Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol II - By Richard A. Knaak Page 0,304

shook his head again, a habit, Gerrod realized, that signaled the beast’s confusion.

“I’ll try to explain later,” Sharissa said. She gave the warlock an apologetic smile. “I will be back… and you could come to see me once in a while.”

“Perhaps,” was all he said in reply. They both knew that he would never voluntarily return to the city. That would mean contact with his clan, possibly with his father.

Sighing, Sharissa stepped to the side of her inhuman companion. Darkhorse bent his legs in a manner that would have crippled a true steed and lowered himself so that she could mount. Gerrod saw the creature’s back ripple and shape itself to conform to the rider.

“It won’t be too long,” the sorceress added, trying to make the best of things. “Father can only do so much. He needs my help in all this.”

He said nothing, knowing that any words escaping his lips now would do nothing but weaken their friendship. That might make her decide never to return. Then he would be completely isolated from his kind.

“Good-bye, Gerrod.” Her smile was a bit feeble, possibly because she could not read his shadowed face and, therefore, did not know if he was angry or merely hurt. Sharissa knew how much he looked forward to her visits, and the warlock had assumed that she also looked forward to them. At the moment, he was not so certain anymore.

“Watch yourself,” the Tezerenee blurted. “Never trust a sleeping drake, remember?”

“She has nothing to fear while I am near!” roared Darkhorse. He laughed at his own unintentional rhyme.

“As you say.”

The ebony stallion turned toward the direction of the city, reared, and was already off before Gerrod could even raise a hand in farewell. Sharissa waved back at him for a brief time, but the lightning speed with which the astonishing creature ran forced her to soon abandon that act in favor of further securing her grip on his mane. Within moments, the duo were dwindling dots in the distance. Gerrod had wondered why she had ridden all the way out to him merely to tell him she would not be able to stay, but now he saw that, to Darkhorse, the distance separating the city from his habitat was little more than a short jaunt. Their much slower arrival had been planned; a speeding Darkhorse might have been mistaken for some dire threat.

“So understanding about some things, yet still so naive about others.” He hoped she was correct about his father. Barakas was hardly the type to sit calmly while a potential threat such as the ebony terror represented was allowed to roam among the Vraad at will.

Knowing he was now safe, Gerrod removed both the hood encompassing his head and the glamour masking his features. It was good that Sharissa was, to a point, predictable. She had the skill and power to teleport from the city to here, but she would not make use of that ability. Her uneasiness when it came to the spell was what kept his secrets safe from her. As long as Sharissa gave him the time, he could hide what he was becoming and what he had discovered.

She would have been shocked if she had seen his unprotected visage. Even his erstwhile parents would have likely felt some sympathy for his plight, especially as they would soon follow him… as all Vraad would.

His hair was turning gray, and there were lines gouged into his skin that only age could have wrought. The others had never thought about how their sorcery was what so extended their life spans, but he had found out the truth the hard way. His own experiments, which had taxed his lifeforce further, had turned him into a creature older in appearance than either Dru Zeree or the patriarch. He could have been his own grandfather, the warlock thought in sour humor.

Sharissa would have sought to aid him, but he wanted nothing of her sorcery. He would not give in to this world, become one of its creatures. Gerrod was certain that the Vraad faced either death from old age or, if they surrendered themselves completely to their new home, a worse fate. Dru had told him of how the Seekers and others like them had once had the same ancestors as he. The founders’ experiment had altered them, made them monsters. He was no more willing to fall to that fate than he was willing to let the decay of his body take him. Somehow, someway,