Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol II - By Richard A. Knaak Page 0,87

if I could! You were ousted and exiled here by those with greater power than me—and I cannot blame them!”

“It was all so glorious, I couldn’t help myself!”

“Mortals die, Yereel,” the stallion reminded his tiny twin. “You didn’t care how many, either.”

“I was living! I had purpose!”

Moving around his counterpart, Darkhorse began to drift away. He knew that Yereel could not follow him. Even the vast reaches of the Void were forbidden to him. The puppetlike creature could only travel in a small circle again and again. “I journeyed to reality. I learned about life and death. Your failure was your own, Yereel.”

“I should never have formed you!” the other cried testily.

Darkhorse did not look back. “Perhaps, that would have been better.”

As he moved faster and faster through the Void, the stallion heard the dwindling voice of Yereel.

“Then the hole, now a vast and mighty sea of false dreams and misconceptions….”

IN THE VOID, a trek could take no time or all time, including any interval in between. Had Darkhorse been the demon that others proclaimed him—or even one who had played at being a demon, like Yereel—it might have been different. He would have been condemned to stay here until some other spellcaster summoned him back. His self-exile had been such a one-way spell, though, in that instance, it was his cooperation that had given it the strength. Darkhorse, however, had a tie to the world of the Dragonrealm that was now at least as strong as his tie to the place that had spawned him. It should have been simple to pierce the barrier between here and there. Should have been, but was not.

He could sense the path, but it seemed endless. For a moment, he wondered if this were some trick of his counterpart, but Yereel’s powers were limited to his tiny piece of emptiness. Nothing could change that. No, whatever interfered now, was the work of some other influence.

His intended destination had been the Manor, where the shadow steed had planned a quick discussion with Cabe and the Lady Gwen about all that had transpired in the short time since he had left them. Slowly, it occurred to him that the difficulty might not be with him. If there was a threat to Shade besides Darkhorse, then it was Cabe Bedlam. More and more, it seemed to make sense, although Darkhorse had little other than a feeling to go on.

“Well, if I cannot enter near the grounds of the Manor, then I shall open a path farther away!” He felt foolish that it had taken him that long to think of so simple an answer to his quandary. He recalled the area where he had entered the forest last time, the place where the Seeker had escaped him. This time, he felt the portal form. Pleased with his sudden change of luck, he laughed quietly and, when the shimmering gap fully materialized, he abandoned the Void without further delay. Had it been at all possible, Darkhorse would have wished that he would never have to return to this dismal, empty region again.

IT WAS STILL dark when he emerged into the Dagora Forest. Another stroke of luck. With time only an imaginary concept in the ageless Void, it sometimes happened that whole days, even weeks, could go by back in the worlds of reality. Darkhorse’s journey had been, relatively speaking, a brief one and so he was fairly positive that this was still the same night that he had left only a short span earlier. Hopefully, he would not be proved incorrect.

Cautious of a trap, Darkhorse moved silently through the forest. Last time, his senses had been at their weakest. Now, though, they were at their peak, and he chose to make full use of them because of that. Whether those senses would prove equal to the task of locating and outwitting Shade was something that he would only discover at the worst possible moment.

The boundaries of the protective barrier were almost upon him before familiar landmarks informed him of where he was. The shadow steed backed away, not wanting to risk suffering through Lady Bedlam’s attractive little curses again. He trotted back and forth for some time in an attempt to locate someone who could relay his messages. After a few minutes, however, he gave that idea up. Unlike Darkhorse, the humans—and even the drakes, for the most part—were creatures of the daylight only. With the spell protecting them, most, if not all, were asleep.

There was something