His fist shook on the haft of his weapon, and when more footsteps padded through the archway, Kendath nearly spun around to impale Adeila where she stood. But then she spoke, and something about her words stilled his hand. Her voice slid softly, smoothly off the chamber's bare walls. In her palm, the figurine's minute scales glinted silver in the sickly glow from the corridor outside. Diamond eyes winked.

Gazes locked. First with Wyvern, then with Adeila. Kendath lowered the dagger.

A snap of his wrist returned the blade to its sheath. He released the mage, stepped back. Courtesy dictated that he apologize. He didn't. Instead, he tried sliding out his falchion again. His fingers tingled when he tried to move them, but still they refused to clench. The door suffered another thump. Its iron bar held. Yet another thump. The wood began to splinter. Kendath fumbled with his sword but still couldn't unsheathe it. Not good.

He shot a glance at Adeila. "Ignorance is bliss." Thump. Splinter. Crack. A skeletal arm, bleached white in the darkness, broke through and groped at empty air. With his left hand, he whipped the dagger back out. "Too bad. You're about to find out."

Wood groaned. The door collapsed. The iron bar dropped to the floor with a clang that ricocheted off the stone walls.

All hell broke loose.

Or at least, Kendath expected it to. Barrier collapses, soldiers rush in. Some things never change. But he knew all too well what hell breaking loose looked like, and this wasn't it.

There were ten of them at least, their bones sallow in the sickly light. They crowded into the chamber, bumping into each other with the scrape of harsh fabric and the plop of entrails still clinging to their posts. Joints creaked. They swiveled their skulls. Left. Right. Left again. Their eye sockets seemed to devour what little flickers of illumination venturing into the chamber. One of them still boasted an eye intact. Its iris was green, or perhaps hazel, and spun in its black hollow. The corpse grinned - a one-eyed, crooked grin with its jaw hanging wide open.

Kendath stared at the corpses. The corpses stared back. And it struck him then that he didn't feel fear. He didn't even feel cold. He felt... bemused. Amused. He was staring at a pack of bodies dragged not so fresh out of their graves, and his only coherent thought was how much they smelled. And looked. They were a tad ugly, now that he noticed.

One problem. They happened to be blocking both exits.

He shook his head in disgust. "Battle fodder. They're trying to keep us busy." He glanced at Garthag. "The corridor you came through is a dead end. The only way out is that one." He jerked his head at the door or what remained of it, before wondering why he bothered. The mage had proven himself quite adept at learning secrets and keeping them. Kendath coughed. "Before we attempt to cut through them, would someone mind looking at my hand? The ability to swing my sword would be a wonderful convenience, thanks."

_________________

Garthag quietly gazed at Kendath in relief as he removed his dagger after Adeila confirmed his story, at least his secret about his mysterious ally would remain for now. They were close now and with the aid of Kendath, Garthag could clear his way to their destination with ease, hopefully. The mass of dead corpses tearing their way trough the door, leaving only shambles behind, and their slow march towards the trio seemed like a slap across the face. Garthag grinned widely at the sight, that forced it`s way before them as a reminder of whom their were dealing with.

The Lich was no fool, certainly he had decades, no centuries to master the art of necromancy to have come this far. Allowing his rotten, mindless servants to exhaust his foes before the final clash was exactly what Garthag himself would have done. Garthag looked at Kendath and Adeila, in turn, before shrugging quietly at their apparent helplessness in this distress. The white figure moved few steps forward, ever closer to meet the approaching mass of undead servants, and stopped to examine them. An overwhelming feeling of disgust came over Garthag as he stared at the faces of the undead, of the corpses that had once been human and alive, but now were disgraced as mindless puppets.

If this would be the beginning of the battle, that would finally end their journey and possibly result in their deaths then Garthag would not hold back one bit. It seemed finally like a suitable moment to draw forth one of the magical items he had been saving for a moment such as this. Not that he had not been in danger before, but what if he had indeed utilized such powers before? Would have gambled even more by only relying on the magical powers he himself possessed? No, thinking about it now was pointless, thus far he had gambled and won. Now was the time to take control, of his fate and future, one that would not be death nor meaningless.

"Adeila tend to it, quickly, I will have these abominations sway before our advance."

Garthag commanded with a stern tone and for once his eyes were no longer solid cold nor like a cold blade of emotionless, they were blazing with a fierce flame consuming all that stood in it`s way. He reached his left hand into his right sleeve, pulling out a modest talisman carved in the image of a statue resembling a monster. Kneeling briefly, Garthag whispered a command word of magic as he placed the talisman onto the ground. The object began to slowly tremble uncontrollably and the tremor reached it`s way into the floor as Garthag took few calm steps back allowing the spell to take form.

Finally as the sea of corpses reached the talisman, it exploded into a great flame and effectively threw back the swarming undead, but it alone was not enough to clear the way. No worry tough for before the horde of the dead stood a large figure, towering over their rotting flesh was an elemental formed purely out of flames. The being lighted the whole corridor with it`s mere presence, but stood stoic and silent, waiting for a command. It`s eyes, filled with a blaze simply stared back at the empty eye sockets of the undead marching again towards it.

Garthag quietly gazed at the being he had summoned forth, then at the scorched remains of the talisman on the floor, full well knowing this servant would only serve him once and the time was now. Garthag`s eyes hurried to meet those of Kendath and Adeila as a signal, that he was about to send the being forward to create a sea of flames out of the undead and clear a path for them. On his face however, even tough how unlike him it was, Garthag wore a smile of sadistic nature as he could not wait to see his servant wreak havoc. He was drunk, drunk with power, this was power in it`s purest form.

"Worry not for the flames shall not hurt you as long as you remain in my immediate presence, don`t wander off I suppose would be a good warning. Shall we go then?"

Garthag inquired before invoking a command to the fiery servant, that hurled itself forward, striking and sweeping across corridor. Undead bodies were cast aside like twigs and the white figure of Garthag followed quietly behind, not even bothering with the worthless dead that still attempted to rise up around him. He simply knew from experience, that such beings would only yield after every single fragment of their bodies had been eradicated or their masters spell defeated.

_________________

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!

At Garthag's insistence, Adeila followed, doing her best to examine Kendath's hand while studiously ignoring the fact that their path was being cleared by an elemental spirit of immeasurable power. A muttered spell wareded off a group of undead that had escaped the blaze, then she turned her full attention back to Kendath. The wound itself was shallow and not much cause for alarm. But given that he could not even move the hand - which was icy to the touch, she now realized - there was clearly more at work than a few surface-level lacerations.

As they continued to press onward, Adeila racked her brain for anything that might prove helpful. She considered herself fairly well-educated, particularly for a mere healer who had never journeyed more than a day outside her home village. She had had the benefit of learning to read relatively early in life, and she had always eagerly consumed any books that happened to come their way. It had been in this manner that she had learned quite a few rudimentary spells, including the one that she'd cast only a moment ago. But nowhere in any of her reading had she encountered anything remotely related to the undead.

She scooped out a liberal amount of healing salve and hastily applied it, for lack of anything better to do, while she continued to contemplate. They didn't have much time; Garthag's 'servant' could only last for so long, and the sounds echoing down the corridor suggested that the undead horde was far from defeated. Mentally, she began listing every spell she did know. She knew how to mend bones, stop bleeding, locate infections, detoxify....Adeila paused at this last one, considering it. Strictly speaking, she doubted that wounds inflicted by the undead were the same as poison. But based of the effects, it was the closest equivalent that she could come up with, and there was no harm in trying.

Mouthing a silent prayer, she drew a slow breath and uttered the necessary words for the spell. There was no visible change, but the wound hadn't exactly appeared serious to begin with. "Try to move it," she instructed, resisting the urge to glance anxiously ahead of them. "I must admit, this is not my area of expertise, but that should have had some effect."

To say that Kendath was surprised would have been an understatement. Bewildered? Perhaps. Uneasy? Yes. Still not hitting the spot, though.

Try "shocked." Try "horrified out of his mind."

It wasn't merely the fact that Garthag had been concealing his powers. Kendath had anticipated no less. What he hadn't anticipated, however, was the full extent of the powers in question. Staggering back, throwing up his arm to shield his eyes from the heat, the flash of those arcing tendrils of flame, he could think only of how stupid they'd been. How stupid and naive. He'd forgone every opportunity. Every chance he'd ever had of turning around, of impaling Garthag, of driving the blade home through that exposed throat...

Something had held him back. Uncertainty, maybe. Compassion, perhaps. Pity? Garthag was human. He'd proven that, these last few days. And for a moment - for one pathetic, sentimental, wasted moment - Kendath had allowed himself to believe...

Too late now. Ironic, that. Everything was too late now. Blue eyes. White fire. And now Garthag. Because Kendath had seen the mage's face. Exultant, radiant against a nimbus of fiery hell, it was the face of a man who had nothing more to lose, who had bartered away his very soul to feed his empty heart. The price of ambition. What had he paid it for?

"Yeah," Kendath said, though he couldn't hear his own voice above the roar of the flames. "Let's go."

The elemental hurled itself into the corridor. Walls trembled. Undead fell before it. Garthag's robes glowed scarlet in the firelight. He followed the mage numbly, until a touch on his wrist jerked him around - he'd forgotten all about his injured hand. He nodded his thanks and thrust it out to her. Adeila prodded around, but her examination went unfelt as his entire forearm seemed to have gone numb. At last she uttered a few verses of magic, flowing and melodic to Garthag's harsh syllables. His fingers tingled. He wiggled them. They obeyed.

Boom.

A glance told him that they'd left the tides of corpses far behind them. Ahead, the crackling footfalls of the elemental thundered to a halt.

Boom.

The corridor had ended. The floor dropped away at their feet. The ceaseless black chasm beyond was pierced only by a green pillar that both groped its way into darkness above and plunged down into darkness below. Its pale glow, mottled with orange from the infernal elemental, throbbed upon a winding staircase. Sharing the staircase's landing not far from where they stood was an iron gate, barred shut.

Kendath had seen this before. The corridor had taken him on a wide loop, only to land him right back where he'd started. His gaze traced the staircase up, then back down. If the Shard hadn't been at the top of the tower...

Boom.

Louder. It rocked the foundations and echoed into the hollow gloom. What was it? He flexed his hand, placing it on the hilt of his falchion, and strained his ears.

Silence.

His grip convulsed on his weapon. He closed his eyes, counted the seconds. The tower began to tremble.

An earsplitting shriek shattered the void and sent its pieces scattering to twisting shadows. Leathery wings roared, and suddenly the creature was upon them, shooting up the stairway in a lance of green and slamming right onto the landing. A scaled head whipped forth, fangs bared, and Kendath hurled himself into the corridor at his back just as a slavering jaw snapped shut - two inches short of his chest. His falchion slashed. Blood sprayed. Another scream, and the creature recoiled, throwing back its sinuous neck to reveal...

A dragon? Couldn't be. Dragons didn't have multiple heads, and this one had three. One scaled, the other furred, and the last somewhere in between. Its enormous wings pounded the air, raking the walls, as it hovered above them. Three spiked tails lashed behind it. Sickly illumination from the pillar gleamed on talons and paws, scales and fur, dragon and... Oh gods.

Dragon and dog.

The cerberus roared and lunged.

_________________

Adeila stifled a surprised gasp and jumped out of the way just in time to evade a swipe of the beast's massive paw. Leaning slightly against the wall to recover her balance, she stared up in shock at their newest obstacle. Now more than ever, it struck her how very far out of her element she was. Monsters like this were completely foreign to her, stories told to small children to keep them from wandering too close to the cliffs. They were real, obviously, but they were not meant to be encountered.

She looked to Garthag, expecting the mage to do something, but no attack was forthcoming. Kendath was likewise inactive, though she could hardly blame him for being less than eager to engage the thing at close range with nothing more than a blade. But at least they had some means of defending themselves - Kendath his weapons, Garthag his magical experience far beyond what she could hope to attain. Adeila had...herbs. Herbs and rudimentary magic and several decades of healing experience. But if that was what she had, then she would simply have to be resourceful and hope for the best.

Slowly stepping forward, Adeila began to softly chant. It was barely audible over the cries of the cerberus and the beating of its wings, but she did not raise her voice. Over and over, the same gently flowing syllables poured forth, completely incongruous with their harsh surroundings. She locked gazes with the beast, taking first one step forward, then another, ever repeating the same phrase. Gradually, the wings slowed, and the cries lessened. At last, it was subdued, if only briefly.

"If you intend to do something," she said softly, not breaking eye contact with the creature, "you may wish to do it quickly."

The cerberus lunged, but this time Kendath was ready. Its shaggy head eclipsed the greenish glow. Its roar rebounded off the tower's glassy walls like the howl of a hundred of its kind, swooping down from every conceivable direction. He ignored the ringing in his ears and launched into a dive.

Under the bloated cheek. Under the slavering jaw. Got his feet beneath him long enough to brace himself for the leap. But before he could spring, before he could swipe his falchion across the folds of exposed throat, the cerberus was already gone, snapping back in a whoosh of wind and a spatter of saliva. The stuff landed with a happy plop on his head. He wiped it off as it dripped down his eyebrows, but the rest of it plastered his scalp. It stank. He stank. Spiffing.

Kendath was just wondering how accurately he could aim a dagger from this distance when he glimpsed Adeila in his peripheral vision. The healer had stepped forward, her gaze locked with that of the cerberus, which swiveled all three heads to stare back at her. Adeila's moving lips ticked away the seconds. Then, with excruciating slowness, the snarling maws slackened. The thrashing tails hung limp. The beating wings stirred one last gale, then slowed to a steady flap that barely kept it aloft.

Adeila spoke, and Kendath tossed her an incredulous glare. Do something? Was she mad? And what in the abyss do you suggest, woman? My sorry skills lie with gutting people and placating temperamental skinks called dragons, but under no conditions did my job contract mention a single bloody word about... He paused. Thought it over. Cerberus. Half-dragon. And as he gazed at the scaled monstrosity hovering before him, as he recalled every enemy dragon he'd ever faced, he found his thoughts tottering off in a whole different direction...

A bit of a suicidal direction, actually. Something he happened to be good at. "Keep it up," he said, and with a final glance over his shoulder to ascertain Adeila's concentration, he stepped out of the corridor.

The floor in front of his feet simply dropped away into the chasm of the stairwell. A small landing bridged the corridor to the stairs themselves, which spiraled into darkness both above and below. Kendath ascended the first step. No railing guarded the edges. Shadows, edged in pale green like pupils of jaundiced eyes, pooled against the wall on his right. Those eyes flickered, blinking slowly, in time with the pillar's pulsing viridescence. He tried not to look at them, tried to keep his own eyes riveted on the cerberus, as he crept up the stairs.

He faced the creature from the side now, and the profiles of its three heads weaving in and out of the mottled light made his stomach turn. Its bulk filled the breadth of the tower. Its left wing grazed the stairs in sluggish, measured strokes, the wind of its passing reeking of sulfur and rotten eggs. He stood level with its shoulders, so close that he could have reached out and brushed its wingtip.

The cerberus and the healer were still staring at each other with spellbound intensity. Now or never.

Kendath jumped.

A moment of weightlessness, then another of frantic reflex as his arms shot out toward the leathery membrane. His grasp found the cartilaginous lining. He locked his knuckles and clung there, limbs paralyzed, waiting for the creature to send him flying with a single violent flap.

It didn't. The languid, almost gentle strokes continued. Up. Down. Up. Down. He fastened himself for a few more seconds, willing his teeth to stop jarring and his heartbeat to stop roaring in his ears. Up. Down. Up. Down. I've done this before. I've done this before... The black chasm of the stairwell yawned below him. No Demon to catch him this time if he fell. Shut up! I've done this before... He unfroze his limbs and began inching his way across the wing.

Once he'd aligned himself with the rhythm of its movements, it became a basic matter of straining his arms and twisting his torso. The membrane became thicker, the cartilaginous lining firmer, the nearer he crawled to the shoulder blade. A wing spike broke the webbing halfway through. He squirmed around it and was just beginning to breathe more easily when the cerberus jerked in midair. A snarl ripped its throat. It jerked again, a savage lurch that nearly hurled him into the inviting darkness.

His glance flew to Adeila. His blood ran cold.

That same instant, the cerberus broke free of its trance with a howl that shook the tower.

Five feet to the shoulder. Lost in the roaring and the flapping and the hanging on, Kendath somehow managed to measure the distance from his position to the jutting bone of its scapula. Five feet. Shadows spun with green light reflected on the obsidian walls - a dizzying dance of sickly phantoms and shrieking heads. Five feet!

Terror can do amazing things.

Kendath not only managed to steel his knees but also managed to leap. He not only managed to leap... He managed to land. Smack onto the scaly protrusion that was the cerberus's shoulder. On pure instinct, he whipped out his falchion and stabbed it straight down. Blood spurted. The blade drove deeper and deeper still until it lodged, almost to the hilt, in a knot of muscle. He tightened his grip and hung onto his sword for dear life.

Hot breath steamed on his nose. He glanced up just in time to catch a glimpse of a lolling tongue - Snap! The shaggy neck pitched to the side. Teeth clamped shut overhead - a broad miss, but why - ? Then flames were searing, sizzling against the confines of the tower, accompanied by the stench of burning flesh. The cerberus's scream rent the air. Once more it pitched to the side. The fire elemental gathered its strength for another blow.

At last. An opening.

Kendath gripped the haft of his falchion. Used the creature's momentum to swing himself onto his feet. Yanked his blade free with a sickening crunch of gristle and swung it above his head, as far as he could reach.

Right toward the place where the canine skull joined the stout neck. Right into the jugular.

Fountains of blood exploded, drenching him in a scarlet tide so hot it boiled against his skin. And then the cerberus was thrashing, and the ebony walls were rushing in, and he was being thrown backward to smash into unforgiving obsidian. His arms threw themselves around his knees, which jerked up to his chin, and he'd barely flung himself into fetal position before the collision impacted him full. White-hot fire shot through his back. Distantly he felt himself sliding downward, heard the clatter of his falchion striking the ground. The stairs gladly received him.

He slumped against the steps and fought the impending darkness.

_________________

Whispers, fragments of night set loose to drop a veil of shadow over her vision, drove Merrin's footsteps. The sphere of flame hovered between her palms, trembling as she did and rendering her helpless to press her hands over her ears and shut out night's lies. Her fevered rush up the never-ending stairs felt like a race against time - must reach the top, must get there before the ghostly presences suffocating her found the tiniest flaw, and she shattered under the pressure.

"Gods - gods -" she was gasping still, hardly able to spare breath for the words. Every step felt as though she were fighting the tide, like a single soul trying with utter futility to best a force that could engulf her at any moment. Merrin stumbled on the narrow stair, catching herself with one hand while the other remained upraised, supporting the sphere of flame that must not go out.

Fingers brushed the back of her neck and she shuddered, trying to make herself very small against the onslaught, closing her eyes to huddle on the stair in immobility until faltering willpower summoned the strength to drive her once more to her feet. "Go away," she whispered. The words were a pitiful remnant of her defiance in the courtyard. "Leave...me...alone."

Her eyes flickered open. A skeletal grin hovered inches from her face.

Merrin screamed, the sound briefly echoing and then stifled, and terror found her five steps up with fire flaring from her fingertips. A train of corpses, all in varying stages of gruesome decay, lined the stairway below. Sickly green illumination exposed the places where flesh had fallen away to reveal bare bone. Like grotesque puppets, their identical leers followed her every movement.

The same fingers reached, ribbons of skin hanging from bone, joints creaking. Merrin froze, petrified.

Then she was running, leaping stairs by twos and threes, feeling breath turn to knives in her throat and her muscles knot with the strain. A glance over her shoulder showed them following, trailing rags of clothing and tatters of flesh. She stumbled, scraping her shins and nearly losing balance, growing dizzier and dizzier as the stairs twisted tighter and tighter in a spiral that hugged the inside curve of the tower. Merrin flung fire over her shoulder and didn't wait to watch the effect.

A flat surface made her stumble and fall, groping for more stairs. Stone, eerily warm and almost pulsing beneath her where she had collapsed to hands and knees, formed the flat top of the tower. The same spear of green twisted up from the stone and continued endlessly into the oblivion of sky, and all around the silent ocean rippled in waves out from the citadel's pinnacle. The courtyard was so far below that it induced a level of vertigo Merrin had never felt adragonback.

Bone hammered on rock. Slowly, she turned. The horde of undead emerged, eerily silent, movements jerky as though controlled by an unseen puppeteer. She watched, stepping backward, mesmerized. The heel of her boot brushed the edge.

Merrin screamed her defiance, and fire drenched the height of the pinnacle in blazing white. The floodgates burst from their moorings. Shard! her mind shrieked past the panic. Get the shard!

Again and again, the pillar of green flashed in her eyes, but Merrin saw no shard, and there was no time to look. No skeletal fingers touched her, and any leering grin was erased by a plummet to the courtyard so far below where brittle bone shattered, but still the ranks kept emerging, and still unreasoning panic channeled flame from Merrin's fingertips. Her own gulps for breath were loud in her ears.

Tongues of consuming fire licked the tower's top clean. Again and again, rending decaying flesh from decaying bone and searing it into oblivion.

"Gods," Merrin gasped. "Help me!"

_________________

Garthag, at first, was taken back by the sudden appearance of the three headed beast, but was positively, even astonished, at the display of skill and courage by Kendath. Truthfully Garthag at that very second the beast appeared prayed for a miracle as not to waste his magical servant at taming the beast, but fortune favored or even the gods perhaps? Whichever the case Garthag promptly decided to exterminate the beast by sending a lance formed out of magical energy at the beasts already wounded neck.

The fierce beast was somewhat fortunate, that it`s writhing made it move it`s heads in time, but still the damage was more than enough to shock the beast from it`s feet. With the apparent obstacles removed from his path, Garthag turned his piercing gaze towards the staircase and what laid beyond those steps. He did not stop, not for even to check up on Kendath all tough his hand motioned briefly to Adeila to tend to it. The elemental went before Garthag and ensured the great beast was dead by violently pounding it`s skulls with fiery fists.

After the beasts death was confirmed the master and servant proceeded into the stairway, with every step the anxiety of Garthag grew ever greater as he knew what was to come. Already his mind was going over the spells he had prepared for this battle, it would not be long before the lich would taste sweet revenge....

That was if he could do it? Alone? It seemed ridiculous even to the cold and calculative mage, indeed a diversion was in order and he knew that Kendath was always willing to play the bait. Garthag suddenly came to a halt and the elemental as well, he swiftly returned along the stairs to Kendath and examined his condition. He also threw contempt gaze at the abomination, that had impeded their progress and then he turned his eyes at Adeila, expecting her to aid the reckless assassin.

After all pawns were created to be sacrificed so that the powerful might reap the rewards.

_________________

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!

Still slightly breathless from the exertion, Adeila rushed over to where Kendath lay motionless on the stairs. She had tried, tried her very hardest to hold the spell for long enough. But she was accustomed to using it on patients too panicked to be effectively treated, not massive, enraged, bloodthirtsy monsters. At the start, she had actually been doing quite well, but the second the cerberus had taken notice of Kendath, she'd known she was fighting a losing battle. The force with which it had wrenched free of the spell had been literally staggering.

Kneeling beside Kendath, she immediately began checking for serious injuries. She located the pain and traced its path, ultimately coming to the the spine. Further gentle probing confirmed her suspicion: several small fractures, not nearly as severe as they could have been, but certainly enough to cause considerable pain. She would need to work quickly, then.

"I do believe," Adeila commented with somewhat forced levity, "that I have never had a patient more determined to undo every ounce of good that I could do him. You've not even treated the old injuries like I instructed, not to mention these newest acquisitions. I don't know what we're to do with you." Even as she chattered, she was gathering the energy necessary to perform her task. Ordinarily, she liked to keep magic to a minimum when healing, given the amount of energy required to do something that could just as easily be attained by natural means. But she was currently lacking in quite a few of her usual materials, and Kendath hardly had time to allow the bone to mend on its own, so she would have to make an exception.

Drawing a slow breath, Adeila closed her eyes and placed a hand near his spine. She saw the bones, located the damage, and focused on healing it. One by one, the fractures mended, until at last Adeila withdrew with a sigh. "That should be sufficient," she said at length, smiling a bit tiredly. "If at all possible, I would request that you not require the same treatment again in the near future."

Shadower Lord Qal-Sorak was feeling the sting of a certain sentiment commonly known as annoyance. The Shadowers, however, especially the initiates, liked to call it something different. Something along the lines of "run for your life."

The murky tendrils within the scrying bowl crawled to the bottom of the skull. The Shadower Lord watched them swirl into inky blackness. The cerberus. He'd watched them destroy his demonic pet, watched the fire elemental pound it to pulp. And then there were his legions on the rooftop, incinerated wave by wave upon the blasts of the Chosen's pyrotechnics. He steepled his fingers and riveted his gaze on the sputtering candlelight. All was not lost. The cerberus could be resummoned. The undead hordes were expendable. He'd merely have to try harder, to throw more obstacles into their path, to exhaust them further...

"No."

He didn't turn. He knew the voice, with its rasp that sliced through the air like a serrated edge, and it was hardly a voice worth turning for. Never mind that its owner had managed to encroach upon his thoughts. He'd simply have to be more careful next time. His lips curled into a sneer. "Oh? Do you have an opinion to share, dear assistant?"

"No more than you have brains to spare, dear elf. I do not have an opinion. I have a command."

"Is that so?" Qal-Sorak felt a smile creep across his face. His second-in-command was amusing, he'd give him that. Yes, beneath the seedy robes and dusty hood, the Lich was quite amusing indeed. "And how might you persuade me to heed this command, pray tell?"

The Lich's fingers on the nape of his neck were colder than he would have thought possible.

Rage bubbled in his throat. The Shadower Lord leaped up, spinning around in a storm of black robes. He thrust out his hand, his mouth already forming the words that would subjugate this insolent worm and prostrate him at his feet -

The spell crackled, then sizzled away into thin air. The Lich had vanished.

Darkness swallowed the chamber.

Qal-Sorak recovered swiftly. He was the archmage of the Shadowers, the most powerful of them all - a position he had not attained through intellectual languor. He could - would - annihilate any fool who stood in his path. He was also an elf, blessed with the same acumen as his tree-hugging cousins. He could feel the room, sense the vibrations in the air, judge by instinct alone the location of his enemy...

The impact struck him from behind.

And before he could retaliate, before he even realized what had hit him, he found himself on his knees. His head was pounding. His blood had congealed in his veins. And through the ice shooting up the nape of his neck, through the screams that split his eardrums, he heard a voice. Familiar. Raspy. Like a serrated edge.

"Bow to me."

Shadower Lord Qal-Sorak threw himself onto the cold floor.

Good. Very good. Now. You will crawl to the lowest levels of the Citadel and face our friends. The assassin and the healer are soft. They will fall without a whimper. The mage might present himself as a bit of a problem. Destroy him first, if you can.

Somewhere in the blurred recesses of Qal-Sorak's consciousness, he registered that something was wrong. A question forced itself out. "The... the Chosen?"

A sigh of velvety robes. A rattle of ancient breath. Long, icy fingers stroked his cheek. He couldn't restrain a shudder. But the Lich was satisfied with him. Pleased, even. The whispering presence caressed his mind.

Leave the Chosen to me.

-----

[hope you don't mind me godmoding a bit]

Oblivion never felt so good.

Like everything else, it didn't last.

Kendath could discern someone calling him back as though from across an endless pit. The pit was very wide and very bottomless. It was also very painful and very real. "No," he heard himself say. "Stop... just leave me... please..."

The pain spearing up his back told him that he was being ignored. He clenched his teeth and struggled against tides of nausea. His stomach churned but brought nothing up. His sweaty palms slid against the glassy floor. Curse it, why couldn't they just let him sleep? Another wave of nausea rolled him over, and the agony in his back was escalating to a screeching climax...

His spine tingled. Gentle words flooded him with molasses, pushing back the pain until it receded into little more than a dull throb. Sparks of green and black floated before his vision, then scattered to make way for Adeila's face. He sat up and gingerly prodded a spot behind his shoulder. It didn't hurt. Swallowing, he staggered to his feet.

"Thank you. The cerberus...?" But a glance toward the opening of the corridor told him all he needed to know. The scales of the beast were still steaming from the flames.

Near the creature's smoldering bulk, Garthag stood beside his fiery slave. The mage flicked Adeila and Kendath a dismissive look before turning to descend the winding staircase.

"Go ahead." Kendath gestured for Adeila to step in front of him. Once she'd gone, he leaned against the wall and waited for the world to stop tilting. It never did. Stupid, bloody cerberus. Clenching his teeth so hard his jaw ached, he pushed himself off the wall and followed his companions down the stairs. One bloody step at a time.

Time dropped away as the stairs did, plunging into a darkness so complete that they might as well have been spiraling into the bowels of the earth. The pillar of pulsing green kept pace the entire time, a never-ending shaft that tossed contorted phantoms upon the obsidian confines. The air seemed to grow thicker until it pressed down upon their bones with the weight of an ocean. Infinitesimal nails of ice pricked his skin. Even his clenched jaw couldn't keep his teeth from chattering.

At long last, the stairs ended. The green pillar kept plummeting, but their path leveled out onto a narrow landing similar to the one they'd left an aeon ago. Ahead, muffled in gloom, yawned the mouth of yet another corridor. A globe of light blossomed in Garthag's hand, illuminating a rough passageway that cut through layers of ebony basalt. Shadows choked apertures to smaller tunnels twisting outward from the central vein. He stifled a curse. They'd stumbled into a labyrinth.

Garthag swept past him without a second glance.

Kendath stared after the mage, then broke into a jog to catch up. "How do you know the way?" His question bounced along the walls and echoed tauntingly back at him. He snapped his mouth shut and followed Garthag into one of the side tunnels. The fire elemental trailed their heels like a well-trained mutt. Its footfalls, amplified threefold by the silence, thundered along the passageway. A wonder how they hadn't been ambushed yet. Animated corpses must be veritably deaf.

Welcome.

Kendath skidded to a halt. The tunnel had opened, spilling out into a cavern. A single coherent thought drifted across his mind.

This was, without a shred of doubt, the largest cavern he had ever beheld.

It seemed boundless, its edges and ceiling forever lost in eternal void. In its center stretched a lake with waters so placid they seemed misty, almost insubstantial. And plunging into the mist from the void above, a mottled lance that pierced the velvety night, was the pillar of green. It pulsed strongest here, as though fed by the lake itself.

Welcome, mortals.

Kendath seized Garthag's arm. "Look. Over there."

On the opposite shore of the lake bobbed a tiny pinpoint of light. By the speck of its illumination, he could just faintly discern the silhouette of a robed figure. It raised its head. An arm extended toward them - an invitation to come closer.

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White fire against black void dazzled her, again and again. Each decaying corpse had mere moments to emerge and stand in grotesque mimicry of life - and then divine flame charred it into the memory of a memory. Merrin could feel the power pulsing at her fingertips, feel it coursing through her veins like burning quicksilver. It wrapped tongues of fire around the core of her being, radiating from every pore, and Merrin thought incandescence was turning her fingertips transparent - white melded with black and green and swam before her eyes - she staggered and fell, pressing back the flood -

Fire winked out, the tower's flaming summit snuffed like a candle. On hands and knees, Merrin stared at the diamond-hard obsidian beneath her palms, sucking in shallow breaths and feeling them shudder through her.

When she raised her head, a single cadaverous figure stood at the place where the winding staircase opened onto the tower's top. Slowly, it cocked its head to one side, unseeing eyes wobbling in their sockets, and took a dragging step toward her. Merrin watched with repulsed fascination, frozen. The corpse's jaw sagged open, skull's grin widening, and it tottered closer. Slowly, she climbed to her feet, poised perfectly between disgust and mesmerization.

With a sudden leer it lurched forward, and with the involuntary cry that rose to Merrin's lips, fire flashed.

A moment later the skeleton was nothing but ash. Merrin stared at her hands. The smallest touch on the reservoir in her mind made sparks jump to her fingertips. Curling them into fists, she wrapped her arms around her torso - not knowing what she shivered against - and, for the first time, looked around her.

The pinnacle of the tower was a mere ten feet in diameter. All around and far below, the black sea whispered against itself, waves like figments of liquid shadow. And always pulsing, always in the center, the twisting spear of green climbed into the vault of oblivion above and stabbed through the tower into the darkness below. Merrin took in the scene with a glance.

There was nothing here.

The ramparts, whose stabbing fangs she could see from the top of the tower, held nothing. Not a single tottering corpse staggered along the walltop. No sound broke the silence. And no Shard pulsed with the confined rage of the gods.

Bewildered, she turned once more to scan the Citadel below. Below.

A mere few steps back down the winding stair had her gazing down, down past the stairs, down into a night darker even than the void of sky. Even when, hesitating, Merrin channeled the barest trickle of flame to form a sphere over her palm, the light beat feebly against walls of darkness. When she ceased to stare at it, the darkness formed indistinct specters and reached up, beckoning. Her grip tightened on the thin rail. Its edges cut into her palm.

What waited - what lurked - "No," Merrin breathed, banishing the images of terror her mind painted. "Gods..." she started, still hypnotized by the call of the shadow below.

The journey back down was harder than the journey up had been. Every step brought her closer to the crushing darkness, and for the first time, the globe of illumination in her palm seemed so horribly fragile. What would it take...just one blow to douse the flame and leave her helpless in the dark? Alone, so horribly alone, against all the ranks of demonspawn?

I thought you'd be with me. I told you not to let go. Never let go.

Merrin didn't know how long she stood there on the landing, staring down into the darkness and willing her feet to move. The indistinct bulk of the cerberus' carcass, slumped by the wall, drew her eyes only once. Images flashed. The same dark cowl turning toward her that had haunted her nightmares so many times; skeletal fingers reaching, darkness swallowing light...

She thrust her hand higher and the fire flared, dancing on obsidian walls. "I am the Chosen of the Gods!"

If Merrin was expecting a response, she got none but the echo of her own words. Chosen of the Gods. Chosen of the Gods. Chosen... whispered the rebounding words, turning into a mockery. Little Chosen. Poor little Chosen. "Face me," she dared the shadows, twisting, sure that they were lurking in the places where her sphere of flame faltered. "By all the gods, face me and I will defeat you!"

They retreated into the abyss, beckoning, calling. Cradling flame between her palms, Merrin started down the stairs. Chosen of the Gods, the walls still whispered. Chosen of the Gods.

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Every step down the stairway brought increasing anxiety to Garthag`s already tense mind, it seemed to last forever as, if there was no end to the darkness they were descending into. Garthag heard Kendath question him about his knowledge of the route and actually he himself would have done the same, actually he did not even know. It seemed simple, he simply knew, but could not recall how or when he had gained that knowledge. It was as, if it was simply there, like an instinct guiding him along his path.

However such thoughts were irrelevant, it would have been the same to question how come he had a gift for wielding magic and questioning, that above all was profoundly idiotic. Garthag cleared his head of these questions and pressed forward, now fastening his phase and concentrating on the view opening before them. He at first gazed around at his surroundings to make sure there were no undead servants in wait for an ambush, but appeared and he solely concentrated on the robed figure awaiting them. As they approached Garthag prepared for battle, his very being was ready to reduce his foes into a molten pile of bones. Then he finally came close enough to recognize more features of the figure and his grin was more than enough to express the disappointment he felt.

This face was not empty as he had thought, it had skin, eyeballs and everything a living being was supposed to. An illusion perhaps? No, he did sense any trace of such nor would have believed that the lich would have stooped to so low as to disguise himself as an elf. In any case elf needed a lot more magical flames to reduce him to a pile of scorched bones it seemed. Garthag stared silently at the man, tough there was a hint of curiosity in his eyes towards the robed elf, this was not what he had expected.

It seemed that the lich wished for their battle to be postponed unless he had other priorities before battling them and it was not too hard to guess what he might be after. Garthag threw a warning gaze towards Kendath and whispered his thoughts out loud about the situation.

"I will take care of this, it seems the lich has other worries at the moment."

Truth be told Garthag did not know as to why he told Kendath about something, that might concern Merrin or that the Lich might be posing a threat to her. Perhaps a sense of obligation because they had come thus far, that it was the least he owed him? Garthag turned away and at the same time discarded such thoughts, that annoyed beyond comparison and nailed his eyes on the elf.

"Would you care to tell me, where his bony highness might? And who might you, pointy ear, be?"

Garthag inquired with slight amusement at the situation despite the difficulties, that would lay ahead, but at least he might stall this mage for a while. Maybe Merrin was in danger, maybe not, but at the moment that did not matter to him. He only needed to have everyone else distracted whilst he would be able to retrieve the shard, that after all was the task given to him by the hag thus there was no apparent need to resort to useless violence at the moment.

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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!

Kendath's falchion felt slick in his hand, the metal hilt cold under his fingers. He wet his lips and tightened his grip, then shifted his weight to a defensive crouch. For all the good it would do him.

But the Shadower hadn't even spared him a glance. His eyes, pinned on Garthag, glinted in what little sickly specters of light the lake reflected. He took a step forward, and his robes whispered on the cavern's smooth floor. He halted, his gaze sweeping the mage up and down. A smile stretched his unsmiling features. "It matters not where my dear assistant might be, or who I might be. What matters now is where you are."

"We already know we're in hell, thanks," Kendath said. "Moving on."

The elf quirked an eyebrow, as though noticing the assassin for the first time. "This is the Underworld. This is my domain. I am the Shadower Lord, and I rule with power absolute. Trespassers pay with their souls." Whirling around, he stabbed a finger at the lake. Gradually, as if stirred a giant, unseen hand, the murky waters began to churn. They spun faster and faster, coils of black and green, the roar of the maelstrom deafening over the chants of the Shadower Lord's spellcasting... until...

The waters geysered in a spray of darkness. They shot into the air, seeming to lose themselves for a moment within the void above. Then they arced back down, consolidating into twin jets of frothing ice - the first slamming into the fire elemental, the second streaking a straight path toward Garthag.

What happened next was lost on Kendath because at that instant, the lake once again began to foam. Hunched figures emerged. Their skeletal hands groped above the surface. Their gaunt ankles, still trailing ribbons of flesh, sloshed through the shallows. Scores of them. Hundreds of them. They swarmed the lake like leeches in a puddle.

They were headed right for Adeila and Kendath.

"Gods," he breathed. And it occurred to him, just as the word left his lips, that even the gods might not help them now.

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When Merrin reached the bottom of the stair, she stood with every sense attuned, listening. There was still silence, eerie as before; not even the whispering remnants of echoes - Chosen of the Gods - had followed her. The ball of luminescence between her cupped hands showed her only blackness past its valiant radius of light.

She raised it, letting it swell once more into a globe of flame.

Mouths yawned, gaped, loomed from every corner. She whirled, thrusting the divine fire high, only to see how many there were. Mouths whose gullets led down into...

Merrin shuddered, involuntarily, and found that she couldn't stop - the flame trembled with her, casting deep shadows into the tunnels that threatened more than they revealed. Once more she swiveled. Which one? They were all the same - all led into consuming blackness far deeper than any night. How many? No matter how many times she turned, she couldn't count the paths that delved even further into these depths of the netherworld. The question that she would not voice even in her own mind seemed to emanate from the very walls. What's waiting?

Time seemed an alien concept here where there was no sunrise, sunset to measure its passing, but still every breath of stale air Merrin gulped whispered to her of the seconds ticking past, of the minutes wasted while she stood motionless, unable to conquer her fear.

She chose a tunnel at random. The gaping maw swallowed both her and her tiny, brave pinpoint of light. Tendrils of shadow stabbed like teeth. Time stopped altogether.

The tunnels didn't end. They snaked through solid rock like an anthill, directionless and unending. Merrin was vaguely aware of moving downwards, a thought which did nothing to banish the sensation of being smothered in these stifling passages. She tried vainly to follow the main thoroughfare, but within the limited sphere of vision her light provided it was impossible to tell what the main thoroughfare was. Her booted feet whispered against the rock, then thudded as she broke into a run. The bitter taste of panic - too familiar! - rose in her throat. Thud. Thud. Thud. No echoes. A fork in the tunnel loomed. What was the trick for reaching the end of mazes? Always choose the same direction?

Did mazes in a hell such as this have an end?

Impossible to keep track of the direction. Merrin had to stop, panting, eyes flickering over the innards of the passage while she heaved breaths that were slow in coming. The air here was stifling. Even as she stood it felt warmer, more pressing, like it might collapse upon her and bring the tunnel with it...

Once more Merrin broke into a run. The mouths of tunnels flew past her, dark splotches in her peripheral vision. Thud. Thud. Thud.

She didn't know when she realized that the pounding of her footsteps was reverberating in vast echoes. The blood seemed to freeze in her veins. Slowly, Merrin raised her eyes from where they'd been fixed on the ground ahead of her feet.

Did the spear of green ahead truly inspire a surge of perverse relief? Was Merrin so alone that even this alien sight was a comfort?

She stopped, holding the flame, letting her eyes follow the green up, and up, until it disappeared. The height of the ceiling was impossible. She raised her hand and let the light swell, but it only groped for a roof it couldn't reach. Ahead, black stone turned to black water. Flame upheld, Merrin walked toward it. Green stabbed from a lake whose wavelets lapped by her feet. Why were there wavelets? What was there to disturb the waters?

There was no stopping the icy chill that clawed its way up her spine. The tunnel's confines were behind her but still Merrin teetered on the brink of suffocation. To have air and sunlight and wind on her face -!

As high as the roof was, the opposite side of cavern was further. Her light faltered before it even began to reach that far. Something glimmered - a reflection on the water? From what? - and liquid shadow splashed over her boot. Merrin jumped back as if burned. Her heartbeat roared in her ears.

No more footsteps. Now just her heart pounded, even through the chill that turned her blood cold. Thud. Thud. Thud.

"I am the Chosen of the Gods," Merrin whispered to the flame in her hands. The taste of panic would not be swallowed. She couldn't raise her eyes to the heavens because there were none, only try to lose herself in the little globe of fire. "I am the Chosen of the Gods."

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"Your identity is, no doubt, a wonderful revelation to be aware of." The voice, thinner than air itself, sliced the silence. Mere seconds later the shadows solidified, their amorphous forms entangling and elongating into the velvety figure that was the Lich.

The undead creature glided forward. Tentacles of darkness akin to the waters of the lake twisted around him so that he seemed spectral, insubstantial, almost delicate within their misty folds. He stopped to hover a few steps away, watching Merrin in what could have been contemplation or amusement or even disdain. Nothing existed beneath that black hood. No crimson eyes, no lipless grin. There was simply void - a hollow vortex that sucked in everything his gaze fell upon.

He smiled. Unseen, he smiled because his amusement could be felt. His amusement crawled up Merrin's skin like skittering spiders, and as he smiled, he dipped into a bow. "Chosen of the Gods." The words stung the air. "I bow to you, Chosen of the Gods, just as I bow to any worm before I crush it beneath my thumb."

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Merrin froze. The chill that clawed up her spine exploded into crippling cold. Her heart ceased to thud in her ears. The light between her palms flickered, crackled, flamed to brilliance in incandescent rage that was not Merrin’s. That vile mirth rippled across her skin in a flood of goosebumps. Gods help me - oh gods, oh gods, oh gods…

That cowl, an endless abyss within the confines of a hood, threatened to consume her. That figure who had haunted her, sleeping and waking.

Merrin’s limbs broke from their paralysis. Darkness crushed, loomed, howled its twisted glee at her flame, the gods’ lone flame. "Never," she gasped, finding her voice, longing to back away and turn and flee from this apparition of evil incarnate, but knowing it was impossible. Fire broke from her fingertips, crackled with the insatiable urge to consume this utter perversion of all that was good and bright and happy, and Merrin could feel the rage of the gods flooding her being. Defiance flared palely in the dark, lightning from her hands shattering the night for infinitesimal moments. "Long enough!" she cried. "Long enough have the dragons suffered from your taint on the world! Your reign ends now!"

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