Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol II - By Richard A. Knaak Page 0,251

one last chance to back down, though he prayed Silesti would not take it. “There will be several thousand, Silesti. We’re talking about all of our people, you know. We can’t leave anyone behind.”

“I have some concept of the numbers. They will be here. Anyone foolish enough to want to remain behind deserves their fate, but we will try to convince them otherwise.” A pause. “In fact, it will keep them busy and give them a reason why we have to delay! Perfect!” More confident now, he waved Dru and the elf away. “That settles everything. Now go! I want you here when the time comes… or I cannot promise what will happen afterward!”

Both men locked gazes for a time, the truth of Silesti’s words a grim reminder of the fickleness and pettiness of their kind. Neither could claim to be above such things, either.

It was the other mage who broke contact first, physically turning away from the two. “Find the bitch and get your daughter back! I just hope your youngster doesn’t pay you back with typical kindness when she finally does leave you!”

Dru watched him walk back toward the expanding crowd, then led Xiri away from the sight of the milling Vraad. When they were alone, she turned to him with a questioning expression. The elf wanted an explanation for the other sorcerer’s last statement.

“It’s good that Vraad live so long,” he said in a hushed voice. “Most offspring die trying to murder at least one of their parents.”

The horrified look he received made him burn with bitterness. “Yes, the founders and the guardians are very desperate if they think we are their last chance for a future! I thought you knew that already.”

“You are not like that! You could not have…” Though it was a denial, there was a hint of question in it.

His lack of reply was response enough.

They found a building that still retained enough roof to give them shelter for the brief time while they worked the spell that would send them to Melenea’s realm. Facing Xiri but avoiding her, Dru took her hands. He was becoming tired, so very tired, but it was not yet the time to sleep. Xiri squeezed tightly, not from disgust but rather from understanding. Dru felt like a corpse given a second life. He dared to kiss the top of her head just before they teleported.

TO ENTER THE heart of a raging storm would have seemed a pleasant task in comparison to what Dru and Xiri found themselves in the midst of when they appeared. The duo was thrown to the ground as a quake rocked everything. Dru was certain he felt the earth ripple like a wave. A frog with tiny human legs rushed past his dust-covered face. Something he was thankful he could not see slithered over his backside. Beside him, Xiri coughed hard in an attempt to empty her lungs of dirt that she had swallowed.

“What in the name of Rheena?” she finally managed.

Turning over, Dru found that his vision had gone mad. That was the first and most sensible explanation for what he saw. The spellcaster almost wished the dim glow in the sky would fade, if only so that he would not have to see what was happening around him.

They were only a short distance from their intended destination, but that minute gap had probably saved them from disaster. Melenea’s stronghold was only a chaotic memory of what he recalled. Its walls and cloud-capped towers twisted and swayed, snakes of marble and ivory. The entire edifice wriggled, a thing pretending at life. Things crawled all around it, nonsense creatures that existed only in the Vraad subconscious… until now. It was magic gone wild, a region madly unstable. He should have known that her domain would be one of the first to be lost. Melenea had always been free with her spells, more so than even the Tezerenee. Worse yet, what they had seen so far was only the first stage. Anything would eventually be possible in an area like this and there was no way to turn it back once the instability had established itself so. Even as Dru stared, dumbfounded, one of the walls grew a score of mouths, each of which began babbling words of no meaning. The land itself turned and shaped itself like soft clay, hills rising and sinking at random moments. Now and then, some new aberration would go running by them. Plants, as twisted as any Nimth