"It means what I said."

Wellen interrupted, already seeing that this was going to turn into a conversation of confusion, which the inhabitants of the Dragonrealm seemed to delight in creating. "You said we were hardly the first to be allowed inside. Why are there not tales of the others? I would think the Dragon Kings or the Lords of the Dead would have discovered them."

"I take measures." It was all the gnome would say on that subject. "I believe that you made me an offer, Master Wellen Bedlam."

The scholar burned within. He realized that he had set aside Shade's existence for a brief moment so that he might satisfy some of his curiosity. "Yes. Knowledge of the land from which I began this journey in exchange for aid for two of my companions . . . although it seems too late for one."

"Perhaps. We shall see. What of the other one then? What fate has befallen him? Explain carefully the details."

Wellen did. That the Lords of the Dead were involved did not shake Serkadion Manee for a moment. When Wellen hesitated after first introducing their threat to the tale, the gnome merely raised one hand from the book in his lap and indicated he should continue. The scholar told of the attack and Shade's determination to track down the necromancers and make them suffer.

When he spoke of Shade's claim of blood ties to the self-styled G.o.ds, Bedlam noticed Manee's eyes widen, then narrow. Curious as to what effect his encounter with the wraith would have on the aged sorcerer, he slowed down at that point and gave as descriptive an image of the scene as possible.

Serkadion Manee hung on every word. From his expression, he seemed to be thinking that what the mortal before him was relating was impossible yet true. It was very likely that the ancient mage could tell whether Wellen was lying or not, so everything that left the scholar's mouth was the truth. It was not the entire truth, but at least there were no falsehoods. Wellen did not want to give everything away if he could help it.

After the story ended, Serkadion Manee leaned back. Wellen expected him to fall, but the sorcerer shifted as if a chair also held him. He appeared to be speaking more to himself. "So Nimth still reaches forth from her far grave. She should be dead by now, and all her children little more than a few vague memories in the souls . . . or specks of crystal in the eyes. . . of their descendants."

"What is Nimth? I heard it mentioned."

"Nimth, my young mortal companion, was my home. It was the home once of those who call themselves the Lords of the Dead, although I consider them shadows now, not living examples of its former greatness like myself." It had already become obvious that Serkadion Manee held himself in great esteem. He scratched him chin in thought. "This Sharissa, who claims ancestry, fascinates me, but I will leave the visitation for another time. The one called Shade, the one you desire to free, he might also be Vraad after all. This is worthy of note."

From the desk, a quill and a sheet of paper leaped into the air and darted to the waiting warlock. Manee did not take the items, but rather had them float to one side of him. The two newcomers watched as the paper stiffened and the pen readied its point just above the top of the sheet.

"Proceed," the gnome commanded the implement.

Writing at a furious pace, the quill filled the sheet with words. Manee's eyes were little more than slits. Although no words escaped his lips, he was evidently directing the pen's efforts.

When the first page was filled, a second flew from the desk and took its place. Xabene actually smiled at Wellen. The dancing quill and the soaring sheets seemed so fanciful, it might have been pulled from a child's dream.

After a third page, the pen froze. The final sheet joined the other two, which were floating serenely above the gnome's head, and then both paper and pen returned to the desk.

Manee was visibly amused by the att.i.tudes of his two guests. Wellen was entirely baffled by the gnome. Was he as benevolent and understanding as he appeared now or was the master mage who had trapped the Purple Dragon more what the true Serkadion Manee was like? Could he trust the gnarled figure or was the gnome only biding his time for some reason?

"Tell me, Scholar Bedlam, did this Shade ever say the word 'Vraad'? I should have paid more attention to him, but he seemed only to watch, and the necromancers and the Dragon King were so much more interesting."

One of Wellen's questions was partly answered. The true Serkadion Manee was more like the sorcerer who had tricked the drake lord and countless would-be conquerors through the ages. He enjoyed the challenges, even as certain as he was of the outcome of each. Over the centuries, or rather millennia, they had probably become one of his chief ways of battling boredom. Even the most avid scholar could not study all the time.

He wondered just how mad Serkadion Manee was.

Belatedly, Wellen recalled the gnome's question. He pretended to be considering the answer, then finally responded, "He may or may not have. It sounds familiar, but I could be mistaken.

The gnome uncrossed his legs and returned his feet to the ground. His eyes looked to the ceiling as he stared at something that existed only in his memory. "You have no idea what your ancestors were like, my young ones. We wielded power such as even the Lords of the Dead only dream of. Our world, Nimth, was our plaything . . . and play with it we did. We began to twist and turn its laws, make it a parody of both itself and us, its children."

Swinging one hand in an arc, Serkadion Manee summoned forth an image in the air. A landscape, but one that lived and breathed, not simply a flat picture. Clouds floated serenely overhead and a winged creature or two soared into and out of the tiny domain. Leaning closer, Bedlam saw that the landscape was sculpted, not natural, yet to such a masterful degree that one became so caught up in admiring it that one did not notice immediately the handiwork of the unknown artisan. In the distance, one or two high and elaborate buildings, possibly towers or castles, could be made out.

"This was the view from my domain." Manee seemed to age as he spoke. The spellcaster might deny it, but he missed his former world. He stared at the scene a breath or two longer, then wiped it away with a single slash of his hand. "But it exists no more and even as I chose to depart, knowing what was to come of our playing, it was decaying already."

He arced his hand again, summoning up the image. There was something different about it, however, something subtle that neither Wellen nor Xabene could define at first. The scholar only knew that he sensed a mood of uneasiness, althost like that of a person who suspects he is dying but does not wish to know the truth for fear he is correct. Clouds lingered too long in the sky. Nothing flew. Those were the only physical differences that Wellen could see, but that hardly proved a thing. If, as Serkadion Manee had said, this Nimth had already been decaying, much of that decay would begin with the unseen things, the breakdown of the natural laws that bound all Again, the gnome slashed his hand across the image, literally shattering it into a thousand ephemeral fragments that dissolved before they stuck the hard floor. "I can only imagine what the world this Shade and your kind left must have been like. A sick, twisted thing. The Lords of the Dead, they do not remember their own past very well, but I have often suspected that their domain is a mirror of those times."

Wellen nodded. Shade had made a similar comment.

"I was right in abandoning that place." Manee drew himself together. "But the Vraad still live on, if only in a distant manner, through you."

Xabene leaned close to Wellen. "He sounds more and more like Shade."

The gnome put a gnarled hand to his bald head in obvious discomfort. "None of that now!" he reprimanded to the air. "Struggling will achieve you nothing but more pain, you know!"

The scholar rose. Behind him, the chair instantly sank back into the rocklike floor that had birthed it. "Are you all right?"

"The Dragon King is becoming a bit of a bother, nothing more. Some of them will not accept the inevitable. Some of them cannot accept that Serkadion Manee is ever their superior. I, a Vraad of the highest achievement! I was the one who opened the path of power to my kind, showed them what they could do . . . not that they listened properly! The drake lords are novices. I have in this place the acc.u.mulated knowledge of two worlds and it is all for my use whenever I need it!"

Despite his words, Manee winced. "I can see that I will have to do something about him, but later." Serkadion Manee looked up at the two outsiders. "My own words remind me of the task at hand; you have promised me knowledge in exchange for a service. I see no reason to delay any further. What little I have garnered from observing you makes me fascinated. I never thought to explore beyond the eastern seas or the Sea of Andramacus to the west." He indicated the citadel as a whole. "How could I leave all that I had obtained over time? It would be better if I could take all of it with me, then . . .

Take it with him? Is that what he hopes to do? the explorer wondered, thinking of the sudden change in the citadel's location after all this time. Was the sorcerer trying to make his sanctum capable of transporting itself from one land to another? From one continent to another? What Wellen understood about teleportation indicated that Serkadion Manee needed to know much about a region before he could safely materialize there. He was probably capable of a blind teleport, but for something as distant as Bedlam's homeland, such a feat was too risky even for him.

Riskier still if he truly sought to teleport his entire citadel with him.

The idea did not defy Wellen's imagination, but it did defy his belief. He had never heard of a sorcerer with such power and ability.

"What about Shade?"

"His time will come after you have given me what is mine." "He could be dead by then."

"If he is Vraad, then he is not. If he is not . . . then he perished long before you came to me, my young friend."

"What must I do?" Suddenly faced with the task, the scholar was uneasy. Manee might just as easily strip his mind clean, reduce him to less than a newborn child. That might even be what the gnome intended.

"Nothing much . . . just trust me." Serkadion Manee chuckled as he watched the two.

From his empty hand the robed spellcaster produced a flat, square object made of some gray material of the like Wellen had not seen. It was not the same substance as the citadel walls, but did have similarities in appearance. A piece of finely forged metal was wrapped around one end of the mysterious artifact and on the metal, inscribed in black, were runes of an unreadable language. Humans generally spoke one language, the why of that never having been settled, but there were records of other types utilized by some of the races that had preceded the Dragon Kings as rulers of this land.

Serkadion Manee held the metal-clad end toward the two waiting figures. He contemplated Xabene for a time.

She stepped back, shaking her head. "This was not my bargain, gnome! I made no offer to you to go stealing around in my head!"

"Perhaps you will change your mind before long," he retorted, the sinister smile playing on his lips again. His attention focused on Wellen. "And have you decided to back down from this deal?"

Shade's life aside, Bedlam pondered their fate if he chose to abandon his part of the bargain. Immediate ouster from the gnome's sanctum; that was the least they could expect, that and forever to be haunted by the hooded warlock's ghost. "Do what you have to."

"I always do. Please understand that."

While he was still attempting to mull over the last, something seized him. Xabene called out, but there was nothing that Wellen could do. Something had hold of his legs and his arms, something with tentacles as strong as iron. The enchantress, too, was tangled in tentacles. WeIlen tried to make out their source, but he could only see a thick darkness behind her. Trying to glance over his own shoulder, the struggling man saw only shadows. The limbs just seemed to begin somewhere in the darkness.

The gnome was slowly moving toward him, the peculiar artifact held tight in his extended hand. Manee shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I find this necessary. Every time."

The cephalopodic limbs had him wrapped tight. Bedlam could barely move his head from side to side, which was what the wizened spellcaster desired. At an unspoken command, the scholar was pulled down to his knees. Serkadion Manee smiled one last time and touched the metal portion to his captive's forehead.

Wellen's head rocked back as what seemed like a lightning bolt shook him. A second shock, slightly less intense, rattled him just as he recovered from the first. The second was barely gone before a third, a bit less intense than the second, rocked him.

Only one variation jarred the otherwise rhythmic sequence. A brief flash of memory of the dismal domain of the Lords of the Dead interrupted things for only the blink of an eye. The vision of the tortured castle of the necromancers was enough to make him shiver.

The shock waves decreased with each successive one until finally he could sense them no longer. The scholar blinked, then realized that he had shut his eyes tight almost from the moment Serkadion Manee's toy had touched him. As the chamber came into focus, Wellen noticed slight alterations. Not understanding why and how Manee would change things during the few moments he had been out, he turned to where Xabene had been held.

She was not there, but the gnome was.

"That took longer than I expected," the squat figure commented in almost companionable tones. "Not many have dedicated themselves to knowledge as you have. Not in so short a life span, that is."

"What did you do to me?" Wellen's struggle was futile. The tentacles still held him tight. "Where's Xabene?"

"The typical questions. No originality? Here." Manee touched one of the limbs with a finger. The coils began to unwrap; the scholar was free in less than a minute.

"What did you do with her?"

"I sent her elsewhere. Would you have wanted her to wait in discomfort for so long?"

"So long?" He stared down at the stooped figure. "How long was I . . . it was only a few moments, wasn't it?"

Manee shook his head in sympathy. "Day has turned to night, my young scholar friend. There was much in your mind to gather, much more than even I had supposed. We are more alike than I thought. I must say it is refreshing to know that there is someone else."

Flattery was not what Wellen wanted to hear. "What did that thing do to me?"

"It merely read your mind, both the conscious part and the part where all you have learned or perceived is stored. Nothing is ever lost, you know. Even things you learned in pa.s.sing are retained. My creation finds it all and reproduces it."

Bedlam eyed the magical artifact in the gnome's wrinkled hands. "What will you do with all that?"

"Go through it later. There's always time. It may be years, but there will always be time."

Wellen almost thought he sounded tired.

"Can you take me to Xabene?"

"Of course." Serkadion Manee touched his forehead and winced.

"What's wrong?"

"The Dragon King is becoming most offensive. Had I known he would be so much trouble, I would have left him outside pounding on the walls."

That brought something to mind that Bedlam had briefly contemplated earlier. "Why didn't you kill him? It certainly seems as if you had a chance."

"I've not studied him yet nor have I made a copy of his memories." Mance looked at Wellen as if all this should have been logical. "I waste nothing."

Then, they were standing in another room. Xabene, in the act of pacing, something she had evidently been doing for a long, long time, stiffened. The rage and frustration boiled over when she saw the gnome.

"You! How dare you keep me in here all this time!" She rushed to Wellen and held him tight. "Are you all right? Say something!"

"I'm fine, Xabene. Other than a few jarring moments, I felt nothing. He didn't hurt me."

"Not that he would've cared!" Still holding the scholar, she glanced at Serkadion Manee. "Ask him about that, Wellen! Ask him if he would have cared if you were injured!"

"It would have been regrettable," Manee responded, not waiting for Bedlam to ask. "The loss of knowledge is always regrettable."

"More so than the loss of a life!"

"Life can be replaced; knowledge is often lost for too long, sometimes forever."

There was no doubt that he meant what he said. What similarities there were between the gnome and Wellen did not include this. Life was more important than anything. The death of those who had journeyed to this land, even the unseen, far-off death of Prentiss Asaalk, would remain with him to his own demise.

Serkadion Manee did not seem to see a problem with his way of thinking. "I do what I can to make certain that the process is safe. I will not waste what might again be useful."

Was this an example of their ancestors? Wellen hoped not. The ghost of Sharissa Zeree had not been at all like this. She had cared about life.

"We could discuss this until the end of all," Manee continued. "But I am a.s.suming that you still desire your end of the bargain fulfilled."

Shade! "I do."

"Then we shall commence with it now."

"What should I do?" He expected the gnome to order him to lie down. The Lords of the Dead had put Xabene into some sort of trance. If the necromancers and the wizened spellcaster were of the same people, then it stood to reason that their methods would be similar.

WeIlen was proved wrong. Manee looked up at him. "You should do nothing. All I require is your presence as a focus. You may sit, sleep, talk, or try to walk on the ceiling. As long as you stay nearby, I can search."

Opening his hands, Serkadion Manee suddenly held the dragon tome again. For the first time, Wellen had a good view of the stylized image on the cover. It was as had been described to him. A fierce and very elaborate design. The color of the book confused him, however, for he recalled that it had been some color other than gold. That he could not say for certain did not surprise him; events just prior to the mage's use of the memory device were still a bit cloudy. Bedlam hoped nothing had been lost permanently. He preferred his memories to fade away, not to be s.n.a.t.c.hed.

"Here it is." Serkadion Manee ran his fingers down one of the pages. He winced at a momentary pain, then resumed his reading. "Yes. Short but complex. Simple thought would hardly do. No one could maintain all those patterns and still be able to search .. ." The gnome grew more and more interested.

Xabene had shifted to the scholar's side. "Is this wise? He might bring forth one of the lords themselves or, at the very least, a Necri!"

"It's too late now."

Manee was muttering under his breath, his eyes no longer on the page but staring up into another world. For the first time since he had entered the pentagon, Wellen felt the familiar throb of warning. With the Dragon King to control and the spell to complete, Serkadion Manee did not need to waste power on something as insignificant as the novice warlock's poor abilities.

He felt the enchantress shift beside him and knew that her powers, too, had returned. Wellen hoped she would not try anything at this juncture. If Xabene thought now an opportune time to strike back at the gnome, Manee might indeed summon forth something other than Shade. Something they might all live . . . for a short time . . . to regret.

A faint scent of decay and death turned their noses. Xabene, who should have been more adapted to the odor, shivered, possibly thinking that one of her former masters might be the next thing through Serkadion Manee's spell.

Then, the gnome frowned. He twitched once or twice, searching, Wellen decided, but why was there need? Manee had been confident that even the otherworldly realm of the necromancers could not hide from his prying senses.

With a sigh, the tiny figure finally opened his eyes. His gaze darted from one side of the chamber to the other, as if he expected to see the hooded warlock standing with his companions.

"What's happened?" the scholar asked. Was it too late? Was Shade beyond everyone's power to save?

"He should be here. In fact, it almost felt as if he had . . . impossible . . . not likely at all . . . could it?"

A moment ago, Wellen would not have been able to picture the gnome caught up in uncertainty. Serkadion Manee knew everything, orchestrated everything to satisfy his goals. Yet, here he was now, at a loss.

"It has to be!" the sorcerer finally muttered. "It has to be! Devious! Worthy of a Vraad!"

"What is he babbling about?" Xabene whispered. "I don't-"