The splash as Darkhorse struck drowned out all other sounds. The eternal registered only that whatever lake or river he had landed in was very deep, for despite the speed with which he had fallen, he still did not touch bottom. Gradually the eternal's wild flight slowed until at last he floated, quite dazed, several feet below the surface.

Darkhorse slowly recovered, noticing only belatedly that he was drifting along at a good rate of speed. A river, then. The shadow steed regained enough control of his body to halt his progress, then, still underwater, started the process of restructuring himself. The legs formed readily enough, but it took him several minutes to re-create his head and tail and a few minutes more to add fine detail.

Suddenly Darkhorse sensed the presence of a spellcaster, likely the same one whose probe had led him back to the Dragonrealm. The unknown mage searched the waters for him, probing closer and closer. Darkhorse decided to save the other the trouble of searching any longer. The spellcaster might be the reason that the eternal had managed to escape the nether realm, but he also might be the one who had trapped him there in the first place.

The shadow steed burst through to the surface, rising above the water. He saw now that he had indeed fallen into a river. A forest covered the landscape as far as he could see. Suspicions concerning his whereabouts grew solid.

His attention shifted to a figure among the trees: The spellcaster he had sensed. Not a man, but a woman. Not any woman, either, but she who had gone by the name Tori.

Darkhorse swooped down on her, moving so swiftly that the sorceress had little time to react. He came to a sudden halt directly in front of her, one foreleg raised up, and glared. The eternal still floated two or three feet above the woman, which meant that she had to crane her neck in order to look at him.

"I have had enough of your games, female!"

"What are you talking about? I saved you!"

"And how was it I became trapped in the first place?" From the way her expression altered, Darkhorse a.s.sumed that he was correct. The enchantress had been responsible. "I know not what your plan is, but you may consider it a lost cause!"

To her credit, she did not back away. "I don't know what you're talking about! I arrived at this spot, saw nothing, and was about to leave when I felt your presence. You were here but not here. I searched and found you. . . somewhere beyond. After that, I kept working until I was able to open one end of a blink hole for you! If not for me, you'd still be . . . wherever!"

"I do not believe you. I believe that you are in part responsible for the kidnapping of Aurim Bedlam!" The shadow steed descended to the ground. The woman did not behave as he would have expected. She should have attacked or, if she was sensible, retreated. Instead, the sorceress acted as if she were now the offended party. Despite her defiance, however, Darkhorse pressed on. "And after you kidnapped Aurim, you worked to a.s.sure I would not be able to rescue him!"

"Which is why I also helped you to escape, I suppose." The blond sorceress shook her head. "That makes no sense and you know it, demon steed."

"What makes no sense, unless you are lying, is your sudden appearance at so opportune a time! I follow the lad's trail, discover that he and his captors have seemingly vanished, and when I try to follow, I find my spell torn about and my path back no more! Then you appear and lead me out! Tell me that your timely rescue of me can possibly be due to chance, female!"

"My name, if you have to have one, is Yssa."

"A name as false, no doubt, as Tori!" The shadowy stallion took a step forward. Yssa, if that was truly her name, had the good sense to retreat an equal distance. "You are avoiding the subject!"

"Believe what you will." The enchantress steeled herself, even daring to stare him in the eye. "No, my finding you was no chance thing, demon steed. You mentioned Aurim Bedlam during our last visit together . . . and how he'd met someone. I came to . . . to see who it was."

"Did you? How very, very inquisitive considering you had never met either of them." Darkhorse snorted. "Or have you? Aurim, likely not, but perhaps you did know the young woman Jenna!" Her blank stare did not suit him. "A merchant's daughter, so she claimed." He described her in detail, but Yssa still gave no sign of recognition . . . or did she? Yssa's mouth tightened slightly as the shadow steed added every bit of information he could recall about Aurim's lady. She knew something. "You still claim no knowledge?"

"I know no one who looks like that."

Darkhorse kicked at the ground, creating a tiny yet deep crevice. Yssa jumped. The eternal stepped forward. Yssa again retreated, but this time a tree trunk blocked her path. She looked ready to do another vanishing act, but Darkhorse shook his head. "No escapes this time, human! You will find it impossible to depart, I promise."

"I've done nothing but help you, demon steed. You've no right-"

He reared, sorcerous energy radiating all around him. His eyes flared. "I am Darkhorse! I do what I choose to do for what cause I care to take up! Someone dear to me and dear to others I care for is missing! You know much, but you think you can keep it from me!" The branches of the trees nearest Darkhorse shook wildly. He thrust his head so close to Yssa's face that it filled her view. "I will have answers!"

"Saress!" the stunned and frightened enchantress blurted. "It was Saress! I'm sure of it! I know she's journeyed to Penacles in secret in the past and each time she's brought back a young spellcaster for Lanith. Someone . . . someone I knew within the palace walls told me that she brought at least two, both of them ensorcelled! If Lanith can't pay them enough to be his lackeys, he's more than willing to take them against their will, and the easiest way is through Saress!"

"So, you pretended not to know her when I described her as Jenna! I do not like being lied to, human!"

"I didn't lie to you . . . not exactly. That wasn't Saress. Not her normal appearance. She's good at casting illusion, though. If it wasn't her, then I can't imagine who it could've been!"

The tree limbs stilled. The shadow steed allowed the aura surrounding him to fade, but he did not back away. "You know this Saress very well, I believe! How?"

"I've encountered her before. She . . . she nearly made me one of King Lanith's forced volunteers. She also killed a friend of mine in the name of her master."

Her sincerity was questionable, but Darkhorse sensed some element of truth in her words. He took one step back, giving Yssa just enough s.p.a.ce to let her relax a little. Darkhorse did not want her becoming too relaxed, however, not until he was certain that he had all the information he required. "How powerful is Saress?"

"Powerful?" Yssa seemed uncertain what the eternal meant by his question. "She's fairly powerful. Not like Cabe Bedlam. Better than the others in the Magical Order, but that's not saying much." Along hesitation followed. "She might be a little stronger than I am." Her expression hardened. "Maybe."

"Is she this intelligent force?"

"No." She said it with such confidence that Darkhorse could not doubt her answer. He had suspected that Saress was not the dark power behind the horse king.

Darkhorse came to the conclusion that Yssa was not an enemy in disguise but rather an unruly, self-reliant witch who preferred her own unorthodox methods to working with others. True, she had pa.s.sed along information to Cabe and the Gryphon, but more because it suited her purpose. Dark- horse was amazed that she had remained hidden from both the Dragon Kings and human spellcasters for so long, but then, it was possible that she was even more skilled than the eternal believed. Certainly the peculiar pattern of energy within her, the magical signature, was unique. In some ways it was also harder to read than most. There was much about Yssa that remained an enigma, but Darkhorse would worry about that after he had rescued Aurim.

How he was to do that, Darkhorse still did not know. Best to talk it over with Cabe and Gwen, however unnerving the thought of telling them about their son's kidnapping. In desperate hope that he was wrong, the shadow steed asked, "You are certain that this Saress is responsible? You sensed her presence where the boy vanished?"

Her nostrils flared as if she had inhaled something repugnant. "I could mistake her for no one else. She was there. If your friend also was, then they were together. It couldn't be coincidence."

"No, I thought not." That was it, then. He had to break the terrible news to the young sorcerer's parents. Darkhorse looked around, trying to orient himself so that he could head the proper direction back to the Manor. "This is . . . the Dagora Forest, is it not?"

Yssa looked uncomfortable. "Yes."

"Why here? Why bring me to this place?"

"This is where I was when I sensed you. I didn't notice anything near Penacles."

"Indeed? How very peculiar." It was also very suspicious. What the woman had told him sounded like the work of a powerful spellcaster. There were very few of those. Of course, this was the Dagora Forest, but surely that did not mean . . . "Yssa, what brought you to this place? Why come here after Penacles?"

"Because she came to see me, demon sssteed," answered a figure suddenly standing among the trees.

"Lord Green . . ." The Dragon King bowed in acknowledgment of his ident.i.ty. Darkhorse shifted to better face the drake. Again he found himself wondering about Cabe Bedlam's sudden withdrawal from friendship with the armored ruler and how that affected his own standing. None of the drakes had ever considered the eternal a comrade, but this one had at least acted respectful. Now, though, the Green Dragon's anxiety shone like a beacon. The drake lord was worried about something.

Darkhorse thought he knew what it was, and the knowledge made him furious. Small wonder that the Green Dragon might fear his wrath. "It was you, was it not? It was you who trapped me in the first place! It was you who prevented me from rescuing Aurim!"

"I'm sorry," Yssa called, but her words were not meant for Darkhorse. Instead, she bowed her head toward the Dragon King and repeated her apology. "I'm sorry. I didn't think."

The drake lord waved off her apology with one mailed hand. "You could not know. It doesss not matter, my dear."

"You know her?" It was a conspiracy, then. The woman had to have worked with the Dragon King to trap him. Darkhorse did not know why they had dared snare him, but he would have answers even if both of them had to pay. The ebony stallion reared up, energy crackling around him.

"Plea.s.sse calm yourself, demon sssteed. No harm wa.s.ss meant to you. I only sssought to prevent you from becoming yet another of the horssse king's slaves. I wa.s.ss nearly ready to release you myself. I only needed to compossse myssself for what I knew would be a very . . . sssensitive . . . conversation with you."

Darkhorse was not at all certain he believed the drake, but he dropped to the ground. "Then say what you must say, Lord Green, for I have a friend in peril."

"I will, but not here." Before the eternal could question him, the Dragon King raised one hand. As he did, their surroundings shifted. Gone was the forest, to be replaced by a cavern chamber, a vast natural room that Darkhorse recognized as the court of the Green Dragon.

The drake lord no longer stood before him, but sat on a huge stone throne. An arch formed from vines rose above the throne. The same vines coursed along the walls of the chamber, adding a sense of life to what might otherwise have been an empty, soulless place. Despite a lack of natural light, the vines seemed as healthy and fresh as if they had been growing outdoors.

"We risk no one listening in while we are here," explained the Green Dragon. "Not even whatever force it is that ssserves Lanith. I have also disssmissed the guardsss. There will be no ssspies of any sort."

All that might have been true, but Darkhorse still wondered about the presence of one other in the chamber. Yssa now stood to one side of the throne, as if she had every right to be there.

"What of her? What is her part in all of this, Lord Green? Too many questions have been dangled before me. Too many questions and not nearly enough answers!"

"Yssa is here by my permission. It isss too long since we ssspoke and that is a shame that I mussst bear. I am glad that she ha.s.ss at last come back to me."

"I had to," she responded. "I had no choice."

"Yesss . . ." The Dragon King seemed somewhat bitter, but his bitterness appeared to be directed at himself. "Of course."

"Yssa." For the first time, the name made some sense to Darkhorse. Many drake names had similar sounds. There had been Ssarekai, so loyal to the Bedlams, his human lords, that he had sacrificed himself in an attempt to stop the renegade Toma. Now there also existed Sssaleese, leader of the fledgling drake confederation. Yssa was a perfectly normal name-especially for a drake. "So . . . you are not human after all, female."

She looked insulted. "But I am, Darkhorse! I am . . . at least in part."

"Yssa isss human, demon steed," insisted the drake lord somewhat uncomfortably. "Her mother wa.s.ss a very beauteousss woman"-the Green Dragon reached out a hand to the sorceress, who took it after some hesitation-"and I . . . and I am her father."

Chapter Eight.

"You cannot mean what you say, Lord Green! Such a coming together is . . . has always been . . ."

"Unthinkable?" The drake lord removed his hand from that of Yssa and leaned forward, red eyes staring defiantly into the eternal's own. "Do you deny the possibility that at least once in the past the two races have come together? Do you think that no one ever thought of such a combination?"

Darkhorse snorted. "I am not so naive. There have always been those of both races who found themselves attracted by . . . shall we call it the exotic, my Lord Green? Yet, that does not guarantee that their union will be blessed. We are talking of drakes and humans, after all!"

"Two races not so dissimilar as you think, at least based upon my ssstudies. There are those who find the new emperor attractive, if you recall."

Darkhorse recalled all too well. Cabe's own daughter Valea had been attracted to the young drake, who, admittedly, looked nearly human. Many of the latest generation of drakes seemed more human than ever, which made the potential for human-drake relationships more and more likely. The eternal did not like the notion; the Dragon Kings and their people had always been adversaries, the masters who needed to be overthrown or, at the very least, taught humility. "I do not deny such things, Dragon King, but what you say-"

"Isss only the truth. Yssa is my own, the only legacy I have of her mother." The drake lord looked away, obviously reliving the past. "Humansss have ever had a more ressspectable place in my domain, demon steed. Not quite the level achieved by those in the Manor, but I and my predecessorsss have always known the value of their kind. Humansss have ssserved in positions of authority in my realm. Sssuch a one was Yssa's mother. Penelope wa.s.ss her name. She looked much like her daughter, I mussst say."

"You've no need to explain everything to him, Father," Yssa protested with a glare at the shadow steed.

"But I would like to tell sssomeone, if only becaussse I have kept your presssence hidden much too long. I have acted ashamed of you, my daughter, ashamed of one of my own." The Green Dragon leaned back. "Her mother wa.s.ss a woman of rank here, one who kept my research records in order and kept track of my ssstudies. She was a valuable sssubject." His tone grew darker. "My matesss do their duty, but we have long gone pa.s.sst love. Now we work only for the sssake of raising a sssuccessor. Penelope, however, shared my pa.s.sions, and having grown up among my kind, she sssaw not the monster outside, but the kindred sssoul inside."

Darkhorse did not want to believe the Dragon King. He did not want to think that such . . . hybrids . . . existed, but it explained Yssa's peculiar magical signature. He also saw no reason for either of them to make up what would have seemed to most a preposterous tale. It also perhaps explained a few encounters Darkhorse had had in centuries past with spellcasters whose abilities and style had matched nothing he had known. Perhaps hybrids were not so uncommon after all . . . just secretive.

Perhaps.

"It wa.s.ss only once, but that wa.s.ss enough. The unthinkable happened. Penelope wa.s.ss with child. No one dared sssay what everyone knew, not even when she gave birth." The Green Dragon looked at his daughter. "She wa.s.ss beautiful even then. Mossst human infants are so . . . so raw. Not her. I thought of her as her mother reborn . . . which proved prophetic a.s.ss her mother died but a day later."

Silence followed, a silence finally broken by Darkhorse. "I am sorry."

The figure on the throne straightened. "I do not ask for your sympathy, demon steed. I only tell you what happened. Yssa is my daughter and although we have been essstranged for quite sssome time, we are no longer."

"Then I am glad for you, Lord Green! However, we have diverged from the reason I have been brought here! Why did you do it? More important, how dare you entrap me, leave me to float in the world between worlds?"

His words seemed to strike the Dragon King hard. "I did what I did to protect you, Darkhorse, not becaussse I am your foe."

"Protect me?" Darkhorse laughed. "Protect me! From what could you protect me, Lord Green? I am Darkhorse!"

"Which doesss not make you invincible, demon sssteed," countered the master of the Dagora Forest. He pointed into the air. "Sssomething resssides in the domain of the horse people, sssome force whossse powers and origins I have been unable to fathom. My daughter callsss it a creature, although I myssself have not even been able to verify that."

"It lives." The enchantress shuddered. "I felt it." Her eyes narrowed. "But now that I think of it, it reminds me of something else . . . I don't know what, but something else."

"That we can worry about later, daughter. Darkhorssse, I know of Aurim Bedlam'sss abduction. I sssensed his presence in Zuu, and one of my few remaining spiesss verified it. However, shortly after his arrival, it wa.s.ss a.s.ss if the youth vanished. I sense that he isss in there sssomewhere, but it is a.s.ss if he is shielded from my sssight now."

"Which makes it all that much more important that I rescue him as soon as possible! If that is all you have to say to me, Lord Green, then I shall be off!" The shadow steed took a few steps back. He intended to create another blink hole from this very spot, one that would open up in the court of King Lanith if necessary.

"Wait!" The Dragon King's voice boomed throughout the chamber. He stood now, one open hand held high. "Hear me out, Darkhorse! Yesss, you mussst rescue Aurim, but to go charging into Zuu isss to court disssaster! There isss another way, a more sssubtle way! I can help you there!"

The shadow steed held off departing. Inwardly he knew that he was risking much. What he should have done was go straight to Cabe, but that seemed far too time-consuming at this point. The Green Dragon, however, was also a planner- and he knew Zuu better than either the Bedlams or the Gryphon did. If there was a way to work around King Lanith's defenses, then the Dragon King was the one who would know.

"Very well. I am still listening."

The reptilian monarch inhaled, his eyes growing a little less fiery. "The gatesss of Zuu are still open for busssiness despite the rumblingsss of conquessst. Lanith still encourages business, although why ssso many fools would continue to go there, I cannot sssay. Merchantsss still bring their waresss to the city and othersss still come to purcha.s.sse the kingdom's fine sssteeds. That will sssoon change, but for now it worksss for us."

Darkhorse understood what he was suggesting. "I am to imitate a simple mount, thereby gaining access into the city. A reasonable suggestion, but surely Lanith's sorcerers will be watching for such a thing. If this woman who tricked Aurim was indeed the horse king's enchantress, then they will of course watch for me. I suspect that she is powerful enough to detect my presence. Better to leap in, rescue the lad, then depart."

"The matter of detection is not a problem, demon sssteed." The Dragon King extended his hand. He now held in it a medallion, the center of which was a green gemstone. "'Thisss is a variation on the tokens all travelers who enter Zuu mussst bear. Unbeknownst to mossst, they are also desssigned to detect any newcomer with sorcerousss abilities. Thisss one, in turn, will act a.s.ss a damper, shielding your powers from the senses of Lanith's sorcerers . . . even Saress."

"I would look a little out of place wearing such a thing and I expect that I could not absorb it within me, could I?"

"Your rider will wear it. a.s.ss long as the pair of you are within range of one another, you will be protected. Once inside, you can contact a representative of mine."

It seemed a reasonable if still somewhat risky option, but Darkhorse had some misgivings. "Who is it who will ride with me?"

Yssa stepped forward. "I will, Darkhorse."

"Daughter, that wa.s.ss not-"

"I know Zuu better than even your spies, Father. I lived among the people." She spread her arms. "Look at me. I might as well have been born among them."

"Your mother's parentsss were from the kingdom, true. However, I cannot risssk having you -"

She would not be put off. "Who else could defend themselves so effectively?" Yssa turned to Darkhorse. "You've no choice but me, demon steed. Will you accept that or do I have to argue with you, too? The longer we wait, the more danger to your friend."

He was probably as leery as the Dragon King was of involving the female, but she was correct. Yssa was the one best suited to journey with him, the only one he could trust to also defend herself. Her knowledge of Zuu would be invaluable, too. "I accept your company, wo--Yssa."

"I do not," insisted the Green Dragon. "Yssa, I forbid you to-"

She s.n.a.t.c.hed the medallion from his hand, then vanished, only to rematerialize a moment later next to the shadow steed. The Dragon King hissed, starting toward her at the same time.

Yssa leaped aboard Darkhorse, a riskier act than she likely realized. Darkhorse immediately shaped himself to better accommodate her weight, then turned to block the drake lord.