Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol II - By Richard A. Knaak Page 0,301

could have seen them now, she would have noted a different emotion than the uneasiness she had observed in the one in the city.

V

THREE DAYS HAD passed. One day he might have understood, but not three. Sharissa Zeree did not ignore her promises. She had said she would come, and he had prepared for her—three days ago. Now he could sense her nearing presence, at last, but there was another with her, one who fit nothing in his experience. Sharissa had brought someone with her, but who it was defied his abilities. He knew only that the two of them would be within sight of his hut in little more than a minute.

Hardly enough time to prepare himself. The glamour cast three days past had faded.

What goes on here? Gerrod Tezerenee wondered as he pulled the hood of his cloak about his head, carefully assuring that his features would be shadowed. With so little time available, it was possible he might blunder and cast a spell of insufficient strength. It would not do for her to see what had become of him… though eventually all Vraad might suffer the same fate. How ironic that he should be one of the first.

His eyes on the window facing the southwest—and the city he avoided with a passion—the warlock tried to concentrate. He had to finish before she was too close, lest she notice his conjuring and wonder. Dru Zeree’s daughter was far more knowing than she had been when they had first met. Then, she had been a woman in form but a child in mind. Now, Sharissa walked among the Vraad as one to whom those thousands of years her senior paid homage. She was the sorceress.

A tiny figure on horseback materialized at the horizon. Gerrod frowned and lost his concentration. A single rider. Sharissa. What she rode upon, however, was like no steed he had ever known. Even from here he could see it was taller than the tallest horse and stronger, the warlock suspected, than any drake.

It dawned on him then that what he felt was the ebony mount. It was the source of great power that he had sensed.

The pace the creature set ate swiftly at the distance separating Sharissa from the hut that Gerrod presently called his home. Cursing silently, he forced himself to concentrate again on the glamour. It would be a hurried, confused thing, but it would have to do.

A light wind tickled his face. Gerrod allowed himself a sigh of relief. It was no true wind that had touched him, but rather one that indicated his spell had held. He wore his mask once more.

“Gerrod?” Sharissa was still far away, but she knew that, at this distance, the Tezerenee could hear her with ease.

There was no time to locate a looking glass and inspect his work. He would just have to hope that he had not given himself some horrible disfigurement. That would be bitter irony, indeed.

It was late afternoon, which meant that the sun was more or less behind the newcomers. Gerrod knew he would have to work things so that it was Sharissa and her—what?—that had to suffer the sun. He dared not let the light shine too bright upon his visage.

“Gerrod?” The slim figure leaned forward and whispered something to the tall stallion, who laughed loud and merrily. Sharissa shook her head and whispered something else.

It was time for him to make his entrance… or exit, since he was presently within his hut.

Black cloak billowing around his somber, gray and blue clothing, Gerrod stepped out into the sun, his head bent downward to maximize the shadows he desired. His heavy boots on the rocky soil alerted Sharissa of his presence.

“Gerrod!” Her smile—a true smile, not the one formed by the natural curve of her mouth—caused a twinge within him that he pretended to ignore.

“You are late, Mistress Zeree.” He had meant to say it as if her tardiness had hardly mattered, but instead it had come out as if he had felt betrayed. Gerrod was pleased that she could not see his face now, for it was surely crimson.

“I’m sorry about that.” She dismounted with ease. “I brought you a visitor I think you’ll be interested in meeting.”

He studied the equine form before him, noting how it was somewhat disproportionate to a normal horse. After that, he nearly stumbled, for the longer he gazed at the beast the more Gerrod felt as if he were being drawn into it. In an