IT HAD still been day in the tiny, hidden world Dru and his companion had