Deeping Lore - 4. Chapter 4 - The Boy in the Dark

Dolmani had invoked the scourge on Kian because he wanted to see if it would work. In principle, he should not have had doubts. But seeing firsthand how formidable the tall, broad-shouldered blond boy actually was in combat had unsettled him and even made him jealous. Once Kian dispatched the last of the Shadowcasters in the courtyard, Dolmani made the choice to test the power; the result filled his black soul with glee not only because it was fun, but, it reminded Hunter of who ultimately was boss and knocked his ego down a notch or two.

The scourge was a gift from Tethyr to the priesthood who had expressed their doubts at the highest echelon when the God of Thieves and Jackals had called a meeting with his most trusted flock. The idea behind that original meeting that took place several centuries ago was a need to have trained killers at the beck and call of the Holy See. They would be the strong arm of the priesthood; fanatical warriors who'd proven time and again their loyalty for their religion.

So the council was called and a date set in the City State of Thorn, Tethyr's holiest of places, erected inside an impact crater left by an asteroid in the middle of the Meron jungle just to the south of the Valion Knight Kingdom of Ventikor. At this meeting, Tethyr spoke to his Archons and told them he would found an Order of Black Dragon Assassins who would have skills unlike any the world had ever seen. There would be ten of them, and each one would have unique gifts that would never be duplicated anywhere else. So that they would have time to dedicate to the craft of killing, each one would be granted eternal youth. For as long as they served Tethyr in this capacity, these mortal men would be frozen in age at the exact moment they were ordained. They would also have access to weapons and armor that only He could forge; these things would make them a formidable tool in the world. That was when Tethyr brought before them Kian Lightfoot who was an orphaned Atlantean youth of exceptional physical talent, beauty, and ambiguous sexual orientation. Following the demonstration in which Kian murdered nine armed gladiators and three novice spellcasters with nothing more than a fishing knife, there were questions.

The most pressing of these arose from fear.

Given Kian's natural aptitude already and not accounting for whatever Tethyr would teach the boy, there were those that were afraid the Black Dragon Assassins would be given too much power; that they were a thing that threatened the very sovereignty of the church.

So, Tethyr created the scourge.

The irony of the scourge is that it is ineffective against someone with no faith in the God of Thieves. The scourge literally punished its victim by exploiting their love of God. The stronger a victim's love for Tethyr, the more the scourge violated them. When Dolmani invoked the scourge on Kian, the boy who thought he was doing everything right by his priest, discovered that he had been thrown into the jaws of an agony that had previously been unthinkable.

Every muscle in his slender body was on fire; his skin steamed with heat upon heat. The living pain coursed through his nervous system with more power than the angriest withdrawal that heroin could inflict. Behind his helmet, Kian vomited up blood because veins in his throat hemorrhaged into his empty stomach. Capillaries inside his perfect body exploded leaving welts and bruises both on the inside and the outside of his fair skin.

His strength momentarily gave out.

While he was down, Calisto kicked him in the ribs and in the serratus anterior which flared like lead piping. He toyed with the skinny assassin and laughed. When the thrill of kicking a man that couldn't fight back had faded, he reached up and pulled out the poisoned crossbow bolts sticking into his chest and stood for a moment, as if posing. He was demonstrating his superiority by being unscathed by the battle that had just ended.

"Don't be afraid," he told Kirhasa and Chisato gesturing at Kian who was squirming beneath him. "If he's taken with blood frenzy, I'll keep him from murdering you." He stepped on Kian's neck, pushing the boy into the ground.

"We're not afraid, and that's quite enough!" Kirhasa exclaimed.

Calisto shrugged. "Suit yourself, witch."

He lifted his foot off of Kian's neck, and joined the priest at his side. Kian popped his helmet off, managed to turn and look at Dolmani but his movement against the tide of pain that he rode was staggered and came at great personal expense. The young assassin's face was ruddy, veins stood out on his forehead and neck; blood dripped from his nose and his mouth was scarlet. His teeth were outlined with crimson. Kian's whole body gleamed with sweat; it leaked from the seams of his killsuit at every place possible, even forming puddles under his toes. Chisato who watched Kian with elven eyes that were sharper and keener than anything human, detected a small amount of pink in the puddles under Kian; he was bleeding from his very pores. Dolmani tried to hide his amusement behind a stern expression, but he let a small chuckle escape his lips. He feigned it off as if clearing his throat.

"Stop it," Chisato said.

Tenander ran over to Hunter who was helpless on the stones, unable to speak, tears streamed out of the corner of bloodshot eyes. Dolmani relished the exquisiteness of the boy's agony; it meant he was faithful.

In fact, he was more fanatical than many brothers of the cloth. The only way this could possibly be better, Dolmani thought, would be to witness the boy being raped by Calisto, or even better, by ravenous dogs that would gobble him up right afterward.

Was it delicious that Kian would die for Dolmani? Was it terrible of Dolmani to realize that if Kian needed a gold piece to save his life, he'd ask him to scrounge for it elsewhere even if his purse was brimming with coin? The priest might have experienced an instant of regret at that fleeting thought, but dismissed it when he caught sight of the beautiful ring on his finger. He polished it absentmindedly and caught the gleam of the light just so that the gold looked particularly beautiful.

"Great men must suffer the company of the weak," he muttered to himself. "Otherwise, who will clean your chamber pot?"

"What was that?" Calisto asked him.

Dolmani looked at him and smoothed his robes, "Nothing. Just a passing truism that entered my mind."

"You're killing him!" Chisato yelled. "Stop it, now!"

Dolmani observed Kian who was almost completely prone on his belly. For someone so impressive only a few seconds before, he seemed awfully humble. Then he realized that this boy had survived the scourge for over a minute; no one else on record had done that. He truly had exceptional constitution. But the girl was correct, he was dying, and he still needed him. Right before Kian's eyes rolled into the back of his head and unconsciousness claimed him, Dolmani stopped the scourge with the snap of oily fingers.

Kian collapsed.

The Xirasian scooped the assassin in his arms, kept him respectfully elevated off the ground by a few inches and rolled him over into his lap. He loosened the cap to his water bottle, gave Kian a drink of the ice cold liquid. Chisato carefully washed his face with a cloth that she wet from the runoff. The golden boy wasn't unconscious, but he stared straight up at the sky for many minutes unblinking.

Finally Kian coughed and reached for the bottle Tenander was holding to his lips and used his own strength. He braced it loosely within his slender fingers while Tenander helped support the weight and helped to tip it so that water slid into Kian's burning mouth. He stroked Kian's hair gently, almost tenderly while he rehydrated himself. The medium-length blond locks were soaked through with his sweat. When Kian had swallowed enough to slake his thirst, he lay there in the crook of Tenander's body, breathing hard and still trembling. His pulse pounded away through his veins under the corobidian skin of his fantastic armor. Tenander gave him another drink; Kian almost drained the bottle completely on the second go. Finally, Kian calmed himself to a point that he could speak.

"Why did you invoke the scourge?" he asked, voice stumbling over words. His volume was barely above a whisper and his body quaked with the shakes. His lips were red with his own blood. Dolmani couldn't tell if the trembling resulted from fright or from anger.

"You looked insane," he answered. "How could I be sure that you were not under the influence of one of those things and that you weren't going to attack us? I've never seen fighting like that; you looked frenzied, almost berserk. I just wanted to slow you down."

"Bullshit! You've been gunning for me ever since I showed up. Only I don't get it, you guys asked for me and I'm here doing what I agreed to do."

"You speak absurdities." Dolmani dismissed him with a wave of the hand. "Now get up off the ground and get that door open. You whine like a spinster that hasn't had a dick in her in years."

Kian just stared at him angrily.

"I'm your priest, young man," Dolmani said in a calm voice. "Search within yourself and find the faith to realize that what I say is infallible by God's will. I meant you no harm; I just felt you were a momentary danger to us is all. Think of the scourge as a reminder of how superior I am to you. Now when you're done being a petulant child, kiss my ring and then go about getting that door open."

Kian just sat there, looked around at the faces watching him.

Tenander pat Kian on the back. He detected in the tawny Xirasian a desire to see him kill Dolmani. He even read an emotion behind those golden cat-like eyes; it was a determination to help him, to have his back. Kian's warm brown eyes softened while he regarded Tenander; he was expressing unvoiced gratitude for his new found friend. But he gave the slightest shake of his head so that the Xirasian could see it himself; it was a body language meant to signal his submission. There was going to be no fight; Kian's love for Tethyr was absolute. As long as Dolmani wore the cloth and the blessings of his God, he truly was infallible.

"No...Kian-," Tenander whispered. "Don't! I'll help you."

"I don't want your help," he answered him, voice almost too quiet to hear. "Without my faith I'm nothing."

Slowly, Kian retrieved his helmet, wiped it out with one of the cloaks, and set it back on his beautiful head. Then he stood up on wobbly legs and staggered over to Dolmani who stroked the back of his helmet gently with his left hand in a faux caring caress. Kian kissed the ring on Dolmani's right hand, bowed, and then sheathed his sword in the scabbard along his back.

Dolmani sighed and wiped his hand with a handkerchief because Kian had left some blood on his fingers. "Good, now let's get that door open." As Kian turned his back, Dolmani lingered behind Calisto; searched out one of the bodies with his eyes. When everyone's attention was focused on Kian, he dropped down, took out a parchment bearing Markain Kragar's wax seal upon it, and stuffed it under one of the corpses.

Then, he joined the others.

"It's a good thing you brought us," Calisto grinned. "This was doomed to failure without the sacrifices made by good men. I shall miss Hargrim."

"Yes-," Dolmani stated, "Well if it had been planned by someone educated, everyone would be alive right now." The line of Kian's mouth was tilted downward in a frown, but he said nothing. "But, we are committed to this plan of action. Let us hope that we reach the wizard Korga before the festival ends."

Obedient, Kian walked over to the iron door that the Cataclysm Slayer of Zanda had been guarding. No matter how strongly he felt about the situation he was in, the fact of the matter remained that he'd given his word to do his best and he was a man of his word.

He leaned against the wall resting the weight of his body partially on one hand, examining the intricate locking mechanism to the door. Kirhasa joined him, leveled the tip of her spear against the iron surface and said, "Aperire!"

He looked across the bridge of his nose at her; saw the tip of her spear flare with light.

Nothing.

A grumble emanated from his tummy and she looked at him startled.

He shrugged his shoulders apologetically. "Excuse me, miss," he stated.

Then he crouched and examined the lock, gingerly poking it with the tips of his gloved fingers. He dug into a utility belt and removed a pouch containing finely made lockpicks. He chose two of them and inserted them into the lock, turned his head to the side, and listened to the tumblers. "It's a Nykoran Diversity Madcapper," he uttered to her.

"I don't know what that is," she said.

He grimaced but not at her. "It's a really popular lock on the market right now. The Madcapper has a system of unusual tumblers that require specific grooves on the key, just like any other lock. However, some of the tumblers are made to interact only with bone and not metal so the key would be a thing comprised of two materials."

"How does the lock know the difference between bone and some other material?"

"A magical enchantment used to detect organic tissue. That's why your spell didn't work-the magic you used releases all non-organic locks and tumblers but isn't meant to be useful against organic materials." He withdrew one of the picks and switched it out for another.

"How do you get past that then?"

"I use a special tool. This slender pick I just grabbed is made from the spine of a dowel fish. They're expensive and break easily. But I'm skilled at this kind of lock; the chance of breaking the tool is extremely slim."

"Should I search the bodies for a key?" Tenander asked, from behind his shoulder.

"You can if you'd like. My source says that no one in the courtyard has the key to this door."

"Is your source good?"

"Don't you trust me by now?"

"Maybe... care for a test?"

"Sure." He jiggled the tools in the lock and felt a tumbler slide out of place.

"What's on the other side?"

Kian thought about that, "It's a pretty wide corridor with a stairwell on one side and lit by only two torches, one at the very far end of the hall."

"That's really specific," Tenander remarked.

"Well...the devil, my friend," Kian said, almost getting the lock that time, "is in the details."

Chisato went and gathered foodstuffs in a bag from the granary and storage bins in the yard while Kian worked on the lock. "We've got food," she said cheerily. She started dividing it into parcels that she gave to everyone, starting with Dolmani. "It's enough to last several days-definitely more than the guild was able to spare us. We've got cheese, bread, some salty pork and really tough beef. There's even some loose oats we can boil and I found a barrel filled with some butter."

After several minutes, Kian finally had the lock open and put his tools away. Chisato waited until he was done; then she handed him a parcel of food wrapped in a sack.

"I'll take that for you," Dolmani told him.

"Why?"

"Because it's Zandan food-polluted by the foul God of Chaos and unworthy of your beautiful body. I'll need to bless the food first before it passes your lips."

"That's fine your grace," Kian hissed, protectively over the bundle of rations. "I think I'll manage."

"I absolutely forbid you to touch food."

Kian stared at him in horror. As if on cue his stomach growled at him again. "Why?"

"As I said, young man-" Dolmani uttered, "It's not been blessed. Plus, your hands are covered in the poisonous blood of the Shadowcasters. I shall not risk you." He motioned for Calisto to go and take the parcel from Kian. The towering seven-foot tall man approached him and held his hands out. Reluctantly, Kian passed the parcel of precious foodstuffs to him. Dolmani looked at the others who were staring at him. "This is a religious matter and I don't expect Godless curs to understand. You shall not be denied food, Kian. You shall just get it from my palm without the touch of your fingers. I would think you should feel delighted this way because you shall be blessed to lick nourishment from the fingers of a man who speaks with Tethyr every hour of the day."

"So why don't you bless it now? Then give it back to me."

Dolmani dug in his pouch, pulled out the mason jar which Kian noted was filled with something white in color. However, much of it was discolored and yellowing. He thought perhaps that it was mayonnaise. "In order to purify Zandan food for proper consumption by you, Kian, it will need to be anointed with this special blessed fluid."

Kian looked at the jar, completely disgusted. "What is that?"

"Ambrosia. Holy sauce blessed by Tethyr on his most sacred altar. It's worthy of your mouth but I only have so much. When we stop on our first break, I shall give you a small sandwich anointed with it."

Kian looked despondent and decided not to pursue the matter further. He needed to eat, his athletic body required it. Hopefully, the priest wasn't lying to him and it would taste good. But he had his doubts and realized that his training in consuming things that would make a billy goat puke might come in useful. "The doors unlocked. Let's get inside," Kian said.

The information he'd gathered informed him that beyond the door lay the interior of the Blades Acuuarum, a citadel where the Cataclysm Slayers were manufactured and trained to make sure their abilities worked as they should. He knew he would have to lead the party of men and women through these training laboratories believed passable only for the Cataclysm Slayers of Zanda. Once past the testing labs, they would come across an unused corridor that would lead to a bridge that spanned the Well of Zanda. It was the only way he could think of to get Dolmani and this group into the Librarium Apocalypto without being spotted by the Guardians or the patrols along the Serpent's Tongue Bridge. If they had chosen that route, through the front door, they would already be dead.

Kian opened the portal and Chisato, Calisto, Tenander, Dolmani, and Kirhasa entered. He walked in behind them and closed it tight. He stopped a moment to lock it again from this side. A corridor lit with a torch at his right, and another at its terminus a hundred feet away provided the only illumination. The ceiling was above them another forty feet and was barely visible in the flickering amber glow from either light source. The floor was made from huge blocks of stone, as were the walls. The ceiling was comprised of broad, heavily stained timbers.

"Did I pass your test?" Kian asked Tenander.

"Absolutely," the Xirasian acquiesced. Kian closed the visor to his helmet; the glass amplified his ability to see movement in low light.

On the left side of the broad hallway was a stairwell about fifteen feet wide that cut into the floor and descended into the basement. It was broad enough to accommodate two Cataclysm Slayers of Zanda at the same time, or alternately, five men in full plate armor and carrying shields marching side-by-side down the stairs. On the walls, Kian spied tapestries made from black, silver, gold, crimson, and white thread. They were of religious scenes drawn from the Book of Chaos and featured elaborate battles, armies of undead, demons, and even the birthing of an Ogavran Kor hatchling, one of the fabled Snowmen of Vas. Kian shuddered at the realistic image of the woman whose belly had distended and swollen to an unnatural size, the skin transparent and aglow from the hateful creature that tore through her flesh to emerge into the world as an eyeless, tentacled abomination.

At full size, the Ogavran Kor were as large as a barn, covered in filthy black coils that dripped venomous mucous. Their mouths were lined with razor sharp teeth and could swallow a full grown heavy warhorse in one bite. They had no legs; slithered along on bellies that were protected by huge ribs of bone as strong as steel girders. Tentacles sprouted from the head and body of an Ogavran Kor thick as trees and numbered from a dozen to twenty depending on the size of the horror.

The Ogavran Kor were demons native to Vas of Kleef, an ice planet in the same solar system as Wynwrayth and reachable by gateways established by the faith of Zanda. It was rumored that the God Zandine spent half of his time in Vas of Kleef and the other half in Zanda, wandering back and forth between the worlds to provide guidance to his followers. They emanated from their bodies a chilling aura of cold that could freeze a man's blood in his veins. Additionally, their roar could disrupt magic, even shattering magical items into their component parts, thereby destroying them. Kian had killed one a few years ago in single combat, but it had nearly cost him his life. It wasn't an experience he'd ever want again.

And, the thing had not been fully grown.

"Ogavran Kor," Calisto murmured in admiration.

"Terrifying beasts," Kirhasa added. "I've never seen one, but heard the tales."

"An entire legion of Noremarian Knights out of Dek Lek Thukar was destroyed by a full grown one. That's a thousand well-armed strong men like myself," he uttered. "I'm the only one in the world to have killed one single-handedly," Calisto bragged.

"I know how much a legion is," Kirhasa stated. "And the only Ogavran Kor I've ever heard about was the one that was destroyed at Mon Berel-it wasn't a full grown one either."

Kian looked over at Kirhasa, silent, and grabbed the torch from the wall. She was speaking of him only she didn't realize it. Kian didn't like bragging so he wasn't about to set her straight on the matter. The deed had gone down at Mon Berel as the Ogavran Kor was heading toward the great library. It happened in the Third Age, almost twenty years ago, and he'd broken from his orders to do so as he was there only to kill Dharzimal Khul, a Khaymanite General who'd allied himself with Nykorans and Zandans in an attack on the city during the Birth of Melzhondra, Goddess of the Blood Moon.

"Aye, perhaps you've heard of the one I put down at Mon Berel a couple of decades ago?" Calisto asked, somewhat smugly.

"You did that?" Kirhasa asked. "I'd heard that it was done by someone dressed in black armor."

Calisto flexed. "I did and my armor is black, always has been; although it almost killed me. I used my hooked blade to gut it from its anus to its mouth."

"You're amazing," Kian uttered, descending the steps. His metal shod feet clicked like tin against the rock. From somewhere up ahead he could hear the sound of metal clanging together and it grew louder as he followed the stairs. "I wish I was more like you. Considering that they have a ribcage made of bone as strong as iron and as thick as a tree trunk, how'd you gut it from-what did you say? Anus to mouth?"

The seven-foot tall Noremarian guffawed. "The ribs may be strong, assassin, but I'm stronger. When the edge of the blade caught on the bone, I pulled with enough strength to shatter it. As far as you wishing to be like me? It's to be expected; Most men wish that-"

"-Really? I guess that explains why so many men don't bathe. Definitive proof that you have a world of admirers, Calisto." Kian said with utter contempt.

"Women-" Calisto continued, unphased by Kian's words, "on the other hand, wish for my body but they must be worthy to receive it. Say what you will, but I get more sex than you."

Kirhasa and Chisato turned away in disgust.

They continued forward, the clanging growing steadily louder and louder until it sounded like the thunderous ring of an iron hammer striking the surface of an anvil.

"I never claimed I get a lot of action," Kian said turning to face him. The torch drew a pool of golden light at the bottom of the stairs where the corridor of stone continued into a damp tunnel.

Calisto didn't have a response. He just watched the elven girl, raised both his eyebrows suggestively, and licked his chapped lips. He scratched at an open sore on his neck, Kian thought he could see flecks of white in his red hair-either severe dandruff or lice.

He swallowed uncomfortably and decided to walk between Calisto and Chisato, to put his body between them to ensure that she had some personal space. She didn't say anything, but the gesture didn't go unnoticed.

She smiled at him.

Up ahead, the hall broadened to a long rectangular chamber; Kian measured it to be sixty feet wide and one hundred feet long. The floor and ceiling was done in a checkerboard pattern with randomly positioned red and black squares, some adjacent and some diagonal to each other. As Kian observed, from out of the black squares erupted columns of steel that slammed into each other at varying heights with little to no delay. It was a second at most from when the columns first erupted and pistoned together, only to reopen a moment later and withdraw into the floor and the ceiling.

Their timing also seemed to be random.

I need to stay to the red squares, Kian thought. But his helmet detected intense radiation coming from within the red squares and it flowed unbroken from floor to ceiling. He decided to take a closer look.

These were invisible columns of flame.

Although his killsuit protected him fully from electricity, flames would kill him. The Cataclysm Slayers of Zanda had been immune to both so they could have chosen either path across the board and been safe. This would have allowed the engineers that created them, to test their agility while at the same time, looking for weaknesses in either their physical immunity or their immunity to fire.

It was incredibly efficient for the engineers that created the constructs; incredibly deadly to assassins trying to find a way across. He stared out past the checkerboard pattern and saw a lever on the far side of the room. While he was thinking, a single line of sweat rolled down the side of his smooth face. Presumably, the lever would turn the test off. There was a huge door built into the wall on the far side of this test that probably led into the next laboratory.

"There's no magic here," Kirhasa uttered to him.

Kian looked at her. It would appear that this was also a third test; that of the bloodline gift called Zone of Might. An addendum to all the properties that he'd ruminated over before with this gift was that it also allowed the one who possessed it to use magic in areas where magic no longer functioned.

"Nice," he stated flatly. "I can't quantum sidestep to the other side."

"Your teleporting power is based on magic?"

He nodded. "It's the only one of the three I have that is. I'll have to get across some other way."

"There's no pattern to the steel pistons," Calisto stated. "The path of safety is to hold to the red squares."

Kian looked around on the ground, spied a rock. He hefted it in his palm and tossed it onto one of the red squares. It sizzled and popped from the invisible column of flame. Before it traveled ten feet and landed, it had become white hot. They all watched as it melted and liquefied, pooling over one of the red tiles in burning lava."

"Taleta's Tears!" Calisto swore.

Kian winced at the mention of the Queen of Demons.

"Let's take a break here," Kirhasa said. "Get something in our bellies before we go on."

Kian agreed, took off his helmet while the others sat down to carve up a block of cheese and pass around some salted ham. Stomach roiling with hunger, he timidly approached Dolmani who took out a piece of bread, unscrewed the mason jar, and applied the holy sauce to the bread with a finger. Seeing him stick his fingers on his meal made Kian want to wretch, but he remembered his training. Then Dolmani put a piece of ham on the bread and motioned to him. It smelled foul.

"May I touch it now?"

"No. Eat it from my palm. If I give you permission to touch it with your fingers you'll assume the food is safe; I know how to look out for you and your lazy ways."

Kian lowered himself to his knees and took a bite of the sandwich Dolmani had made for him and almost gagged. It was the most awful thing he'd ever tasted and forced himself to swallow it down because he knew he needed the nourishment. "Do you want more?" he asked him.

"No, your grace," Kian choked.

"Excellent. Now lick my hand clean for you've left crumbs there and some of the sauce."

Kian did as he was told, sheltering his consciousness from the sour flavor. Dolmani on the other hand thought Kian's soft, pink tongue was the most exquisite thing he'd felt on his skin in some time. It literally felt like velvet and it caused him to jump ever so slightly beneath his robes. When Kian was done licking him, he wiped his hands again on a cloth.

Tenander handed Kian his water bottle and the blond youth took a long drink from it to wash the foul flavor from his mouth.

"Did you like that?" he asked the Xirasian.

"It's not bad."

Kian's expression was acerbic. "He did something to mine then," he whispered. "I fucking hate him, but I need to eat."

"Why can't you feed yourself?"

"You heard him. He forbade me to touch food. Until he rescinds that, I'll be eating the crap he wants to feed me from his hand."

"Seriously? Why can't you just tell him to go to Hell."

Kian gave him a grave look. "Tenander, he's a priest of my church. It's much more complicated than you think."

"How complicated? If he asked you to eat a biscuit filled with glass knowing it'd cut up your insides and eventually kill you, would you do it?"

"Yes."

There was a fervor behind Kian's eyes that scared Tenander when he said that. It was a religious fervor; the young man's only flaw. But there was something noble about it as well. He was a true religious warrior and not just a person that killed for profit. Kian utterly believed in a life guided by the tenants of a deity, something that guided his will and gave complete meaning to his existence. It was something so complex; he couldn't relate to it.

"That must be some God that you worship."

"It is. Tethyr's love is a warm fire without which, there is nothing but cold, suffering, and endless loneliness with only questions and no answers. As long as I hold him in the highest of regard and serve him as he would want, I sleep within the circle of that love. Death is only a thin barrier between this life and the next. If I die in Tethyr's service, I go to a world of great beauty to spend an eternity in his great wisdom. Can you not see how any of these things that I suffer in my mortal life are petty in comparison to that?"

Tenander shook his head. "That sounds wonderful."

Kian turned his attention back to the clashing pistons of steel and studied them. He stood up, feeling queasy from the foul meal that he'd eaten out of Dolmani's palm. To the side, Calisto and the priest had gotten quite chummy, and whispered to each other, occasionally chuckling. As Kian took a step forward, Calisto collected some coins from Dolmani. Ah, that was it, Kian realized. They were making bets on when and how he would die. He moved all the way to the checkerboard pattern and stood there tapping his toes on the stone. He felt another wave of sickness well up as his stomach rebelled. This time, Kian threw up but caught the vomit in his mouth and swallowed it again, feeling it burn his esophagus.

Chisato looked at Kian in the light of the flickering torch. He was tall, narrow of waist, and more beautiful than an elf when she could look upon his face. No human male she'd ever met had a figure as slender and perfect, a butt so well developed and round, or legs that seemed the perfect width and length. There was no lankiness to him; everything was proportioned as it should be down to the long fingers of his hands and toes. She watched him by the firelight and empathized with his suffering at the hands of the wicked priest.

Kian made his move and stepped out onto the cold black square, quickly leapt to the next position which thrust upward with incredible speed. He reacted with insane reflexes; dove from between the steel columns before they crushed him. He landed on a flat black square that instantly shot up, vaulted to another in the act of slamming together near the ceiling, and held on for dear life to the side of the column until it came loose from the roof again and retracted into the black square tile from whence it originated. Kian made another leap and slid through a gap between two pistons so fast, his body was a blur. One column on the far side barely clipped him on the leg as it launched upward. Just that moment of unprepared contact knocked him ten feet forward into the stone wall. However, he was safe. Chisato noticed that Kian moved with a bit of a limp over to the lever. When he pulled it, the pistons stopped and the red squares became safe while the steel pistons all rose from the black tiles, came together, and became permanent columns in the room.

Dolmani took his time, crossing with Calisto in front of the others.

Kian, meanwhile, turned his attention to the door at his back. It was made from huge timbers and swung on hinges as long as his legs. It rose all the way to within an inch of the ceiling; he pulled on it, used his tongue pad to spring the cibrian cleats out on his boots to give him more traction, and strained to move it out away from the wall. His armor which wore like a second skin, showed the striations of his trapezius and thoracolumbar fascia muscles in his back as he hauled it open.

Behind was a corridor about 15-feet wide and 30-feet tall, the walls, floor, and ceiling finished in obsidian stone. Ten paces in, Kian saw a caustic bubbling pool of acid. Fumes rose toward the ceiling. Tenander walked around the corner of the huge door and flipped the lever again starting up the pistons and the columns of invisible fire in the room they had just left.

The tawny haired Xirasian youth walked back into sight, vestigial claws making a rattle on the ground. "I just thought it wise that we don't make it easy for them to figure out that we came through this way," he said.

"Good idea," Kian replied.

Hunter studied the corridor ahead, standing still, with arms folded over his chest. With his keen vision, he saw that about forty feet in, the bubbling pool of acid ended at a wall which blocked the corridor from going any further. Eddies along the top of the acid indicated that there was a channel that might flow under the wall, but Kian didn't know how long he could stay under in the killsuit and not be harmed. Now, one of the Cataclysm Slayers would have no trouble with the acid, as they were immune. So, was he just to believe that all that was needed was to swim under that wall, through a tunnel, and emerge on the other side? It sounded too easy.

That was when he realized that the eddies indicated a current caused by something moving just under the surface. There was only one thing that could survive acid indeterminably, and that was a force construct. More appropriately, a blade of some kind made from force that could potentially harm one of the Cataclysm Slayers. It would be invisible in the acid and would damage it if the Cataclysm Slayer didn't avoid it.

So the question was, how to get past the wall then and through a tunnel while dodging planes of force that were probably sunk at varying levels of height within the acid that were invisible and would cut you in half?

"Kirhasa, are we still in a zone of no magic?"

"No," she answered, "But another one begins there at the edge of the acid."

Kian frowned. What kind of test was this?

That was when he realized that this was actually a challenge of strength. He recalled that when the giant statue had missed him in the courtyard, that the stone had been pulverized. Kian surmised that the statues stayed out of the water and destroyed the wall instead, thereby exiting the room. But how did they stay out of the acid?

"I need fog," Kian said, "Or smoke, or something like that."

"I can make a fog bank," Kirhasa stated. "Once I summon it, the mist is real. It should be able to float out over the acid."

"Do it please," Kian stated, turning toward her.

She lowered her spear. "Nebulos," she said.

White smoke curled out from the end of her weapon and issued into the room. Slowly it built in volume, filling up the empty spaces and then moving out into the air above the acid bath. Just as Kian had expected, eddies in the air confirmed that there were two levels of force planes gliding through the air along a horizontal path. These force planes were about two feet wide a piece and he reasoned they were probably razor sharp. Additionally, there were three vertically placed walls of force that issued forth from the ceiling and dropped into the acid. These walls were about 10 feet tall and as wide as the corridor. They occurred at precise times when you needed to make a jump from one horizontal force plane to another. However, you'd be unable to make a jump because a descending vertical wall of force would block you causing you to miss your opportunity. In the next instant as it cleared, a horizontal wall of force would catch you and either knock you into the acid, or cleave you in half. Yet, there had to be a way.

Kian realized that he'd have to climb the descending wall of force. The top of it would be sharper than a cibrian blade but he had corobidian armor to protect his hands. He was also extremely light so there wouldn't be much weight on his fingers as he used the top of the wall to propel himself over it. Once past, he'd have to land on a two foot wide piece of invisible real estate and make ready for another hop and then hurdle a wall again. One mistake, and he could be cleaved and thrown into the acid where he'd surely die.

He swallowed hard and looked at the others. "I think I know how to get through this." He explained it to them.

Chisato asked, "How will you deal with the wall?"

"Well, I don't think I have to deal with the entire thing. I believe I just need to deal with a portion of it and strike a stone hard enough that it shatters. I can do that with Bloodbane-"

"-Heh," Calisto grunted, interrupting him. "You expect us to believe that you'll be able to shatter rock? Your arms are half the size of mine!"

"Yes, but you don't stand a chance getting to the wall and I do."

He scoffed at him. "I did this kind of thing when I was a baby. Especially with the smoke pointing out where the force planes reside. A real assassin would not need such theatrics."

"You can try it then, if you want to," Kian taunted him. "Put your money where your mouth is, show me up."

Calisto stepped forward to the edge of the pool. "Fine. When I complete this, I may let you suck my cock so that you know what a real man tastes like."

"Gladly," Kian said. "Even one as smelly and terrible as yours."

Calisto snickered, "I'll enjoy fucking your head," he said, wiping his nose on his glove. The seven foot tall man leapt out onto the first plane of force, landed and looked for another. Too slow, he saw one coming at his knees. He jumped, but it caught him in the ankles and severed his feet. He fell down and caught onto another invisible plane of force and dangled while his feet and boots fell into the acid bath.

Blood poured from the stumps.

The once confident Noremarian howled in pain, pulled himself up onto the plane of force on which he balanced, his blood flooded over it, turning it red and dripping in rivulets off the edges. Then another plane of force caught him in the neck, and his red haired head fell into the acid bath, soon followed by his body.

Chisato screamed as a hand emerged from the acid bath, completely denuded of flesh and boiled down to the white bones. It was one last grasp from Calisto and probably, Kian concluded, the cleanest that man had ever been.

He glanced at Dolmani, saw that the priest's flesh had turned white with shock. He'd been actively playing Calisto off of him since the Noremarian had first arrived and now he was alone. It almost put a little flight in Kian's step.

"Wish me luck," he said. Then, Kian took a leap.

He alighted on the first plane of horizontal force, instantly spotted the next, landed on it ducked under a third, jumped over a fourth and found himself at the wall of force that descended from the ceiling. Without wasting a second, Kian leapt as high as he could; grabbed the top with both hands and pinched his fingers and palms together so that there was as little weight as possible actually aimed at the inside of his hands. His idea was to vice grip the wall of force and thus lift himself up that way instead of in a more traditional manner.

He was incredibly strong for his weight, and virtually all muscle. Even still, the momentary contact his God-forged killsuit had with the top of the wall of force made sparks fly as it tried to cut through the armor. Had Kian stayed there, he was sure he'd have lost some fingers. But he only need half a second and he was over.

Graceful was not an adequate word to describe Kian as he landed, rolled and jumped to the next plane of horizontal force. He pushed off of it with the ball of his left foot and his toes, made a vertical leap of about six feet, landed, leapt again, fell and bounced off another. At the second wall of force that descended from the ceiling, he jumped with all his strength and barely grabbed the top using the pinch technique again. Sparks flew from his gauntlets but he pulled himself over in under a second, landed on another three horizontal planes of force in succession and bounded over the last descending wall.

Completely drenched in sweat, he slammed Bloodbane into the stone wall near the ceiling as the blade of force he was standing on started to move away. It slid into the obsidian with ease and he shook the sword, forcing it to change into a huge club. The growth in size shattered the rock in the same spiderweb pattern he'd seen in the courtyard and it came tumbling down. Kian jumped clear of the debris, landed on a narrow ledge and ran over to a lever he saw sticking out from the wall. He flipped it and stone coverings from out of either wall slid into place, completely blocking off the pit of acid. The planes of force dissipated.

Tenander ran across with Chisato and Kirhasa, Dolmani picked his way across carefully.

"I've never seen anything like that," Tenander said to him.

"Like what?" Kian asked him, flipping his visor open. His handsome face was glazed in sweat. Tenander handed him the water bottle and he took a long swig from it.

"Like you. Like what you're capable of doing."

"Don't count all your ducks yet," he said. "There's still one more room ahead."

"Oh. Any idea what that one is?"

He finished drinking and handed the bottle back to Tenander. "I don't. Sorry, friend."

The Xirasian shrugged. "It's okay, you'll get us past it. I'm sure."

Kian appreciated the confidence Tenander had in him and for the first time since they set out, he felt that they actually stood a chance in this mission. He did miss not having more melee here, however, the ones that they'd brought had given him nothing but grief since the very moment they'd started. Out of all the ones that he wished would have lived, he believed he missed the bald monk the most. Akagi had shown promise. Sometimes fate had a way of screwing you on the river in a game of cards. Kian had been all in on Akagi and lost. Now, he had to move on or fold, it was his choice.

Kian crept cautiously along the basalt ledge, following the line of the room to the back where a steel portcullis stood blocking their way. Tenander, as he'd done before, flipped the lever to restore the room behind them to its original state. Magically, the shattered stone wall reappeared making him stare in wonder at it which some may have mistook as simply catlike curiosity.

On the far side of the portcullis, Kian saw a room filled with tall cylinders topped with huge metal spheres. Lightning arced between them; there was a narrow path down the middle composed completely of metal. He flicked his eyes around, seeing if he could spot a button or a lever that might open the portcullis. When he didn't recognize one, he tried lifting it and managed to move it almost an inch with the help of the others, but it simply wasn't enough to allow any of them to slip past into the room beyond.

"I think I see something," Chisato stated.

"What?"

"A button on the wall."

Kian took a look and saw it then. It was close to the portcullis and around a bend that wasn't visible from where he'd been standing. "Can you shoot it?" he asked.

"Maybe," she stated, drawing out her bow and arrow. She took aim, making sure to let loose in-between heartbeats so that there was more accuracy with the shot. When she let the arrow fly, there was an audible thrum from the drawstring as it slapped back into place. Her mark was true; the arrow struck the button, and the portcullis began to ascend into the ceiling.

"Excellent work," Kian said, rolling under it when the gap between the ground and the bottom of the gate was sufficient. He quickly got to his feet and examined the next test, to make sure he wasn't missing anything.

Bolts of lightning three feet in diameter jumped between the spheres of all six poles.

"Any idea how to get past this one?" Kirhasa asked him.

He turned his head in her direction, lifted up his visor. "I think we can just walk through it. I'm going to ground all the lightning to me, and wait until you guys go past and then catch up with you. Please hurry, my armor will heat up and the fumes on it will create caasak poison-it's deadly stuff."

"Are you sure that you can survive that much lightning?" Kirhasa asked him.

He nodded. "For a little while." Then he closed his helmet and drew his magical sword.

Bloodbane responded by unwrapping veins from around its ornate handle and slid them into his wrist. He shook it and formed a composite longbow. He cautioned the others to stay back with his right hand; then he took a step onto the metal floor.

Lightning struck him and he continued forward, left arm raised above his head drawing a bolt of lightning from the nearest sphere to his fingers. A second bolt of lightning drew to his outstretched hand; fumes were rising from the corobidian glove and Kian's whole body sizzled with electricity as it arced over the skin of the killsuit. He held up his bow, notched the corobidian arrow and shot the third sphere. The arrow trailed a corobidian chain that remained anchored to the Bow. This caused a third arc of lightning to get drawn to him. He repeated this with a fourth sphere, then a fifth, and finally, the sixth sphere.

All of the lightning from the pillars was drawn down upon him via the chains which he held upright clenched in the fist of his left hand. His killsuit blazed red hot on the outside and electricity crawled violently over the surface of the armor resembling white snakes. There were times when he appeared to be nothing but a glowing incandescent being comprised of pure energy.

"Run!" Tenander yelled over the thunderous crackle.

The five of them ran past Kian, ducked under bolts of savage lightning which popped, and exploded from every part of him.

They reached the far side of the room and backed away from the generators. In the shadows along the walls, Dolmani observed looming sentinels of stone.

Kian, inside the armor could see nothing but static. Clean sweat swept over his skin; even fully insulated, he was beginning to feel the heat as it bore through the top layer of his killsuit. He waited a few moments more and pulled free the chains which returned to Bloodbane with a life of their own. They hovered in the air as the bow coiled them into itself; electricity flowed down over its beautiful rainbow colored surface. The sword informed him in his mind that it was ready and Kian invoked the quantum sidestep while completely blind to the room. He rematerialized on the far side of the lightning generators and about twenty feet from where the five huddled. Slowly, his heads up display on the inside of the glass cleared up and he was able to look around and see that his plan had worked. They'd made their way safely through the lightning gauntlet.

Kian's killsuit continued to glow red for several minutes and he kept his distance as fumes from the corobidian lifted off from the skin of the armor. He needed to give it time to cool before he even risked opening his visor. In a sense, he was a prisoner in his own skin. But it was only a temporary prison and at least now, he could see. He paced the hall and watched the others.

Chisato walked down the chamber, leaving the lightning generators behind her. She searched out details in the low light and saw that the aft end of the room was lined with the black statues that Hunter had dispatched up in the courtyard of the Blades Acuuarum. There were probably twenty of them here, all lined up in two rows, some in various poses. Many of the statues were damaged, some chipped, others bearing wounds that looked like scorch marks, and there were three that looked as if the stone had been cut and the pieces lay strewn about on the ground.

She realized suddenly that these were the Cataclysm Slayer models that had failed to pass the tests that they'd managed to overcome. These were things that harbored God-like magic, powers from another time and another age that she would never understand. Each of them would have been proof against her weapons and magic, yet here she stood where they had failed. It gave her a sense of pride.

At the far end of the hall, Chisato discovered a lift that could be made to rise through a trap door in the ceiling. It was operated from a room to the west. This is where the engineers would load the models that succeeded in passing their tests and send them up to the main floor of the Blades Acuuarum keep. It used an elaborate winch and pulley system, most likely operated by slaves who were brought down here when the Cataclysm laboratories were operational. She crept along the walls, her hand outstretched and fingertips probing the surface of the rock searching for hidden passages. Her eyes spotted an uneven stone; a shallow indentation about ten feet across and at least fifteen feet high. This was the thing of which Kian had spoken; an ingress of some kind that led to an abandoned tunnel that fed onto an unused bridge spanning the Well of Zanda. She ran her fingers over the rough basalt rock; the stone was natural but not thick. These had been placed here much later after the fortress had already been in use, probably for many centuries.

"What did you find?" Kirhasa asked her.

She motioned with a nod from her chin. "I think that this is the secret passageway."

Kirhasa followed the line of the indentation with her eyes and then placed her spear against the wall. "Aperire!"

The hall filled with a grinding noise. Rock dislodged from the wall and clattered on the ground. Kirhasa's spell drew lines of green energy over the rock face forcing open an ancient gate. A portal appeared before them; a maw of darkness lay revealed, extending into a warm musty gloom. Stone steps descended; they were covered in dust. Spiderwebs hung in the passageway and drifted lazily on currents of air near the ceiling.

His armor having cooled to the point where it was no longer dangerous, Kian joined them. Dolmani, and Tenander followed along with Tenander in a pensive pose and Dolmani gazing on with eyes that at last, seemed to show some legitimate interest.

"Good job," Kian stated to the girls. Chisato glanced at the Black Dragon Assassin, his normally handsome killsuit now had a matte finish, having lost all of its gloss to the lightning. There were scorch marks along the surface and it looked dented in places.

"You're really rough on that," she remarked.

He shrugged. "I've gone through fifteen over the years. They're meant to be used. This one has still got a lot of life left in it."

"Good of you to say since the church pays for it," Dolmani said. Then he changed his tune, "I might be able to provide some light. Flammae!" he uttered.

In front of him, a ball of glowing yellow fire appeared. He gestured with his fingers and sent it through the spiderwebs which burst into momentary flames and quickly burned out. He rolled the sphere down the stairwell, directing it with his thoughts and had it come to a stop at the bottom.

Kian took lead, gingerly negotiating the stones, tapping them one at a time with his toes to see if there was something suspicious with regard to the ground before he set his entire weight on the slab. The others trailed his exact footsteps. The walls of the stairwell were comprised of fine stones interconnected with plaster to form a mosaic of Zandine's infamous, Wall of Bones, said to lie somewhere within the massive confines of the Libarium Apocalypto.

It was a sight that Kian could only describe as a living nightmare unlike anything he'd ever seen depicted elsewhere in religious relief. It was a wall made of multitudinous bone that in the mural, stretched to the horizon. Bleached white by the three suns of Wynwrayth, it rose to a colossal height some two-hundred feet above the ground, the bones on the outer side held into place by monstrous-sized rib bones from some unknown creature. Every possible skeleton imaginable could be found here, from the skull of a lizard man to the femur of some hapless humanoid whose body was utilized in the development of this horrific construction.

Atop the wall, black hellbirds darker than the night sky between the very stars themselves rested on perches interwoven with human hair. Kian imagined the hellbirds cawing like a murder of crows but their elongated bodies and black greasy feathers that glistened under the suns denoted a monstrous origin. As he watched, he could almost see steam rising from their feathers even though they were far removed from the fires of Hell. Bits and pieces of the bones here and there were stained permanently with dried blood.

The earth at the base of the wall looked foul.

It was a place of rotten flesh and of things unspeakable.

"Hunter!" Dolmani exclaimed, getting his attention. "Keep your wits about you."

He nodded recalling his attention from the massive religious art piece. He pulled his eyes from the mural and descended to the bottom of the stairs to stand in the light of the flaming orb.

The six of them stood within an immense hall that disappeared into long, deep shadows. The ceiling was arched; the walls were carved basalt stone that looked like thousands of baby heads, some crying, some shrieking, and others obviously in pain. Each of the stone heads was interlocked with another and polished so that the surface gleamed in the flickering light, almost as if wet. A breeze caused by the opening at the top of the stairs caused wind to move past the mouths of all of these carvings and Kian swore that he heard moans emanate from their unmoving lips.

"I think we'll find the doors at the end of this," Kian motioned.

"You think?" Dolmani asked. "You'd better be more certain than that!"

Hunter turned and regarded Dolmani with reverence. "My apologies, your grace. The door that opens onto the bridge that Ren and I saw will be at the end of this hall. Let's just stay together and it'd be best if the rest of you trailed me by twenty feet or so in case I spring a trap."

Dolmani gestured and sent the flaming ball bouncing along in front of Kian, lighting the way inside the confines of this massive underground chamber. As he walked, he became aware of the echoes his footfalls caused and consciously adjusted his posture so that his steps became silent. Chisato marveled at that; she'd thought it would be impossible for Kian to move quietly in his killsuit. This was proof that she was wrong.

Far ahead, Kian saw columns supporting the roof. In the gloom of one such edifice, he saw brief movement and heard the pitter patter of small childlike feet against the floor. "Wait here," he said, calling a stop with his hand. Before anyone could protest, he sidestepped and with a flicker, was gone.

He appeared at the pillar and saw a small child running away from him. Kian sidestepped again, this time ahead of the child. He saw it was a beautiful boy, probably six years old, with blond hair and blue eyes. He was reasonably tall for his age and had a lithe frame similar to that possessed by Kian when he was smaller.

"Papa," the boy said.

Kian knelt down and removed his helmet; gazed in wonder at the exquisite boy. "Who are you?"

With sudden clarity, an immense room of black granite stone faded into view. The room was at least two-hundred feet in length, and another hundred feet wide, were Kian to count it as a perfect rectangle. Geometrically speaking, it was not a perfect room, with nooks, crannies, entrances and exits aplenty from halls he had never before seen.

"Where is this place?" he asked the child. But the boy didn't answer him. Instead he lifted his arms; Kian realized he wanted to be picked up and did so. He held him gently while the child ran his fingers through Kian's sweaty blond hair and tickled Kian's ears.

Kian saw that grandly embellished chandeliers of black iron cradling sconces of continual flame did their best to light the chamber. But this was a place where light fled and cowered in the corners, away from the immensity of the Shadow that strode the hall and fell downward from the vaulted ceiling above, where the transparency of the roof allowed one to gaze at the underbelly of a storm which flickered and seethed with lightning and whose anger cast itself about, electrocuting the weather vanes of the high-most towers of some bleak unknown fortress.

Figures cloaked in black robes occupied the south end of the hall; their small forms led Kian to assume that all of them were women. Their frailty seemed exaggerated by the size of the smooth fluted black columns of marble that flew upward into obscurity. Just beyond the circle of women lay an open terrace. Its maw stared like a twisted mouth of a stone giant looking forever into the sands of a desert without end, an ocean of sand beneath the walls of some ancient and great city some two miles below.

As if on cue, the entire chamber seethed with blue light from a bolt of lightning that arced across the roof, illuminating a figure astride a throne of gold. The figure was that of a woman, but no woman that he'd ever laid eyes upon. She was a thing of darkness, smoothness to her living limb, but with the coldness of a stone statue. Her eyes had no color, her mouth was unmoving, and her face was expressionless. Her hair was black smoke, curling and flowing in the wind. But, as Kian watched, it also hovered about the shoulders as if on some pretense it considered itself hair for just a moment, rather than the stuff of fire and flame, soot black, and oddly radiant in the night.

Ten paces from the throne stood a female dwarf whom he did not recognize. She was perfectly still, a small gray being who was pretty of face, but ever watchful, and whose smile was absent in every second that he observed her. Instead, upon her face was the look of disappointment, sadness, and a continual frown that almost seemed engraved upon her visage as surely as a stonemason knew how to work the hardest, most unyielding rock of the world. Kian felt that this dwarf was wise beyond the centuries that she had lived, that she was a being forged of persecution, of hatred, jealousy, and rage.

Without fear she gazed at the hundreds of clerics in the room and Kian realized that she did so with contempt, for she was greater and more powerful than any of them. Yet she was waiting for something; Kian's eyes darted about the room to see if he could pick out whatever it was that was approaching. Then he saw it, a thing moved in the east end of the chamber.

Kian swallowed hard, watching.

The boy in his arms kissed his cheek and touched his nose with his hand; he moved his head away to avoid the distraction. The thing turned out to be a creature of immense size possessed with a long reptilian neck covered in glittering sapphire scales. Its claws scraped the smooth stone of the hall, producing a clatter like that of nails being driven into stone. Its wings of deep blue hue seemed to deepen to midnight under the shadow of the flaming sconces.

However, its eyes looked nervously to the figure on the golden throne.

Distantly, Kian heard the ringing of a great bell which was soon accompanied by the shodden footsteps of many armed guards. From the northernmost hallway, lit sparsely with golden light so that the ceiling of frescoes depicting the rise of the Queen of Demons from the shadows at the steps of the holy mountain to which Inzilbeth's life had been spilt, walked ten Timeron Knights bearing a cage wrought of black metal.

It was twisted into a horrible and unseemly shape.

Kian thought that it was almost as if the cage were meant to be a mocking parody of love, a twisted and demented thing, made ignoble by the encasement of steel black thorns glistening with a poisonous ichor and suspended with poles that ran through the top of the cage.

Inside the cage was a beautiful female angel. She was bruised and cut by life-stealing weapons, and her body suffered from the wounds that could only be inflicted by weapons most vile.

As he watched, Kian's eyes glistened with tears. The woman was proud, with eyes of gold that flashed still in this place of great evil, her raiment of gold armor spattered and drenched with red as if she swam in the Sea of Blood and only yet emerged to lay claim to a towel.

The woman on the throne bent her torso forward and with long fingers alight with liquid shadow, she spoke. "Tell us your tale, Skellhaundar Romax."

The blue dragon bowed, "As you wish, Night's Daughter. As you well know, I was stationed in the city of Lookfar and serve as the mount of the great Timeron Knight General, Zylander Chezbernon. A few nights ago, an important state criminal was set to be executed. The standard execution was foiled by a pixie that could not have planned this maneuver alone. I spent much time in trying to locate her, but I was unsuccessful. Each and every time one of the sorcerers of the Citadel of the Black Zealots tried to use the scrying chamber, the attempt failed."

"Who was the prisoner that escaped?" the Night's Daughter asks.

"He was a spy for the Church of Thieves."

"Our most hated enemy," Night's daughter stated flatly.

"Yes," the dragon said, "It was important for him to die. It's possible that the knowledge he has could find its way into the hierarchy of Tethyr's church and alert them to our plan and alliance with the Nevrenachtur assassins who seek to eradicate the Order of Black Dragon Assassins who are the church's most powerful single servants. He might also undermine the credibility and possibly expose our strongest ally, the Nocturne Inquisitor himself, who has amassed a fortune of bloody gold for the information he has provided to our organization on the location of thieve's guilds throughout the empire. The list this traitor to the Church of Thieves has provided us include the names of important individuals that supply information to the forces of Light. For example, how could we have guessed that the mysterious Warder whom we have heard about for centuries was in fact, the King of High Castle which lies off the coast of southwestern Sulasia? The Warder's information network has long been a friend to the imperious forces of the Sun God Ariok and his city states, to the principalities, and to the High Valion Guard. Now that we know the identity of the Warder, fifteen of our best assassins will slay him and his family, bringing an end to that bloodline."

"Excellent," the Night's Daughter said dispassionately.

The dragon continued, "The Magus Mortualis who stands here as our ally, brings news of the demise of a powerful enemy that has stood as a bulwark against the tide brought to the world at the behest of our Queen. The witch Yasmine Lightmoon is gone from the world."

The Night's Daughter turned to Sarilor. "You've performed what others have been unable to accomplish for thousands of years."

Sarilor looked at the Night's Daughter and without ceremony or deference to the Disciple's power, she spoke, "I had not intended for her to oppose me in the Nimmermore Mountains, and, I cannot say that it was not the most intense battle I've ever faced. I respect the witch for the things she learned in her lifetime, and cannot without some deference to her power say that she died well. But the fact that she knew about my movements could only have come from that troublesome Slayer Tsincaat, and it is in her destruction that I find the salvation to decapitate the Tsincaat's head, and kill Kian Lightfoot himself so that he no longer opposes us or our plans for the world."

When he heard the dwarf speak Kian's name, the boy clapped his hands together and kissed Kian again. However, Kian was uncomfortable. The organization known as the Slayer Tsincaat was barely a year old, funded with his own money, and kept secret from everyone except himself and Yasmine. How on earth had she died?

Yasmine was the witch who was helping him to overcome the Sulasian curse which robbed him of the ability to bear children. Her magic was extremely powerful and the fact that she'd been defeated, terrified him. And who was the traitor in the Church of Thieves? The Nocturne Inquisitor was a title referred to in prophecy as a priest whose selfish motivations would bring about the destruction of Tethyr's church. He'd always thought the prophecy a lie. After all, what being truly in love with Tethyr could ever harm the church or the members within the church? Then, it occurred to him that the Nocturne Inquisitor might be Dolmani and that idea left his mouth dry.

"What is your plan?" The Night's daughter asked.

"The plan is born in the most unlikely of places," Sarilor began, "and I cannot but cackle at the irony that it is in love that he is destroyed. I once had a conversation with a disciple of love...foolhardy and stupid he was, a cowering bit of sniveling wretchedness whose plans included printed declarations against my actions in Vailymar while he, himself, lived in constant fear of what I would do to him should I get my hands around his neck. Love is a weakness, not a strength, and I have seen many a man undone by its power. The fact that the Nocturne Inquisitor is so easily bought with coffers of gold stripped from the hands of his own followers only sweetens the deal. Allow me to elaborate. The Nocturne Inquisitor provides us with a means of contacting Kian Lightfoot. I tell our traitor to manipulate him to go into a place where he will have no support from the Church of Thieves save his own. Then, the trap closes on him because waiting for Hunter are the Shade of Morghul and six other death knight Nevrenachtur assassins including Cirumoghel himself. Because they are infused with the blood of Yogwomaryl, they are proof against the Black Dragon assassin abilities. The web draws tighter about his neck. There is no escape for any that follow the traitor into this place so there are no loose tongues; Kian will be unable to teleport away and the Shade of Morghul sucks the soul out of his body and stores it in a jewel to be handed over to me. Then the Nocturne Inquisitor goes back to the Church of Thieves as a hero, having been the only one to survive such a terrifying encounter. Soon after, public demand for the one that stood back-to-back with Kian Lightfoot in his last hour and only managed to escape with his life is elevated to Disciplehood!" Sarilor cackled gleefully. "This traitor then allies the church with Nahemoth who in turn aids you in conquering the world."

"And what of the jewel containing Kian's soul?" The Night's Daughter asked.

"I keep it as a bargaining chip should Milbar's daughter enter the picture."

"Sabrina?"

"Yes. She is infatuated with the Black Dragon Assassin; for what reason I've no idea. Love is truly blind. But her skills with magic are formidable; I doubt I could best her in single magical combat."

Kian thought about Sabrina. He didn't know how to feel about her; there was already a large portion of his heart that belonged to the raven-haired, blue-eyed daughter of the God of Magic. Her skin always smelt like spring flowers to him; her hair reminded him of a summer breeze across a field of wildflowers freshly sprung from snowmelt. But because of the curse he bore, he never married her and chose to live a life alone, focused upon work. His decision to do so might have affected her as well, for she too remained single. She was so stunning and so magically talented, he was certain she'd have suitors that would desire to make her their wife or even queen and he hoped that she'd gotten over him.

A tear rolled down his cheek which the child wiped away.

He looked at the golden-haired boy in his arms and the child hugged him. He was thin, just as Kian had been at that age, had the same facial features, small perfect ears, and bright eyes. "Papa," he said, hugging him.

"Are you showing me this?"

He nodded.

"Why?"

"So that you won't die. I love you papa and need you to find me."

"Where are you?"

The boy motioned pointing up at the ceiling but then he circled his arms as if trying to decide how exactly to answer Kian's question.

"The future?" Kian asked. The boy liked his answer and nodded. "What am I to do?"

The boy looked sad. "May I sing you a song, papa? I must go soon, and you must know this before I leave."

Kian nodded, enraptured by what he felt was an image of his unborn son.

The boy's voice began, lilting and sorrowful, it was a song he'd never heard before and it was as much in Kian's mind as it was in his ears.

"In twilight world of darkness gray
And sentinel of ash and fire
Beyond door of chaos and temple pray
Beneath eye of crone, the tome of the liar."

"A wall of books in vile speech,
A world of words you will find
The ancient speech of forgers make
A universe unraveled take
In Gates of Cold thy will thy mind
Go back and forth from world unkind."

"The Dark Daughter before her time,
Had sister lost to sword divine,
Deeping Lore that slew the one,
And left the other in solace none.
When man came from the sea of brine
And the First Age rose with two in kine."

"In this a place of madness night
Walk the Wicked one whose might
He seeks to bring against her lone
And his weapon yet flesh and bone
Stars and fire in the sky shine bright
In this time of terrible light."

"Seek out the legend that felled the one,
A blade borne out of spite and scum.
The first it's called, the last it will be.
In Tinerval's hand, weapon three
In the land of Ash, gray light shun
The weapon awaits, midnight sun.
Blood will call it,
Lust will calm it,
Flesh will embalm it.
Forever in thy destiny."

Then the child disappeared, leaving Kian alone in the dark hallway with the words of the song burned into his memory and tears streaming down his face.