One instant he was falling. The next, he was drowning.

Kendath plummeted without a splash to break his fall. The waters offered no resistance but parted beneath him. As soon as he was through, they rushed to close in.

At first he struggled. A swamp of black rolled in overhead, obliterating the sky. Its tentacles of fog crept into his throat, which constricted from the cold. Darkness swirled above, below, all around. The silence crushed him. High beyond the water's surface that hammered and churned like a sea caught in storm, he glimpsed a glimmer of light, pale and greenish, stronger than the stars but too faint to be the moon. It was flickering. Winking at him. Taunting him.

He swam.

The surface shattered, and thin air seeped into his lungs. He took one gulp of it. Then another. And another. The air broke, became brittle. Its serrated edges grated against his mouth and gashed the stinging barriers of his nostrils. His chest squeezed in on itself, threatening to collapse upon his ribs, smashing them along with the flailing tremor that was his heart. Air! Had to breathe, had to breathe faster and harder, had to keep breathing. But it hurt, and with every breath he took he could feel its razors cutting into the fragile filaments of his lungs. Brittle and cold. Like death.

Stop breathing.

His heart thrashed. Calmed. Stilled. Then, reluctantly, with the caution of an old man just picking up a cane again, it resumed beating.

Tendrils of murky mist trickled around him, stroking his chin, propping his head back onto the water. It froze the hairs on the nape of his neck. Kendath sagged, arms dipping into the water, and remembered not to take breath. He tilted his gaze upwards, toward the sky. Or the lack of sky. This time, his inhalation was painful and involuntary. He stared, transfixed. High above, where the sky should have been, where the stars should have spilled across the night, there was nothing. Emptiness. Void.

Green light pulsed in a distant corner of his eye. Far across the dark ocean, a single pillar of viridescence, skinny and pallid, bridged watery abyss and hollow void. Mist spun around it, veiling it one moment and bowing before it the next. He couldn't judge the distance, but even from here, it looked an eternity away.

His hand plunged, almost subconsciously, through the roiling murk and into a pocket beside his weapons belt. It came back up clutching a tiny figurine. The gleam of the emeralds was bright, alive. Gyre.

And dragon wings flared in the night.

_________________

Adeila got to her feet and reached out to steady Merrin as they finally escaped the oppressive dark of the tunnel. Light was just beginning to peek over the horizon and illuminate the town that could be glimpsed through the willow's branches. In the pale glow of dawn, with virtually no one traversing the streets, it could almost pass for an ordinary city, different only in size from her own village. But the banner which they had seen the night before, though only barely visible in the moonlight, said differently. Adeila had needed no explanation; even had she not seen the insignia on the armor of the few she had treated in the past, enough stories circulated that nearly anyone knew what those two symbols meant. Meiltha.

Not for the first time (nor the last, she was certain), Adeila's thoughts turned to the villagers who were even now making their way toward what they hoped would be a safe haven. Was this what awaited them, if they even made it this far? The Meiltha did not seem the sort to admit refugees - especially not those being pursued by Meiltha forces. But if they did not go here, then where could they go? They could not survive in the wilderness, especially without the men to hunt and ward off any foes. But she sincerely doubted that there was another city both near enough and large enough to take in so many. Had they escaped the blades of the Meiltha, only to be killed off slowly in the wild?

Determinedly, Adeila directed her thoughts away from such matters. She could hardly do anything about it now, so worrying about it was nothing more than an unnecessary waste of energy. But even so, she instinctively mouthed a brief prayer before resuming her examination of their surroundings. They were on an island, detached from - and ostensibly abandoned by - the rest of the town. A stone bridge connected the two, but it did not appear to be frequently used.

"Where are we?" she asked at length, looking to Merrin.

Merrin's first confused impression of Dey'tarn was one of slender towers that reached to a velvet-dark cobalt sky as unceasing sentinels, suggesting constant keen watchfulness and power. At first, the sight brought to mind Vryngard's soaring spires, and touched a comforting nerve. On second glance, shadows began to cloud the vision.

Many of the minarets were broken off halfway. Cracks like veins spread over smooth surfaces, and wounds unhealed gaped where streets had once been unbroken flagstones. To Merrin's eyes, the stains and blemishes that marked what had once been flawless seemed the memories of blood spilled and fire rampant. Her roving gaze halted, drawn magnetically to a Meiltha banner snapping in the wind. The same banner flew over Vryngard. The same banner had crushed Thyrault. The same banner threatened to spill blood and fire until it reigned supreme.

"Dey'tarn," she replied hollowly to Adeila's question, still staring across the belt of water that encompassed the island. Her heartbeat had faded to a mere dull thudding that seemed to echo in emptiness.

Turning, a stumble upward over the uneven slope held her eyes to her feet and Merrin did not look past, up the promontory, to see the crown of Dey'tarn - dashed from its place and fallen among the refuse as it might be - atop the hill. First, a cracked remnant of what had once been a path caught her attention. Her boot found it with a sensation of strange familiarity, and then her feet led her to follow the broken trail of sunken stones. Merrin had never been to Dey'tarn. She'd known it as a vague name on a map. Yet this memory of a walkway caught her eyes and held them, spellbound. She followed it with a look.

A many-faceted crystal sunburst encouraged the first light of dawn to flare palely on its surfaces. Merrin stopped, reaching to brace herself on the slender bole of a bare tree, letting her astonished gaze roam over the sight. The temple. How many times had she knelt in the presence of twelve silent statues, waiting for the touch on her mind that meant they looked down on little Merrin Tanner, then older Merrin Dragonrider?

Crumbling stonework slipped past her notice, deserving hardly a glance. What had once been beauty was, so very briefly, beauty again, in the form of soaring arches and flawless marble and the promise of white flame. Before she knew where she went, Merrin was at the fallen entrance, picking her way past the rubble to step, reverently, onto a moonstone floor.

A line of prophecy echoed. Beneath the moonstone - but it failed to complete.

These were her gods. Merrin's eyes jumped from visage to visage, memorizing the sights, breathing the beauty like air itself. These were the gods that chose her, the gods whose fire leaped from her hands, the gods who kept their promises and cared for their loved. Only fragments of scattered light spilled over the luminous floor, the sunburst pale and clear of brilliance. Unutterable yearning filled her, burst from every pore, galvanized Merrin's limbs to action. Dreamlike, she moved to stand where twelve statues ringed her from above. They, too, were pockmarked and pitted with black scars from some catastrophe, but still they raised stone eyes to the heavens.

Once there, she stood as silent as they. So many times, she'd knelt and poured out her loneliness and her doubt and her fear, that she'd made the wrong choice, that Merrin Dragonrider was only a peasant girl pretending at greatness.That was before they spoke from on high, with white fire, and mantled her Chosen.

Pain, too fragile to voice or touch, rose with a bitter taste in her mouth. Wordless still, Merrin bent her head. "I'm here," she whispered. "Don't leave me." Before, she'd fallen to her knees and her prayers had been the times when she let her heart spill from her lips. This time, fear that she might lose the shattered pieces rendered her mute. All she found the words to say was, a desperate last plea in the barest whisper, "I trust you."

One more time she turned to scan the circle of stone visages. Then Merrin's eyes found the darkness of a corridor's mouth. Beneath the moonstone of a now tainted temple.... One more time she waited for the assurance that no matter what, her gods would be with her.

Nothing came. The dim mouth of the hallway, framed by broken arches and rubble, beckoned to her, and still nothing came. "I trust you," whispered Merrin one more time, and turned from the ring of deities to clamber over broken stone and pass from the moonstone sanctum of Dey'tarn's fallen crown.

At the end of the corridor, one black doorway beckoned past all the pale blurs of light in her peripheral vision that were the others. Merrin meant to turn and check for Garthag and Adeila, but she found herself unable to look away. From somewhere below, black somehow threw blacker shadows on the walls of descending stairway. A portal in three.

Her mind vaguely recalled that Kendath had held the obsidian key, but some instinct dismissed the objection. At the mouth of the stairs, she turned for a last look at the light that still filled the temple at the other end of the corridor. Then came the descent into darkness. A portal in three to the citadel of shadow.

On reaching the bottom, Merrin found her lips were moving silently. I trust you. I trust you. I trust you. She registered the room's stacks of crates and boxes, but when her eyes found the black surface of the portal, everything else became nothing.

Citadel of shadow. Citadel of shadow.

Merrin clenched her teeth against the sudden, unexpected urge for tears, and a single one escaped. She tasted its salt. Slowly, she turned to look at first Garthag, then Adeila. "You don't have to come," she said, pressing down the terror of going alone. It was too dim to read their faces. Citadel of shadow. She forced the words out. It was like opening the door for fear to consume her.

"I'm the Chosen of the Gods," she continued, mouth dry. "Whatever...whatever is there, whatever's waiting, is there for me to face." The next words, that she'd fully meant to say, choked in her throat on the way up. I could die here. Instead, she dropped her eyes. "You've followed me this far. I don't ask any more from you." Oh, but don't leave me alone! Gods, gods, don't leave me alone!

She couldn't wait for their replies, because even now courage stretched so thin it was nearly broken. Merrin turned around, fists at her sides and eyes on the black, mirrorlike surface of this last archway. Thoughts became faint words in her mind that meant nothing, and for one unspeakable moment terror threatened to consume her utterly. There was no more time to waste.

Not breathing, not thinking, not even a silent prayer on her lips, Merrin stepped forward.

And darkness gladly swallowed her.

_________________

The cloak of water swirled below him, its misty tendrils smashing together where the dragon had pushed off its surface. For one instant, Kendath experienced relief. He experienced freedom. For one instant. Then Gyre snapped forth her neck, and they streaked away, plunging through the middle of an air that had no beginnings and no ends. No sanity.

Black sea and blacker void churned together to become one infinite plane, a bottomless hole in the tapestry of space. No horizon broke the edges of the earth. No horizon slashed the boundaries because there were no boundaries, no seams that stitched this world together. There was only the darkness that stretched on and on and ever on, and as Kendath leaned across Gyre's warm shoulders, he realized that he was nothing, and Gyre was nothing, and both nothings were blindly careening into a pit that neither knew how to escape from. The notion chewed on his nerves.

Far ahead, veiled by the darkness that danced and prostrated itself before it, the single pillar of green stretched up, up out of the ocean as far as he could see. Like everything else, it had no beginnings or ends. His neck grew tired of trailing its path.

Distance had never existed here, yet the ceaseless pillar magnified. Time had never ambled through here, yet they did reach it, and when they drew near, Kendath saw that it wasn't emitting light at all. It was sucking light in.

Neither was the ocean seamless. A lone pinnacle of rock stabbed out from its surface. Above the island, clawing like talons into the emptiness that passed for a sky, were six towers. Five stood in a pentagon around the largest, which loomed high above the others. From the top of the central tower, the green pillar shot - a thin, pulsating finger that bridged the sea below to the void above.

Kendath looked upon the Citadel of Shadow. He looked upon the stark fangs that pierced ocean and air; he looked upon the object of nightmares, of terror that had endured ages and wars and had come a hairbreadth away from forcing the gods to their knees.

He was not afraid.

A strange emotion, fear, he mused as Gyre spun wide circles above the island. Her wings brushed the cliffs, passed through the cliffs. Waves drifted up to the taluses, then receded with hardly a whisper. Just another fortress perched on a solitary outcrop of rock, except it wasn't a fortress at all but a pool of mortal energy. Somewhere within those black walls, the Lich coiled in wait. Bone-white hands. A dagger, icy in the snow. Her eyes. Her eyes, the world in her eyes, as she'd stared wordlessly back him.

No. He didn't feel fear. In fact, he didn't feel much of anything.

"Gyre. I'm ready, Gyre. The tallest tower, you see? The Celestial Shard. Take me there." And as the dragon dipped into a dive for the tower, Kendath knew - just as he knew his purpose here, just as he knew he'd never see her again - that there he'd find the Shadowers' most precious trophy, the tangible evidence of their victory. There, if the gods favored him, he'd also find the Lich.

The last sight that he recalled was the archway of a door rushing up to meet him. Gyre slammed into the tower. Black walls roiled like the breakers so far beneath them. Jade scales twisted, and Gyre screamed. Keening wails tore apart the silence.

Nothing became him.

_________________

Adeila had meant to follow closely; she truly had. And at first, she'd done a decent job of it. But as they progressed into the temple itself, she found herself more and moer awestruck by their surroundings. Even in a state of obvious devastation, it was far grander than anything she had ever seen. The stone path was not so remarkable - a pretty enough landscape, but nothing too out of the ordinary. But the temple....Nearly all in her home village professed to serve the gods in some manner, and they certainly had a place of worship, but nothing of this magnitude. Stone arches drew her gaze upward to an equally magnificent ceiling, until a pain in her neck forced her to look down.

And then she saw them. Standing tall, their splendor unmarred by the scars that they bore, were her gods. Not literally her gods, of course, but the most tangible expression of their majesty that Adeila had viewed in her lifetime. She simply stood there, even long after Merrin had risen, staring up at each one with equal wonder. Indeed, it was not until she noticed the absence of both Merrin and Garthag that she reluctantly tore her gaze away and made to follow.

She caught up easily enough and arrived only shortly before Merrin turned around to inform them that they could stay behind, if they wished. Stay behind? Adeila frowned slightly in consternation. Why in the world would they stay behind? Had they not come for the very purpose of moving on? It seemed rather pointless to come so far, only to turn around and leave. Though, when faced with the prospect of passing through an unfamiliar portal to an unknown dimension to encounter an unknown foe, Adeila could not deny that she was afraid.

Not for the first time, she wondered why she was even there. She was a healer - she was supposed to fix up the heroes after they'd gone on their grand adventure, not go on the adventure with them. True, she was skilled enough with magic, but she strongly suspected that if it came to a serious battle, her offensive would prove to be sorely lacking. This was not because she lacked self-confidence, but because she believed in an honest and straightforward appraisal of her own abilities, and she honestly felt that she was not equal to the task.

Beyond actual battle, there was always emotional support, but of how much use would that truly be in this realm? Would it be like the tests, in which one's companions might as well have not been there, most of the time? Or would she actually be able to help Merrin this time? The girl clearly hadn't wanted to go alone, though she had done a commendable job of concealing it. Would Adeila be able to ease that burden, if she went?

Adeila looked from the portal, through which Merrin had just recently disappeared, to Garthag, then from Garthag back to the portal again. The smooth black surface seemed at once inviting and foreboding, doing nothing to abate the conflict within her mind. Go, or stay? Unthinkingly, she cast a glance over her shoulder in the direction of the stone gods, then turned to face the portal, her mind made up. Merrin had already lost one companion - Adeila would not deny her another.

She went through.

When dark oceans closed over her head, having parted for the briefest of moments to receive her, Merrin didn't struggle. Here was only silence in her ears, and oblivion that promised nothing. Far above, the roiling surface of the waters let dancing shafts of pale green luminescence lance down. They disappeared, swallowed by the blackness below. The pattern of irregular waves hypnotized her into utter forgetfulness. Merrin could have let her eyes flicker closed to drown forever in this void, could have lost herself eternally. Never remember...forget it all...

Silver glimmered in the corner of her vision, and dreamily she looked.

Dragonwings glided through the water, catching the pale rays from above and reflecting them. Every scale was an infinitesimal mirror. The tiny, motionless dragon was flying...falling...plummeting as if mortally wounded, because the sea was not the sky. It dived, diamond eyes dimming as pale illumination faded, giving way to depths of night. Merrin reached with her fingertips to catch it, the last wakeful corner of her mind telling her that to lose this was to be forever lost.

Her fingers curled around it. The night in her consciousness rippled, dissolved, became eclipsed by a sheet of blinding silver. Wings flared against a vault of stars. A patchwork of land far below gave the impression of wild freedom to go anywhere and do anything. Wind bit at her bare skin and she was alive and tingling with it.

Then darkness swallowed it all but that single pinpoint in her hand. Like the last star left to flare its hopeless defiance. Wyvern, she tried to say, and was smothered by the suffocating waters. Panic gave her awareness. Wyvern!

Must say his name. Must call him, from the silent likeness she held, must free his wings to to sky, because here he was deaf to her summons. Green light glimmered down like a path to the surface, and tiny dragonwings sliced though the water in Merrin's fingers. Breath was stolen from her lungs, and the press of the endless ocean threatened to silence the pounding of her heart forevermore. Wyvern. Wyvern. Wyvern.

She broke the surface and flung her head back, already shouting his name to the black, starless vault so far above. It received and silenced the word, and harsh air tore at Merrin's throat. Watery fingers grasped her boots, curled around her ankles to pull her under and drown her. "Wyvern!"

When silver wings spread, snapping out as he raised his head in a soundless roar, Merrin wrapped her arms as far as they would go around the sinuous, scaled neck, and gulped breaths that beat back the crushing weight of nothingness and reminded her who she was. Wyvern spiraled, and there was no wind on her face as he dipped to pluck two more struggling figures from the hungry waves.

She didn't register if they managed to climb on behind her. As Wyvern shot into the void between black sky and black sea, Merrin gathered the courage to raise her head, and found her eyes drawn irrevocably to the pulsating streak of intense green that pierced the black. Somehow, she found it both mesmerizing and repulsive - but no matter what she felt, Wyvern was arrowing for its lone vertical stripe, and there was nowhere else to go. She risked a look behind them, around them, and everywhere it seemed no horizon existed. Only dark, and past the reach of viridescent, eerie illumination, water and air were all one. What if the light fails, and dark reigns supreme? What if -

The image burned in her consciousness. An eternity of dark pierced by a malignant finger of twisted illumination that was not light. There was no light.

Merrin clenched her teeth, and white fire flared at her fingertips as they arced silently through the void that suggested sky. The edges of it wavered, as if attracted to the green streak magnetically, but darkness would not reign. Not where her fire could drive it back.

With a suddenness that jolted her heart into her throat, Merrin felt a shiver ripple through the streamlined shape beneath her. Wyvern dipped, swerved, hovered, all the time trembling with an innate fear that chilled Merrin to the bone. Her eyes found the pillar of green and followed it down, down...

Like fangs, the angles of six towers atop a lone pinnacle opened wide a black mouth to consume her. Like a nightmare beyond anything she'd ever experienced. Somewhere, death incarnate lurked. Somewhere, all lay ready to spring and extinguish her lone, fragile light. One star against the entire expanse of crushing darkness. The jaws of shadow. The Citadel of Shadow waited for the Chosen of the Gods.

Waited for Merrin.

Last chance, said her fear. Last chance to turn back. But there was no turning back. The moment she'd stepped through that portal, any hope of turning back was gone.

The two of them, dragon and rider, trembled together for a single moment, poised high above the maw of fangs below. Merrin breathed one last desperate prayer. Then - "Wyvern," she said. "Wyvern, I need to go down there." The pain in his diamond eye when he twisted his neck to look at her was unbearable. She turned away. Fear closed an iron claw around her heart.

"Take me," she whispered, and while his every muscle quivered he dived, spiraling jerkily around the pillar of green. It did not reflect on his scales. The dark fangs grew closer, and now she could see the foot of the immense pedestal of stone, reaching from the ocean of nothingness. The waves seemed insubstantial, like curling tendrils of mist. Cliffs stabbed out, shaping the top of the rocky pillar in a rough pentagon around the five towers that circled the sixth.

Merrin could watch no longer. She wrapped her arms around his neck, squeezing her eyes shut and begging for the nightmare to end. She couldn't leave him. Not when it could be for the last time. Come with me! she wanted to cry, pressed against silver scales. Don't leave me alone!

He convulsed, nearly throwing her off. The teeth of darkest night loomed. Now the silver shape that bore her was glimmering and evanescent, leaving her nowhere to look but the stabbing malignancy of the central tower. "No!" screamed Merrin, groping for her dragon with shaking hands. Her grasp went through him, again and again, for seconds that stretched into eons. He was writhing wildly, snarling in soundless agony, twisting as though death's fangs were consuming him.

They plummeted. No - the humans plummeted.

And all Merrin remembered, falling like in one of her nightmares past the towers, past the pale streak that was not light, down for the dark courtyard to receive her, was the farewell glimpse of a diamond eye.

_________________

A cold, pleasant shiver ran trough Garthag`s spine as he eyed the murky depths of the gate. His eyes were fixed on what was ahead and he paid very little heed to what Merrin spoke about their chances, running away now was not his goal. Not when there was an ominous whisper lurking about, drilling into the back of his skull, it was the promise of death and power. Was it truly power, which had carried his feet here and made him act as he had? Truly at first he might have sworn it had been his goal and leaped at the heavens trying to reach it at the price of falling to hell.

Now he could not say, his feet moved as if forced by some other power and not his own will. It was no longer promises of power, that whispered to him from this place all tough he knew, that what was once his was in there, in the darkness of the murky gateway. Now all he wished to see was a heap of bones and dust, the remains of a sad existence brought to a final rest and from there on...

There was no answer, the voices stopped there and left him alone in the dark as he stepped forth. It was a leap into the unknown, death was already grappling at his throat, at all of their throats. Garthag stepped trough the gate without a word or a gaze at the others, but once arriving trough the portal he was overwhelmed with a familiar feeling. Strong, incredible power flowed here, it spiraled around the towers rising before them and chilled his body. It was a taint, a shame, what stood here was an abomination filled with a deviousness, that would not rest and stubbornly clang to earthly existence.

Images of a thin, withered corpse came into mind at it was the first time he came to even truly think about the Lich. The eerie, penetrating and lifeless stare, that had dissected him and analyzed the insides. All tough at the time, not even the Lich, could have seen his demons nor secrets, but now Garthag felt more vulnerable than ever. However one thought came into mind, banishing the grim images, the seeress. Discarding her as a factor would be folly and Garthag knew, that the meddlesome hag would interfere on his behalf. So now was it time to settle a score, leap forth trough the darkness and grasp the power he had tried to achieve for so long? Or to die and quietly fade into nothingness? Garthag hated himself for even thinking of the possibilities, but at least he knew they still had their king, a rook and a pawn, all that they needed to corner the enemy. This intriguing game was coming to close and would certainly have a spectacular end.

The silver beasts rose from the statue and glared down at the humans before it, one whom it revered and loved, one who it did not truly know and one that it despised. The stare reptilian eyes made Garthag look away in disgust, but whether at himself or the dragon he knew not. Soon enough they were soaring on the winds, rising ever higher and approaching the towers of the dark clad fortress. For a moment they enjoyed the joy of wings and freedom, the other the forces of gravity grasped them and forced them to make a plunge into the darkness. With quick reflexes Garthag closed his eyes and his hands moved to utilize a simple yet bothersome spell.

The grin expressed Garthag annoyance at the sudden loss of the dragon, but in the least they had been able to slip from deaths clutches once more. The spell had captured the three of them in a state of lightness, like feathers they slowly descended onto the fortress grounds, far away from their intended destination. Sharp, angered steel glared at Merrin blaming her for the loss all tough undeserved.

"It would appear we must meet our hosts after taking a small walk and I am certain he has a welcoming committee of corpses greeting us no doubt."

Garthag said with an annoyed and frustrated tone as he took a few steps, examining their current surroundings and the best way to proceed to their destination.

_________________

Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

"My lord, the Chosen has arrived."

Shadower Lord Qal-Sorak didn't deign so much as a glance over his shoulder.

"My lord..."

The acolyte was sweating, he knew. He could smell the warm fluid seeping from the pores on the man's forehead and armpits. It smelled like pork left out too long in the sun. A cornered piglet, squealing and sweating as the wolf stalked past. The imagery amused him. He bent over his desk, closer to the flickering radius of candlelight, and continued to scratch his quill against the vellum.

"Exalted lord, please..."

More sweat. Salted pork, fetid in the cold chamber. The Shadower Lord's nostrils wrinkled. Elven olfactories. What an inconvenient curse. It might have aided his tree-hugging cousins in their traipses after woodland goats, but it certainly didn't help him here. Not when all there was to smell were disintegrating bones and melted candle wax. Speaking of which, his candle was almost gone. He flipped a page in his spellbook and continued writing. Scratch, scratch, scratch. Ugh. Was the piglet melting?

The spellbook slammed shut. "Dry your armpits. Then tell me what you want."

He hadn't turned around yet, but he knew, as soon as the acolyte started blubbering, that the former portion of his instructions had been ignored. "The Chosen, my lord. The Chosen of the - "

"Gods do not exist here. Kindly proceed."

The acolyte swallowed. "The... uh... girl. Yes. The girl has arrived. She brings a mage and a woman. The mage might annoy you... slightly... but she - the woman, that is - doesn't appear to be - "

A skull scraped across the Shadower Lord's desk, and the acolyte jumped. This he heard by the thump of padded soles against stone. But it was only a scrying bowl, a human skull carved out at the top and flooded with water from the ocean outside. Black tentacles of waves curled along its sides, groping to escape the white brim, before settling at the bottom, right below the eye sockets. The nose slits and the hollow at the base of the mandible had been stoppered with clay. The candlelight stretched what remained of its teeth, also filled in, into a contorted grin.

"Chosen, you claim. Is this the Chosen you're referring to?" He waved a hand over the basin, the hem of his black sleeve trailing over its contents. The mists swirled, then consolidated into an image. The acolyte peered in, and the Shadower Lord saw what he saw: A girl, a slip of a girl, with tangled hair and frightened eyes. She stood beside her friends in the Citadel's dark courtyard, and yet she looked so very alone. Poor girl. Poor Chosen. The Shadower Lord did not laugh. Someone of his prestige should never laugh, even at something so irresistably laughable.

"You see. We have nothing to fear." Another wave of his hand, and the image was swallowed by haze. He made as though to return to his spellbook, but reconsidered before opening it. He tapped a slender finger against his chin. "However, to cease your worrying, perhaps we can take precautions. Open the gate."

"My lord?"

Stupid, stupid piglet. "How many gates exist in this tower? The one. Open it."

"Yes, my lord." He scurried away, and the Shadower Lord leaned back, satisfied, in his seat. He pictured, in his mind's eye, the lake.

Its waters would stir. And from its depths, the dead would be awoken.

-----

She wasn't there, but she was watching. Ever watching. And as the three mortals made their silent descent down onto the spit of rock that passed for an island, her hand traced their path down. Her voice whispered inside the darkest recesses of the darkest mind. Yes, my mageling. Come to me. Come. The doors of death are open before you. When you enter, leave them. Quietly, yes. Leave them to their tragic fates. For you, my mageling, are meant to be greater.

Straight down the corridor. Third archway to your left. Let no one see you. From there, my hand will guide you to the Shard. I shall wait for you, darling, but I shall not wait long.

_________________

Merrin tipped her head back, back until her eyes escaped the walls of night and found a dark vault tinted eerily green. Escaped. No. There was no escape, and there would be no dawn for these heavens, now or ever. Slits in the silent towers were windows into a soul utterly tainted. Shadows donned even blacker cloaks and tugged at the edges of her vision, taunting.

And there she stood. In the jaws of night, the lone soul whose fire could keep the darkness at bay. The night sneered its derision. Peasant girl. Little chit. Foolish child. This is the Chosen of the Gods? How could you ever think you had a chance? How many lies did your gods whisper into your ears -

"Leave me alone!"

The words rebounded, from the obsidian ramparts to the towers of darkest night to the walls that closed a pentagon as though summoning the deepest denizens of the underworld. The whispers stopped, measuring her, judging how long she would last before they found a crack, a flaw, and she shattered. Alone? You'll always be alone. Always.

Enough! Merrin heaved a breath, and fire leapt from her fingers, fire that flared its own defiance.

What did they think? Did they think her pathetic, weak, the only pitiful soul available for exiled gods to instill with the last vestiges of dying power? Did they hold her in such contempt that they thought insidious whispers could bring her to her knees, cowering before their vile, monstrous threats? She clenched her teeth and thrust the fire skyward, up as though it could sear the taint of darkness from the very starless void so high above and purify even this bastion of evil.

The shadows retreated to their lairs, lurking just past the edge of her fiery defiance. Slowly, Merrin swiveled in a circle, daring them to come out, come out and face her, hover on her shoulders and tell her coward's lies -

Black doorways yawned. Black windows beckoned. Sphere of flame still poised like hope's last lantern in her hand, two strides took her to where a tiny silver figurine had clattered from the air. Merrin picked it up and watched the white flame catch its diamond eyes and bring them alive. Three times. Two were gone.

The shadows repeated their irresistible call. Face us, Merrin Dragonrider.

Moments. Moments, and then that call would drag her where it would. The light flared brighter, and as Merrin ran to Adeila she was already unslinging her pack and caressing the tiny dragon's sinuous curves one last time. There had been no goodbye for Wyvern. "Take this," she said, pressing it into Adeila's hands and clinging to the familiarity of the older woman's face. "Say his name - Wyvern - say his name, and he'll come, and if there's any way to get out of here -"

The darkness choked her. Merrin's words stumbled over themselves. "The ramparts," she managed. Trembling fingers undid her weapons belt and held it out, because her saber was nothing against the evil here. "Get up on the ramparts, somehow, and once it's safe - if it's safe - call him. If I can't..."

This time it dealt her a blow that left her mute. If I can't...no! No! If I can, when I CAN!

One more moment to press the dragon into Adeila's hands. Merrin stared first at her, then down at the glimmer of silver. Slowly, so slowly, she took a step backward. Another step. Now the globe of light convulsed and flared and Merrin ripped her gaze from it to take in Adeila's face one more time.

Goodbye. Her lips could not form the word, but her mind echoed with it. She turned and ran, flame upheld in one palm, searching, searching -

There. Gates of iron bars whispered Merrin, Merrin, and yawned their invitation to the tallest tower. Her flame flickered palely against the innards of darkness' lair, whose walls had never been touched by torchlight. As her feet passed over the threshold her flame swelled to combat night's shadows. Face me! I am young, I am a peasant girl, I am a child! But I am the Chosen of the Gods!

And in answer, iron clanged behind her.

_________________

The dark voice, the ever persuasive commands of the seeress finally returned and crept inside his head, pounding in his head. Garthag had not thought of her, not sacrificed a single thought for her during the many hours of their journey, but she had always remained lingering on the edges of his thoughts. She, no, it had always been there, the chaotic mix of greed and suspicion, that had pushed him ever forward and into this moment. Again she had stepped out of the shadows, but only in his mind, invisible to all others and plotting to gain what she wanted. Such a cunning existence in this game she had, that Garthag wondered whether he was a pawn or something more.

The lingering, whispering in his skulls openly offered power and beyond, that which he had once achieved yet it lacked support to those claims. True, she had proven herself `trustworthy` and convenient as an ally, but her ways hardly put Garthag ever at ease. However it was the call of magic and of power, that heeded him to obey her and even now he did not hesitate in his steps into the darkness of the citadel.

Garthag could not, but openly smirk at as he heard the voice and even thought of her presence, wondering whether she would appear in person to claim what was hers. Only time would tell, but until then he himself would have to disappear and head for his own destination, alone. It became clear to Garthag, that this was how the gods might have intended for this ending to play out. Garthag began looking for that voice to give her an answer.

Ah your screeching nagging sounds as ever ominous and foreboding as ever, my I´ve even missed your voice creeping in the depths of my skull hag. Now don`t be insulted, but I certainly am not in the best of moods at the moment...

Garthag thought with a bitter face, but in that instant his hands moved and the white robes seemed to be no more, nor was there any sign of him either. Cloaked with a spell Garthag began moving along the corridor as the seeress had instructed him to, with long and gaping steps he made his way quickly to the third archway, but it`s shadow he halted. Placing his hand against a wall for support, he once again weighed his options, but shook his head as he knew that hesitation would be the death of him. His chance had come, it had not been as he had intended, but now looking at Merrin standing in the corridor he understood.

The chosen... this battle, it shall be hers and hers alone. For being mantled with such honor, for once she must stand alone and take the blows of the shadowers. Too long have others stood by her side, giving her support and driving her forwards. It is time she fought a battle to determine whether she truly is worthy and in the end it is as a suspected... I never could nor would have a part in that battle, but another that would occur afterwards...

And in that battle she will most likely die by my hand for no longer is her dear Kendath standing by her side, abandoned in the dark and alone the chosen must stand her own ground. Not even that old hag could aid her, no salve or bandage of her can aid her in this battle and that is something she already knows.

Adeila is merely a spectator thrown into the midst of the storm, but it has become quite clear, that she for one will not survive the storm should she oppose it... It should be interesting...

Garthag thought as, if expecting an answer from the seeress all tough knew, that the beckoning call was the only thing he would hear of her in a while. Garthag threw one final gaze at the Chosen of the gods, Merrin the dragonrider before stepping forward to be guided by the seeress. Yet what he saw was not a champion of the gods, but a mere, ragged farm girl attempting to survive the hell bestowed upon her. One screaming thought came into mind, but the spider clawed it`s way up and swallowed the thought whole before dropping down into the darkness.

"Now then... let us see what this shard is like"

Garthag whispered with a eerie smile on his face as he could not wait to read the expression on everyone`s faces as he held it in his grasp, no longer would anyone dare look down on him.

_________________

Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

Adeila merely stood there for a moment, looking from the silver figurine in her hand to the retreating form of Merrin. What now? Wandering through this dark place alone was certainly not an option, but whom was she to follow? Garthag was nowhere to be seen, and Merrin had made it fairly clear that this was her fight. Though that alone was cause for concern. If this was Merrin's fight, then any task that required Garthag to go off on his own, without any word of notification to the others, presumably had nothing to do with helping Merrin. And as far as Adeila was concerned, not helping was as good as hindering.

A glance in Merrin's direction confirmed that she was already out of sight. Young though Merrin was, Adeila was confident that the girl could manage on her own. Which meant following Garthag, wherever he was. Adeila turned to look down the opposite corridor, only to find that it, too, was empty. But that made no sense - no other way was open, and he had not disappeared recently enough to have gone far.

As she contemplated this, an idea came to her in the form of a spell that she had used numerous times in healing. Traditionally, its purpose was to locate places of concentrated heat in a patient's body that might indicate an infection. Used out of context, however....

Murmuring the necessary words, she reached into a pouch on her belt and tossed a small amount of the fine dust in the general direction that Garthag must have gone. After a moment, a faint glow, visible only to her, appeared roughly halfway down the corridor. Adeila waited until the form was distant enough for her to proceed unnoticed, then made to follow.

Pale green speared the darkness. It stabbed up and down, the only perverse illumination to coax pale glitters off the obsidian curvature of the walls. Mesmerized, Merrin moved forward, eyes following the eerie pillar up, up until her gaze could go no further. She dropped them, half dizzy with the height, and found that the same pillar extended down past her feet, through a wide circular hole and into a void of blackness. A slender stairway, without rail or support, spiraled down in a continuation of the tower. Far, far below, where it dwindled to a pale sliver, she could catch the faintest glimmering reflections, as though on water.

Undecided, she stood motionless. Stairs reached up into the silence of the tower and down into the dark below. There was no letting her thoughts wander to think of what waited, either at the bottom or at the dizzying height above...

Woodenly, cradling the sphere of flame between her hands, Merrin started for the foot of the stairs that spiraled upwards. Here, the thinnest of railings offered its doubtful support, but she disregarded it.

The steps were smooth, but not worn from use; slippery, it seemed, from eons of existence in this void of unreality. Merrin shuddered, and fixed her eyes on the flame in her hands. Gods help me...help me...help me... the mantra pounded with her heartbeat and her steps, the only sounds she heard.

Spaced at intervals, dark doorways began to break the monotony of endless stairs. Some were barred, others yawning into black emptiness. Some, Merrin half-imagined that flickers of candlelight poked brief fingers through the keyholes, and hurried on while shivers clawed up her spine. The unending spear of eerie green was her companion up every step, and within it, too, the vaguest shadows seemed to writhe and spasm. Shadows that her imagination caused to swell into looming shapes, specters that magnified in the pale shadows and reached...

White flame was the only place where shadows did not lurk and touch her with the briefest of ghostly fingers. Merrin fixed her eyes on the fire in her hands, and still the words repeated.

Gods help me...help me...help me...

_________________

Nothingness conceived a dark corridor that yawned before him, and Kendath had taken a hundred paces when the Citadel began shaking. He froze in midstride, one foot in front of the other. His hand crept toward his weapons belt. Globes of light in the wall cavities trembled and jerked reflections of green flame against obsidian floors.

Just as abruptly, the tremors ceased. The walls stilled. The shadows returned to their usual posts. He stood there, rigid, and remembered that breathing was painful an instant before the adrenaline tingling his fingers could kick in full. He swallowed the gulp of air swelling in his throat. Still, he didn't move. He waited. Kept waiting. But no apparitions swooped down the long gullet that stretched before him. No keens echoed off the glassy walls.

Silence. Overreacting imagination. Slowly, he released his grip on his falchion. Except it wasn't his falchion. Resting on his palm was a tiny figurine, its eyes blinking in and out of shadow. Beads of sweat glistened like dew on jade scales. His fist curled around it. It's too late, he thought to her, and tucked Gyre back into his pocket.

He looked up. Empty eye sockets stared back at him.

The skull leered, and Kendath reeled back on his heels. The next he saw of it, his dagger was already plunging into its white face. Bone shattered. Ichor sprayed onto his nose. The corpse lurched forward. He sidestepped, and it hit the floor with a crack and a splatter. What remained of its brains spilled out from its splintered brow. The tatters of a cloak or robes or perhaps even a gown fluttered, then lay limp.

He looked up again. And forgot not to breathe. But somehow, the razor-edged pain in his lungs only sharpened the clarity.

That is, the clarity of a dozen more corpses waiting for him at the end of the corridor.

Curse it.

By the time he realized he was running, his feet were already carrying him full pelt in the opposite direction. Ahead, shadows whirled with flashes of green light, and the corridor seemed to loom larger and larger with every step he took, as though he were shrinking and couldn't run fast enough. Behind, he could hear them pursuing. The thump of decaying soles against glass. The creak of gristle against rotted sinew. Something dragged across the smooth floor in their wake. Threadbare rags. Streamers of flesh still clinging to skeletal ankles... Stop it!

He hurtled around a corner and flattened himself, panting - no, not panting - but letting his sanity catch up with him. Which way had he come? He must have lost track of the turns. All the passageways were identical. But the Shard hadn't been at the top of the tower, so that meant it had to be down here. But where was down? Labyrinth of passageways... who would have guessed?

They were coming now. He clenched the haft of another dagger. Thumping closer. He raised it. Closer. Until he could hear the grind of bone on bone. Until he could see their shadows, outlined in green, tossed around the corner.

Now.

He leaped out. Plunged his dagger under a chin still draped with flesh. Slashed his falchion across a ribcage still trapping a shriveled heart. Cold fingernails raked against his hand, and he screamed away the numbness and drove into the skeletal horde, falchion leading. A gaunt claw reached for his shoulder. He pivoted, weapon leveled, and caught a glimpse of a ragged shirt and broken ribs and the same shriveled heart. Bile choked him. He slashed blindly. The flat of his falchion smashed into the pate of its skull, and it overbalanced and toppled into him. A smell like rotten eggs and dried intestines flooded his nostrils. He backpedaled. Fell into more icy arms, more gaunt claws...

On the other side of the corridor, a door towered before him. He threw his weight into it. Dove over the threshold. Caught his fall with his forearms and flipped over, kicking out with his feet. His boots connected, and the door slammed shut in the nearest corpse's grinning face. The iron bar banged down. An impact smashed against the other side once. Then twice. And then silence.

And he lay on his back in the empty room and really, really didn't feel like getting up.

Footfalls. More bloody dead people? No. These sounded muted, like the padding of leather. Clenching his teeth, he rolled onto his feet and reached for his falchion. His fist wouldn't close. He couldn't even feel his knuckles. He rubbed his left hand across the back of his right and felt the gashes, where icy fingers had torn his skin. The footfalls were growing louder. They seemed to be coming from beyond the archway on the far side of the chamber, across from the barred door.

With his left hand, he gripped his falchion by the quillons and slid it back into its scabbard. He slipped into the gloom just beside the lip of the archway a heartbeat before a white figure, cadaverous against the green light outside, glided into the room. Its back was turned.

Kendath sprang. He threw one arm over the creature's neck, pinning its head against his shoulder. His blade found its throat -

Garthag?

His arm around the mage's neck didn't slacken. Neither did his dagger budge. His voice escaped him in a hoarse rasp. "Where's Merrin?"

_________________

Garthag was a man, who laid out his best plans carefully and precision, that no one could disturb his efforts to gain what he wanted. True enough, he had plotted and schemed against various adversaries, including tribal chiefs, mayors and his own brethren. Now the completion of a scheme, that he had begun laying at the very beginning of his journey with Kendath and Merrin was step by step becoming reality. Hopefully he had thus far seen behind every corner and predicted every step, it was now only left for him to carry out as the decoy, Merrin was running about the castle like a lost child. It appeared, despite his inner turmoil that he had suffered as of late about the nature of his actions, his mind had not dulled one bit.

Or it had indeed dulled quite a bit.

For one thing that Garthag had not come to anticipate was the sudden appearance of the mischievous assassin, who had apparently before decided to turn tail and run. Truth be told Garthag did not know whether to smile or to grin in annoyance, he had not forseen it, but on the other hand Kendath still had the capability of working a diversion. Garthag let out an amused chuckle despite the dagger blade, that had come to greet his open throat, ready to sing the song of death for him as his precious blood would spill to the floor.

"Quite the entrance my friend... no wait... weren`t you saying, that you would leave for good? My, your sense of direction must be awful for you to have met us in this gods forsaken place.... and the chosen? The one you tried to kill?

Ah your here to kill her? No I do not know her where abouts, but she should be running about the castle, most probably heading for the top of this castle. It must be quite a view, but alas I got lost and will not be able to enjoy it..."

Garthag retorted with a tone of mixed irony and mock, but in his voice he did not despise Kendath as, if he was a higher being. Maybe because of the dagger at his throat tough, but there was a certain degree of amusement at the situation as well. Garthag gazed around at his options, but once again hoped that Kendath would be reasonable and start by removing his dagger from Garthag`s throat.

"Please, would you mind pointing this dagger into another direction? I for one am not a rotting corpse, that mindlessly attempts to bash your skull in and harm your precious beloved.... yet."

He added with a dry tone, trying to convince Kendath, that despite the late animosities and fractures in their group, none of them had any room to start cutting each others throat in a place or situation like this.... yet.

_________________

Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

Garthag's words about Merrin stung more than Kendath cared to admit. He responded by inching the blade down until it grazed the mage's throat. The eyes in the face that stared back at him were narrowed, not fearfully but in amusement. Garthag knew something. And why shouldn't he? The mere fact that he'd deserted Merrin, casting away the Chosen of the Gods as though he had no more use for her...

The Chosen of the Gods. Kendath worked to maintain his deadpan. How powerful was Garthag? For how long had the cunning mage waited, biding his time, regaining his strength? Was he strong enough now to stand against divine fire?

Kendath wasn't sure he wanted to find out. Something smashed into the door from the other side, straining the iron bar against the wood, but he didn't turn to look. Not long now. He swallowed his apprehension and shoved the dagger still closer, until its tip indented Garthag's throat. "You know what? I don't believe you. You've lived long enough. Give me one reason why I should let you walk away."

_________________

Adeila hurried to keep up with Garthag as he navigated the corridors of the dark fortress. The mage was not moving especially quickly, but the difference in stride length was enough that she had to work a good bit harder to maintain the same pace. The further they went, the more Adeila grew to dislike this place. It was dark, oppressive, and full of death. She could only barely see the walls of the corridor on either side of her, and it had taken time for her eyes to adjust even that much. Svit had retreated, quivering uneasily, into the folds of her cloak some time ago, and Adeila did not blame him in the slightest.

At one point, not long after Garthag had disappeared around yet another corner, the mage suddenly stopped. Confused and not a little apprehensive, Adeila crept closer to the archway. She could only barely make out voices, engaged in an obviously strained conversation. She immediately identified Garthag and was surprised to find that she recognized the other as well. One glance around the corner confirmed that it was Kendath, currently standing there with a knife at the mage's neck.

"He is telling the truth," Adeila interrupted, entering the chamber with uncharacteristic hesitation. She regarded Kendath a bit warily - mostly due to the fact that he still held a blade at Garthag's throat - before continuing. "We came together - Merrin, Garthag, and I. We parted ways some distance back, at her insistence. She gave me this-" Adeila paused to retrieve Merrin's silver figurine from her pack and held it out to Kendath "-just in case. We were to use it in the event of an emergency."

Just then, another thud shook the wooden door, causing Adeila to jump slightly before regaining her composure. "Do I wish to know what is on the other side?"