

### Erich's Plea

Book One of The Witchcraft Wars

By

Tracey Alley

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Tracey Alley on Smashwords

Erich's Plea: Book One of The Witchcraft Wars

Copyright © 2013 by Tracey L. Ali

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

###  Dedication

This book is dedicated with much love to my dad, Graham Martin, who taught me the value of dreams.... and to my mum, Janet, who gave me the means to make my dreams come true.

I would also like to give thanks to the people who helped make this book a reality; Andrew Farrawell, Scott Jensson, Rachel and Andrew Lennox-Gordon, John Rittmeir, and Matthew Old... they helped to bring my characters alive.

I also have a very special word of thanks to the extremely talented Geoff Armstrong who did all the interior artwork for Erich's Plea – through Geoff's hard word, under pressure; I was finally able to meet my characters face to face.

### The Dream

 Slade could feel the warmth of the rising sun on his face. The subtle scent of the sacred oak trees filled the air. All around him was the slow chanting of the druids who made this forest their home.

Opening his eyes Slade saw his druidic mentor standing before him, a guide to this sunrise initiation ceremony. Karel's wise, heavily lined face was hidden by the coarse linen cowl he wore but Slade could sense the gentle smile underneath the rhythmic chanting.

Karel had once been a mercenary soldier, selling his skill with a blade to the highest bidder. Then Karel had turned his back on his former profession and joined the ranks of those who served the gentle woodland goddess Suelta. After years of service he was now her high priest and Archdruid of the Sacred Grove.

The other male and female members of the Grove, who represented virtually every race in The Kingdoms, formed a chanting circle around Slade and Karel as they welcomed Slade into their circle. Once the ritual was completed Slade would be presented with the druidic ring with its wide, silver band engraved with oak leaves and begin his new life.

Slade felt as though his heart would burst with pride. Joining the druids of the Sacred Grove had been his dream for more than a year. Finally he had succeeded and it was a triumph he had earned solely on his own merits, owing nothing to his birth.

From this day on Slade would renounce his former life. He would give up the right to continue the training he had begun with the warrior-monks of the Black Lotus and dedicate his life instead to serving Suelta. Slade's decision involved more than just giving up an old profession. He had also given up his name and his birthright. No longer would he be known as Einreich Gudmundson. No longer would he be the Crown Prince of the vast northern kingdom of Saxenburg. He would no longer be Erich's designated heir, in spite of his position as a second son, to the centuries old High Throne.

Slade knew he had disappointed his father, High King Erich, in his decision to leave court. Nevertheless his father had allowed it, would even have attended this ceremony had protocol allowed. Knowing he had hurt his father pained Slade deeply but he knew it was the right decision for him. Slade wanted nothing more than a life free from the intrigues and pressures of his father's court.

Suddenly a deep shadow filled the grove and a bluish tinted light dappled the ground. It was as though the Sapphire moon were beginning its ascent instead of the fiery sun.

Startled Slade looked up at the sky only to find it clear and cloudless; the deep shadow caused instead by a huge black dragon in flight. The giant creature had a wingspan easily twenty feet across, its' body more than twice that amount including the long tail, serpentine neck and huge wedge-shaped head. Slade's breath caught in his throat, the beast above was magnificent, indescribably beautiful.

Slade found himself falling to his knees as he gazed in wonder at the immense dragon, inexplicably hanging stationary in the air. Slade wondered what a dragon, and a black dragon at that, was doing so far south? Traditionally they were found only in the far north of The Northern Badlands.

Slade looked up towards his mentor, certain that Karel would have some explanation of this incredible sight. Instead Slade was horrified to see Karel had somehow grown or expanded, towering above Slade and his fellow druids. Karel threw off the cowl, the material splitting as Karel continued to grow, and revealed the grotesque creature that he had become.

As Slade watched in growing horror and confusion the thing that had been Karel still retained his humanoid shape but everything else was now grossly distorted. He or it, Slade was no longer sure, looked a little like the ogres of the north, a bald oversized head on an incredibly strong and muscular body. Yet it also closely resembled the woodland trolls, having their tough, green tinged skin and elongated arms and legs.

The creature turned his back on Slade and faced directly into the rising sun. Slade was terrified, he knew none of this was natural or normal, and he did not understand what was happening. Then he heard his father's voice fill the air. "Follow the Trunk, my son. Follow the Trunk. Only you can save me. Follow the Trunk. Save me, my son, only you can save me." The voice faded to a whisper on the wind and all was dark.

Slade opened his eyes, as much as possible given the amount of swelling that had not yet receded from his most recent beating. As expected he saw only the flat, stone ceiling of his prison cell. Once again, he had been dreaming, but this dream had been unlike any of the others. Slade's druidic initiation had taken place nearly five years ago, the ritual going as expected, with no unforeseen dragons or ghosts of his father's voice.

This dream had possessed an otherworldly quality to it that Slade had never before experienced. It felt as though his father were truly trying to communicate with him. Somehow Slade sensed the essence of the dream was true, but he had no idea how his father could have come to him in his dreams. Even though he felt convicted of the dream's truth, Slade could not imagine why his father should be in need of rescue. Even more enigmatic was his father's dream instruction to 'Follow the Trunk'. What could that possibly mean?

### Diablis Prison

 Gingerly Slade eased himself into a sitting position on the small pallet with its infested straw that served as a bed for him in this tiny prison cell. His eyes were still swollen almost shut and pain

accompanied every breath he took. Pain caused, Slade was certain, by at least one, if not more broken ribs.

Despite his growing certainty that his beloved father was in some kind of trouble, Slade couldn't help but wonder how any trouble his father might be in could possibly be worse than his own current predicament.

It had been a little over two months now since he had last seen the sun. Travelling through the wilderness that made up the bulk of the Kingdom of Brikenwald, he had been ambushed and arrested before a speedy trial saw him convicted as a spy. It was obvious that the charge was a ridiculous fabrication, but the Kingdom of Brikenwald had no allegiance to any of the other Kingdoms of Kaynos and so anyone within its' boundaries was subject to their laws, even if they were patently obviously false accusations. Initially Slade had not been terribly concerned, convinced he would be able to escape sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately the opportunity had not presented itself before he had been placed in the bowels of a ship headed for this wicked island prison in Ixlan. Once on board any attempted escape was impossible. Not only was the distance required to reach the shore too far for him to swim, but he had also discovered to his dismay that when travelling the rough Eastern Sea, he suffered from debilitating seasickness.

Two months ago he had arrived at Ixlan's Diablis prison complex and been taken to this subterranean dungeon with its smooth stone walls, mazes of corridors, little or no lighting and the constant smell of death, blood, waste and decay in his nostrils. He had been alternatively beaten and tortured for hours on a daily basis. His own screams blending with the cries, screams and moans of the other, unseen, sufferers in Diablis's nightmarish torture chambers.

The horrors here were so great that even the rats eschewed Diablis, although the fleas showed no similar scruples and were an additional constant torment. His body was covered head to toe with tiny bites from the multitudes of the awful creatures. Slade would not have believed it was possible for a place like Diablis prison to exist if he had not seen it with his own eyes. It well deserved its evil reputation.

Diablis also had a reputation for being inescapable; no one, in all its long history had ever escaped from its confines, except in death. Slade had never believed half the rumors that had surrounded Diablis before, now he saw clearly they were all true and worse. He also knew why so many of those imprisoned here died and, it was said, were glad to, death being preferable to daily life in Diablis.

Each day that passed for Slade saw his strength being steadily sapped; his once lean and muscular frame becoming daily more wasted. Between the pitiful amount of barely edible food, the near constant beatings or other, more inventive types of torture Slade had become a shadow of his former self. Only two things had so far prevented Slade from succumbing to the horrors of Diablis.

Physically he relied on the strengthening exercises practiced by the monks of the Black Lotus. The exercises, a compulsory part of his training, had once kept him lean and strong, now Slade believed they were keeping him alive. To survive emotionally and mentally Slade found himself relying on memories of Ming to endure Diablis's tortures.

Slade recognized the irony, that Ming, who he had spent the past five years trying so hard to forget now haunted his thoughts, waking or sleeping, and he welcomed the memories. His thoughts of Ming and the relationship they had once shared had given Slade the courage to endure the beatings, the torture and the cold, hard stone of his underground cell.

This far below ground it was impossible to tell the time accurately but very faintly he could hear the far off sounds above him that typically heralded a new day. Soon enough guards would come for him and escort him to whatever torture was to be his fate that day. Still moving carefully Slade dressed in the filthy prison uniform he had been issued, which was now little more than rags. He performed his morning ablutions then slowly and painfully began to work his way through the series of exercises.

As he worked through the strengthening exercises Slade wondered about his former teacher. Solomon was head of the Black Lotus monastery, and had trained Slade, his older brother Ulrich and their younger sister Ursula. The master had taught all of them many extremely useful tricks. Tricks that now might help him escape, which Slade would willingly employ at the first possible opportunity.

Given his growing conviction the bizarre dream was a true omen of danger Slade vowed he would somehow find a way to do the impossible and escape, and he would have to do it soon. While the strict regime and constant torture that was life in Diablis prison seemed to afford no opportunity and Slade could not readily see a way out he would nevertheless have to make a way.

Shortly after beginning his second set of exercises two prison guards arrived. They were big, burly men with the rough, dark skin and slightly flattened noses that were evidence of some orcish blood. The guards were obviously not Ixlan natives, who tended towards pale skin and dark hair. This was hardly surprising; very few of those in charge in Ixlan were natives.

It was hard to believe that the island kingdom of Ixlan and his home kingdom of Saxenburg had once been close allies. In fact Slade's grandfather, Vidar, had been a cousin of Ixlan's former ruler Eldritch. Since the invasion, however, Ixlan and Saxenburg had become bitter enemies.

Although the invasion had happened before Slade's birth he had heard all the stories. A little over forty years ago the once peaceful island kingdom had been thrown into chaos by orc armies that had swept across the land looting, burning, killing many of the people and forcing the rest into slavery. Eventually even King Eldritch had been slaughtered, his head posted on a spike outside the gates of Diablis city.

The assault of the orcish armies had been swift and brutal, taking all by surprise and there had been no time for Slade's grandfather to send aid to his cousin. By the time Saxenburg's troops had landed on the main island the orc army was so firmly entrenched that the men, Slade's father Erich among them, were lucky to escape the island with their lives.

Word had eventually filtered through The Kingdoms that a man known only as 'The Dark One' was Ixlan's new ruler. Who he was or where he had come from no one knew. All that was known about The Dark One was eventually learned through bitter experience. His unwarranted cruelty, his tyranny, and his apparent omniscience all too soon became legendary.

A once beautiful archipelago of islands whose folk were mostly fisherman and traders Ixlan had now become a home to cutthroats, murderers and a pirate haven feeding the otherwise illegal slave trade. Justice, law and order were now unknown in the islands with the surviving natives reduced to slaves for their new overlords.

As an island kingdom with a highly trained and skilled navy, Ixlan was impregnable, yet Slade's father had never relinquished his dream that the kingdom could one day be reclaimed. Although who his father wished to reclaim the kingdom for Slade had never known as Eldritch's only son and heir had disappeared during the invasion and never resurfaced.

Slade, like his father, was tall and normally very well built, over six feet of lean muscle with the reddish hair and pale skin typical of Saxenburg. His captors, however, were taller still and in his currently weakened condition, considerably stronger. As such Slade did not even bother to struggle when his captors took hold of his arms to lead him away.

For the past two months this had been a silent procession through the maze of cells to one of the many hideous subterranean torture chambers. Today however, his half-orc guards were talkative; to each other, of course. The language they spoke was not orcish or Common. It was unusual but eventually Slade recognized it as a form of one of the hill giant dialects.

When he identified the language Slade was so puzzled by this he stumbled and almost fell, only to be roughly dragged upright by his jailers. Where, he wondered, would a couple of bloodthirsty Ixlan guards have picked up hill giant? The majority of the giant tribes lived in the Northern Badlands and they were a peaceful people whose only wish was to be left alone.

Today was certainly turning out to be a day of surprises. First the strange dream, then hearing his captors speak for the first time, in a dialect that made little sense, and now it appeared his guards were not taking him to one of the underground torture chambers after all. As they turned into a long, narrow corridor Slade could see a staircase at the end of the hall. A staircase leading up, not down.

### The Wheel Room

 Apart from the day of his arrival, Slade had spent no time on the main floor, which was the only part of the prison at ground level. Like all prisoners he had been processed in a large room on the main floor, stripped of his belongings then given the rough trousers and loose overshirt of the prison population and taken below ground. Slade searched his memory for details of the main floor but his time there had been so short that he had only the dimmest impression of the layout.

The stairs ended in a small stone alcove that made an abrupt right turn into a huge, blindingly bright sunlit room without any ceiling. Slade blinked back tears from the painful light and tried to make sense of the room before him. In the centre of the long open room was an odd structure, like a wheel turned on its side. It had a central core with iron bars coming off the core at evenly paced intervals. What purpose the structure served was impossible to tell but its use was immediately apparent.

Several prisoners were already chained to the iron bars and were walking endlessly in a circle causing the central core to move. A few of the prisoners appeared relatively healthy while others were virtual skeletons, their skin hanging loosely from bones. He saw that some of the prisoners were darkly sunburned while others appeared to have only recently been brought to the wheel room, given that their skin was still so pale.

Stationed around the room were several more guards. Some, like Slade's captors, of probable orcish descent, others obviously human but every one of them equipped with long whips, crossbows, sharp daggers and heavy leather jerkins.

Slade was half walked and half dragged to one of the empty spokes, his hands tied quickly to the bar with strips of leather. The whole procedure being performed on the move as the other prisoners continued to turn the wheel. Once Slade was tied to the structure there was no choice but to keep moving.

As he walked, Slade tried to get a sense of the room's location within the prison complex. The wheel room, as he termed it, seemed to be positioned in the centre of the main floor. Slade remembered Diablis as a long rectangular building. He could see doors leading out of this room to either side and there was a pair of reinforced wooden doors in the middle of the northern facing stone wall. There were no doors in the wall behind him, which Slade believed meant it was probably an outer wall. Unfortunately he saw nothing that seemed to offer any chance for escape.

Slade soon realized that this part of the prison complex had been very cleverly designed to catch the full rays of the sun for as long as possible. Morning, afternoon and deadly midday sun beat down on Slade and his fellow prisoners as they walked or, more frequently stumbled on and on in a pointless and endless circle.

That this pointless and backbreaking labor was performed under the blistering sun only made the work more torturous. With sweat dripping from his body Slade could not even begin to imagine how unbearable this would be in summer; it was torturous enough now in the middle of winter.

The wheel made a continual low-pitched whine and emitted occasional flashes of extremely bright light. Slade's curiosity about the wheel gnawed at him but he forced himself to concentrate instead on the prisoners and guards, searching for any possible weakness he could use to escape. There were only ten guards watching the thirty prisoners tied to the wheel, a number he found encouraging.

Slade fought the mind numbing monotony of the wheel and concentrated on watching the guards and his fellow prisoners. His observations had to be made surreptitiously. Any obvious move to look around was halted by a quick lash from the nearest guard's whip, something he learned when he felt the sting across his shoulders and the guard shouted at him to 'keep his eyes down'.

Not wishing to incur the wrath of the guards or the feel the sting of the lash again Slade focused for the moment on the man directly in front of him on the wheel. He was as tall as Slade with the blue-black hair and pale skin of an Ixlan native. His wide, heavily muscled shoulders and arms indicated that the human was probably a warrior.

The prisoner walked shirtless, his bare back showing a pattern of lash marks, all of them likely to have been gained here in Diablis. Yet there was something about the strangers walk that seemed vaguely familiar to Slade. Puzzling over this Slade eventually decided he had recognized the type and not the man.

His fellow prisoners were predominantly human with the occasional elf or dwarf. Not surprisingly there were no orcs, half-orcs, hobgoblins, ogres or goblins. These were the races that made up the bulk of The Dark One's army, along with a scattering of humans, and their penalty, regardless of the crime, was always death.

Gossip that filtered through The Kingdoms claimed this was because only the so-called inferior races, or more specifically humans, elves and dwarves, were fit to be made prisoners. How The Dark One reconciled his classification of humans as 'inferior' given that he himself was said to be human had never been fully explained. The 'true' warriors, a blatant appeal to the vanity of the orc and goblin races, once thought of as little more than animals by many, it was said could never be imprisoned or enslaved and so had to be killed.

Wiser voices said the reason The Dark One killed those in his army for all infractions was solely to promote terror among the rest. Obedience tended to be more automatic if death was the punishment for every crime and there was no shortage of goblins, orcs, half-orcs, hobgoblins and ogres in the north. Slade believed that was the true reason behind the policy. Combined with the fact that if The Dark One began executing humans, dwarves and elves on a wide scale some of their native kingdoms might join together to retake Ixlan.

Slade carefully turned his attention from his fellow prisoners to the guards. At first it appeared the guards maintained a strict watch on the men at the wheel but gradually Slade began to realize this was not the case. For the most part the guards walked around, not to keep an eye on their charges, but to talk with each other. Whether this was normal behavior on their part Slade had no way of knowing.

The whine of the central core made it difficult to overhear what they were saying but from the small fragments of conversation he was able to catch, it seemed to Slade that all the guards were excited about some upcoming festival. With each slow revolution of the wheel Slade heard the guards talking about the food, the drink and the planned entertainment.

Surprisingly it appeared from their talk that most of the guards in the prison complex had been given time off to attend the festival, called The Sun Ascension, which would leave the prison guarded by only a skeleton crew. Somewhere in the back of his mind Slade knew the Sun Ascension festival was familiar, although in his exhaustion he could not remember why.

All that day Slade and the others walked. The heat, despite the winter weather, became unbearable. Sweat poured off their bodies, and still they walked. Only twice was the wheel halted, the prisoners were given a cupful of tepid water, some bread and cheese, and then the walk was resumed.

Salty sweat dripped into Slade's swollen, puffy eyes making them sting and dribbled down his arms causing the leather thongs tying him to the iron bar to tighten painfully, cutting into his wrists and still they walked. If anyone fell, and some did, the others kept walking, dragging the unfortunate soul along regardless until they were able to stumble to their feet. Some of them never did regain their feet, until Slade realized with horror they were dragging along a dead man. In its own way the wheel was every bit as effective a torture as those practiced in the dungeons below.

Eventually the sun began to set and the wheel ground to a halt before each man was freed and led downstairs. Slade took note that the guards transported one prisoner at a time, with two guards to each prisoner. No more than two pairs of guards would leave at the same time, which meant that there were always at least six guards watching the still tied prisoners.

Even if an escape attempt during this period had been possible he doubted he had the required energy or physical strength to even try. Utterly exhausted Slade was unable to do more than stand slumped over the bar and wait to be led back to his cell.

That night he dreamed again, not his usual dreams of Ming and the past, but the strange dream of his father. This time Slade recognized the dream; the same initiation ceremony ending so abruptly with an echo of his father's voice with its enigmatic command to 'follow the trunk.' For the next three days Slade endured the monotonous horror of the wheel during the day while the dream came every night.

His conviction of the dreams truth grew and along with it a desperate need to escape. Each day the guards continued to talk about the coming festival and the small snatches of overheard conversation gave Slade the tiniest seed of a plan. If the festival was as important as the talk of the guards made it appear then there was a chance the guards on duty that day might be distracted and, of course, there would be far less of them with so many attending the Festival.

That distraction, coupled with a tiny sliver of bone that Slade had retained from an evening meal and sharpened to a knife-like edge, might be enough to allow him to escape. At worst, he would die and after all he had been through dying no longer seemed the worst possible scenario.

### Follow the Trunk

 The morning of the festival was Slade's fourth day on the wheel, and he was prepared. The sliver of bone was hidden between the index and middle fingers of his left hand. His heart was pounding horribly in his chest all the way to the main floor.

With each step he took Slade's fear, his terror, grew. Fear that in his currently weakened condition he would not have the strength required to overcome even one of the burly prison guards, let alone what would likely be many. Fear that the guards would discover the sliver of bone and then all his plans would come to nothing. As it turned out all his fears, and his plans, were in vain.

Arriving at the wheel room Slade was pleased to note there were, as he had hoped, fewer guards than usual. In fact there were only six guards, including his two escorts. What he had not expected or planned for, however, was the distraction being provided by a new prisoner.

The prisoner was well over seven feet tall, heavily muscled and appeared to be a nightmarish blend of troll and ogre. Slade stopped cold in shock; this was the creature that he had seen in his dream, the thing that Karel had become. Exactly as it had appeared in his dream the huge creature had the general appearance, height and musculature of the northern ogres with the green skin and elongated arms and legs of the woodland trolls.

"Trunk not go on wheel! Trunk go home!" The creature said roughly. As he spoke, Trunk flexed his huge, elongated and extremely powerful arms and threw off both his guards with the ease of a child tossing away a small doll. Despite the creature's thick, guttural accent he was still easily understood. Slade was certain this was the Trunk of his dreams. All Slade had to do now was 'follow the Trunk' as his father had instructed.

The two guards who had escorted Slade ran, along with the other remaining guards, to the aid of their fallen fellows. One of the fallen guards, Slade could see, would never rise again; his neck twisted so that it appeared he gazed eternally over his shoulder. Without stopping to think Slade used the ensuing confusion and the sudden surge of energy from adrenalin to run to the wheel.

Using the sharpened bone sliver he cut the leather thongs of the first prisoner he came to and received yet another shock. He knew this black-haired man; it was Wulfstan, who had grown up with Slade in the Palace of Anglia, and was now a member of his royal father's elite bodyguards. For what seemed like minutes, but in reality was only seconds, the two men simply stared at each other in shock.

"Take this," Slade said handing Wulfstan the bone sliver, "Free as many men as you can, somehow we're getting out of here."

He then darted across to the fallen guard and grabbed the long whip. Straightening up painfully, his broken ribs had still not fully healed; Slade saw one of the guards approaching him warily.

Slade flicked the length of the whip out, demonstrating that he knew how to use the deadly weapon. Never taking his eyes off the guard Slade waited and prayed for his moment, the moment when his opponent's attention would waiver for a second and he would be able to make his strike.

Slade could feel the tremors in his legs; his breathing was still labored and painful. He would have to finish this human guard off quickly if it were to happen at all, and judging by the sneer on the man's ugly face he knew well just how weakened Slade actually was.

It seemed to Slade that the world had slowed down, that everything was moving in slow motion. When the guard began to move his whip Slade felt as though he had all the time in the world to react. Bringing up his own whip Slade swept the leather thong low to the ground, catching and curling around the ankles of the guard causing him to stumble and fall. One of the other prisoners, a dwarf Slade didn't recognize, jumped on the human's back and grabbing the guard's dagger slit his throat in one smooth motion.

Looking around him Slade saw the entire wheel room was in utter confusion. Groups of guards were pouring into the room and were being mobbed and brought down by the desperate prisoners. The creature called Trunk had single-handedly dispatched three more of the guards.

Yet there were almost as many prisoners lying dead as there were guards. Slade, the adrenalin still pumping through his body providing him with strength he had not dreamt he possessed, began edging his way through the fray towards Trunk. Reaching Trunk's side Slade put out his hands, palms down, in the universal gesture of friendship. Wulfstan, followed by a group of five of the healthiest appearing prisoners, ran towards them.

"We've got to get out of here quick," Wulfstan yelled over the noise, "Maybe your big friend could help us break down those doors," Wulfstan pointed at the two wooden doors in the northern wall. Slade believed the doors Wulfstan had indicated would be the quickest way out of the prison.

"Good idea," Slade started to reply but his voice was cut off by the ear-splitting noise of the alarm. Trunk screamed loudly, heard even above the klaxon sound of the alarm, sounding as if he were in extreme pain. Immediately the giant creature turned and ran to the back of the room towards the stairs.

"Follow him," Slade yelled to Wulfstan, pointing to Trunk.

"Are you crazy? The way out is here..." Wulfstan shouted back pointing again to the double wooden doors.

Although he hated to do it, Slade used the only weapon he had.

"Follow your orders soldier!" he commanded. For a split second Wulfstan was shocked, Slade could see the surprise on his face, but then he spun around and together with Slade followed the fleeing Trunk.

None of the prisoners who had been working alongside Wulfstan upstairs had followed Slade and Wulfstan as they raced after the ogre-troll. The other prisoners had scrambled instead for the main doors, believing that offered the best promise of escape and possible safety. Slade prayed he had made the right decision in pursuing Trunk and was not condemning himself and Wulfstan to what would surely be a slow and protracted death if they were caught.

For such a large creature, Trunk moved surprisingly fast, loping along on his long legs so that Slade and Wulfstan lost sight of the ogre-troll almost immediately. His trail, however, was easy to follow; the bodies of two guards who had confronted Trunk lay dead at the foot of the stairs. The corridor they were in ran for roughly one hundred feet, with several other corridors branching off it and was very dimly lit. At least here, underground, it was quieter than on the main floor. Apart from a few distant screams and the faintly heard ringing of the alarm little else could be heard.

The two men began to walk cautiously down the corridor, Wulfstan automatically moving slightly in front. At the first branch, Wulfstan peered into the corridor, but the lack of light made it difficult for him to see more than a few feet. Turning back towards Slade Wulfstan shook his head. It was unlikely Trunk had gone in that direction; the narrow hall appeared to be completely deserted.

They continued further down the main corridor. After approximately fifteen feet, they came across another guard, his neck neatly broken. At least now they knew they were heading in the right direction. Slade paused briefly to catch his breath, leaning heavily against the smooth stone, as Wulfstan continued ahead.

A sudden noise behind him caused Slade to spin around, the purloined whip still clutched in his hand. The noise was only a fellow prisoner; apparently the only one who had followed them back down into the subterranean maze of the underground torture chambers. The prisoner was quite short, coming barely to Slade's shoulder, slightly built with untidy medium brown hair and clouded chocolate brown eyes.

Sizing up the newcomer Slade quickly decided the man had either not been a prisoner for very long or had not yet been subjected to Diablis's inventive tortures. The stranger's linen pants and tunic seemed nearly new and Slade could not see any visible lash marks or bruises. Slade smiled briefly at the young human and lowered his whip as Wulfstan backtracked towards them.

Wulfstan, easily the fittest of all of them, whispered to Slade and the newcomer to follow behind him closely and silently as he continued to move throughout the shadowy prison corridors. The next corridor branch turned north and had burning torches spaced intermittently all the way down allowing Wulfstan to see the fallen bodies of two more guards.

With a small shrug, Wulfstan motioned for Slade and the stranger to follow him down the corridor. Wulfstan wondered why they were wasting time tracking down this half-ogre when they should be working at getting out of the prison. He had, however, spent his entire adult life in service to Saxenburg's royal family and was not about to disobey a direct order now, even if it came from someone who had abdicated his right to the throne.

This corridor had doorways leading to four separate rooms; two on the left side of the corridor and two on the right. At the second doorway three more of the guards lay dead. Peering around the corner into the room, Wulfstan was so horrified by what he saw that he nearly vomited.

It was a large rectangular room, roughly twenty feet wide by thirty feet long. The room had obviously been used as a torture chamber; there was dried blood, waste and what appeared to be bits of skin and flesh spattered all over the tables and the floors and the stink was overpowering. Bizarre implements Wulfstan had never seen before hung on the rough stone walls, their purpose horrifically obvious.

Six long, low tables stood in the centre of the room. Each table had iron shackles at the top and bottom, evidently used to tie the unfortunate victim in place. Wulfstan had not seen this room, or any like it, during his time in Diablis prison. Now, seeing it for the first time, Wulfstan thanked whatever gods might be listening that he had been spared this fate.

Looking around Wulfstan spied a small door that he had not immediately noticed. In the far corner of the room, the door was made from stone instead of wood, making it barely distinguishable from the surrounding stone walls. Moving cautiously, with Slade and the other, still unnamed man, Wulfstan walked towards the door. Lying dead on the floor in the middle of the room was the strangest creature Wulfstan had ever seen, dead or alive.

Tall and thin the thing had a strange, tentacled head and a gaping maw of a mouth. It was dressed in elaborate robes, similar to wizards' robes and looked like something from a nightmare. Wulfstan could only stare and wonder what manner of creature this was; and what on earth was it was doing in Diablis prison's torture chambers?

"There's magic here, strong magic," the skinny stranger whispered with a touch of awe in his voice, "I don't know what that thing is but I don't like how this feels..." his voice trailed off. Slade looked at the dead creature and, like Wulfstan, wondered what it could possibly be.

"How do you know there's magic here?" Slade asked the small man.

"I'm a wizard; I can smell it, beyond that door. Very powerful magic. I don't know whether we should even go in there, but I know you will."

The wizard looked calmly at Slade, smiling just a little. Wulfstan watched the two of them; he did not like magic, did not understand it and, although he would rather have died than admit it to anyone else, he was also a little afraid of magic. His duty however seemed clear; he must open the door and enter the room first. Although, as he reached for the door Wulfstan was no longer sure what his duty was, after all Slade had relinquished his place in the royal line. Steeling himself against whatever he might find Wulfstan went to open the door, but as he did so Slade reached out a hand and stopped him.

"Better let me do this, my friend, you two wait here." Slade said.

Slade had expected the stone door to be heavy and hard to open but it swung open easily at his touch. Inside was a small chamber, just large enough for the long, low table in the centre with about two feet of space all around. The room was brilliantly lit, obviously from a spell, as there were no torches in evidence. Trunk stood next to the table looking down at the man strapped there.

The man was human and seemed young. He would be almost Slade's height when standing and powerfully built with shiny black hair and very pale skin. His eyes were closed and his breathing appeared shallow. Slade felt unaccountably cold, as if he stood in an arctic breeze. The chill seemed to emanate from the man on the table, coming off him in waves. Trunk looked up at Slade and then back to the helpless man.

"This Nikolai, he Trunk's friend. You be Trunk's friend?" Slade was once again struck by how easy it was to understand the huge creature, despite his thick accent.

"Yes Trunk. I'll be your friend. Do you want me to rescue Nikolai?"

"Not yet. Nikolai need quiet, you go outside, we come soon," Trunk said firmly.

For a second Slade wondered about the wisdom of pausing in their escape attempt, even for a brief while but then he turned and left the room, for now he would continue to follow the dreams instructions. Looking at the Wulfstan and the wizard he knew they had heard the exchange so didn't bother to repeat it. Pulling the stone door closed behind him, Slade slumped down painfully with his back against the wall to wait. He felt suddenly grateful for the brief chance to rest, the adrenalin that had carried him this far deserting him as abruptly as it had come.

"All right, what's going on?" Wulfstan asked still standing and glowering down at Slade. Slade looked up at the big warrior and gave a small shrug.

"I don't really know myself. I just know that I have to get out of here, and it has to be with Trunk."

"And Trunk is some kind of a, what? He's half-troll, half-ogre, speaks understandable Common and has friends he wants to rescue?" Wulfstan asked, unable to keep the sarcasm from his voice.

"Looks like it, yeah." Slade could see why Wulfstan would be skeptical but he still felt compelled to follow his dream's directive.

"Who are you anyway?" Slade asked the wizard.

"My name is Roulibard. As I said before I'm a wizard. Don't ask what I'm doing here because I haven't got a clue. In fact, I'm surprised I can remember my own name, everything else is such a blur, anyway consider me 'at your service' Prince Einreich," he said, finishing with a small bow.

"My name now is only Slade," Slade said quickly, surprised that this young wizard knew his real name.

Roulibard certainly seemed inoffensive enough; yet Slade found that he was troubled by the wizards' vagueness and lack of any apparent beatings from his stay in Diablis. Slade knew well, from his own experience, that all spellcasters were subjected to the most intense forms of torture from the very beginning of their incarceration. Unfortunately Slade's body was not the only part of him that was not functioning well, his mind was simply too clouded and tired to think properly.

"As for the rest," Slade continued, "well, I guess we need all the help we can get so glad to have you on board. This is Wulfstan," Slade said pointing to Wulfstan, "in there," he pointed towards the stone door, "as you no doubt heard, are Trunk and Nikolai. Do you know if there's any way out of here from this level?" Slade asked looking at Wulfstan and Roulibard in turn. Both men shook their heads in a no.

"Diablis prison has a reputation for being impregnable; no-one's ever escaped before. I'd guess it's because there's only one way in or out. Any surprise we may have had is gone now. Coming down here was completely stupid" Wulfstan finished angrily.

"Are you questioning my decisions?" Slade asked his voice dangerously quiet.

"As a matter of fact I am," Wulfstan responded, "I don't know what in the nine hells you were thinking of coming down here when the only possible way out was up there. Instead you've dragged us down here and for what?"

Slade stood up to face Wulfstan, his initial surprise at Wulfstan's arrogant anger giving way now to his own rising anger. Anger, if Slade was honest with himself, he knew stemmed from his own concerns about the wisdom of his decision. Slade had 'followed the Trunk' based only on the instructions of a dream, something Slade would once have condemned as a ridiculous way to make a decision. Now Slade could only hope that by following the dreams direction he was doing the right thing, and had not, as Wulfstan was suggesting, led them all down here to their doom.

"You are a soldier of the royal house and as such..." Slade began, arguing simply out of his own fear that Wulfstan was right.

"And you," Wulfstan said cutting Slade off, "gave up your right to give me orders when you gave up your right to the throne so don't start with me now. We should've left when we had the chance, by coming down here you've effectively signed our death warrants and I want to know why?"

"We came down here for a damn good reason and I do not like your..."

"And I don't like the fact," Wulfstan again cut Slade off, "that you've endangered us all. Up there we had others who would've fought at our side to get out. What have we got here? A skinny little wizard and..."

"And me," Nikolai cut in, his voice as hard and cold as ice, "and without me none of you will make it anywhere alive. Now, both of you shut up, we have a lot of work to do and very little time to do it in and we do not have time for the two of you to argue."

All three men turned to look at Nikolai standing in the doorway leaning heavily on Trunk's arm. Unlike the rest of the prison population Nikolai was wearing his own clothes, loose fitting black leather pants and a plain black, linen shirt. His black hair was worn long, framing a pale face that would have been handsome if it weren't so utterly devoid of emotion. As it was the sensually shaped mouth and beautifully modeled eyes seemed somehow repellent. Again, Slade noticed the chill surrounding Nikolai.

"Right now, we need to make plans." Nikolai turned to address Slade, "Diablis is, or rather has been, impregnable," Nikolai continued, "This means of course, that we will have to take the entire prison complex."

"What," Wulfstan asked sarcastically, "The four of us?"

"Five," Roulibard said indignantly, still smarting over Wulfstan's description of him as a 'skinny little wizard'.

"Sorry," Wulfstan said dismissively, "the five of us?"

It can be done," Nikolai looked at Wulfstan only briefly then continued to speak to Slade, "there are only two levels to the prison, this and the upper level. We need to first gain control of this level, taking whatever we find to assist us, and then we'll be ready to take the upper level. After all, we don't really have a choice, we win or die."

Suddenly Nikolai laughed. Slade felt his blood run cold hearing that laugh, it took all his courage not to turn and run. He could see that both Wulfstan and Roulibard also went a little pale upon hearing Nikolai's cold, emotionless laughter. Only Trunk appeared unaffected, gazing calmly at his friend.

### Unexpected Allies

 Outside in the bustling city of Diablis itself an unlikely trio of allies were waiting to find a way into the prison complex. The three were sitting at a small, round table outside a bake house across the plaza from the prison's main entrance, surreptitiously watching the building across from them.

Unlike most cities in The Kingdoms, where prisons were kept largely out of sight in the poorer districts, Diablis city was actually built around the huge rectangular structure. The complex was surrounded on all sides by a cobbled plaza that featured small formal gardens, elaborate fountains and comfortable benches under leafy trees.

Surrounding the plaza was the main commercial district of Diablis with its taverns, temples, markets and vendors of every imaginable type, selling almost anything one might possibly want. The remainder of the city spiraled outward in ever increasing circles. The poorest sections of town were those furthest from the city centre, and they were little more than slums hidden in the shade of Diablis's towering walls.

Diablis was normally a busy city, even this soon after daybreak. Today, however, it was even busier, with almost all of the marketplaces and street stalls already open and far more than usual numbers of people on the streets. This unusual activity was due to the Sun Ascension festival that was scheduled to be held today at the large temple of Vadatajs, outside the east gate of the city.

Vadatajs was a vile and evil demi-god, dedicated to violence, lust and bloodshed, whose symbol was a pair of red tinged eyes. Virtually all the cities inhabitants were making preparations for the festival, which marked the mid-winter solstice. It would begin exactly at noon and would continue all afternoon and into the night, eventually developing into a very public drunken orgy as the day progressed.

Once, under the rule of Eldritch, the worship of Vadatajs had been outlawed, his few followers acting in secret. The Dark One however, had actively encouraged the citizens to follow the dark and perverted religion. Even those who were not truly devotees of the god would be attending the festival; under The Dark One's rule non-attendance was a sure-fire way of coming to his attention, which was something no right thinking person wanted.

"Are you sure you can get us into the prison?" The questioner was a powerfully built male minotaur, dressed in the rough garments of a typical peasant. Although minotaurs rarely left their homeland, a group of small islands in the far south commonly called the Isles of Iona, those that did venture to travel throughout The Kingdoms found that they were welcomed by almost all wherever they went.

Despite the legendary savagery of the minotaur race, they were also well known for their strict code of honor. It was the very strictness of the minotaur code of honor that made them such welcome companions to the many mercenary groups and adventurers who wandered The Kingdoms. Many of those minotaurs who did leave their homelands travelled widely throughout the northern kingdoms of Ixlan and the Badlands. This fact meant that no one looked twice at the shabbily dressed minotaur and his two female companions.

"Absolutely," answered the smaller of the two women. A dainty halfling, with an impish face, wide, mischievous green eyes and a long, thick ponytail of honey blonde hair she seemed little more than a child.

"Don't forget I used to be very good at this sort of thing. The festival will help us," she said. At this comment, the minotaur made a growling noise deep in his throat.

"Hey bully, never mind the impiety, today it's going to play into our hands," the little halfling continued.

"Do not call me bully, Lara, I dislike that intensely." The minotaur said resignedly.

"Sorry Tares, anyway, like I said if Darzan here," Lara continued pointing towards the second woman, "can get us the cart I can get us in. The laundry normally goes in tomorrow, but I'm willing to bet with the festival on no-one's going to notice or ask questions if it's come a day early."

"Well Darzan?" Tares looked to the other woman.

Standing about five and a half feet tall, with a curvaceous yet lean figure the dark-skinned human woman was incredibly beautiful. Dressed in brightly colored silk pants and a matching shirt with a circlet of pure gold holding her curly black hair in place, gold hoop earrings and a long saber at her side Darzan was outlandish, exotic, and also one of the best pirates in Ixlan.

"Hey, as I said from the very beginning, I'm as good as your gold. I know someone who can procure the cart for us and he should be here any minute now," Darzan answered.

"I dislike this stealing, it is not right," Tares said in his low rumbling voice.

"It's not really stealing, Tares, we're just, um," Lara paused, trying to think of something to say, "borrowing, yeah just borrowing the cart. Soon as we're finished with it we can take it right back."

Lara smiled brightly at Tares, pleased with her quick thinking. As she knew better than most, once the minotaur got started instructing people about right and wrong he could go on forever; or at least so long it felt like forever. Tares snorted in profound disbelief at Lara's qualification and shook his massive bovine head.

"Anyway, once my friend gets here," Darzan cut in, "I'll get changed and off to prison we go."

"And you are certain he is in there?" Tares asked Lara.

"Yes, yes, yes. I'm starting to think you doubt me bull...I mean Tares. I told Michael I'd play straight from now on and I meant it."

"That is Lord Michael to you Lara," Tares began in utter exasperation. Although he quite liked the young halfling he was finding, after only a short acquaintanceship that she took absolutely nothing seriously. It was a trait that the big minotaur found wearing on his nerves and his patience.

"Our friend is here," Darzan said, pointing to a shabbily dressed human man leading a cart into a nearby alleyway.

"Come on," Darzan said, getting up and walking towards her contact, with Lara and Tares following her closely.

A short time later an apparent old woman appeared from the alleyway pushing a large, cloth covered cart. It would have taken a particularly shrewd observer to identify Darzan under the shapeless brown woolen dress, large headscarf and bent-backed, shuffling walk.

Pushing the cart across the cobbled plaza towards the prison Darzan was wondering why she had ever gotten involved in this harebrained scheme. The coin, of course; Darzan had been offered so much gold that she had simply been unable to refuse. Now, there was a part of her wishing that she had not gotten involved. Still, her part in their plan was small; take them into the complex in the cart and then take the cart back and wait. Darzan doubted very much that the two of them would ever come out.

As she drew up to the complex proper Darzan saw that there were no guards in the watchtowers. Normally there would have been at least four, two in each tower. Today there were only the standard two guards at the large portcullis gate that led into the outer grounds of the prison. The reduced number was likely due to the Festival and was not unexpected. As she came closer the guard hailed her.

"You there, what's your business?" The guard was a typical Diablis prison guard. Tall, well built, probably at least half an orc and ugly as sin, The Dark One seemed to have a never-ending supply of guards such as these.

"Laundry," Darzan made her voice quiver like the elderly woman she was supposed to be, "just deliverin' the sheets 'n clothes fer th' prisners'"

"Laundry's not till tomorrow," the guard answered suspiciously.

"Doin' it early on account o' th' festival," Darzan sincerely hoped she would be believed; otherwise she would have a fight on her hands.

"Wait here," the guard said and walked over to confer with his partner. Straining her ears Darzan tried to hear what they were saying but they were speaking too low for her to pick up anything. After a few minutes, which seemed like an eternity, the guard returned.

"All right, in you go. Straight to the laundry room and out again. There's been a bit of trouble in there this morning, some of the prisoners started a riot, haven't had a chance to clean everything up yet, good dame, so don't be troubled by anything you might see."

Darzan found the information extremely troubling. Not so much by the news of the so-called riot, she'd heard of riots before, but by the usually gruff guards attempt at courtesy. It was decidedly out of character for a Diablis prison guard. Something had gone wrong. When you had been a pirate for as long as Darzan had been you learned how to smell trouble coming; she could smell it now.

It was only twenty feet from the portcullis gate to the main, double wooden doors of the prison itself but to Darzan it seemed like the longest walk on the planet. Once she was out of earshot of the two portcullis guards she slowed and on the pretence of ridding her shoe of a stone bent down to loosen her saber from its hiding place under her dress in case she should need it quickly.

"I curse you two and the day I met you," she whispered angrily, "I assume you heard all that? You know what this means?"

"It's obviously a trap of some kind," said Tares, his voice muffled slightly. "Let's see how far they're willing to let us get shall we?"

"I think I hate you both," was Darzan's only reply as she continued pushing the cart slowly towards the prison doors.

The lone guard on the door merely opened the doors, waved Darzan through and closed them again behind her. Pushing the cart before her, she entered a small room, roughly ten feet square. Directly opposite were two matching wooden doors, to the left and right were other, single wooden doors. Surprisingly, or perhaps not in view of her conviction that this was a trap, there were no guards in sight.

### Inside the Prison

 Darzan stood for a brief moment, and listened intently. Despite the early hour the pirate woman knew there should still have been sounds of activity, yet although she strained her ears she could detect nothing. The whole prison was deathly silent, something Darzan knew without needing to be told, was extremely unusual.

The pirate woman opened the door on the left. It led into a packed storage room. The long, rectangular room was lined along the back wall with shelves from floor to ceiling. Food, clothing, canvas sacks, and other assorted items filled the shelves. On one side of the room was a tall, thin set of free standing shelves. These shelves were filled, from top to bottom, with rolls and rolls of parchment. They were probably prison records but Darzan didn't bother to look at any of them, there was no time and no need. Instead, she gave the all clear for Tares and Lara to get out of the cart. The big minotaur and the halfling climbed out of the cart awkwardly and quickly collected the assorted armor and weapons they had brought with them.

"There's no point me going back out there, I'd stake my life that they know about you two," Darzan said.

"I agree. You will have to come with us," Tares replied then looked at Lara, "Do you know where we are?"

"I think so," Lara answered, "just outside here should be a biggish room," she looked at Darzan who nodded confirmation, "then we go through two big doors into the main room of the prison. They've got some kind of device, I don't know exactly what it does but they tie the prisoners to it to power the thing. From that room there's doors which lead to the guards quarters, we do not want to go there."

"We will have to fight the guards eventually little one," Tares said gently.

"I know, but let's avoid them while we can. I know of a back way that leads to the lower level. He's a spellcaster so that's where he'll be," she paused chewing on her lower lip, looking more serious than Tares had ever seen her, "it's not pretty what they do there."

"I understand, Lara." Unfortunately, Tares did understand, all too well. If you were going to capture a spellcaster, whether arcane or divine, the only way you could be certain of keeping them a prisoner was to keep them in near constant pain and sleep deprived. This combination would make it impossible to work magic of any kind.

"What sort of guards do they have on the lower level?" Darzan asked.

"I don't know for sure, I'd imagine there would be quite a few. And there's been some strange rumors going around..." Lara paused briefly, "something about some new species. I really don't know anything for certain. I just wouldn't be surprised by anything we might see down there or here, everything is way too quiet."

"Great," Darzan said sarcastically, "Let's just expect the worst shall we?"

"An excellent suggestion," Tares answered her, ignoring the sarcasm.

Taking up his massive mace and shield, Tares indicated that Lara should lead the way. Darzan stood for a moment watching them, before unsheathing her saber. As she prepared to follow them, she muttered to herself, "I better get well paid for this." Tares chose to ignore the comment, although he did hear it.

Lara led them out of the storage room via a door to the east, which opened into a tiny alcove, little more than a closet. In this room were two sets of tall shelves, one of which contained more rolls of parchment, the other had pouches upon pouches of spell component bags. Almost without thinking Lara automatically reached out to take some of the carefully arranged pouches and was stopped by Tares, who merely shook his massive bovine head. Lara instructed Tares to move the shelf containing the parchment scrolls. Once it was out of the way they could see the stone trap door, with its massive ring pull, set in the floor.

"That's it, down there," she whispered, "even though this way's not well known I'd guess that it'll be guarded at the bottom, so if you open it then I'll go first. I've got my trusty blowgun" she continued holding up the small instrument, a wooden pipe, loaded with darts tipped with a deadly poison. Lara had once been a very successful thief and assassin, a member of The Silent Hand, one of The Kingdoms most powerful guilds. Now, thanks to the intervention of the Grand Knight, Lord Michael, Lara had left the guild forever. She was working with Tares, as a form of reparation, on behalf of the Tears of Belenus, Lord Michael's group of paladins, knights and clerics.

Pulling up the heavy stone, Tares stood back and allowed Lara to go ahead of him down the ladder. Looking down Tares saw that it was pitch black with not even the barest glimmer of light. After lighting their small lantern he indicated Darzan should precede him. Once he reached the foot of the ladder the minotaur saw that they were in another small storage room; similar to the one on the upper level they had just come from.

Lara was already at the door leading out of the room, picking the lock. Where, Tares wondered, were all the guards? Surely, the prison was better guarded than this, even on a festival day? He was more certain than ever that they were walking into a trap, but how exactly had that trap been designed?

"Hey, Tares, stop dreaming..." Lara whispered, "I'm done. Off you go." Lara moved back to let the big minotaur through the door first. Tares stepped out into a long corridor lit by torches at periodic intervals. The light was sufficient for them to dispense with the lantern and the minotaur carefully packed it away. Directly opposite was a wooden door, closed and probably locked. From the length of the corridor, it was obvious that the lower level was larger than the upper level, probably extending well under the courtyard above.

To their left, the corridor ended only a few feet away in a T-junction. On the right it extended into darkness. Motioning the two women to follow him Tares turned right and moved down the corridor as silently as possible. Their footsteps seemed unnaturally loud to Tares in the echoing subterranean silence.

The corridor they had been following came to an end, emptying into yet another long narrow corridor, empty and silent, lit with the periodic torches. Lara ran her little hands over the stone wall and announced that it was an outer wall, representing the limits of the underground section of the prison.

"Better let me go first, Tares, I've got a bad feeling about this," she whispered. Tares merely nodded, he too had a bad feeling about this. Darzan followed closely after Lara, letting Tares take the more dangerous rear position. They continued down the corridor for roughly thirty feet, until Lara suddenly stopped them at an open doorway.

Lying dead in the doorway was one of the prison guards; it looked as if his neck had been broken. Next to the dead guard, partially blocking the corridor was another creature with a long thin body, a head like an octopus and wearing what looked like elaborately embroidered wizards' robes. The three looked at each other, the question obvious on their faces.

"What is that thing?" Tares' whispered, his astonishment plain to hear, "Belenus have mercy, that creature's not natural."

"I guess that's what they were talking about in the guild," Lara said slowly, bending down to examine the strange creature. Lara continued, "we weren't told much, only that the prison had these new guards. They're supposed to have some kind of special brain magic, something new that no one's ever seen before. No one seemed to know where they come from, but apparently The Dark One brought these creatures here as some kind of experiment."

"What do you mean 'brain magic'?" Darzan asked.

"I don't know. In the guild, they never tell you more than you need to know. This is all just rumors I heard, not information from the guild leaders," Lara answered. Darzan shuddered in undisguised fear. The dead creature lying at their feet was bad enough to look at; the idea that it possessed some kind of brain magic, something that would damage or interfere with your mind, was utterly horrific. The pirate woman did not want to encounter one of these creatures while it was alive.

"Wait a minute," Darzan said, "if this," she paused, searching for the right word and settled for nudging the creature with her foot, "thing was employed or recruited or whatever for the prison and it's dead and the guard is dead...then obviously there really was a riot?"

Lara's small face screwed up in profound skepticism, "I suppose so but I don't really understand. After all, The Dark One's very, you know, he doesn't let mistakes happen," Lara said quietly.

"Efficient Lara, The Dark One is very efficient," Tares supplied Lara with the word she had been struggling to find.

"There may well have been a riot, I suppose it is possible and someone evidently killed these guards" he continued, "but I'm still certain that this is a trap of some kind. I believe that someone knows we're in here and why. They may even have known that a riot would occur. The behavior of the gate guards, even allowing a riot to occur, it all seems highly unusual given that this is undoubtedly the toughest prison in The Kingdoms. Let's just keep moving, and hopefully we'll find out what's really going on soon enough."

Leaving the two women to keep watch at the door Tares stepped carefully over the guards' body into the room, which was obviously one of the many infamous torture chambers. The long rectangular room had four low tables to lay out unfortunate victims and an archway directly opposite the open door. Moving carefully between the tables the minotaur walked to the archway and peered into the adjoining room. One small torch illuminated the room showing a single closed door in the back wall. Walking as silently as possible Tares moved closer to the closed door and listened carefully, very faintly he could just make out muffled voices coming from the other side.

Tares stood for moment thinking; it was highly likely that the owners of those voices were the same people who had dispatched the guard and the strange creature. That would make them potential allies. On the other hand the voices behind the door could belong to whatever guards, or creatures, that had escaped the obvious battle. In either case he decided, it would be best to keep the element of surprise on their side. Tares signaled the two women to prepare and then quickly threw the door open, brandishing his heavy mace.

The room was apparently used by someone as an office. At the back of the room was a long wide desk of polished obsidian and a tall shelf filled with rolls of parchment stood beside it. In one corner was a large wooden chest, easily three feet across and close to four feet deep. Sitting on the floor beside the chest was a bizarre creature that looked like a cross between a troll and an ogre, if such were possible. Beside the creature, rummaging through the open chest was a dark haired man with the bulging muscles of a warrior. Another man, with brown shaggy hair stood at the shelves, examining the rolls of parchment carefully.

Seated at the desk, however, were two people the minotaur had never expected to see in Diablis, or together for that matter. Nikolai, the necromancer of Bhaal who Tares had encountered while on duty in The Northern Badlands and sitting right beside him was Prince Einreich of Saxenburg. Tares had not known that either of them was incarcerated in Diablis prison and he could not begin to understand what they were doing sitting together so calmly.

"Right on time," Nikolai drawled mockingly, "I was almost starting to doubt you Tares but I knew Belenus would guide you here."

Tares growled but he lowered his weapon. The necromancer, a devotee of the blood god Bhaal, was an offence to everything the minotaur held dear but he knew that Lord Michael held Nikolai in very high esteem. Although what reason Lord Michael had for his high opinion of the mage Tares could not begin to imagine.

"How dare you? The name of the Crying God is nothing but a blasphemy on your lips necromancer," Tares muttered, "I haven't come for you anyway, I came for..."

"Yes, yes I know," Nikolai interrupted Tares quickly, "later we'll talk. Prince Einreich you would know," he continued, indicating Slade, "though he prefers Slade now, the muscle man is Wulfstan, a royal guard of Saxenburg, the little wizard," this said with a sneer, "is Roulibard and on the floor is Trunk. Now that we're all here we can finish this up and take the rest of the prison."

"Nikolai, I think you'd better explain what's going on," Slade spoke with quiet authority.

 Double-Cross

The half-orc guard approached warily, the governor of the prison was infamous for his bad temper, even when he was being given good news. How the mercurial governor would take this news the half-orc had no idea. Opening the door the guard found the governor seated at his desk, his head bowed, writing on some parchment. In the corner of the large office was another man, wearing a heavy cowl, standing with his back to the door, staring out the window.

"They're in there, sir," the half-orc said nervously.

"Who did they send?" the cowled man asked without turning from the window.

"A minotaur, a halfling and the pirate."

"Excellent," the governor's voice was its usual dry rasp, "You may go." With relief, the guard left, carefully closing the door behind him.

"There," the cowled man said, "I told you they would send someone for him," there was a definite satisfaction in his voice.

"I never doubted that," the governor replied, still not looking up from his work, "it's working in the dark that I don't like. This seems like such a convoluted method of killing someone."

"The Dark One has his reasons," the cowled man managed to make his answer seem almost like a threat.

"I realize that, but surely as governor of this institution I should be entitled to know more of his plans than I currently do, I have, after all, sacrificed some of my best guards to this elaborate scheme."

"Surely you do not dispute The Dark One's right to make such decisions," the cowled man turned towards the desk as he spoke.

The governor looked up at him but the man's face was completely hidden by the heavy cowl. This lieutenant was almost as elusive as The Dark One himself.

"You're not threatening me, are you?" the governor asked, more annoyed than angry.

"As long as you do as you're told you have no reason to be threatened," he paused briefly to give his words weight and then continued, "Luca, Luca; this is really a very simple plan, the reasons behind it are, however, none of your business. Now, I trust that I can leave the final stages in your very capable hands."

"Naturally," Luca was careful to let none of his growing anger show in his voice.

"Excellent. Don't bother getting up, I'll see myself out." With an overly dramatic swirl of his coat, the cowled man spoke the words of the spell and vanished, leaving only a vaguely moldy smell behind.

Luca shook his head briefly and tried to concentrate on his work, an impossibility given his situation. The Dark One was not someone to be crossed lightly; yet Luca had no choice in the matter. Lord Nexus' orders took priority over everything. Fortunately, the very nature of The Dark One's scheme provided Luca the opportunity he would require to obey his other master.

Despite his lack of choice in this matter of the prisoner known as Trunk, Luca found that it still galled him that after so many years of apparently faithful service to The Dark One he was not trusted enough to be told why this strange assassination had to take place and why it had to be done in such an odd manner. Worse was being forced to take second hand orders from one of The Dark One's lieutenants, a wizard obviously, yet Luca did not know so much as his name.

Luca felt a sudden thrill of fear. Was it possible that The Dark One knew of his impending betrayal? Did his overlord already know that he had for many years served two masters? Could that be the reason for this strange and elaborate plan, or the lieutenant's threatening demeanor? He felt his heart pounding in his chest. If his overlord and employer knew of Luca's previous duplicity and his current plan then it was all over. There was nothing he could say to stop The Dark One from exacting a terrible and definitive punishment.

Perhaps, Luca thought to himself, it would be better to go ahead with The Dark One's plan. Although if he did Lord Nexus would surely find out and the mage was the only person in The Kingdoms that even The Dark One feared. The governor felt utterly trapped, it did not matter which of his masters he obeyed he faced almost certain death from the other and it would not be a pleasant death. Luca eventually decided, he would go ahead with Nexus' plan. The Dark One would certainly torture him before killing him but Nexus would make his death last for weeks. He would not betray the mage; the prisoners would be helped to escape.

Having made his decision Luca looked down at the paperwork in front of him, but the words swam on the page and he was not surprised to see that his hand shook slightly. He was trapped like a rat in a cage, forced to serve two masters with the threat of death from one or the other of them hanging over his head constantly. Why, he wondered, had he ever allowed himself to be in this position?

Luca leaned down and pulled from his desk draw a dusty bottle of mead; despite the early morning hour he felt the need of the strong, soothing alcohol. He poured a generous measure of mead into a plain cup and walked to the window. It had been his greed and fear that had gotten him into this mess. Greed and fear had ruled his life and now would likely cause his death.

He had been a very young man, no more than seventeen summers, when The Dark One and his brutal armies had first swept across Ixlan. He had seen what the army did to anyone who opposed them and he was afraid of suffering the torture and death that rebellion earned. Fortunately he had been a very clever young man; he had seen quickly that obedience and being useful would be his only hope for survival. Luca had set about being very obedient, looking always for an opportunity to be useful to his new overlord. Eventually, as Luca had known it would, the chance to serve The Dark One was presented to him and he had taken it eagerly.

He had been in The Dark One's employ for almost two years when he had first been approached by Lord Nexus. Even then the mage had a fearsome reputation but Nexus had not threatened the young Luca, he had offered him gold, huge amounts of gold and all the mage wanted in return for the gold was information. To his greedy heart it had seemed like a dream come true and it had appealed to his vanity; he would be the eyes and ears of The Kingdoms most powerful mage. Luca had not even stopped to think, he had immediately accepted the offer.

Now, nearly thirty years later Luca knew better, he was not the mage's only spy nor was the gold really compensation for the numerous times he had put his life in danger in order to serve both The Dark One and Lord Nexus. It had taken many years but Luca had come to learn that he was neither special nor was he indispensible. He was nothing more than a tool used by far more powerful men.

Soon he would have to leave the office and address his guards. No doubt they were wondering why they had been held back from stopping the escape attempt, why even now they were not hunting down those few prisoners who had escaped their blades. He would have to tell them something but he had no idea what he would say. Even though they knew nothing of The Dark One's plan they would question any orders that allowed prisoners to escape.

The original plan given to Luca by The Dark One was simple. His overlord had been certain that the Grand Knight, Lord Michael, would send someone to try and rescue the prisoner. Luca's orders had been to allow the rescuing Knights entrance to the complex and then have them all killed, prisoners and rescuers alike.

Nexus's plan was even simpler; he merely had to follow The Dark One's plan until the end. Then when the time came to eliminate the prisoners Luca was to let them escape instead. He had already, at great risk to himself, personally smuggled in Nikolai, the mage's protégé to assist in the prison break. He had also reduced the number of guards by giving them leave to attend the Festival. The problem now was what to do with those guards still on duty.

Luca swallowed the remaining mead in one gulp. It really didn't matter what he told the guards, they would report his every word to The Dark One. The moment had come when his treachery could no longer be concealed. His only chance was to try and disappear. He needed an excuse that would keep the guards occupied long enough for the prisoners to escape and for him to find a way out of Ixlan. Perhaps if he could escape to the Badlands he might live long enough to enjoy the gold he'd been paid over the years.

Nervously licking his lips he poured another generous serving of mead into his cup. The men he employed as guards were not overly endowed with intelligence, Luca knew, but neither were they stupid. If he gave an order for them to leave the prison without having recaptured the escapees they would, undoubtedly, wonder why. The men already knew about the strangers, knew The Dark One had made some plan concerning the prisoners.

He would simply have to order the men to lay an ambush for the prisoners near the main doors and hope that the escapees were smart enough to avoid being captured and killed. It would not stand up to the scrutiny of The Dark One or Nexus but Luca could see no other option. If the plan should go wrong then he would spend the remainder of his life running from both his masters.

###  Explanations

 The room was really not big enough to accommodate eight people. Nikolai had insisted, however, that his explanations be given behind closed doors in case there were any guards nearby. While they had been able to dispatch all the guards they had come across they could not guarantee there were not more waiting for them. Nikolai knew he would have to give his explanation quickly and get on the move once again.

Wulfstan closed the enormous chest and used it as a seat, moving close to the wall to allow Tares to sit next to him. Lara perched on the floor next to Trunk, while Darzan leaned against the closed door and Roulibard sat on the edge of the desk. All, especially Slade, were looking expectantly at Nikolai.

Nikolai tried to gather his thoughts; he was, quite simply, unsure how much to tell the others. Without an explanation of some kind Slade would never trust him enough to continue travelling with him, yet too much information now could jeopardize Nikolai's entire mission.

"This is rather difficult," he began with a small sigh, "I'm in an awkward position..."

"With all due respect Prince..." Tares interrupted Nikolai.

"Slade, just Slade," Slade cut in quickly.

"I apologize, Slade but now is perhaps not the best time for the necromancer to explain whatever evil schemes he is up to. I do not wish to sound rude but we are in the midst of attempting a prison break."

"Tares if you'd shut up for longer than five seconds I'll be able to explain to you why none of that matters." Nikolai spoke with more heat than he had intended.

He rarely, if ever, lost control. Anger was a poor tool, rage even worse; Nikolai preferred cool, calm logic but something about the minotaur cleric seemed to bring out the worst in him.

"Look, Tares is it?" Slade asked. Tares nodded his large, horned head gravely. "Tares, we're all obviously in an..." Slade paused, looking for the right word, "unusual situation here. I realize that this probably isn't the best time but I want to hear Nikolai's explanations, and to be honest I'm exhausted and I could use a little rest, which Nikolai's tale will give us, before we go any further."

"Of course your..." Tares caught himself in time, "Slade. We will listen to what the necromancer has to say if such is your wish."

"I do wish. Now Nikolai, you better start talking." Nikolai could see that whatever tentative trust had been building between Slade and himself had been partially eroded, thanks to Tares.

"I was captured in the north, in the Badlands to be precise. I was travelling there, under orders, with Lord Michael Strong," Nikolai said slowly.

"You lie, necromancer," Tares began.

"It's true, Tares," surprisingly the interruption came from Lara. "I was there," she looked at Nikolai suspiciously, "but that was months ago."

"True," Nikolai continued smoothly even though he was actually quite taken aback. He had been unaware of this little halfling and wondered just how much she knew.

"But what I learned in the Badlands then remains relevant now. Lord Michael and I discovered evidence that suggests a secret army is being formed. Who is behind this or why we were unable to discover. However, I did find out two interesting pieces of information, both of which involved what I believe to be assassination plots. The first," he paused and looked at Slade, "involved your father, High King Erich. Unfortunately I was unable to find out much more than the fact that someone had ordered Erich killed."

Slade could feel the blood drain from his face, his heart was pounding and a cold sweat broke out on his brow. This then was what the dream had been about, his father, his king and liege lord was being stalked by an unknown assassin. Slowly Slade turned to face Wulfstan. For the first time since Slade had recognized the warrior it occurred to him to wonder exactly what one of his father's royal bodyguards was doing behind bars in Ixlan's most vicious prison.

"You," Slade spoke slowly, his fear for his father pounding heavily in his blood, "You should've been with him. You're his bodyguard, one of them anyway," Slade's innate sense of fairness forced him to make that qualification. His love of his father, however, drove him to his feet without his even being aware of it. Like a man in a dream or a nightmare, Slade walked over to the big warrior. Grabbing hold of the front of Wulfstan's shirt in his fist he pulled his one time friend to his feet.

"What happened Wulfstan?" Slade was shouting into Wulfstan's face, all thoughts of where he was or the need for silence, completely forgotten in his fear and anger. "Where's my father?"

"All right, all right," Wulfstan shouted back, "I failed. Is that what you want to hear?"

"Keep your voices down," someone hissed.

"What exactly does that mean?" Slade asked, lowering his voice to a whisper as he remembered where they were. He abruptly let go of Wulfstan's shirt. Wulfstan stepped back but was brought up short by the large chest. The warrior ran both hands through his thick, black hair and sat down heavily on the chest. Resting his arms on his knees, Wulfstan put his head in his hands and gave a long, drawn out sigh of pure frustration, guilt and grief. When he began to speak his voice was so low they all had to strain to hear him.

"I was with High King Erich. He had received an invitation to Lashandra. We travelled overland from Anglia to Evemur and then took to the rivers. We were almost to the border." Wulfstan stopped, and for a moment, it seemed as if he would not go on. "By then we were deep in the dark wood. There was only myself and three other guards. I knew it wouldn't be enough, I had wanted King Erich to bring more guards or a contingent of Knights but he just said the mission was too important and the need for secrecy too great. So we went, just the five of us. We stopped for the night; I went to get some wood for a fire. I shouldn't have gone. I should never have left his side. I heard yelling, swords. I rushed back as quickly as I could, I swear I did," he looked up, obviously appealing to Slade, silently begging the former Crown Prince to believe him. "It was too late. I got back to our camp. The other guards were all dead. I don't know where King Erich was, or what might have happened to him. I tried to fight but there were just too many of them. They overpowered me and I don't know why they didn't just kill me. For a while I guess I was unconscious, when I came to I was in shackles and on my way here."

"You didn't see my father's body?" Slade asked, grabbing onto the only shred of hope Wulfstan's tale seemed to offer. The warrior merely shook his head, then opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it and closed it again. He knew there was nothing he could say; he had failed in his duty and that failure may well have brought about the death of Slade's father. For Wulfstan, whose own father had died when he was just a baby, it was a bitter knowledge, for he had loved High King Erich, just as if he had been his own father.

"When? When did this happen?" Slade asked after a long silence.

"Almost a month ago, I guess. If today's the Sun Ascension that is." Wulfstan replied. He knew the Sun Ascension festival marked the shortest day of the year, when winter was at its darkest. The attack on King Erich had occurred right at the end of the fall season, when the world turned red and gold and the falling leaves blanketed the ground, although this far north none of the seasons were as clearly defined as they were in the central kingdoms.

"Three months ago was when I was arrested." Slade repeated, thinking things through. The attack upon his father had then occurred two months later. Turning to Nikolai he said, "You were captured about the same time you said?" It was a statement more than a question. Nikolai never hesitated, he simply nodded agreement. Slade frowned slightly, looking at nothing in particular, still thinking. There was a pattern here, just beyond his reach, a pattern that might be terribly important. Either way it was time to get out of Diablis and back to Saxenburg.

"Slade, I, I ..." Wulfstan began.

"I don't want to hear it," Slade cut him off and stood; shaking his head, "let's just get out of here."

"I agree, however, I feel I should warn you," Tares interjected gravely, "I believe this entire prison break is a trap," Tares then went on to explain the incredible ease with which he and the others had penetrated the prison. When Tares had finished Slade swore softly.

### The Silent Hand

" Which brings me to the second piece of information Lord Michael and I were able to uncover," Nikolai said quietly.

All at once Slade was sure he understood. That was the pattern. He was the second target.

"I was the intended target of the second assassination," Slade said slowly. Suddenly Nikolai saw his chance. This was his opportunity to convince the others to travel with him, for he knew now that he would need their help, he would not be able to fulfill his mission alone.

"I'm afraid so." Nikolai looked briefly at Tares before continuing, "That's why I said earlier the prison break is irrelevant. You were quite right; the whole thing is a trap. Whoever ordered the deaths of King Erich and Slade obviously wanted the executions to look both separate and accidental. My fear is that those two deaths were most likely just the beginning. That information, together with the growing rumors of a secret army does not bode well for the safety of The Kingdoms. That you were sent here, Tares, a logical choice on Lord Michael's behalf, shows that whoever is behind all of this knows The Tears of Belenus very well. Your death in the prison break would then also be seen as an unfortunate accident, and mostly of your own doing for interfering with Ixlan politics. In so doing someone manages to eliminate virtually everyone who knows anything about this. That's why we have to get out of here and work together to stop this."

The huge minotaur looked at Nikolai, his suspicion written openly on his bovine face. Tares had been shocked by the revelation that Lord Michael had actually worked, hand in hand, with the necromancer. Although Tares admitted to himself, realistically he should not have been surprised. Lord Michael, after many years as head of The Tears of Belenus, had begun to realize that the world needed balance. That for the pendulum to sway too far in either direction was the greatest evil of all. Nikolai's remarks indicated that the necromancer felt the same way. Still, Tares' distrust of Nikolai, and those like him, who practiced a magic so closely entwined with death and dying, ran deep and he would continue to watch the necromancer closely.

It was Wulfstan who broke the heavy silence following Nikolai's revelations with a deep snort of disbelief. Everyone turned to look at the warrior, and Slade noticed with a sense of shame, the shiny streaks of tears on Wulfstan's face.

"Come on people," Wulfstan spoke derisively, "Are we really going to take the word of a necromancer? I mean, Slade, you left court to become a druid. You, Tares, you're a cleric of Belenus. Necromancers are all evil, all perverse and you all know it." Unconsciously Wulfstan's voice rose as he continued, "You can't seriously tell me we're going to take the word of this, this thing. Wake up! He's the one behind the trap, he'll get us all killed, that's what they do."

"Typical soldier, all muscle and no brain," Nikolai said sneeringly, "I do not deny my allegiance to Bhaal. I see no reason why I should. Necromancy, in its' way, is the most natural magic of all and your reaction speaks only to your fear. Probably of all the forms of magic, druidic as well. Don't trust what you haven't the intelligence to understand, isn't that right? You, and all your kind, make me sick. I'm no friend to Belenus, or any of his clerics, but sometimes we end up on the same side."

"Oh, right. And we're just supposed to believe you because you say so. Silly me, I should've seen that straight away," Wulfstan shot back sarcastically.

"Listen you muscle-bound idiot..."

"Nikolai's telling the truth," once again the unexpected interruption came from Lara. When everyone swung around to look at her the halfling woman suddenly felt profoundly uncomfortable. The tension level in the room was incredibly high and now Lara had everyone staring at her. Without thinking she stepped back, almost tripping over Trunk's large feet. The huge ogre-troll reached out gently and steadied her, leaving one enormous hand resting gently on her shoulder. Encouraged by this show of support Lara began to explain what she knew.

"I used to work for the Silent Hand," Lara stopped when she saw the others looking at her with revulsion. She should have realized that declaring her previous profession as a thief and assassin now might not be the best timing, given everything that had just been said.

"I swear I'm clean now," she continued quickly, "Tares will tell you."

"It's true. Lara has left the guild; she works now for Lord Michael. That is why we are together." Tares said. Trunk continued to gently rub Lara's shoulder, comforting her with his heavy touch.

"Lara, I'm sorry," Slade's voice was gentle, "I didn't mean to frighten you or make you uncomfortable. I'm just upset and tired, that's all. Please, tell me what you know."

"I wasn't frightened," Lara said hurriedly, "Anyway, as I said, I used to work for the Silent Hand, that's how come I ended up in The Northern Badlands. I was supposed to knock off," Tares growled under his breath at her choice of words, which she quickly modified, "I mean my assignment was to assassinate Lord Michael. That's how I met him, he's a lot cleverer than he looks you know," she added with an ingenuous grin, "he had me figured from the get go."

Lara paused, remembering. The Grand Knight Lord Michael had meant nothing more than a name to her at first. It was just an assignment like so many others; no reason, no explanation, only an instruction to make it look like an accident. Lara had been in the guild for a long time and was used to following orders without question. She had begun as she always did, by following Lord Michael around, ingratiating herself into his life to figure out the best and easiest way of carrying out her assignment. Lara had never expected to have her whole life turned upside down. Yet in Michael, and Lara always called him Michael in her mind, she saw a good man.

As one of the top assassins in the guild, Lara had found that most of her victims were usually no better than those who hired her. Michael however, was different. What had changed Lara's life, beyond all recognition, was that Michael cared. Not just for his subordinates or even for the people like him; Michael cared about everyone he came across, including her. After a while Lara had found herself watching Michael, not to gather information but simply watching him and everything she saw in Michael she liked.

When she had finally gone to him and tearfully confessed her true profession and reason for being there, Michael had just smiled and told her that he had known. He had offered her a chance at redemption, a chance for a better life and also promised to protect her from the guild. Lara had joyfully jumped at the chance. She knew she was a bit irresponsible, Tares was always telling her that, but Lara also knew that Michael had shown her a better way and she had vowed never to let him down.

"As I was saying, I was sent north but I know I wasn't the only one who was sent out. I don't know exactly how many others there were but from the talk going around I'd say there were at least four other targets besides Michael, sorry Lord Michael," Lara corrected herself with a quick, apologetic look at Tares, "and all the assignments came from the same buyer."

Seeing slightly blank looks on their faces Lara explained, "Assignment is someone we're hired to kill, the buyer's whoever hired the guild. You do understand what I'm talking about?" Lara asked as the others continued to stare.

"Sorry, Lara, yes we understand, it's just the implications are a bit..." Slade trailed off as the full horror of Lara's story hit him.

"That means two more," Nikolai said quietly. There was a long pause as each one of them tried to absorb Lara's unexpected information.

Although the necromancer already knew a lot of what Lara had just told them, he had not known the exact number of targets.

"Two more at least," Tares qualified. Once again they all fell silent, each preoccupied with their own thoughts. Tares suspected he knew the identity of at least one of the other targets.

"It has to be my sister and brother, I was one target, my father the other. Lord Michael, obviously someone is planning on destroying Saxenburg." Despite the fact that Slade had relinquished his position as a prince of Saxenburg, it was still his home. More than that, it was a threat to his family and regardless of what he thought of court life, he loved his family dearly.

Wulfstan's face went dead white at Slade's pronouncement. He felt his heart constrict painfully in his chest as he was forced to admit the logic of Slade's reasoning. His blood was pounding in his ears, beating out a dreadful tattoo of pure fear. His grief and guilt at his failure to protect High King Erich seemed trivial, petty emotions compared with the heart-rending fear and impotence gripping him now. Ursula. Wulfstan knew that soon, if it had not already happened, Ursula would be leaving for The Black Lotus to finish her formal training with Solomon. Wulfstan also knew that one of the conditions of her being accepted as a warrior monk in the famous monastery was that she must make the ritual journey there alone, and unarmed. Thinking of her alone, on the roads, possibly a target of The Kingdoms most deadly assassins, Wulfstan's fear for her was making it hard for him to breathe.

Finally the gripping, electric fear began to pass leaving white-hot rage in its' wake. If they had hurt Ursula, harmed so much as a hair on her head they would pay, and pay dearly. Wulfstan's hands were clenched so tightly that the knuckles had turned white. His mind was filled with brutal images of stabbing, hurting, and killing. All he could think about was finding whoever was behind this and tearing them apart with his bare hands. Vengeance. Wulfstan vowed he would work with anyone, even the evil necromancer if he had to, in order to get vengeance. Ursula's death and Wulfstan was suddenly certain that she must be dead, would be repaid in rivers of blood, no matter what he had to do to achieve that.

"...don't you agree Wulfstan?" Slade was speaking to him but through the filter of his rage Wulfstan found it hard to concentrate.

"I'm, what?" Wulfstan sounded drunk, even to his own ears, "What did you say?"

"I said it has to be The Dark One behind this, first he takes Ixlan and now Saxenburg," Slade repeated.

"Whatever. I don't care who it was. They'll die for what they've done," Wulfstan snarled.

Slade was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice Wulfstan's rage. Nikolai, however, was watching the bodyguard closely. Although Nikolai did not agree with Slade's reasoning, he would not question it if it meant Slade was willing to work together.

### Another Way Out

 "Either way we've got to get out of here and find out what's going on. The Dark One will not get away with trying to destroy my family. I hope you'll all help me," Slade waited until he received affirmations from the rest of the group.

"Thank you. Now, let's go. We'll take whatever might be useful," Slade instructed, handing Wulfstan a large, leather backpack, "and see if we can find another way out on this level. Logically there must be one somewhere."

"There is another way out," Lara cut in, "but we have to get upstairs first and go down from there."

Tares opened his mouth to question Lara but eventually decided again it, even though the minotaur cleric knew, all too well, that the halfling woman loved adventure and exploring above all else. It was therefore quite in character for Lara to lead them on a merry chase, just for the chance to explore the prison. However, his own mission was still paramount in his mind and exploring would give him the opportunity needed to fulfill it. After that, given everything he had just heard Tares was certain that Lord Michael Strong would want him to lend his assistance to Slade and the others to prevent a military takeover of Saxenburg.

"All right then," Slade said, "lead the way Lara."

Lara took the lead followed by the others with Nikolai and Tares lingering slightly to take up the rear position. As the halfling woman led the group unerringly through a veritable maze of corridors in the silent underground prison, the necromancer and the minotaur fell behind in order to speak privately.

"You know where he is?" Tares whispered to Nikolai. With a secretive smile on his sensual lips, the necromancer nodded, then motioning the cleric to bend down Nikolai whispered directly into the minotaurs ear.

"You're certain?" Tares spoke aloud in his surprise, causing Darzan to look back at them both questioningly. The necromancer nodded briefly once more and then hurried ahead to catch up with the rest of the group.

Tares continued to lag behind mulling over what the necromancer had revealed. If the mage was telling the truth, and Tares admitted to himself, Nikolai probably would not lie to him about that, then it certainly explained a lot of the contradictory information the minotaur cleric had so far uncovered.

Blindly following the others, Tares felt a sudden despair. This information must be brought to Lord Michael's attention as soon as possible. There was nothing that Tares himself could do to aid this situation, only Lord Michael had sufficient power to help. Hurrying forward, the minotaur made a mental note to talk to Lara at the first opportunity, to let her know their primary mission, at least, had been completed.

Their new mission, Tares believed, now lay with Slade. The minotaur wondered how the necromancer's information fitted into the pattern that Slade had discerned. Tares was reluctantly coming to the conclusion that Nikolai was correct; there was a lot more going on than was readily apparent. He was so deep in thought that he failed to notice that the group had come to a complete halt until he almost walked straight into Darzan. He apologized gravely to the pirate woman and stepped to one side.

It seemed that Lara had led them to a rarely used corridor in the eastern part of the prison. Looking around Tares noticed there were few torches burning, making it quite a bit darker than the previous corridors. This confirmed his suspicion that they were in a little used section of the prison. Peering over Darzan's shoulder the minotaur tried to locate Lara but could not see her in the dim lighting. Moving quietly Tares walked past Darzan till he reached Wulfstan's side.

"What is going on?" Tares whispered to Wulfstan.

"Some kind of trap, apparently," Wulfstan replied in his normal speaking voice. When Nikolai turned back to glare at him Wulfstan simply shrugged, saying "No one's around, we've already killed all the guards on this level."

"Wonderful." Nikolai hissed in a caustic whisper, "In that case definitely announce our presence down here to anyone who might be listening. You obviously haven't got enough to do and need a challenge."

"Listen you, you have no right to try and tell me what to do. I happen to be a bodyguard to the royal house of Saxenburg and..."

"Yes. We all know how well that turned out, don't we. Thank Bhaal I'm not a member of the royal house, who knows how long I'd live..."

"I should kill you where you stand for that," Wulfstan's fury sprang from his deep sense of guilt and at having his fault pointed out so baldly by a stranger. Moreover, a stranger Wulfstan was coming to intensely dislike and did not trust.

"If you two don't shut up I'll kill both of you where you stand," Slade's anger obvious even in a whisper.

"Got it," Lara's announcement cut through the rapidly developing argument, "who's going first?" Lara indicated the steep and narrow stone staircase behind the door.

"What's up there?" Slade asked Lara as he peered up into the darkness.

"It should be a big storeroom, you know, where they keep all the prisoners stuff until they've had a chance to go through it."

Slade hoped she was right; they could do with some better supplies. Apart from Lara, Tares and Darzan, who had come into the prison fully equipped, Slade and Wulfstan carried only arms and equipment purloined from the dead guards. If it had not been for Trunk's incredible natural strength they would never have made it this far.

"I'll go first," Slade said and began heading up the steep set of stairs before anyone else had the chance.

Tares lingered behind, taking advantage of the opportunity to inform Lara of the information he had received from Nikolai.

"This means, Lara," the minotaur finished gently, "that you have completed your mission for Lord Michael. You may go home now if you wish."

"I don't think so," Lara replied, her impish face unusually serious, "I promised Michael I'd see this all the way through. Besides," she added, "I think Slade will need my help. Oh, and yours too Tares. And anyway, don't you think we should keep an eye on Nikolai?"

"Yes, Lara, I do," Tares answered gravely, "and I thank you for your decision to stay. However, you must take this mission as seriously as you undertook your previous mission. Do you understand?"

"Yes Tares. Look I know I can be a little irresponsible sometimes but I won't let you or Michael down. And I don't know what Nikolai might be up to but I don't trust him, not completely, anyway," she said before following Wulfstan up the narrow staircase.

Tares silently followed Lara up the stairs. Although he would not have thought it possible, the minotaur found he was actually pleased that Lara had elected to stay and help the former prince. Not only because it demonstrated a growing sense of responsibility in the halfling woman but also because in some way that the minotaur was unable to completely define, Lara's presence was unnerving to the necromancer. The halfling woman was, or rather had been, privy to a world completely unknown to Tares. Hopefully that knowledge would give Lara a perspective on Nikolai that the minotaur might otherwise miss. Despite the necromancer's apparent desire to help Slade Tares still felt uneasy about his role in the shadowy events that seemed to be unfolding.

Slade opened the door at the top of the staircase and walked into a room that was definitely not a storeroom. Two well stuffed chairs were arranged in front of a large stone fireplace set in one wall of the room. Although, judging from how clean it was the fireplace was probably a relatively new addition to the room.

The back of the room had two large windows that looked out over the courtyard of the prison complex. On the opposite wall, set in the centre, was another door, with large bookcases on either side of the door. To Slade's right was a large, marble desk with a comfortable looking chair and in the centre of the room stood a small table with two intricately carved wooden chairs either side of it, both facing towards the windows.

This room had to belong to the governor; no one else in Diablis prison would have such elaborate accommodations. Looking at the scrolls and papers on the bookcases Slade wondered what clues might be found if they had the time to search this room.

"Lots probably." Slade spun around to see Roulibard standing at his elbow.

"What did you say?" Slade questioned the young wizard.

"You were talking about possible clues, I just said there's likely to be lots. The question is do we have the time."

"I didn't say anything," Slade began.

"Time for what?" Wulfstan asked, as he entered the room, Trunk on his heels.

"Time to properly search this room, go through all those papers." Roulibard answered, gesturing towards the shelves.

"In the middle of trying to escape from The Kingdoms most inescapable prison you want to search through all this?" Wulfstan asked incredulously gesturing around the room.

"I didn't say I wanted to," Roulibard began heatedly, flushing under Wulfstan's derisive tone, "I said Slade wanted to. Although personally I do think it's a good idea. You should know your enemy."

"Slade, come on," Wulfstan turned toward Slade in appeal.

"Actually," Nikolai interrupted, as he entered the room, "I think you're both right. Someone probably should search through all this stuff; however, we can not ignore the fact that we are not only in the midst of a prison break but one intended to kill us all at the last moment in order to make it look like an accident."

"I thought you said Slade was the intended target," Wulfstan said suspiciously.

"Wulfstan, please use your brains for once," Nikolai began, "I assume that you do have some."

"Forget that," Slade cut in before Wulfstan could respond, "I thought Lara said this was a storeroom." Turning he saw Lara standing against the now closed and virtually invisible door, her pixie face blank with surprise.

"It should be a storeroom, Slade, I don't get it," she moved over to the windows which looked out over the courtyard and began running her tiny hands along the wall, listening intently at the same time. Coming to the connecting door Lara opened it to reveal what could only have been Luca's bedroom. Getting down on her hands and knees, she searched under the bed before nodding her head, her long ponytail flying behind her.

"Yep, this is it," Lara said standing up, "Obviously they moved stuff around but it's still the same place. Under the bed is a hidden staircase which leads straight out of the prison, through a long tunnel and comes out in a set of underground caves near the coastline."

"You are absolutely certain of this Lara?" Tares questioned her gravely.

"Absolutely bul...Tares, just climb down there and away we go."

"What's the tunnel used for?" Wulfstan asked.

"Well you know that back in the old days this building used to be the palace right?"

Seeing their questioning looks Lara continued, "You didn't know that? I suppose I'm not surprised, it was a long time ago. Anyway, before The Dark One took over Ixlan this building was originally the old king's palace. Obviously they've modified it a bit since then but a lot of stuff from the old palace days that they couldn't immediately use was left over and The Dark One just left it here and built the prison around it. I suppose it was meant to be an insult to the old regime. Anyway, the main room in the centre, back when it had a roof, was the old king's throne room where he'd receive official visitors and hold court. That's not really important now though, the important bit for us is that like all kings he was a little bit paranoid so he had this bolt hole built, just in case of emergencies."

"How do you know all this Lara?" Slade asked.

"I had a job here once when King Eldritch was still on the throne," Lara mumbled her reply, a slight blush tinting her cheeks.

"Wait a minute," Wulfstan said, "if this place used to be the palace then where does The Dark One live?"

"No one knows for sure," Nikolai answered, looking speculatively at Lara, "there are rumors but all anyone actually knows is that he definitely does not live here on the main island. Unless you know otherwise Lara?"

"Me? I don't know anything about him, I barely like saying his name," Lara answered but she could tell by the look on his face that Nikolai, at least, did not believe a word she said.

Slade said, "I think if we're that close to getting out we probably can spare a little bit of time and there is bound to be important information here. Wulfstan, why don't you and Tares keep your ears open at the door while the rest of us give this place a quick going over. There may be information about the assassinations and we might be able to find out where they stored our belongings."

### Battling the Guards

 Krolk and his men had been in position for over an hour. The burly half-orc had stationed two guards as lookouts in the corridor while the rest of his men waited with him in the elite guards barracks. The two guards outside would warn him when the prisoners made their appearance and then he and his men would move in for the kill. An ambush of the prisoners would be easier than trying to track them down. At least, that was how the governor had explained it to Krolk.

At the time, it seemed to make sense. After more than an hour of waiting though, the half-orc was beginning to have doubts. Although Krolk was not overly endowed with intelligence he was an excellent prison guard and it seemed odd to him to wait for the prisoners when there was even a small chance that they might escape. Why lay an ambush for weakened, easy to kill prey, he wondered? Furthermore he also knew, for he had delivered the news to the governor personally, that there were strangers in the prison. Strangers who had obviously come to help one of the prisoners escape. The half-orc guard was still contemplating this problem, pushing his brain to its' limits, when one of the corridor guards came in, making his way to the back of the room where Krolk stood waiting.

"Boss, dere's someone in da big bosses' room," the guard reported. Krolk frowned, no one should be in the governor's office and there was no way that someone could have gotten in without passing his guards.

"Do ya know who it is, mebbe it's the Boss?" Krolk asked hopefully.

"I dunno, it don't sound like that. Like who's in there's skulkin' round, bein' real quiet."

Krolk frowned again; he simply did not know what to do. It had to be the strangers in there, maybe along with some of the prisoners as well. Although how they could have gotten in there he had no idea. Unfortunately, the governor's orders had been specific; they were to wait here and ambush the prisoners.

Krolk put his hands to his temple and gave a loud, grunting squeal of utter frustration. The stupid human's orders gave the half-orc no options but to stand here and wait, while whoever was across the hall did who knows what, being quiet and sneaky. Quiet and sneaky. That gave him an idea. If he and his men could make enough noise in here then Krolk was sure whoever was in the governor's office would surely come to investigate. That way Krolk and his men would still be obeying orders by not leaving the room and if it was the prisoners across the hall then they would soon meet their end and the governor would surely give him and his men a suitable reward. An ugly smile spread across Krolk's face as he instructed his guards to start making some noise, a lot of noise.

Immediately Krolk and all the guards set up a cacophony of grunts, groans, and a mixture of Common and orcish profanity. With eleven guards in the room, all obeying the half-orc's orders, the noise level grew so loud that the remaining guard in the corridor, Rajalk, second in command of the prison guards, opened the door to find out what was happening. Rajalk stood in the doorway observing his fellow guards, all making bizarre noises, and wondered if they had all lost their minds. With the noise level so high it is little wonder that Rajalk never heard the door to the governor's study open, nor did he hear Lara slip past Wulfstan and Tares into the corridor.

Lara moved silently into position, armed with her blowgun filled with its' poisonous darts. Once she was behind Rajalk she had an unobstructed shot to the back of the big orc's neck. The other guards inside the room were so intent on their task that they were paying Rajalk no attention. That is until he fell, almost gracefully, face first onto the floor, Lara's poisoned dart embedded firmly in his meaty neck right where the skull attached to the spine.

Krolk watched Rajalk's fall in puzzled bewilderment, his large piggish head tilted slightly. Then his eyes fell on the feathered end of the dart sticking out of the back of Rajalk's neck and the half-orc immediately understood what had happened. Looking up Krolk met the unflinching gaze of a halfling female, blowgun still in her mouth. The half-orc guard knew immediately that this was no prisoner. Therefore she must be one of the strangers in the prison and the governor would definitely reward Krolk if he could take care of these troublemakers. They would pay for Rajalk's death and for freeing the prisoners, the half-orc thought to himself. Not one of them would get out of here alive.

"Get her, now," he yelled to the rest of his guards, who were still staring stupidly at their fallen comrade uncomprehendingly. At Krolk's order the guards began to run for the door, determined to kill the halfling woman and extract revenge for Rajalk. Lara stood her ground, waiting patiently with the blowgun still at her lips while the guards pushed towards the door.

Thinking far more quickly than the slow-witted orc guards, Lara knew that the doorway would admit only one of them at a time. Orcs were not known for their slender physiques, that fact and the corridor itself presented her with plenty of opportunities to take out the guards.

Although it was wider than the doorway the corridor was still an extremely cramped area for hand-to-hand combat. For Lara, though this particular battlefield was an assassin's dream come true. All the halfling woman had to do was wait for the perfect shot and pick off as many as she could, secure in the knowledge that more experienced fighters were only a moment away, ready to come to her aid if she needed it.

Two guards reached the doorway at the same time, their broad shoulders connecting as they each tried to get through the door first. The two orcs pushed and shoved at each other trying to get through the door, while grunting at each other in their native tongue. The delay gave Lara another clear shot and the halfling woman watched, with immense satisfaction as the dart found its mark in the side of the orc's neck. For a few seconds the guard merely stood, hand raised to the side of his neck, as if to swat away an insect, and then he too fell, face forward into the corridor.

The second guard roared his defiance at Lara. As he went to step over the corpse of his fellow guard, his feet however, caught on the fallen guard's belt and he staggered, trying to regain his balance against the press of the other guard's behind him and the two fallen guards at his feet. Lara was able to get another shot at the approaching guard, but his ungainly tread and unsteadiness meant that the dart missed its mark, the tip of the dart merely grazing the thick skin on his left arm. Nowhere near enough, Lara knew, to kill, and not even enough to incapacitate.

"Tares, Wulfstan, I could use a hand out here," Lara called as the guard continued his progress. Putting the blowgun away in its holder on her belt, Lara backed up as far as possible and pulled out her wickedly sharp dagger. The blade itself was slightly curved with a razor edge honed on both sides and in experienced hands like Lara's the weapon was deadly. Bracing herself against the wall the halfling woman waited until the last moment then ducked under the guard's outstretched arm and plunged the dagger into his belly. She twisted the knife slightly and dragged it upwards; effectively disemboweling the guard. Still more of the guards were coming, moving much more cautiously after seeing how easily three of their fellow guards had fallen at the hands of this seemingly innocent halfling.

Tares, Wulfstan and Roulibard came running into the corridor in response to Lara's call for assistance. Wulfstan, the first to arrive, immediately ran forward to the doorway, his stolen short sword raised high. Tares bowed his large head and muttered a short prayer before raising his own heavy headed mace. The weapon was so large it was unlikely any human would be able to even lift it in two hands, let alone wield it. Tares however, with his superior minotaur strength, used the giant mace in one hand.

Lara moved further down the corridor and melted into the shadows. Replacing her dagger she took out another one of her favorite weapons, the leather sling with its pouch of smooth, rounded stones. Slings were rarely used by assassins, as the stones did minimal damage but Lara appreciated the subtlety of the weapon, especially when fighting alongside allies in close, cramped conditions. If she accidentally hit one of her allies instead of her foe, the blow would not be deadly nor would it inflict too much damage. To the enemy however, the small flying stones hitting them repeatedly tended to keep all but the very best and most experienced understandably distracted and therefore easier targets.

Coming from behind her in the corridor the halfling woman was surprised to hear Roulibard uttering a low, unintelligible murmur. She had not expected that any of the prisoners would be in any shape for spell casting. Lara was in favor of prayers in battle, whether they worked or not people believed that they did and often that was enough. In its place Lara was also in favor of magic, but certainly not here, not now. Spellcasters in Lara's opinion rarely seemed to understand things like dimensions and available space; far too often she had seen spells go horribly wrong, doing as much damage to friend as foe.

"Do not," Lara said emphatically, not taking her eyes off the melee in front of her for a second, "cast a spell, there's no room and you'll probably just end up with crispy fried Wulfstan."

"I realize that, I was just wishing I had a sling of my own, something to help," Roulibard answered despondently.

"Just stay back out of the way," Lara answered absently.

Out of the corner of her eye Lara spied a single guard, a half-orc with slightly better equipment than the other guards, slip out of the room they had been hiding in and begin running down the corridor towards the main room of the prison. Wulfstan had obviously also spied the fleeing orc.

"Don't let him get away," Wulfstan yelled.

"No, he's scared, let him go;" Lara countered; "besides we can't waste too much more time."

Wulfstan shook his head in disgust but focused on the guards still facing him. As the warrior slashed out at the guard in front of him two other guards peeled off from their positions at the back of the melee and ran back down the corridor towards the main room. Lara heard Wulfstan mutter something under his breath but he did not pursue the fleeing orcs.

### Gathering Supplies

 Soon enough, although like all battles it felt as though it had lasted forever, all the remaining guards lay dead at the feet of Wulfstan and Tares. Tares was unscathed but Wulfstan had an obviously broken arm and a nasty slash on one cheek. Tares placed his large hands on Wulfstan's head and bowing his own the minotaur began to pray.

As Lara and Roulibard looked on the gash on Wulfstan's cheek closed, leaving the skin smooth and pink and his arm lost its unnatural shape. The halfling woman could see some bruising was already forming along the length of Wulfstan's forearm, which it appeared Tares' prayers were unable to prevent. Ever since the first time Lara had seen Tares' healing abilities in action she had been awed by the power possessed by the big minotaur.

"We should catch up with them, they'll likely lay in wait for an ambush or something," Wulfstan appealed to Tares.

"No, my friend. There has been sufficient killing for this day," Tares spoke softly, well understanding the military mind, which could not bear to see the enemy escape. "We must determine if we can find everyone's belongings and leave this place quickly."

Wulfstan rolled his eyes but did not argue. Lara was not surprised; very few people seemed inclined to argue with a minotaur who stood six and a half feet tall and who, for all his prayers and gentle nature, could fight like a demon.

"Lara, take Wulfstan and search, quickly," Tares stressed the word as he held Lara's gaze, "the other rooms on that side of the corridor. Stay this side of the main room. Roulibard and I will do the same on this side. Take no more than fifteen minutes and return to prince, I mean Slade and the others."

"Stay close behind me in case there's more guards around," Lara said to Wulfstan, who was still clearly fuming.

"Roulibard, let us go," Tares paused seeing the young wizard gazing intently at his hands, "what is the matter?"

"What?" Roulibard looked up at Tares, "Sorry, I just, it's nothing, I was thinking of something else. Lead the way sir knight."

"I have not yet attained that rank," Tares said, as he began walking down the corridor to the next doorway, "I am a working cleric. That is all."

"As you say," Roulibard answered, falling into step with Tares.

The first room that Tares and Roulibard came to was another barracks room identical to the one they had just left. Still moving quietly Tares with Roulibard close behind him opened the next and final door. A small, square room lacking windows or any other doors, two of the three blank walls were lined floor to ceiling with shelves, the other had three enormous crates stacked side by side, which were spilling over with clothes of all descriptions. This was obviously the prison store room and likely had items belonging to the guards as well as those things taken from the prisoners. The difficulty now would be separating those items that belonged to Wulfstan, Slade and Roulibard from all the other equipment stored there.

"Roulibard, do you think you can find your belongings in this mess?" Tares asked.

"No problems, I'll get all the stuff if you just keep an eye out in case any of those fleeing guards remember their duty and decide to come back," Roulibard answered walking into the room. It was a matter of only a few minutes for Roulibard to locate everything he was going to be able to find. He found Slade's matching katanas and the custom-made leather brace that allowed Slade to wear the katanas on his back. He also found Slade's six-foot long quarterstaff made from the ancient redwood trees that grew only in the heart of Kodeshka's forests.

Wulfstan's plate mail armor, with the royal crest of Saxenburg across the breast, was in poor shape but Roulibard grabbed it anyway as well as the matching tower shield, which was in much better condition. Guessing at what weapons Wulfstan may have possessed on arrival Roulibard simply grabbed a couple of long swords and a few daggers; sticking all of them in a convenient leather belt he found and wrapped around his own waist.

What items may have belonged to him, Roulibard had no idea. His memory had somehow been wiped clean and he simply could not remember whether or not he had possessed any armor or weaponry at the time of his arrest. In fact he could not even remember his own arrest or the reason for it. How or why he was so certain he had collected the correct items for Slade and Wulfstan he also didn't know but he was sure he had the right gear.

"Got it, let's go," Roulibard came up behind Tares who had been diligently observing the corridor.

"You have found everything?" Tares asked, astonished at the speed.

"Everything I'm likely to find, let's get back to the others and get out of this place."

"Agreed," Tares rumbled and began walking; still checking the corridor, back to the large study where they had left the others. He had observed Lara and Wulfstan enter the second to last door but they had not yet come out.

Knowing, as he now did, that it was not the prisons storeroom, Tares wondered what could be taking the two of them so long in a room that was obviously not their objective. The minotaur wondered if possibly the fleeing guards had hidden in that room and had somehow managed to overpower both Lara and Wulfstan, although he had heard no sounds of battle. However, if they had surprised the fleeing guards then both Lara and Wulfstan could easily be dead and their killers waiting in the room, hoping someone would come to look for the warrior and the halfling.

Briefly he thought about going back to check that the warrior and the halfling woman were all right, but they were running out of time. They had to use the bolt hole and get out of the prison as soon as possible before they encountered even more of the guards. Tares had vowed to stay with Slade and search for the missing King Erich and if that meant leaving Lara and Wulfstan behind he was prepared to make that sacrifice. After all it was the way of Belenus, the Crying God demanded absolute sacrifice from all for the greater good. However, there was nothing in the tenets of Belenus that said Tares had to like what he had to do.

When Tares and Roulibard re-entered the governor's study they saw that Darzan was sitting idly in one of the overstuffed chairs gazing out the window while Slade and Nikolai were carefully going through the room. Tares noted at once the slumped set to the young prince's shoulders and knew that Slade's exhaustion must be extreme. The minotaur cleric found that he greatly admired the determination of the former prince, who was obviously pushing himself to keep up with the group.

"Sounds like you had some trouble out there," Darzan said.

"Where's the others?" Slade cut in before Tares could answer Darzan, "We need to get moving before the guards come back. We've probably wasted too much time as it is," he continued.

"It was decided that it would be quicker to separate," Tares said gravely.

"Is the halfling dead?" Nikolai asked, sounding all too eager to Tares' ears.

"She and Wulfstan should be here any moment" Tares answered. Looking at the necromancer he thought to himself that for some reason Nikolai would like it very much if Lara were dead. Tares just wished he knew why Lara was so unnerving to the necromancer.

"No idea," Roulibard said almost as though he were answering the big minotaur's thoughts. The young mage then took the items he had collected and gave them to Slade saying, "I'm pretty sure these are some of the missing items, but whatever's still missing will have to stay missing."

"We'll wait a few minutes; at least while we sort through this gear."

At that Slade began going through the items Roulibard had found.

"You found my katanas," Slade whispered picking up the beautiful blades. The pair of katanas had been a gift from Slade's father, High King Erich, the day Slade began his training with the warrior monks of the Black Lotus. Giving them up to his captors had hurt Slade immensely and he was incredibly glad they had not been lost to him forever. After inspecting them closely, Slade replaced them carefully into their stiffened leather sheaths. Standing up Slade shrugged into the matching leather brace and turning around, asked Roulibard to help him slip the two sheaths into their designated holders on his back. Once the brace was in place Slade could easily reach up and grab the two blades in a matter of seconds.

Nikolai had gone back to rifling through the papers on the desk, while Tares stood in the doorway, trying to keep an eye both on the necromancer and the corridor. Out of the corner of his eye Tares thought he saw Nikolai take a piece of parchment and hide it away in his loose, leather pants. The big minotaur opened his mouth to question the necromancer, but shut it again, he could not be certain of what he had seen and Slade for whatever reason, seemed to trust Nikolai.

Now, Tares regretfully concluded, was not the time to strain that relationship, but he would continue to watch Nikolai closely for signs of treachery. Despite what Lara had told them regarding Nikolai's work in the Badlands Tares remained unconvinced that the necromancer was not in someway responsible for all of this; including the fate of Sir Patrick.

A slight noise from behind made Tares turn back to the corridor to see Lara and Wulfstan walking quickly towards him.

"They're coming," Tares announced to the room in general.

"Pity," Nikolai said quietly with a derisive snort. Tares scowled but chose to ignore the necromancer; instead, he gestured to Wulfstan and Lara to hurry.

"What took you so long?" Tares questioned Lara as they came into the room.

"We found some great gear, not that I think it belongs to anyone here," Lara began and then spotted the pile of belongings, "but it looks like you found what you were looking for anyway. We didn't see any of the guards but I still think we should use the bolt hole and get out of here; we can look through all the stuff we found when we're in the tunnel. There's a place, about three, maybe four hundred feet into the tunnel, it's an open area, like a cave almost so if you're all finished, let's go."

"We were merely waiting for you Lara," Slade said, "Wulfstan your armor is there although Roulibard was unable to find your sword. Just grab it for now and we'll kit you up once we're in the tunnel."

### Into the Bolthole

 The wide staircase leading down had been well crafted and was designed so that they could travel two abreast. Slade and Wulfstan took the lead, with Lara and Trunk immediately behind them, Darzan slipped in beside Roulibard, while Tares and Nikolai took the rear. Tares noted with a small smile that Lara was holding Trunk's hand and almost jogging to keep up with the long stride of the half-troll.

"I wish we'd been able to disguise that we came down here," Slade whispered, although his voice echoed in the confined space.

"No need to worry about it," Lara assured him, "they'll never follow us, at least not too far."

"Trunk go home now?" The creature's low rumble managed to sound plaintive, and even vulnerable.

"Yes," Lara replied her tiny hand giving his oversized hand a squeeze, "we're all going home now, sort of anyway."

They walked in silence for the next twenty minutes, the smooth cut stone walls eventually giving way to reinforced hard packed dirt. Obviously they had passed beyond the boundary of the prison complex. With that marker behind them, the tension level of the group, barely noticeable before, began to drop considerably. Slade couldn't help but feel amazed; they had achieved the impossible, escaped the infamous Diablis prison.

He was still concerned about the possibility of their being followed; the idea of Diablis's guards creeping up behind them was not really something Slade wanted to contemplate. He would simply have to trust Lara and hope her solution would come soon. Even though it was barely three hours past the dawn Slade was completely exhausted, his two months in Diablis prison had left him in very bad shape and the morning's events had zapped what little strength he possessed. Slade glanced surreptitiously at Wulfstan beside him; the soldier was equally exhausted and it was obvious to Slade that only stubborn pride was giving Wulfstan the strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Wulfstan had been Slade's childhood companion, his and Ursula's. The soldier had been an orphan adopted by King Erich and Queen Urda so Wulfstan had grown up in the palace. The King and Queen had raised Wulfstan like another son, giving him all the same advantages as their natural children. Slade knew how much his father had thought of Wulfstan, how Erich had loved him as if he were his son, and how much Wulfstan had loved his father.

Suddenly Slade felt guilty for his outburst in the prison. He knew that the big warrior would never have willingly put his father in danger.

"Wulfstan," Slade began, "I'm sorry about before, what I said, I just..." he trailed off.

"Don't apologize Slade, you were right," Wulfstan said tiredly, "I let him down. But I will find a way to make this right, I swear that to you."

"I know. But it's not just you and me, it's all of us, we're in this together. Whoever is behind this will rue the day they declared war on Saxenburg."

"You really believe all that, what the halfling and the necromancer said?"

"Yes, I do. My own imprisonment was too bizarre, too well orchestrated to have been a mere coincidence. I also have my own reasons for trusting Nikolai, and Trunk." Slade hesitated but eventually decided against sharing his dream with anyone at this stage, he wasn't sure Wulfstan would find it comforting.

"I hope you're right Slade, I really hope you're right."

"This is it," Lara said, after another ten minutes walking.

"What is it?" Slade asked looking around.

"The reason we don't have to worry about anyone following us, everybody get behind me." Once everyone was positioned to her satisfaction Lara walked to one of the wooden beams, which seemed to Slade's eyes to be identical to every other wooden beam they had passed. Kneeling down Lara touched something near the floor and then jumped back. As soon as Lara's fingers had touched whatever trigger had been hidden in the beam, a huge slab of stone had fallen from the roof, completely blocking the tunnel.

"Not much good having a bolt hole if everyone can just follow you down," Lara said impishly.

"Not much good at all Lara," Slade said appreciatively, although he wondered why, if this system had been in place when King Eldritch held the throne, he had not used it.

"Better let me go first Slade," Lara said taking the lead, "mostly the tunnel's in good shape but I've probably got a better ear than the rest of you for anything unusual, any creaks or groans. We haven't got too much further to go." Silently they all fell into step behind Lara.

Another weary hour's marching saw the hard packed dirt walls becoming noticeably shorter, although still towering above even Trunk. Seeing this Slade realized they must have been travelling upwards for some time without his noticing. Not that he was capable of noticing very much in his present condition. He was stumbling more than walking and longed for nothing more than a quiet spot somewhere to rest; preferably for a whole ten-day.

"We're heading up, aren't we Lara?" Slade questioned the halfling woman.

"Yes, we're coming up to a kind of cave, only we're also still a little bit underground here. We should be there any...actually we're here," she said.

The first thing Slade noticed about the open space was its incredible size. It was huge, roughly circular with the tunnel bisecting it in the middle. On one side of the wall were piles of straw and blankets, all ancient and rotten with mildew and the gods only knew what else. The other side was relatively clear except for two long, low stone troughs; Slade surmised they had once probably held water. At the far end of the cave three large iron rings had been hammered into the walls, which Slade recognized as horse rings. Obviously King Eldritch, or whoever had used the bolt hole last, had prepared this room so they would find fresh horses, plenty of water and probably other provisions as well.

"How much farther is it to the end from here Lara?" Slade asked.

"Um," Lara's pixie face screwed up in concentration, "probably, like an hour, maybe a bit less, on foot that is."

"If no one objects I suggest we rest up here for a little while," Slade said, "I know it's not even noon but I don't think I can take another step. I'm practically falling where I stand and if I don't rest I'm not going to be much use when we do eventually get out of here."

"Of course we will rest. It will give us an opportunity to," Tares paused, looking quickly at Nikolai, "talk about what we may have discovered."

"Fine with me," Wulfstan said his voice heavy with exhaustion "but, does anybody have any food?"

"Yes," Darzan said, sitting on the edge of the low trough and opening one of the large packs, "Tares and Lara brought some in."

"Wonderful," Slade said as he spread out one of the cleaner old blankets on the floor, "then let us eat like the kings we are."

### An Unimaginable Alliance

 Malerok city was the capital city, in fact the only city within The Malerok Republic. A sprawling metropolis, in many ways Malerok was identical to virtually every other major city in The Kingdoms. There was the same dirt, dust and noise, the same press of people and carts, horses, dogs, and children. There were the same types of houses, market places, street vendors, taverns, inns and even the occasional temple; but it was the differences that made Malerok such a pleasure to visit.

Unlike the major cities throughout the rest of The Kingdoms, the wide expanse of The Republic of Malerok had no surrounding walls. The city simply spread out till the streets became dirt tracks instead of paved cobbles, the close packed houses grew larger until they became grand estates, and then further out, simple farmsteads surrounded by crop fields or paddocks filled with livestock, or sometimes both.

Even the joy of no enclosing walls however, could not compare with the joy of there being no inner walls. The people of Malerok city, be they human, elf, dwarf, halfling, orc, undead, in fact any one of the many races, all walked freely through the streets, mixing easily together, ancient hatreds forgotten or at the very least, put aside.

There were no guards patrolling the streets to enforce the peace; the peace was simply there, it existed. Of course, the reason behind this goodwill and peaceful co-existence was also simple, magic. The Malerok Republic was The Kingdoms sole magocracy. The ruling body of the Republic, the famed Council of Nine, was made up of powerful spellcasters. The Councils members were men and women, humans, non-humans, the living and the dead. Within the borders of Malerok, only the magic was important, everything else was secondary.

Lord Michael Strong could only pray that The Malerok Republic would serve as an example to the rest of The Kingdoms of Kaynos. It was his most fervent prayer that all The Kingdoms would learn some cooperation. That way, hopefully they might one day return to the peace and prosperity it was said Kaynos had enjoyed nearly a thousand years ago, before The Great War tore the empires apart.

Lord Michael was, however, well aware that ancient wounds ran deep, distrust between the species had become the standard. Now there were few, if any, who believed the ancient scrolls that spoke of a once united land. He also knew well that most people, including almost all of his own knights, would not believe the errand he had come here on, nor would they believe or approve of who it was he had come to see.

Guiding his horse through some of Malerok's more spacious and prosperous streets Lord Michael eventually located The Dancing Pony inn. The inn was a three-story building with a wide veranda at the front and small balconies coming off the rooms in the upper stories. Painted a creamy yellow color, with a darker, mustard yellow trim the Dancing Pony had a large, well kept stable set at the side of the building. Herbs planted in the gardens combined with the smell of baking bread from inside the inn to create an inviting atmosphere.

Lord Michael was impressed, the inn appeared comfortable, and probably made a very decent profit. He rode his large bay gelding straight into the yard and the stables where the warhorse was taken by a human lad of about fifteen, who promised the Grand Knight that the horse would be given a good rub down before being fed. With a pleased nod, and a final pat of his mount he left the stables.

Walking across the yard to the inn's front doors Lord Michael removed his heavy, leather riding gauntlets and tucked them into his belt. As he pushed open the double doors of the inn the knight was assailed with the heat coming off the roaring fire in the enormous fireplace on one side of the room.

Opposite the fireplace, positioned close to the stairs, was an ornately carved wooden bar shaped like a rounded right angle. Overstuffed armchairs were grouped around the fireplace and a large bookcase lined the wall opposite the doors, with the staircase above it. Although it was late afternoon this room of the inn, at least, was virtually deserted; apart from the dark haired elf behind the bar, there was only one other occupant, a dwarven female studiously reading from a scroll.

"May I help you with something sir?" the elven bartender asked Lord Michael.

"I've come to meet someone, I believe there's a room booked here in my name," replied Lord Michael smoothing his long silvery white hair back from his weathered face as he did so.

"And your name sir?"

"Lord Michael Strong." At the name the elf's purplish colored eyes widened in something very close to awe, the Grand Knight may not have been immediately recognizable but virtually everyone knew his name.

"Certainly sir, I'm afraid your guest has not yet arrived however, if you will follow me I will personally escort you to your room," the elf said as he lifted part of the bar's counter top and moved around to the front of the bar.

Before leaving, the elf gestured elegantly towards his now empty seat and there appeared on the seat a tiny white pony, standing on its back legs and giving every appearance of dancing. Michael raised his eyebrows, he realized it would likely be only illusionary yet it was still quite pretty.

"Can the horse see to any customers who might come in?" Michael asked as he followed the elf up the staircase.

"Oh yes sir, she can speak all the known languages, but of course her primary function is simply to let customers know I am unable to attend them at present, and of course to keep her eye on the cashbox."

Michael gave a small laugh, although he was a priest and a warrior he did not share the universal distrust of arcane spellcasters that his fellow clerics had; in fact, he often wished he possessed some of their tricks.

The animosity between arcane and divine spellcasters had existed for a very long time, hundreds of years all told. It was extremely unlikely it would ever completely end and almost certain it would not occur during his lifetime. Not for the first time it crossed Michael's mind that the adventurers and mercenaries who wandered The Kingdoms should serve as an example to all. With adventuring groups anyone was welcome, any career, and any race; so long as they earned their keep and got the job done.

Now of course was not the time to voice such radical thoughts as that, the knight reflected to himself, his current errand if it were known would be controversial enough to most without adding outrageous ideas like universal cooperation.

The elf led Michael up two flights of stairs and into a large, well appointed room set at the very back of the inn. Walking inside the knight saw it was actually two rooms. The outer room had a smaller version of the fireplace downstairs, large, comfortable armchairs, a small writing desk against one wall as well as the obligatory bookcase. Where would The Republic of Malerok be without its books Michael wondered? There was also another round table obviously intended for private dining. Leading off this room was the very luxurious looking bedroom, complete with all necessities. It was quite a change from his sparse set of rooms in The Tears of Belenus headquarters.

"Thank you, I'm certain it will be more than comfortable," Michael said with a small smile as he pressed a gold piece into the elven barkeeps hand, "By the way what is your name?"

"Extremely difficult to pronounce in the Common tongue sir, so everyone calls me Sam," the elf replied.

"Sam, short for Sammellarenus?"

"How," Sam began in shock, "how did you know? And your accent... it's perfect?"

"I've spent a lot of time around high elves over the years. I've even been invited several times to Specularum. With your dark hair, purple eyes, skilled at illusions, you'd have to be a high elf, and the name Sammellarenus is a fairly common."

"I'm very impressed sir. And you're quite correct Sammellarenus is indeed my name, though I was actually born in Biazzan. Unfortunately I have not been home for a very long time."

Sam was actually more impressed with this tall, imposing looking human than he would publicly have admitted, "I will show your guest up immediately upon arrival Lord Michael, and may I say it has been a pleasure to finally meet you."

"Sam, the pleasure has been all mine, but don't trouble yourself looking out for my guest, I'm quite certain he will find his own way here. However, I should appreciate it if you could send up some mulled wine, two glasses, and some cheese, bread and fruit."

"Certainly, I will see to it immediately."

Michael removed the leather gauntlets from his belt and threw them carelessly on the writing desk. He walked to the room's single window throwing it wide open in spite of the chill outside. Although he was wearing only his riding armor of leggings, long tunic and chain shirt, the knight still felt stifled by the room's heat. It had been some time since his last trip to Malerok and he had, quite simply, forgotten how sensitive mages were to cold. The slightest drop in the temperature and mages immediately stoked the fires.

He stood looking out of the window, drinking in the fresh air until he heard the tentative knock at the door. It was one of the inn's employees, a human female, delivering the wine and food he had ordered. Michael thanked her and tipped her a silver piece, about twice the value of the food. Then he turned back to the window, wondering how long he would have to wait for his guest to arrive.

"Not long, Lord Michael, not too long at all if you're wondering when I would arrive," said a low and pleasant male voice from behind him. Michael turned and looked at his guest. He had heard so much about Lord Nexus, who was, without doubt, the most powerful wizard in all The Kingdoms. They had communicated on many occasions but this was their first face-to-face meeting. Nexus was human, or at least he appeared human but he was also rumored to be in excess of two hundred years old. Whatever his age the mage was surprisingly hale and seemed only a little older than Michael was himself, a mere fifty summers.

Lord Nexus was of average height, slim built but lacking the frail appearance many mages seemed to acquire. The mage was completely bald and had piercing dark eyes, but it was his hands that drew immediate attention with their long, slender fingers and very sharp nails. Nexus wore an unadorned black cloak over a pair of black trousers and a long tunic, which was embroidered with his own personal symbol; a single eye with a huge black pupil.

"Reading my mind Lord Nexus?" Michael asked.

"No, not at all, mi'lord in the circumstances that would be," he paused, "inappropriate, don't you think?"

"Quite. Please sit; I have mulled wine and some food," Michael indicated the overstuffed armchairs near the fireplace, anticipating the mage would want to sit in the warmth.

"Thank you," Nexus untied the long cloak, removed it, poured a glass of mulled wine and sat in the armchair closest to the fire. When the knight had his own wine he sat down opposite Nexus and waited for the mage to speak.

"This is something of a unique occasion would you not say Lord Michael?"

"I most certainly would, but perhaps it would be best if we dispensed with the formalities, don't you think?"

"I am not complete sure I agree with you, however, I shall endeavor to be less formal ... Michael."

"As will I Nexus, as will I," Michael paused for a moment before continuing, "May I offer a toast... to friends and allies."

"Indeed. So we are then to be... allies, Michael?"

"As strange as it may seem Nexus, yes, I do not believe we have any other choice. It is my firm belief that The Kingdoms only real chance lies in our working together."

"I agree with your assessment of our current situation, Michael," Nexus said before falling silent.

"I had been informed of your intelligence. I had always doubted it; however, even I can be wrong," the mage eventually continued.

"Not very often I would imagine."

"No, not very often. Do you know Michael; I am about to do something I do very, very seldom. I intend to be, what is the term? Yes, completely straight with you. I believe the time has come, for us both to fully understand each other."

"I appreciate the candor Nexus."

"Not yet, but you will. I do not profess to support your... affinity for Belenus, it is not a path I, myself, would have ever willingly chosen. I imagine my loyalty to the blood god Bhaal is likewise incomprehensible to you. However, these are differences of," he paused again; Nexus's conversations were littered with these strange pauses Michael was discovering, "faith, divergent religions. These differences need not always separate us, although in the past, I fear they have done much more than simply separate us. Such differences have generated... fear, loathing, enmity. I do not wish that state to continue, and neither, I believe do you."

"True enough. My opinion, for whatever it's worth Nexus because I give it to you as a man; not priest, or knight, not warrior, not even a simple servant, just a man, but my opinion is that the time has come to forget the absolutes of black and white, embrace the grey."

Nexus gave a small smile but did not reply immediately. Instead he walked to the small, round table, refilled his glass, and returned to his seat, the tray containing the food and the wine bottle trailing behind him in midair. After he had made himself comfortable the mage selected a large slice of bread, spread it with soft cheese and with a small flick of his long fingers sent the airborne tray towards the knight. Michael refused to be awed by the display; he already knew the mage was an extremely powerful wizard. Instead he simply refilled his own glass, and selected a small piece of hard cheese. The tray and the wine bottle floated back to the table.

"Embrace the grey, it is an... interesting phrase and yet, strangely suitable. I would venture to suggest, Michael, that both you and I have become the grey, over the course of our long careers."

"I would say you're probably right. I'd also say that we may very well be the only ones who have. The lines between good and evil remain firmly entrenched in many minds throughout The Kingdoms, but I no longer believe they apply in many cases."

"Once again Michael, with... unnerving sensibility you have clearly and succinctly outlined the very difficulty which we will face."

"Patrick and your second worked extremely well together," Michael spoke slowly, he was not sure exactly where Nexus was heading with this conversation, and he was beginning to wonder whether the mage still intended to help.

"Yes, surprisingly, certainly to Nikolai, he discovered he quite liked Sir Patrick and that they did, as you say, work... well together."

"Then I'm afraid I don't understand Nexus, you seem," Michael paused, "almost as though you are now reluctant to continue?"

"Oh no, Michael, you misunderstand me. I believe, very strongly, in working together. In our... alliance. However, I am, like you, only one man with one man's opinions. I have come here directly from a Council meeting. It did not... go well."

"They refused to listen?"

"On the contrary, they actually possessed new information of which I had been previously... unaware. No, listening is not the problem. Convincing them of the threat, that is the problem. I'm afraid that the Council, at this stage, can see no immediate... benefit to our association, nor can they be persuaded that the threat itself is immediate."

"Damnit," Michael spat out angrily, he had not expected this. In fact he had been counting on the cooperation of the mages, far more than he had realized. There simply was no possible way this threat could be turned aside without the help of the arcane mages. Michael had hoped and had truly believed that Nexus would be influential enough with the Council to convince them to join the fight against Shallendara.

Throwing himself out of the chair, Michael stormed to the still open window and leaned onto the sill. It had been his own idea to approach the mages first, hoping if Nexus could convince the Council then perhaps he would have greater success when he approached the senior knights of The Tears of Belenus; now that hope was gone. This was not, of course, the first disappointment Michael had experienced throughout the course of his career. However, this disappointment may prove to have the most far-reaching consequences.

"I'm disappointed Nexus," Michael began without turning around, "I had great hopes of the mages. Everything The Republic of Malerok stands for is built around the concept of cooperation; for them, now, to turn away from that." Michael stopped, turned around slowly and walked back to his chair. "I am more disappointed than I can say."

"I too am, disappointed, although not surprised, Michael. You see, I have an... understanding of the Council, and their reluctance. This is not a refusal to help a fellow mage, nor is it... turning away from their ideals. To my fellows it is obeying their ideals. You must understand Michael, that the old hatreds run deep and these are not ... ideological hatreds or disagreements over tenets of faith. Spellcasters have always been hated, feared and mistrusted by others. Magic, at least the kind of magic that my fellow mages and I practice has always been viewed with suspicion by those who do not understand it. We are seen as possessing strange and unnatural powers. The knight who says his prayers before battle or prays for the healing of a fallen friend; this is deemed... acceptable, it is understandable and valued. For these 'miraculous' powers, these abilities are clearly the bestowal of favor from the pantheon of 'good' deities. Even the wandering druids and their brand of magic, these too are acceptable... drawn from the natural world, again it is a matter of godly favor. We of the arcane, however, have always been viewed as different. While our power is likewise dependant upon the favor of the gods we choose whatever god suits our... ambitions or temperament. Thus there are as many mages following those considered as 'evil' deities as there are who follow the 'good'. Our magic is much more closely tied to our own personal ambitions than that practiced by your knights or the druids. It is this that has caused mages to become hated and feared, and we, in turn, have learned to... hate you."

"I see," Michael eventually said sadly. Most of what Nexus had just said Michael had known, or at least been aware of, yet he had not really taken it into account when he had approached the mage for help. The knight slowly sipped his wine as he thought over the mage's comment. In truth, the general mistrust of mages had been so much a part of everyday life that most people had simply ceased to be aware of it. Unaware and unlikely to see it might not be the right way to believe or behave.

"I'm not certain that you do, yet. But I will try and make you... not only see but truly understand, Michael." Nexus got out of his chair and walked to the window, looking out at the city below.

### A History Lesson

 "Do you know very much of the history of our Republic?" Nexus asked his guest eventually.

"No I don't, not really."

"I did not think so... I will relate it to you. Then perhaps you will understand, perhaps you will see. You will know I am sure, of the legend of a united Kaynos before the Great War."

"Of course, but..."

"Indeed," Nexus interrupted, "but. No one really believes the legends, not anymore. Not in this age of... enlightenment. They are, however, wrong for the legend is true. Not perhaps in the way it is told for Kaynos was never united as one single... state of being. One people as it were, under one ruler, but it was not the divided land it has become. Before the Great War, there was unity among the Empires... and they were Empires in that distant past. To the west a great elven empire, a dwarven empire in the centre and the human empire to the east. The noble Dragon Clans, of what was now referred to only as The Northern Badlands, ruled over those races that had been classified as 'animal'. That included not only orcs, goblins, trolls and the like but also the halflings, minotaurs, ogres and, of course the giants. In the so-called 'Golden Age' of Kaynos it was inconceivable to the ruling dwarves, elves and humans that these other 'animal' races were intelligent... or that they deserved any rights or privilege. We know better now, do we not, Michael?"

"I'd like to say we do but there are many who still feel that way Nexus. Something I'm sure you know as well as I," the knight answered.

"Exactly, we have not progressed. If you can appreciate the... prejudices faced by those races today then perhaps you can begin to imagine what it was like for them in that time. Given the... status of animals, they were powerless and ostracized. They were often hunted and killed for sport. I have read many accounts of those times; I have become quite... familiar with that period of our history. In this Golden Age mages were highly respected. They were highly sought after, contributing members of society. There were schools of magic all over the land training new mages regardless of gender, race or religion. Even then, as now, intelligence and... ability were the only qualifiers to a magical career, the favor of the gods always came second to the training. It is not entirely clear from the records exactly who was the first, or when, but it appears that certain mages began teaching the 'animals' spell casting. This was not a... popular decision."

"No, it would not have been," Michael said thoughtfully.

"Again the records are... fragmented. Perhaps as a result of almost ten centuries, perhaps they were fragmented to begin with. Either way, what happened next was inevitable. The Great War."

Michael listened, his wine forgotten at his elbow, in spellbound fascination as the mage outlined the course, and tragic result of the Great War. It had begun as an attack against the mages. Those who objected to the 'animals' being taught magic had begun killing and torturing individual spellcasters, they had overrun the schools of magic, and raided the vendors and marketplaces that sold spell components. As anger built they had destroyed anything remotely related to arcane magic. Having no choice the mages had fought back, and fighting beside them had been the 'animal' races so despised by the three ruling races.

Had it remained solely a war against the mages Kaynos might have remained whole with magic obliterated but there were many who sided with the mages. There were also those who took advantage of the chaos to serve their own ambitions. Eventually the situation disintegrated until war ravaged the entire known world. Nexus explained how the war had raged for a hundred years, by which time the face of Kaynos had been eternally changed; becoming the scattered Kingdoms.

"Eventually," Nexus continued, "the war came to an end. Not because there was any kind of resolution, it had simply become... unsustainable. The number of dead was staggering, some records indicate it may have been anywhere between half and two thirds of the population that had been killed. The land was decimated, cities had been destroyed. Famine and disease had spread all over Kaynos. And so, those mages that were left... retreated here, the old schools were abandoned, mages no longer served the various leaders, instead they formed The Republic. What was it you said earlier? The very foundation of Malerok is unity, but," Nexus paused, leaning forward and holding Michael's gaze intently, "it is unity between mages. The Great War may be over, Michael, but the reasons behind it have not changed. The fear of my kind has not diminished and, I must be honest with you, our fear of your kind has not diminished either."

"I see," and Michael realized as he spoke that perhaps for the first time he truly did understand. Close to a thousand years may have passed yet he knew that nothing had truly changed. The best that could be said of many people's attitudes towards mages was that they were tolerated. The worst, and most common, was that they were still hated. They were hated now for the same reasons they had been hated then, because people feared their power, and how they might use it.

"Yes, now you do truly see. However, for all the... possible validity of their feelings the mages are wrong. I do not believe these attitudes need continue, but they will not change," Nexus said passionately, "unless we mages show ourselves more openly to The Kingdoms. The people, of all the races, must come to know spellcasters, and they must come to understand. There are some amongst us, myself included, who are ambitious and... driven, yet those ambitions need not come into conflict with others. It is a rare spellcaster who wants to 'rule the world'. You note, Michael, I said rare, I did not say there were none, for indeed, there are some who crave... that kind of power. Yet, is not that a common ambition among all the races? Do you not have the greedy, the venal, the liars, cheats and frauds among you? As do we. We are not unalike. We are, in fact, just like you, and of course, that is the very reason we are so feared."

"At the risk of offending you Nexus, why shouldn't people fear the power and ambitions of spellcasters?" Michael asked after a small pause.

"On the contrary, I find your question most... respectful. Let me respond with my own first, how do you contain the ambitions of your own?"

"The short answer to that is that we don't always. But we also have many others..." the knight trailed off as the answer came clear. "There are others who work against them, that's what you mean isn't it?"

"Exactly. Once again Michael, I am thoroughly impressed with your acumen. Just as you have others, of...shall we say, different ambitions to curtail the more excessive among you, so too do we. Using myself as an example, it is well known that I am the greatest of all mages but, I do not rule the Council, I am not a tyrant of Malerok and yet my allegiance to Bhaal would cause most to classify me, with good cause, as...evil. There is not a single mage anywhere that could defeat me, but I could not defeat them all. Let me add, Michael, that my ambitions lie... elsewhere. However, you do see my meaning?"

"You're saying that the world of mages is," Michael struggled to put what he was beginning to understand into words, "like a mirror of the rest of the world."

The mage did not answer immediately, instead holding up his wine glass filled with blood red wine to the light. Lord Michael wondered what the mage was thinking; Nexus's face was completely inscrutable.

"That is an extremely... apt description." Nexus said eventually, "We are, indeed, a mirror of the world. You have dedicated your life to service, to doing what you believe to be right. It may surprise you to learn that there are mages, many of them, who share your same sense of dedication; some even who share your allegiance to Belenus."

"But then," Michael was almost stammering in his surprise, "I don't understand, why won't they help?"

"They probably will, it is the Council who have refused." Nexus paused, watching as Michael absorbed the implications. "Our... efforts must continue, we must find others who will help, but at this stage we cannot expect any... organized assistance from the Council."

"At this stage?"

"I believe," Nexus answered, "the Council will render assistance... eventually. I believe they will have no choice. For we, and I say we because this affects all The Kingdoms. We now, are faced with a rogue mage whose... ambitions exceed anything any spellcaster has ever attempted. In time, and it is my hope that it will not be too much time, they will come to see that we must not only work together as mages, but also work with the rest of the world."

### An Impending War

 Michael leaned back in his chair. It was not the result he had hoped for when he first contacted Nexus, but realistically it was more than he could have expected. He had first approached the mage nearly three years ago now, as a result of information Patrick had gathered while working in The Northern Badlands. That in turn had led to Nexus sending Nikolai, once his apprentice now a skilled spellcaster and trusted assistant, to the Badlands to work alongside Patrick and gather more information. Michael, despite some initial reservations, had ultimately approved of the idea of Nikolai and Patrick working together.

Nikolai and Patrick had worked and travelled together for more than two years. Together they had gathered an enormous amount of disquieting information. As a result of their efforts Michael and Nexus knew a great deal about what they were up against, yet they were still missing some crucial information.

Three months ago Patrick and Nikolai had left on what should have been one final trip to the Badlands. They wanted a chance to fill in the blanks in the information they possessed. The very day they had arrived in Fort Doom they had been ambushed. Somehow Nikolai had managed to escape, Patrick had not. In the ordinary course of events, Michael would have grieved the loss of his second but counted it as simply an acceptable loss in the course of duty.

He had learned a valuable lesson from both Nexus and Nikolai. Nikolai had refused to accept Patrick's loss. The young mage had claimed they had no proof Patrick was dead. Nikolai had asked for, and obtained, permission from Nexus to return to the Badlands to search for Patrick and affect a rescue. It was their actions, so unexpected and so unlike his own, that had prompted Michael to send Tares, one of his most respected healers, on the same mission.

It was not, Michael knew, a matter of uncaring, he had loved Patrick like a son. It was simply that to the Knights of Belenus death and suffering were acceptable elements of their lives. Michael had simply accepted that Patrick was dead. Nikolai's response had shown Michael the need for far greater cooperation. Not just between The Kingdoms but also between the races and between the differing philosophies. He had learned they could learn valuable things from each other.

"We are very much of the same mind, Nexus, but I'm beginning to realize how difficult this is going to be. Much more difficult than I had anticipated."

"Quite. Michael, you and I are... somewhat unique in our thinking, for now. But just as war tore The Kingdoms apart, war will bring them together."

"Then you believe there will be a war?" Michael asked leaning forward again.

"Oh yes, there will be a war. That much is... certain."

"Then we have failed," Michael said.

"On the contrary Michael, we have just begun. If, and at this stage it is still a question, if we lose the war... then we will have failed. However, we must not fail for if we do..." Nexus trailed off, the expression on his cold, handsome face saying far more than mere words could convey. Michael sighed deeply, he had been viewing this collaboration as a means to avoid the threat of war, now that hope was dashed, war was coming and they would have to win.

"With the information gathered by Nikolai and Sir Patrick," Nexus continued, "we know almost everything that we need to know..."

"Not enough to prevent a war," Michael interrupted.

"No, not enough to prevent the war. We are not, however ... without resources. It is true that the Council will not yet aid us nor perhaps will the Knights of Belenus officially aid us, but I imagine you would have... supporters, loyal followers, as do I. With their aid, and some welcome assistance I believe it will be possible to prevail."

"Welcome assistance? What assistance?"

"As I said earlier the Council did not disbelieve me, they in fact offered additional information, and I have... news of my own."

"Well?" Michael asked.

"Firstly Sir Patrick has been located... alive."

"What?" Michael jumped up out of the chair in his shock. Patrick was alive; he had not dared to hope, even when he sent Tares, Michael still had not truly believed he would find Patrick alive.

"I thought you would be... pleased. I received absolute confirmation several weeks ago, knowing of this impending... meeting I chose to wait and deliver the news personally."

"Where is he? Is Nikolai with him?"

"Nikolai is with him, in a sense. The question of where they are is a little more... difficult. I would ask you Michael, to... trust me on this matter. Suffice it to say that Patrick is alive, and... uninjured. There are... complications, however, which I truly feel will be best handled by Nikolai at this stage."

Michael stood, looking down at Nexus for a long moment. Eventually he sat back down, gazing thoughtfully at the fireplace.

"I do trust you Nexus," he said finally, "I'll leave this in your hands; for now."

"For now then," Nexus answered with a small smile, "as to the other information given to me this morning, I am afraid it will not be as... pleasant hearing."

"Go on."

"Sources within the Council have discovered some of Shallendara's... allies. As we had feared, she has approached The Dark One and King Karlos of Brikenwald. What I had not anticipated, nor I believe had you, is that she has also formed an alliance with Thincol Torion of the Padyian Empire and...Ulrich of Saxenburg."

"No, you must be mistaken, Ulrich would not..." Michael trailed off in uncertainty. It was well known that Ulrich was ambitious and eager to assume the throne. He had certainly embraced the role of regent while King Erich was away, but to ally himself with this rogue mage. Was Ulrich truly that ambitious? Michael sadly believed that it was possible.

"All right, I can see that Ulrich would be," Michael struggled for the right word, "attracted by the promise of that kind of power. That's not the worst news you have though is it?"

"Again I am impressed with your... astute observations. No, it is not the worst news. According to the Council, there is no known way to counteract Shallendara's new type of magic."

"None?" Michael said in a harsh whisper.

"None that they know of... I do not believe there is no answer."

"But if they don't know, and you don't know, then I don't see any solution."

"Nor I am vexed to admit do I, not at this stage. However, there are records, this new 'brain magic' that Shallendara possesses, it is perhaps not so new... you must have heard the rumors yourself over the years Michael, men and women accused of... sorcery, witchcraft."

"Are you telling me that Shallendara is a witch?" Michael asked, horrified by the very thought.

"Oh no, she is most definitely a mage. Yet the reports I have seen and witnesses I have spoken to, it seems to me that she has somehow found a way to... combine true magic with what we have always termed witchcraft. Witchcraft, sorcery, as you must realize, these are nothing more than... words, names to describe some type of magic that is different, a magic that breaks the rules of spellcraft. When I cause the wine jug to float in the air and fill your glass, you think nothing of it... it is magic, it is familiar and acceptable. Why? Because you know that I have been trained, I possess the skills, but if, for example, a peasant woman does the same thing... it is a very different story is it not? She is untrained, she herself does not know how she has achieved the effect, and so, we all, mages included, brand her a witch. I ask myself the question, what if witchcraft, or what we have branded sorcery and witchcraft, is simply... another, different type of magic, real magic?"

"Is that even possible?" Michael asked quietly, "I'm not an expert in these matters but my understanding has been that magic comes either from the gods, in the form of divine answers to specific prayers, or from some kind of mental manipulation, or whatever it is exactly that mages do?"

"Mental manipulation is the very opposite to what mages do, our power stems from the gods as does yours. It is true that we use our intelligence but we use our minds to find the... hidden levers of the universe. I can, for example, create fire from the air, because years of study have shown me the elements of fire within the elements of the air, thus I find the right words, incantations, spell components, whatever the case may be which will allow me, the blessing of the god, to draw the fire from the air."

"I'm not sure I follow you completely but the gist of what you're saying is that arcane magic is essentially the same as divine magic but with added study."

"That is crudely yet essentially correct, and it brings with it its own... safeguards. The years a mage must spend in study, the dedication to the craft... these bring in their wake, discipline, restraint, control. In Shallendara, it appears that she has also discovered a way to tap into whatever power allows those 'witches' to do what... things they do, including the very... wild, out of control nature of witchcraft. Witches do not possess the same disciplines and restraint as we of the arcane... among the things they are capable of, unfortunately, include the very 'mental manipulation' that you spoke of earlier. Although it is not manipulation or control of the spellcasters mind, it is manipulation of others. As you know, the most... common charges leveled against any so-called witch or sorcerer is that of predicting the future, of forecasting deaths, reading people's minds. The witch is said to put 'the evil eye' on their victim, and the victim dies... because they believe they will," Nexus leaned forward in order to emphasize his words, "It is not because the witch has done anything to them, physically, but in the mind of the victim they believe something has been done. The power, if it is real and can be harnessed, is phenomenal."

Michael was silenced by the implications of Nexus's explanation. Although he had known, almost from the beginning, the danger posed by this rogue mage, the idea of a new, out of control type of magic went beyond anything Michael had conceived. Michael had been around magic, of one kind or another, for most of his life and he had a great respect for its power. He also knew, all too well, just how dangerous that power could be when turned against those ill-equipped to fight against it. How were The Kingdoms supposed to fight against a new, powerful type of magic? One that invaded the mind, making them believe the unbelievable, feel pain without injury and who knew what else with no experience of this type of magic and no defense? The very idea made Michael's blood run cold.

"What do you mean 'if it's real'?" the knight asked abruptly, remembering Nexus' cryptic comment.

"These are rumors Michael. We are dealing with gossip and innuendo. Stories that have been told and retold, there are a few credible eyewitness reports but they come from frightened people. I cannot count any of this as truly... accurate. Not yet. I need more information; however, I will never be able to obtain what I seek for myself."

"What is it that you need? If I can get it for you Nexus I will certainly do so. You have my solemn word."

"I thank you for that Michael. Your word is... valuable, however, I am uncertain whether or not you will be able to help. I seek access to the great library of The Black Lotus monastery. I believe that somewhere in the scrolls lies the answer. The answer of how to.... defeat the witch and her new type of magic. You have realized, have you not that Shallendara's witchcraft is, by its very nature.... independent of the gods?"

"Yes but I'm unsure whether that will work for us or against us?" the knight answered.

The mage threw back his handsome head and laughed aloud.

"I'm not sure either, Michael, but perhaps we should all.... pray. Pray for the gods' assistance and pray there is an answer and that I can find that answer in the library."

"I can't make any promises Nexus but I will do what I can to get you access. I still have many friends among the warrior monks."

"I can ask for nothing more."

### Forced Loyalty

 Slade and Wulfstan were barely able to finish their share of the meager meal before collapsing. Lara had prepared them some make-shift beds using the cleanest of the old blankets and the least infested of the moldy straw. As soon as they had finished eating they had retired to sleep, utterly exhausted.

Tares, although he understood their exhaustion, was nevertheless disappointed. The big minotaur wanted to sort through the papers and other items scavenged from the prison. Tares hoped the necromancer and his lies would be exposed and he believed there may be an answer among the items taken from the prison. However, Tares was prepared to wait.

Until then Tares was determined to keep a close watch on Nikolai. While they waited for Slade and Wulfstan to get some much needed rest Lara sat on the floor with Roulibard and Darzan and began teaching them how to play the complicated card game the halfling favored. Sitting nearby next to the giant half-ogre, half-troll called Trunk; Nikolai was leaning back against the wall, eyes closed. After a few minutes the necromancer stood and walked wordlessly towards the far end of the open space and into the deeper shadows of the tunnel.

Tares waited a decent interval of time; after all, it was possible the necromancer had simply left to relieve himself. When the mage still had not returned after a suitable period of time the big minotaur got up quietly and followed. He found Nikolai sitting on a rough stone boulder about thirty feet into the tunnel.

"You never disappoint me Tares. It's nice to know that I can always rely on you and your perpetual distrust," Nikolai said in a low, mocking whisper.

"And have you ever given me a reason not to distrust you, necromancer?"

"I do have a name you know," Nikolai said with a hint of steel in his voice, "I use yours, surely simple good manners would dictate you use mine."

"If you think to intimidate me..." Tares began only to be cut off by Nikolai's cold, hollow laugh.

"I do not need to intimidate you, priest," Nikolai whispered harshly, "you mean less than nothing to me. However, if we are forced to work together then you will do me the courtesy of addressing me by name."

"I have no intention of working with you..."

"But you will," Nikolai cut in, pulling a small object wrapped in cloth from his pocket and passing it to Tares.

"How, where did you, I don't..." Tares was almost stuttering in his surprise, for the small object Nikolai had handed him was the seal ring belonging to Lord Michael Strong. It gave the holder absolute authority over any priest or Knight of Belenus.

"Lord Michael seemed to think that you, or whoever he sent, might require an incentive to take orders from me, a lowly necromancer, so he gave me the ring to ensure your," Nikolai paused for a small, mocking laugh, "loyalty."

Tares sat down heavily on a boulder facing Nikolai. Nikolai could only have come into possession of the Ring of Belenus legitimately. The ring was under the protection of Belenus and so could not be stolen. This meant Tares had no option other than to follow the necromancer's orders. It also confirmed the mage's earlier claim that he had been, and still was, working with and for the Grand Knight, Lord Michael Strong. Tares sighed deeply and wordlessly handed the ring back to Nikolai.

"It seems, Nikolai," Tares growled reluctantly, "that my services and loyalty lies with you."

"Yes it does, but you will find I am not too exacting a taskmaster. As absurd as it may seem to you, our aims, for the moment, coincide. As you have surmised there are certain details that I have chosen, at this time, to keep from the others, including Slade. Knowing your trusting nature you will doubtless be bursting with any number of ridiculous ideas as to why I have made this decision. As much as it would amuse me to watch you blunder around trying to determine what I'm 'up to' I will tell you instead. Before I came here I discovered that someone else was making an attempt to find our mutual missing friend, and to ingratiate themselves with Slade."

"Who?" Tares asked, still suspicious.

"I don't know, not specifically, but I had certain suspicions which your pet halfling has confirmed for me."

Tares frowned, ignoring the insult to Lara for the moment, and tried to puzzle out Nikolai's meaning.

"You mean," the big minotaur said slowly, "that someone else from the Silent Hand has been looking for..."

"Shhh, now, now Tares... we must be very, very careful on that subject matter. I have a great deal of respect for our mutual friend and I have no wish to see further harm come to him."

"I find it hard to believe you care what happens to a Knight of Belenus," Tares snorted.

"And I don't care what you believe as long as you do as you're told. My actions will speak for me. I came for him, risking my life every step of the way, and my reasons are my own. For now you will simply accept my orders on this subject and keep silent, until I discover..."

"We discover, Nikolai, I may not like having to accept your authority but I will work to find whoever is responsible for this," Tares interrupted.

"Good. Now as I was saying my suspicions were confirmed with," Nikolai paused briefly and decided against needling the minotaur priest any more than strictly necessary, "Lara's input. However, I still do not know exactly who the Hand have sent. I assume you are absolutely certain of the halfling's loyalty?"

"Lord Michael himself has vouched for her. That is sufficient for me."

"Surprisingly it is sufficient for me also. This means that we cannot trust anyone until we are certain."

"I dislike being less than candid with a Prince of the Realm," Tares growled, and paused before continuing, "Wait. You said that the Hand had been hired to assassinate the royal family of Saxenburg."

"No I didn't say that, your 'prince of the realm' jumped to that conclusion. I didn't disabuse him of the notion."

"But if you know it's a lie, if his family is not in danger how can you not set his mind at ease?"

"Honestly, how naïve can you be?" Nikolai asked incredulously. "I don't know if I can trust him. I trust you because you were sent for him, but beyond you and our mutual friend I trust no one. Didn't your boss tell you why the two of us had been working together?"

"That information was not deemed necessary for me to complete my mission," Tares answered stiffly.

At Tares' answer Nikolai laughed again, shaking his handsome head in disbelief.

"You people are unbelievable," Nikolai began when he finally finished laughing; "He and I had been working together for nearly two years. We were on the trail of gossip, rumor, and innuendo and judging by what happened, I'd say we were getting pretty close to the truth. This thing is bigger than Saxenburg, bigger than some petty takeover scheme of The Dark One or anyone else for that matter."

"I'm not sure I know what you mean Nikolai," Tares stumbled over the name but forced himself to use it; he would not be seen to be inferior in any way to the necromancer.

"Please stop, for both our sakes, go back to calling me necromancer, or Bhaal spawn or whatever in the nine hells takes your fancy. I can't bear to see you choking on my name one second longer. As for what I mean, I don't know everything either but something big is being planned, a war certainly."

"In Saxenburg?"

"Oh forget about Saxenburg. Didn't I just tell you this is bigger than just Saxenburg? I don't have all the information yet, but I will get it. I will finish my assignment or I will die in the attempt and you my righteous friend will help me. But understand this, I decide who knows what and when and until I have more information we trust no one."

"Surely Slade can be trusted..." Tares began.

"No, absolutely not," Nikolai cut in, "I have no proof that he can be trusted. In fact some of my information points in exactly the opposite direction. The Hand is definitely trying to get to Slade, and I don't know why, yet. That alone is pause for thought. Think about it honestly Tares, have you ever heard of someone escaping the Hand? The very fact that Slade is still breathing when the Hand are obviously tracking him makes me doubt that he is, or ever was a target. Right now all I see is a pampered prince of the realm who's decided to play nature's friend for a while. Apart from that look who he brings with him; a so-called royal bodyguard who was so good at his job he managed to lose the High King and yet somehow, still has his life? Or what about the skinny wizard who can barely remember his own name let alone remember any magic. He has supposedly been a prisoner of Diablis and yet doesn't have one single lash mark? And even you Tares, who did you bring to our little band? A halfling who admits to being a member of the Hand, but is totally reformed now," Nikolai held up one pale hand when he saw Tares about to interrupt, "I believe she probably has, your boss happens to be a very good judge of people. Just remember Tares that anyone, even Lord Michael, can be fooled some of the time. And leaving aside Lara, you come in here with Darzan, not just a known pirate but one of the best is Ixlan? Doesn't look terribly good now does it?"

Although it galled the big minotaur to make the admission he was forced to see the truth in Nikolai's assessment of the situation.

"If you suspect everyone why not just leave?" Tares asked curiously.

"If it was up to me," Nikolai answered his voice low yet bitter, "I would, believe me. Unfortunately my orders are clear. I don't understand why, and it does not mean that Slade is automatically trustworthy, but for now I must stick with him. As you are well aware, my boss has a particular talent for knowing things unknowable to ordinary people. For whatever reason, the answers I seek will be found by travelling with Slade. That means you and I will follow his pointless quest until I receive instructions otherwise."

Tares leaned back against the rough stone wall, thinking over all the necromancer had just revealed. Although Tares sincerely doubted the necromancer's motives he could not deny that the mage appeared to have been unusually candid with him. Furthermore the mage's possession of the ring was a testament to the essential truthfulness of Nikolai's claims. There remained, however, the matter of the document that Tares had seen Nikolai remove so furtively when they were still in the prison. As the necromancer himself had said, anyone could be fooled; even Lord Michael. Was it possible that Nikolai had somehow tricked Lord Michael into giving him the ring, which the mage fully intended to use for his own perverted ends?

The difficulty facing Tares was the question of how to determine the true from the false. A priest of greater power than he possessed would be able to call upon Belenus to aid them in determining the truth. Tares however, although greatly gifted by the god in the art of healing, knew himself to be little more than a warrior in Belenus's service. If the necromancer had lied successfully to Lord Michael, a Knight of tremendous power, then the big minotaur had no hope of determining through divine means if Nikolai was lying to him. Tares would have to rely on his own wits, and hope and pray that if the necromancer was lying then he would somehow discover it, before it was too late.

"You should get back there Tares, in case our companions are as distrusting as you and come looking for you as well. I need to meditate before we leave this place, but I want that to be soon."

Tares could not hide the deep shudder that engulfed his entire body. Although he had only the vaguest idea of what the necromancer's meditations might be Tares knew enough to feel a deep revulsion at the black rites performed by those dedicated to the blood god Bhaal.

"Before you go," Nikolai continued, reaching once again into one of his many deep pockets, "take a look at this. I found it in Luca's office," he finished handing Tares the very piece of parchment that the minotaur had observed him take earlier.

Tares wordlessly accepted the small roll of parchment and unrolled it across his large knees. Although written in the Common tongue the document made no sense to Tares. The scroll was divided into three columns. A long list of apparently random numbers ran down the left hand side of the scroll, the column on the right had a list of place names. The provinces, cities and towns were scattered throughout The Kingdoms; although on closer examination Tares noted that the majority of the place names were either in Laxdale or Agios.

The centre column made the least sense of all; a series of geometric shapes in a rainbow of different colors with no discernable pattern. Tares continued studying the document. It must mean something, it had been found in the prison governor's office and Nikolai had taken the trouble to hide its existence from the others. There had to be something here that the big minotaur could not see. Finally Tares looked up to find Nikolai leaning back against the wall, his eyes closed, apparently uninterested in the minotaur's thoughts about the document.

"I do not understand," Tares said finally, "What does this mean?"

"Good question Tares," Nikolai said opening his eyes and smiling; his smile, as always utterly repellent and cold despite the sensuousness' of his full lips.

"I have suspicions but I hope by every god in all the realms that I'm wrong," the necromancer continued.

"Why?" Tares asked, then winced, embarrassed by the harshness of his voice even as he realized that it stemmed from a growing sense of fear.

Nikolai leaned forward, his eyes glittering; the clear blue reminding Tares horribly of the deep, pure waters of the Southern Sea off the coast of his homeland.

"I'll tell you something Tares, war is coming, our investigations had proven that conclusively before," Nikolai paused briefly, "well before what happened. But what we didn't know then, what we were trying to find out is the numbers and the people involved. This isn't going to be an ordinary war Tares and it's not going to be fought in an ordinary way. You encountered those... things The Dark One had in the prison but fortunately for you, you didn't actually have to actually fight them. The rest of us did and I'll tell you freely right now, as Bhaal is my witness, we never would have survived that encounter without Trunk, and how he managed to resist them I'll never know."

"Belenus would have aided him," Tares said.

"You know what," Nikolai answered with a small, hollow laugh, "you're probably right. I just hope he continues to aid him because if we're going to succeed then we're going to need every bit of aid we can get, no matter where it comes from."

The big minotaur chose not to respond to the blatant blasphemy against the Crying God. Nikolai's allegiance to Bhaal was a sufficient blasphemy in itself and despite that Lord Michael had entrusted the necromancer with the ring of Belenus.

"I still do not understand," Tares said waving the parchment slightly as if to draw Nikolai's attention back to the incomprehensible document.

"Take another good look at that thing and remember there is a war coming."

Obediently Tares bent his heavy bovine head to the parchment still not seeing whatever it was about this document that was so interesting to Nikolai.

"Look," Nikolai took the parchment from Tares' unresisting hands and pointed to the first of the three columns, "notice how these numbers are all over the place, no sequence, nothing. Now if you look at this column," he said pointing now to the third column. "These are all place names right? So, we know, and believe me," Nikolai held up one hand to stop Tares from interrupting, "we do know that war is coming. So what if these names and numbers represent places the other side is planning to attack. The numbers would then represent numbers of troops, or possibly regiments or something like that. I mean obviously I can't be absolutely sure obviously but it does make sense. Given that we do know for certain The Dark One is somehow involved, so what if those shapes in the centre column represent not only those weird octopus things but maybe other, even worse types of troops or monsters or who knows what?"

Nikolai stopped because Tares was shaking his large bovine head in a definite denial of the mage's conclusions. "I do not disbelieve your assertion of a coming war," Tares said quickly in response to Nikolai's unspoken question, "however, this document cannot function in the manner you described. If you look closely at the place names you will notice that not only do they cover a vast area of The Kingdoms but more importantly they are widely scattered. Most of the places named are located in Agios or Laxdale, but lying between those two kingdoms is the Padyian Empire. No military commander would open two such large fronts with a possibly hostile force lying between. Unless you have other information?"

"No, not really," Nikolai answered quietly, obviously thinking, "I believe that Padyian may be involved but I have no proof. That's one of the reasons why we went back to the Badlands. I don't really understand matters of war but I feel in my bones this parchment somehow relates to the war."

"I cannot see how it can be. Not only are the named places separated by Padyian but they are ..."

"Wait," Nikolai cut Tares off, "did you hear that?"

Tares inclined his head trying to discern what had captured Nikolai's attention, unfortunately however his race was better known for their sense of smell than their hearing. Watching the necromancer, Tares tried to gain some indication of where the noise was coming from by the mage's posture but Nikolai was as still as stone, listening intently. Suddenly Tares heard the noise that had caught the mage's attention. It was a very low pitched chittering sound, seemingly coming from the very walls themselves, a sound Tares easily recognized.

"It's just tunnel spiders, these walls are only hard-packed earth here not stone," Tares began, trailing off when he saw Nikolai's face turn a ghastly pale.

"That's what I thought. Can you tell which way are they coming?" Nikolai stood abruptly staring back down the tunnel in the direction of the large clearing, his entire demeanor indicating total panic.

"It appears to be coming towards us but do not be concerned. These are very shy creatures, they are not likely to cause anyone any harm," again Tares trailed off as Nikolai began to run back towards the clearing.

"Nikolai, they are not dangerous," Tares yelled after the running necromancer.

"It's not that, he's scared of them," Nikolai yelled back, still running.

"Who is?" Tares questioned, finally running after the necromancer.

"Trunk."

"Of tunnel spiders?" Tares asked.

"Of all spiders!"

### Tunnel Spiders

 Tares was so shocked by Nikolai's revelation he stopped dead in his tracks. Spiders, Belenus knew, were hardly the most pleasant of the various creatures in The Kingdoms but they were rarely dangerous.

Even among the giant varieties, which included tunnel spiders, only a handful of them were poisonous specimens. Most spiders were not only harmless but like all woodland creatures were basically shy, steering clear of the humanoid races. Particularly so were the large and totally blind tunnel spiders, which possessed an uncanny ability to travel hundreds of miles underground tunneling from one place to another. The big minotaur knew that bards and minstrels had long used giant spiders in their stories as monstrous atrocities waiting to prey on the unsuspecting and unwary but the reality was far removed from their lurid tales.

Tunnel spiders did not deliberately seek out living flesh and devour it with foot long fangs dripping poison, holding their prey with hairy multiply-jointed legs that gripped like the hardest steel. To Tares it was simply incomprehensible that a Knight, a true servant of Belenus and second in command to Lord Michael Strong could possibly be afraid of spiders. Yet the big minotaur could no more deny that the necromancer's fear, no, his panic, were very real. These thoughts flashed through Tares' mind in less than a second before he once again began running after Nikolai.

Nikolai continued to accelerate, running so fast in fact, that when he brushed past Darzan he knocked the beautiful pirate completely off her feet. Tares stopped briefly, bending down to assist the dark-skinned woman to her feet, dropping the mysterious parchment as he did so, before he continued down the tunnel after the necromancer. Tares could hear the chittering of the tunnel spiders growing louder, obviously coming closer. Nikolai with Tares just behind him, had just reached the mouth of the clearing when the first tunnel spider broke through the hard packed earthen wall. To Tares those first few seconds seemed to stretch out interminably, each image planted indelibly in his mind.

Wulfstan and Slade were both still sleeping against the near wall. Slade was curled on his side, almost in a fetal position and beside him Wulfstan was lying on his back, one hand loosely gripping the hilt of his long sword. Beyond them, almost at the far mouth of the clearing, Lara was sitting cross-legged in front of Trunk who was leaning back against the far wall. Roulibard was seated beside the ogre-troll, directly across from the opening created by the first of the tunnel spiders. It looked as though they were playing some kind of dice game, hardly surprising Tares thought distractedly, as Lara was inordinately fond of games. Behind him Tares could hear Darzan's footsteps coming closer. In front of him he could hear Nikolai's harsh panting as the necromancer realized he had been unable to prevent the inevitable.

Just above Wulfstan's sleeping form the first tunnel spider broke through. A huge hole, easily fifteen feet in diameter, opened up as if the tunnel wall had been little more than an illusion. Dirt and particles of rock sprayed all over the two sleeping figures. Even more dirt and rock was flung far into the clearing, propelled by the weight of the three feet high, five feet long tunnel spiders pushing towards the opening. The first tunnel spider with its curiously attenuated, hard-shelled, shiny body, stepped out through the newly opened hole, five feet above the ground. Tares knew that all tunnel spiders were blind; the creatures tunneled endlessly through the ground searching for food. This tunnel spider was unable to see that its tunneling had ended in midair. Slowly the first of the spiders fell and it seemed to the minotaur's frenzied imagination that everything happened at once.

The heavy spider landed upside down with a hard thud on Wulfstan's sleeping body, bringing the soldier instantly awake. As Wulfstan struggled to his feet, sword in hand, Trunk looked up from the opposite wall and uttered a high-pitched, undulating scream. Trunk's scream, so loud and obviously fear-filled, shocked almost everyone as they turned to stare at the enormous creature. Trunk was so unbelievably powerful and strong, carrying both troll and ogre characteristics, and yet he was screaming in utter terror at the sight of the tunnel spiders that were continuing to pour through the freshly dug hole.

Nikolai raced towards Trunk, side-stepping a tunnel spider whose foot-long antennae were flailing around in reaction to the extremely high pitch of Trunk's scream. As the mage tried to close the distance between himself and Trunk a second tunnel spider, moving with remarkable speed for such a large creature, began running towards the sound of the screams. Most likely, Tares thought, the spider wanted to put an end to the irritating sound. As it crossed Nikolai's path the spider's body tripped the necromancer driving him heavily to the ground. The mage hit the unforgiving ground very hard, emitting a grunt of pain, ending up in a tangle with the tunnel spider that had caused his fall.

As Nikolai struggled with the spider both Slade and Wulfstan seemed to snap out of their frozen shock. Wulfstan drew his sword and immediately cleaved one spider in two with the large blade while Slade drew forth his two matching katanas from the brace on his back. Lara, caught unarmed and unprepared, turned to face a tunnel spider that was almost as tall as she was and was considerably longer, heavier and extremely agitated by the noise Trunk was continuing to make.

As the spider opened and closed its round mouth, exposing its razor sharp fangs the halfling woman screamed, a piercing note that seemed to be almost a counterpoint to Trunk's continuing screams of terror. Trunk reacted instantly to Lara's scream, scooping up the halfling woman and cradling her against his broad green chest as though she were a baby.

Nikolai finally managed to regain his footing, his hands searching his belt for the small dagger that thanks to his magic he rarely had to use but kept nonetheless for emergencies. His hand closed over the empty sheath and the necromancer realized the blade itself must have slipped out during his fall. Looking around wildly, while still trying to keep one eye on the giant tunnel spider in front of him, Nikolai saw the blade lying on the ground behind the spider. Out of the corner of his eye the necromancer could see Trunk, who was still screaming, now standing frozen in fear. As the ogre-troll was cradling Lara it appeared the halfling woman was trying to calm the huge creature down. Nikolai shook his head in sheer frustration. Under normal circumstances he knew that his friend would have fought down the fear, fighting at his side and the two of them would easily have dispatched a gang of tunnel spiders.

At that thought Nikolai almost laughed out loud. They were a long way from normal circumstances and despite the reassurances of his mentor, Lord Nexus; the necromancer doubted if they would ever return to normal circumstances again. Not for the first time the mage cursed his own inadequacy. That someone he had come to consider a valued friend and a trusted companion should be subjected to the indignities that Trunk was forced to endure while Nikolai remained unable to help was absolutely insupportable.

Preoccupied with these thoughts Nikolai had not noticed Tares approaching the spider from behind while the necromancer had been edging around the creature in an attempt to reach his dagger. Only the sudden rush of air when the minotaur cleric raised his enormous mace alerted Nikolai to the priest's presence. The necromancer barely had time to jump back out of the way as the huge weapon snapped the tunnel spider's broad back in two, splattering spider blood and guts in a wide arc.

"Thanks," Nikolai said with a smile, "but we have to get him out of here and quick."

"Agreed," Tares looked around him.

More of the tunnel spiders were pouring through the hole in the wall; their numbers making even a clearing this large seem crowded. Nikolai and Tares both knew that tunnel spiders always travelled in family gangs of anywhere between twenty and thirty members. Although it appeared that Wulfstan and Slade were more than capable, in spite of their exhaustion, to deal with the minimal threat posed by the huge blind spiders there was no question they were both distracted by Trunk's continual screams and obvious fear. Although neither of them was as distracted as Roulibard and Darzan appeared to be; neither of them had moved since the ogre-troll first began screaming.

They would have to get Trunk far enough away from the spiders to calm the giant creature down. Unfortunately Trunk was standing near the opening of the tunnel leading back towards the prison and the rapidly growing population of tunnel spiders stood between him and the opening leading outside.

Roulibard had been shocked by Trunk's reaction to the tunnel spiders. The young mage had no love for the creatures either but they were blind and in spite of their size easily killed. As he stood watching the others dealing so efficiently with the growing numbers of spiders Roulibard cursed his own uselessness. He had woken into this nightmare two days ago, his memory ripped to shreds. He knew his name, knew he was a wizard, and his understanding of the world appeared intact. Roulibard remembered the names of the three moons, Sapphire, Ruby and Opal, and that they had been named after three of the principal goddesses. He remembered the political situation of Kaynos; he knew that the High Elves of the Kingdom of Kodeshka were amenable to trade with the rest of The Kingdoms but that the Wild Elves of the Kingdom of Lashandra refused contact with any outsiders, including the High Elves.

He remembered that the three human kingdoms of Ixlan, Saxenburg and Brikenwald were in some ways even more divided than the elven kingdoms. That Ixlan and Saxenburg, for example, were bitter enemies. The young mage had even recognized in Slade the former Crown Prince of Saxenburg. All this Roulibard remembered. However, how he had come to be in Ixlan, let alone inside Diablis prison, in fact every memory or detail of his life previously was completely and utterly gone and he had no idea why. The others, Roulibard knew, assumed he had been a prisoner in Diablis but Roulibard was sure that he had not been imprisoned and his lack of scars seemed to support his belief. The young mage could not be sure but he believed that whatever he had been was something far stranger than merely a prisoner.

Throughout the prison break Roulibard had tried to be useful. Although even he had to admit that without magic and lacking any skills with weapons the young mage was afraid that Wulfstan was correct in his assessment of Roulibard, he was worse than useless. For reasons that the young mage was unable to define he knew in some way that he desperately needed to be a part of this group. He also knew that he absolutely had to get out of Diablis prison. Even though he could not consciously remember anything of his time within those walls, Roulibard felt a deep sense of fear bordering on terror at the prospect of remaining here. Now, they were faced with this situation and the young mage found himself again with nothing to add and unable to help. Roulibard was certain, deep in his soul, that if he proved to be a liability too often Slade would eventually heed Wulfstan's advice and cut him out of the group to fend for himself. The young mage could not allow that happen.

Nikolai, having retrieved his dagger, was edging backwards with Tares in an attempt to create a barrier between Trunk and the tunnel spiders, which had finally ceased coming through the wall. Slade and Wulfstan were working together on the opposite side of the clearing. Darzan had finally recovered from her paralyzed shock and was now battling the spiders. Lara was still trying to calm Trunk down, talking quietly to the ogre-troll but unfortunately it appeared her efforts were making little impression and Trunk's high pitched terrified screams continued. Spinning around Nikolai searched for something that would help them herd the spiders away, not only from Trunk but also from the tunnel leading outside. If Trunk were to be confronted with spiders in the confined space of the tunnel there was no way of knowing what might happen.

"We have to get him away from here," Nikolai yelled, trying to make himself heard above Trunk's screaming and the increasingly agitated noises of the tunnel spiders.

"Take him back down the tunnel," Slade bellowed in reply, "we'll deal with the spiders here."

"I can't do that, if I take him out that way he'll never come back here," Nikolai shouted.

"So then leave him there. Who cares?" Wulfstan yelled back.

"Absolutely not!" Slade shouted quickly.

"I'd rather feed you to the spiders," Nikolai answered Wulfstan in disgust, although the necromancer had been surprised at the vehemence of Slade's negative reply.

"Fine," Wulfstan replied, smarting at Nikolai's reply, "then what exactly do you suggest we do then?"

"I don't know," Nikolai wailed in sheer frustration.

"Fire," Roulibard said from behind Nikolai, "Spiders are afraid of fire!"

"Fabulous idea, but in case you hadn't noticed we've got four torches burning as well as a campfire and so far that doesn't seem to be bothering the spiders one bit," Wulfstan said sarcastically.

Roulibard flushed a deep red with embarrassment. The young mage knew exactly what he had meant but the warrior had still managed to completely misconstrue his suggestion and, in doing so, had managed to make Roulibard sound like a total fool. One day, the young mage vowed, he would wipe the smug, arrogant smirk off Wulfstan's face and force the soldier to acknowledge his power. Thoughts flashed through the young mage's mind, with blinding speed, of various things he would like to do, or see done, to Wulfstan; surprising Roulibard in their intensity and brutality. Clenching his fists Roulibard tried to rid his mind of the dreadful images and concentrate instead on dealing with the tunnel spiders.

Nikolai suddenly spun around to face Roulibard. Something had happened but the necromancer could not immediately work out what it was; it had felt like a surge of power. Something incredibly strong that Nikolai had only encountered a few times before, but surely it could not have come from this scrawny, non-descript excuse for a wizard. Nikolai looked closely at Roulibard's face, seeing embarrassment, injured pride and something else, something the necromancer could not readily define.

Before Nikolai had a chance to puzzle it out an enormous fireball exploded and the whole clearing erupted in flames. Nikolai staggered back, the super heated air burning his lungs. Incredibly the huge fireball had dropped cleanly along the opposite wall from where Trunk was standing, incinerating all the remaining spiders in the process. The flames were so intense that the moldy straw, rotten blankets, along with most of their provisions had been reduced to ashes as well as the spiders. The wall Trunk was leaning against was free from the raging fire all the way to the other end of the clearing, giving Trunk, Lara and Roulibard a clear passage to the tunnel leading outside. Darzan, thanks to her position at the mouth of the tunnel, also had a clear passage through the flames. Nikolai had also miraculously escaped the effects of the fireball, however, Wulfstan, Slade and Tares had not been so lucky.

Tares had been at the very edge of the blaze. The flames had rapidly burned through his chain shirt and ignited the linen tunic he wore underneath. Slade's ancient quarterstaff was ablaze and there were small tongues of flame licking the front of the young druid's linen overshirt. Both the minotaur and Slade staggered backwards, dropping to the hard floor and rolling to extinguish the flames.

Wulfstan was not so lucky. He appeared to be completely engulfed by the flames, his screams of pain filling the sudden gap left by Trunk's abrupt silence. Although Nikolai could cheerfully have left the royal bodyguard to his uncomfortable fate he was well aware that neither Slade, nor Tares would approve of such a course of action. Regardless of his personal feelings, Nikolai was going to have to do something, the question was, what? Behind him he could hear Roulibard muttering very softly under his breath, something which sounded like 'what have I done?' Roulibard's whispered comment confirmed the necromancer's half-formed suspicion that the amnesiac mage had caused the huge fireball.

Nikolai's mind was racing, although only seconds had passed he knew if they did not act soon the situation, bad as it already was, would become completely out of control.

"Run, everybody just run for the exit," Nikolai screamed as loud as possible, hoping that the others would hear him over the roar of the flames. The necromancer could see no answer other than flight. As he began to run Nikolai wondered whether or not Wulfstan would even be capable of following his instructions assuming the soldier had heard him over the roaring noise. Yet the heat from the flames combined with the acrid smoke was making the whole clearing area toxic. If they did not perish in the fire they would surely die from breathing the increasingly poisonous atmosphere.

Tares fought to retain his concentration against the pain from the flames and the burning in his lungs. He had heard Nikolai's shouted instruction and observed the necromancer begin running for the exit. As the minotaur spun around he saw at a glance that Wulfstan, engulfed in the fierce heat of the flames, was unable to follow the mage's life-saving order. Muttering hurried and frenzied prayers to Belenus under his breath Tares was torn, he would surely die if he entered the flames to try and rescue the soldier, and that would serve no purpose. Reluctantly, yet accepting that sacrifice was a natural part of life, the minotaur turned away from the flames and began to run after Nikolai. The big minotaur had barely begun to move when he noticed Trunk walking slowly and purposefully, straight into the flames towards Wulfstan.

"Nikolai, come!" Trunk's clear ringing tones stopped not only Tares, but also the necromancer in their tracks, "We save friend now!"

Trunk continued to walk calmly into the flames as Tares watched in horror. Trunk was half ogre and half troll, and the woodland trolls were unbelievably resilient creatures, extremely strong and capable of incredible feats of self-repair that other beings could only hope to emulate. Yet despite their strengths they were extremely vulnerable to only two things, acid and fire. As Tares watched he could see the flames licking at Trunk's green skin and, as though he were viewing the scene in slow motion, Tares could see the skin of the giant creature melting off his huge body like candle wax from the flames and heat.

"Trunk, no, you can't," Nikolai screamed incoherently as he stopped running and saw Trunk walking resolutely into the flames. Tares could feel his enormous heart pounding inside his chest. In minutes or less Trunk would be consumed by the fire and the soldier, screaming from the agony of being burned alive, would still die. From behind him Tares heard Nikolai, mutter a truly foul oath before running into the flames after Trunk. The minotaur priest could not even begin to comprehend the magnitude of the necromancer's act of self-sacrifice. Nikolai was risking his life, and not, Tares knew to save Wulfstan. The young soldier's arrogance was plain to all and Nikolai's growing disdain for Wulfstan was equally obvious. The necromancer was risking everything for Trunk, because the giant creature was risking his own life, Nikolai had returned to save the ogre-troll. It was, Tares knew, an action worthy of a Knight of Belenus; although the minotaur knew he would never tell Nikolai that.

Tares spun around as Roulibard, still standing frozen in the same position he had been in since the attack began, screamed loudly, as though he too were in pain. Before Tares could even begin to pray to Belenus, pure, clear, icy cold water poured down from nowhere. The inexplicable rain extinguished all the flames and soothed the burns on Tares' back. Although Tares automatically offered a prayer of thanks to Belenus he knew well that the mysterious rain, which had already begun to slow to a drizzle, did not come in answer to any divine prayer of his.

Despite the fact that the flames had lasted merely minutes Wulfstan, Trunk and Nikolai had all been severely burned. Tares reached out to touch Nikolai, who despite his burns still emanated the strange cold, and began to pray for the necromancer's healing, putting off the moment when he would have to turn his attention to the horrifically burned Wulfstan.

### The Hidden Palace

 The reception room, like all of the rooms in the Hidden Palace, was exceptionally large, and very luxuriously furnished. Despite huge windows all of the Hidden Palace was generally kept in a state of semi-darkness, as though The Dark One could not bear the light.

Today it was lit only by small, glowing crystals placed strategically around the room. First time visitors to the Hidden Palace were always surprised by the Palace's elegance; not that there were many first time visitors, The Dark One valued his privacy above all else and so visitors were not encouraged. Still, those few who did enter the private sanctum of The Dark One could not fail to be astonished at the beauty of the palace he had created. If it were to become known throughout The Kingdoms it would surely be listed among those other wonders of beauty such as the elven city of Specularum or the elaborate mazes of the Kingdom of Kemet. Yet of course, it was not, and never would be well known. The Dark One had no interest in the location or treasures of his Hidden Palace becoming public knowledge.

Arndern walked across the mosaic floor barely glancing at the beautiful scenes depicted there, he was a frequent visitor to this room although never a comfortable one. Arndern had been born into slavery as part of The Dark One's household thirty summers ago, the son of one of the many women who served The Dark One's most intimate needs. Most of the slaves in Ixlan were villagers, primarily fishermen and their families. A few, however, a very special few, were brought to the Hidden Palace to become a part of The Dark One's household. Thembelani, Arndern's mother, had been one of them. She had long ago captured the attention of one of The Dark One's many lieutenants with her striking beauty.

Arndern alone knew the true reason behind his mother's captivating looks and would never betray that secret, for if The Dark One knew that one of his concubines was half-elven he would surely have her executed. The Dark One's hatred of what he termed 'half-breeds' was legendary. Time itself would soon enough betray her heritage, already she was nearing fifty summers yet her face and body still remained as lithe and unlined as a young girl. The Dark One was not a fool; he would soon know the reason for her youthful countenance. It was in hopes of saving his beloved mother that Arndern had eventually chosen the dangerous path he now walked, for Arndern was a spy and not only for The Dark One.

Reaching the approximate centre of the room Arndern knelt on the floor, head bowed while he waited for The Dark One, either to speak or to appear, even after all these years Arndern was never sure which one it was. As he knelt there Arndern wondered at himself, that he would dare to spy on The Dark One. A man so immured in evil he no longer had a name, just a well deserved reputation for unspeakable acts of cruelty. A man so divorced from humanity that he could enslave his fellow beings, treating people as nothing more than pieces of property, to be used or discarded according to his own needs. At times Arndern was astounded at his own daring, yet, in his heart, he knew the true reason he had accepted the offer from Lord Nexus; he had no other choice.

"Arndern," as always The Dark One's voice was a shock; low pitched with a pleasant, almost musical lilt, it was not what you expected to hear, "I hope you return to me with good news."

"News master, I know not whether it be good or bad," Arndern replied keeping his head bowed.

"As always Arndern you manage to amuse me," The Dark One answered with a low and musical chuckle, "I sometimes wonder just how far your cleverness truly extends. I hope it does not exceed that which is good for you," now his voice held a hint of steel, the tiniest indication of veiled threat. Beyond his power to stop it Arndern felt sweat break out upon his brow and a tremor rippled through his slim body.

The first years of Arndern's life, unlike the vast majority of the other slave children in Ixlan, had been pleasant and carefree, spent in luxury in the Hidden Palace with his mother. He had not, at that tender age, known the truth of the ugly circumstances of his birth. As his tenth year approached Arndern noticed his mother becoming increasingly distracted, watching him for hours at a time her beautiful eyes filling silently with tears. Though Arndern had questioned Thembelani repeatedly about her ever increasing sadness she had always put him off and reassured him with silly excuses. It had not been through his mother that Arndern had learned the true reason behind her sorrow; one of the harem guards had told Arndern the fate that awaited him when his tenth summer was over. All male children in the Hidden Palace, Arndern was told, were ritually gelded at the close of their tenth summer, their genitals offered in sacrifice to Vadatajs. Those who lived through the ritual were returned to work in the Hidden Palace but many of them died, their broken bodies tossed into the sea as shark food.

In that short, horror-filled conversation Arndern had understood why his mother was so preoccupied and upset. He had learnt the true nature of his own existence. That he and his mother Thembelani were nothing more than slaves. They were The Dark One's property in the same manner one would own a cup or a sword. Although at that time he had not yet grown to manhood Arndern had made a vow that day. Not to Vadatajs, the only deity he had ever been permitted to worship, but to Belenus, the forbidden god of sacrifice and mercy whose teachings Arndern had been encouraged to mock and scorn. Arndern vowed in his heart that should he survive the ritual he would spend the remainder of his life searching for a way to destroy The Dark One. He had vowed that he would put an end to The Dark One's practice of trading people as though they were nothing more than animals or produce.

Arndern, however, had not reckoned with his mother's single-minded determination, nor the lengths to which she was prepared to go in order to save her only son from the horror and possible consequences of the ritual. As The Dark One's favorite concubine Thembelani had risked everything including her very life, in an attempt to bring Arndern to the attention of the formidable ruler. Once that goal had been achieved Arndern's own native intelligence and cunning had secured a future for them both. In Arndern, The Dark One had found many desirable qualities; a quick intellect, a knack for finding information and knowing things he was not supposed to know and a curiously indefinable personality. All of which had combined to make Arndern the perfect spy.

Despite his hatred for The Dark One, Arndern had performed his duties exceptionally well, so well that he had eventually come to the notice of Lord Nexus, the only person it was said that The Dark One feared. By accepting Nexus's service Arndern risked his life at every moment of every day, but the risk was well worth it for the promise Nexus offered of finally destroying, forever, The Dark One and his tyrannical regime.

As these thoughts and memories flashed rapidly through his mind Arndern, still kneeling with his head bowed, could almost feel the steady, speculative gaze of The Dark One upon him. Arndern had a brief, terror-filled moment of wondering if The Dark One had managed to master these new powers of the mind. The gods all knew that the elven witch Shallendara was a frequent visitor to the Hidden Palace, always in The Dark One's company. Even as the thought crossed his mind Arndern knew it could not be true, if it were he would be dead already.

"Well, clever you may be," The Dark One said softly, "but you remain respectful. So what is this news, you know not whether it be good or bad, that you bring?"

"The creature called Trunk lives, he escaped with the prisoners," Arndern answered not daring to raise his head.

Although he did not know why, Arndern knew that this creature posed a great threat to The Dark One. A serious enough threat that his master wanted the creature dead yet was unwilling or unable to act directly against the ogre-troll, operating instead in a roundabout fashion that made little sense. Arndern knew his master well though; there would be a very good reason why The Dark One did not simply kill this Trunk. All he wanted to know was whether that reason could be used for the benefit of Arndern, and his mother.

"I see." At The Dark One's comment, Arndern risked a quick glance up at his master whose back was turned towards him. He was surprised to hear a note of, not fear exactly but certainly disquiet in The Dark One's otherwise level tones.

"And what of the other?" The Dark One continued after a brief pause.

"The necromancer also, your informant was able to leave a list of names..." Arndern began to reach into the pocket of his vest for the parchment left behind but The Dark One cut him off.

"I have no interest whatsoever in any of the others," The Dark One said harshly.

"So, they are together again," he continued, his voice once again low and dangerous, "and yet, I believe my instructions were clear, surely there can have been no misunderstanding. It would appear that someone has deliberately disobeyed."

The Dark One turned and Arndern saw for the first time that the wizard, Malachi, The Dark One's current chief lieutenant was also in the room.

"Bring him to me," The Dark One ordered Malachi before turning once again to Arndern saying, "You have done well as always, you may go."

"Yes master," Arndern replied and began backing out of the reception room in a semi-crouch without raising his head, eager to escape quickly from The Dark One's palpable rage. There was no need to ask who 'him' was. Arndern knew exactly who it was The Dark One had sent Malachi to fetch, Luca, the prison's governor and the only one who could truly be held responsible for allowing the creature called Trunk to escape.

As Arndern jogged down the corridors to his own set of rooms he wondered at the human governor's folly. Luca would certainly die for his treachery, and slowly, in ways that were too horrific to even think about. Arndern cursed himself that he did not know why Luca had taken such an enormous risk. The escape of Trunk, the necromancer, Luca's treachery, any one of these things could easily have driven The Dark One into a towering rage, all of them combined had made his fury terrible to behold and yet Arndern, deep in his secret heart, cheered. In some indefinable way Arndern sensed that events were drawing close to a time when The Dark One would be vulnerable, a time when he could finally be destroyed once and for all.

### Run For Your Life

W hile Tares began to pray over the charred and blackened, yet still breathing form of Wulfstan, Lara decided to use the time to go through what was left of their meager possessions in order to determine if there was anything that could still be salvaged. As she worked the halfling woman carefully avoided looking in Wulfstan's direction.

The burns that the soldier had sustained were beyond anything she had ever seen before, even during her long career as an assassin with the Silent Hand. Wulfstan was easily the most badly burned with Trunk a close second, the large creature's skin, almost liquefied by the heat of the flames, now oozing and puddling at his enormous bare feet. Fighting down her nausea the halfling woman was determined not to watch and not to think about those horrible injuries and concentrate instead on finding anything useful that may have escaped the flames.

Unfortunately the fire that had reduced the soldier and the ogre-troll to their present conditions had also wrecked its havoc among their belongings. Clothing, armor, weapons and what small amount of stored food they had carried with them, virtually all of it was completely incinerated. In all her scrounging Lara found only two salvageable items, a small dagger with an elaborately worked hand-guard that was obviously more decorative than functional although she could not readily remember where it had come from. The dagger had been on the edges of where the firestorm had broken out, which explained how it had been spared destruction. The halfling woman had also found a delicate gold locket, missing its chain, cut in a perfect oval shape with the initials 'P.S.D.' carved on the face. Lara tried but could not get the locket to open. As neither object could be considered terribly helpful in their present situation she slipped both items into her pocket; old habits die hard.

Lara had been aware of the near continuous murmur of Tares' prayers on the edges of her hearing ever since the unnatural rain had fallen, first praying over Nikolai and now Wulfstan. Sitting nearby, and wondering what to do next, Lara's sharp ears caught another sound, a sound she could not immediately identify. Standing up slowly Lara tried to ascertain where the noise was coming from. Lara faced one of the earthen walls and saw a tiny crack forming in one of the heavy wooden support beams holding up the roof of the tunnel. That was the sound she had heard. The cracking sounds of the wood, giving way under the pressure of hard packed dirt that had been rapidly exposed to intense heat followed by icy water. The earthen structure was beginning to collapse; they had to get out of here and fast.

"Um, Tares," Lara began in a whisper, not taking her eyes off the small crack, which was widening even as she watched.

"Tares, we really need to get outta here," Lara tried again, forcing herself to speak normally.

"Lara, I cannot concentrate if you interrupt me, now please..." Tares admonished the halfling woman.

"But Tares," Lara interrupted, although she knew the minotaur priest needed quiet to concentrate properly she could see clearly that the threat of the tunnel's collapse was imminent.

"Lara, please, I need to concentrate so you must wait until I have finished," Tares said with more irritation than he had ever shown her before.

Since his accidental and out of control act of magic Roulibard had been trying to stay very much in the background but he was caught by the urgency in Lara's voice. Following her gaze on the opposite wall Roulibard soon spied the widening crack in the support beam and instantly understood the urgency of the situation.

"Tares, we've got a real problem here," Roulibard said as he moved towards the minotaur priest.

"Yes we have a critically injured man and others with severe burns and I need to concentrate in order to heal them, which I cannot do if I am continually interrupted," Tares answered brusquely.

"No Tares, I mean we have another problem," the young mage grabbed Tares by the arm and forced him around to face the cracking support beam, "we've all got to get out of here now, this thing could come down any second."

Tares turned, annoyed, but finally saw what Lara and Roulibard had been trying to tell him. Looking around him wildly the minotaur priest noted that the beam Lara was watching so intently was not the only support beam beginning to crack. In an instant Tares understood what was happening. The superheated flames followed by icy water, all of which had hit that wall directly were turning the hard packed earth into a potential landslide, which would effectively bury them all alive. Glancing back at the still unconscious form of Wulfstan, the minotaur franticly searched his mind for an answer. Obviously they would all have to get out, not just of the clearing but clear the entire tunnel complex and it was essential they do so now. Wulfstan, however, could not walk, Trunk and Nikolai were both still badly burned and while he might be able to carry Wulfstan Tares knew he would never be strong enough to carry the soldier and run as well.

"Trunk want out now, Trunk go home," the big creature solved Tares' problem by bending down and gently cradling the fallen Wulfstan in his arms.

"Thank you Trunk," Tares said gravely, once again astounded at the capacity for understanding exhibited by the ogre-troll, "everybody, we have to leave here immediately," he continued only to be cut off by Lara.

"He means run everyone. Run like your life depends on it, cause it probably does," the halfling had not even finished speaking before she began streaking down the tunnel towards the exit. Immediately behind her was Trunk, holding Wulfstan carefully yet still maintaining a high speed. Darzan and Roulibard began running while Slade and Tares went to assist Nikolai, next to Wulfstan and Trunk he had sustained the most severe burns, and Tares had not yet been able to heal them all.

"Leave me, I can manage, just run. We can't be caught in here and you can't afford to wait for me if I don't make it," Nikolai said harshly, "just go!" he yelled, brushing off both their offers of help to begin a staggering run of his own down the tunnel after the others.

The flight out of the long tunnel was a nightmare. With three members of their group badly wounded and everyone exhausted each step forward was a minor miracle. Together they staggered, stumbling onwards, walking more often than running, propelled forward only by the continuing cracks in the support beams of the tunnel. Slade's heart was pounding in his chest, his legs felt like molten lead and a stitch in his side was sending ripples of pain throughout his body. He longed to simply lie down and die and end the pain but he couldn't. He was driven forward by love of, and fear for, his father, King Erich. Twice Slade had slipped, tripping under the weight of his own exhaustion, and twice someone had been there to drag him to his feet. Behind him Slade could hear the tunnel's noisy collapse. Now they knew no one could be following them, Slade thought hysterically.

After what felt like an eternity the cunningly disguised opening came into view. Just before the exit another largish clearing had been cut out of stone into a rough semi-circle. The stone walls meant they would be safe her for a while. Wulfstan's burns were so severe they had incinerated all the clothes on his back. Trunk's tough skin was still oozing and slimy from the flames. Slade fortunately had only minor burns on his hands and chest but Nikolai had severe burns on his face, arms, legs and chest, his overshirt was so badly burned it was stuck to his skin. How the mage had managed the long run out of the tunnel Slade had no idea.

Tares, although much stronger than the escaping prisoners, still felt the weight of their flight in every one of his bones and wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep, preferably for a very long time. He was, however, the only healer among the group, he had seriously wounded that needed his prayers. Not to mention they would now have to find a way of replacing their damaged and lost equipment. Tares could see Slade's exhaustion as the former crown prince slumped to the ground, his back to the cold stone.

"Lara, I need to stay here and try to finish healing Wulfstan, Trunk and Nikolai but obviously we cannot stay within this tunnel any longer than absolutely necessary," he began gravely watching the halfling woman.

"Yeah, and once he's walking again he can't be walking around buck naked so I need to go out and get us some stuff," Lara answered, panting slightly from the long run but still with an impish grin on her tiny face. Tares refrained, with difficulty, from reprimanding her at this time but that would not stop him from continuing to pray that Lara began taking her responsibilities a little more seriously.

"Quite," Tares said, "I need you and Darzan if you will go also," Tares turned to the dark-skinned pirate and waited for her affirmative nod before continuing, "to go into the city and see if you can find us some clothes, food and equipment."

"Sure, where's the gold?" Lara asked holding out her small hand.

Tares almost cursed in sheer frustration, his money pouch had been with the rest of his belongings, now burnt to cinders in the clearing. Tares buried his face in his hands, he could not believe the position he had now found himself in, that he would have to order Lara to steal to resupply them, yet what choice did he have.

"I'm afraid there is no gold Lara, you will have to..." Tares could not bring himself to say the words aloud.

"It's cool, bully, sorry, Tares, I was just teasing you, I've still got my money pouch," Lara said smilingly showing off the leather pouch still around her neck.

"Tares we have much bigger problems than money," Darzan interrupted from where she was standing near the exit of the tunnel.

"Problems?"

"The festival, Tares. By my calculations," Darzan paused to crane her head closer towards the tunnel exit, "we're way past noon, which means the festival's bound to be really getting started. I'm not sure if it will be possible to slip through the crowds unnoticed. By now someone's bound to have figured out that a group of people escaped from the prison. Even if we can slip through the crowns and if no one knows about mine or Lara's involvement, there's not likely to be anyone around to help us, how did you put it? Re-provision us? I don't think it'll happen, not today anyway and probably not tomorrow either. We'll be better off holing up here or somewhere close and waiting it out for a while."

Nikolai heard Tares growl under his breath, the Festival of the Sun Ascension would logically be a sore point with the minotaur priest, devoted as he was to the Crying God, Belenus. The necromancer believed the festival would prove to be a valuable tool. That was actually the reason why Nikolai had hoped he would be able to orchestrate the prison break to coincide with the festival. They could not afford to wait any longer than was absolutely necessary but Darzan, the necromancer knew, was correct in her assessment of the merchant district. At this stage of the festival there would be no one tending the markets or street stalls to buy from, making Lara's gold redundant.

The idea of stealing their supplies did not bother Nikolai. In fact he saw a certain irony in having The Dark One's lust, blood and alcohol fueled citizens pay to help them escape his clutches. Unfortunately Nikolai knew that Tares would not see the situation in the same light. Nikolai needed only to convince Tares, he was sure that Lara and Darzan, one a former assassin and the other a pirate, would have no problem with stealing what they required or with using the festival as a diversion while they escaped.

"Tares, we need to speak," Nikolai said, pushing himself away from the stone wall and wincing at the harsh pain in his torso from his burns, "privately."

"What's with all the secrets Nikolai?" Lara asked suspiciously.

"It is all right Lara. I will speak with Nikolai, stay here. You and Darzan do what you can to make Wulfstan as comfortable as possible. Slade," Tares turned to the former prince still slumped with his eyes closed against the stone wall, "if you think are capable perhaps you and Roulibard could go outside and see if you can get an idea of where we are in relation to the harbor and the city?"

The big minotaur then followed Nikolai a short way down the passage they had so recently fled from, the noise of the tunnel's collapse becoming louder. Tares wondered briefly if the sounds could be heard above ground, or even if the effects of the tunnel's collapse could be seen. Tares could only pray to Belenus that the tunnel no longer presented a threat.

"Tares, we need that stuff and we need it as soon as possible. Darzan's right about the festival creating problems but..." Nikolai began once they were out of earshot of the others.

"You wish me to condone or allow stealing? From people who are practically slaves?" Tares interrupted his disdain plainly evident in his voice.

"No," Nikolai answered with a smile, "I will not now, nor will I ever, ask the impossible of you my distrustful ally. I will give that particular order. I'm asking you, and it is a request, not an order, to trust me. I had planned for this occasion and I understand those people out there in a way that you never can. I know how best to exploit the situation so that we can get our mutual friend out of here and back to Lord Michael."

"That is your plan? To go to Saxenburg and see Lord Michael?" Tares asked, astonished.

"That's always been my plan. This may surprise you Tares but I'm determined to see that no further harm comes to him. The only way I know to do that is to take him, as quickly as possible, to the one person who may be able to help, Lord Michael Strong."

Once again the minotaur was surprised; if Nikolai was trying to conceal something it seemed hardly likely that he would want to see Lord Michael. Tares was being forced to concede, albeit reluctantly, that the necromancer was being truthful; for now at least.

"And what of Slade?"

"We'll be taking him exactly where he wants to go, once I receive more instructions from your boss then we can make other decisions but for now we need to focus on one thing at a time. I told you war was coming, it is, I don't know how soon but I have a sense it's coming quicker than we'd like. I need to be in a position to be effective but to do that I need our friend with me. That makes him my number one priority, keeping an eye on Slade, or helping him," Nikolai held up a hand to forestall Tares' interruption, "is also important but that's secondary. Now, will you listen to my plan?"

Tares eyed at the necromancer for a long moment without speaking. Instinctively the minotaur priest distrusted everything about Nikolai and yet he could not deny that the mage had been helpful, forthright and was definitely working under the instructions of Lord Michael. The necromancer's information and actions appeared completely genuine and even admirable. Abruptly the big minotaur made up his mind, although he would never have dreamed it possible Tares would work with the necromancer and do anything he could to help.

"Yes, I will listen and I will help," Tares answered finally.

### Erich's Departure

 Ursula slipped silently into the small, barely visible fissure in the rock only just in time. Mere seconds passed after she disappeared into the hidden cave before the patrol of Saxenburg guards had reached the exact spot where she now stood hidden, hardly daring to breathe, waiting for them to pass.

The four burly guards were all wearing the plate mail armor of the royal house of Saxenburg, carrying long swords and the traditional round shields emblazoned with Saxenburg's symbol of a phoenix about to take flight. They also bore a new symbol that she could not see clearly but resembled a crystal surrounded by a rainbow of light. To her mounting horror the four stopped right outside the tiny cave where Ursula was hiding.

"There's no sign of her anywhere," said one of them, speaking to the largest and, judging by the thin gold band rimming his shield, the most senior of the guards.

"She has to be here somewhere, people don't just disappear into thin air," the large guard replied.

"Well..." began one of the others, who was quite young and probably new to his position.

"Except mages," the leader growled, "which we all know our little princess is not. That means she has to be here somewhere."

"I was going to say maybe she branched off further down the path," the younger one replied.

"No, I'm certain I saw her take this path," the leader answered emphatically.

"Yes, but with all due respect we know that the princess has been training for years with the monks. We all know how quickly and silently monks can move. It's obvious she's not here and this is the only path this far up the mountain, so we must have either lost her further down as Gunnar suggested," the fourth guard spoke for the first time, "or possibly she has doubled back and due to some tricks of the monks we missed seeing her."

Tall and broad shouldered with flaming red hair that reminded Ursula of her father, she recognized this particular guard as a member of her father's elite personal bodyguards although she could not for the moment remember his name. For a split second it seemed to Ursula that this guard looked directly into the fissure in the rock; that he could somehow see through the camouflage to the nearly invisible opening.

"We'll have to go back then but I want you two," the leader of the patrol said pointing to the young guard named Gunnar and the other, familiar guard, "to keep heading up the mountain. If she makes it to Solomon before we find her King Ulrich will not be pleased."

Her heart in her throat Ursula watched through the thin slit as the foursome split up. The young guard named Gunnar and his companion stood watching as the other two moved down the path.

"You head up the path. Keep going till you meet up with the guards stationed near the entrance to the monastery, I'm going to have a better look around here," the familiar guard pointed to the thick brush opposite where Ursula was hiding, "it is possible she slipped into the brush somewhere and is hiding out."

"But shouldn't we stay together to check?" Gunnar questioned.

"That won't be necessary, it shouldn't take too long. There's not many spots on this old mountain where anyone could hide but it's still worth looking at, I'll catch you up."

The young guard named Gunnar obediently moved off, heading up the path that would lead him directly to the Black Lotus monastery.

"Your Highness? Can you hear me?" The guard called softly once Gunnar was out of earshot. Ursula felt her blood had turned to ice; her suspicions were confirmed, he knew she was there.

"I'm a friend, Your Highness, I mean you no harm," he continued, his voice low, "if I had I wouldn't have sent the other guards away."

"Why would you do this?" Ursula whispered.

"I'm a member of Saxenburg's royal guard, it's my duty to protect the royal family," he moved so that he was standing closer to the fissure yet still facing in the opposite direction, "Your Highness I want to help you."

Ursula wanted desperately to believe the young guard but recent events had proven to her, all too clearly, that not everyone was as they appeared and not everyone could be trusted.

"If that is true then you will help me get to the monastery. I need to get to Solomon," she said.

"Solomon has already left, the monastery is under your brother's control and the monks, along with everyone else loyal to your father have been expelled from Saxenburg."

"What? Can this really be true?"

"I'm afraid so Your Majesty but these tunnels also connect up with the Kemetian Mountain range. Solomon will meet up with you somewhere in the caverns. You must not, under any circumstances travel any further up the mountain. There are guards posted at the monastery, you must not allow them to discover these tunnels. They will come looking for you anyway when you do not arrive as expected."

"I don't know the way down, I only know this path to the monastery."

"I understand Your Highness; unfortunately I can offer you no further assistance. Rest assured that Solomon will be waiting for you, I have no doubt that he will not leave you alone for long."

"How do you know all this?" Ursula knew she was simply prolonging the contact.

"Not all of us are," he paused obviously searching for the right words, "committed to your brother's vision for the future of Saxenburg. We are few in number but we have managed to communicate with each other. We have had some time to prepare, there were some who anticipated this eventuality from the moment your father's disappearance was reported."

There it was, the question Ursula knew she would have to ask, the question she had desperately tried not to think of these past months.

"And what of my father? Do you know anything, have you heard..."

"I'm sorry, Your Highness but we have to assume that your father is dead."

Ursula's breath caught in her throat. The guard's harsh words had cut through her heart like a knife. The thought that her father was dead was chilling, but if her father were gone then so too would... Ursula shook her head; she would not give voice to the thought, even in her mind.

"It is unlikely your brother would have moved so boldly unless he had some assurance that King Erich would not be returning," the guard continued, "This means, Your Majesty in light of your brother's treachery that you are now the only rightful heir to the throne but for now you must leave, Solomon will lead you where you need to go," he said as he began to move away.

"Wait, I don't even know your name. I don't know how to repay you for what you've done for me."

"My name is Johann, Your Highness and I require no repayment. Live for us Queen Ursula, live for all of Saxenburg." With that he moved across the path into the brush opposite, ostensibly searching for Ursula.

Although Ursula knew she should move, should take every advantage of this unexpected opportunity she found that could not immediately force her body to obey. Leaning against the cold rock wall Ursula trembled as her mind tried to comprehend everything that had happened over the past months. Hot tears spilled down Ursula's flawless cheeks as the weight of her fear and anger threatened to overwhelm her. Her own brother, a traitor to their family, to her father, to their country, it was almost inconceivable.

How had this happened, how was it possible that she and her father had missed the depths of Ulrich's ambition, had not seen the lengths to which he was prepared to go to secure the throne for himself? Or had her father actually known all along? Ursula had to concede it was possible. Remembering some of her father's cryptic remarks made the morning of his departure it seemed now that her father may have been trying to warn her that her brother could not completely be trusted.

Ursula closed her eyes, still feeling her wet tears on her cheeks, just as they had fallen that predawn morning nearly a full season ago, and remembered. She had snuck out to the courtyard of the palace complex to say goodbye but the sight of so many people milling about in preparation for her father's journey had halted her. Instead she had stood back in the shadows of the palace itself, watching the scene unfolding before her. Although she had not been told specifically where her father was going or why he was taking with him only four of his elite personal guards, Ursula had managed to find out that they were headed for the Kingdom of Lashandra to meet with Kallendara, the new matriarch of the wood elves of Lashandra. What possible reason her father had for making such a dangerous and likely fruitless, trip the young princess had no idea but from certain things Solomon had let slip she believed that there was a great deal more to the journey than she had been told.

Ursula had turned, about to re-enter the palace, when her father's voice had stopped her, she had not realized she could be seen.

"Ursula, my dear," her beloved father had said as he strode toward her, "what are you doing here? We said all our goodbyes last night."

"I know Father, but I..." she had trailed off, unable to tell her father the true reason why she had snuck down to the courtyard before the sun had risen.

"Wished to see your dear papa one more time?" her father had asked, his tone teasing.

Ursula had tried to smile, knowing that was what her father wished from her, but found that she could not. Instead she had looked away and up at the sky, which was beginning to lighten, changing from deep velvet to a darkish blue, hinting at a beautiful day. On the horizon the young princess could just see the sun beginning its slow climb across the sky, while in the west she could still make out the faint outlines of all three moons. How was it possible that the gods could produce such an incredible display of beauty on a morning she felt certain carried only portents of dread?

"Ursula my dear," her father had reached for her chin, forcing her to look at him, "I know why you are here and, although you may not believe this, I understand. I even approve, although as you know, you have already made certain commitments."

Ursula's breath had caught in her throat at her father's words, was it possible her father truly knew, she had wondered. Gazing into his deep blue eyes so like her own, Ursula saw the truth there and realized that very little that happened in the palace escaped her father's knowledge. Despite her father's strong grip on her chin Ursula lowered her head, letting the tears fall heavily that she had been trying so hard to keep hidden.

"Papa, I, I feel this strange sense. I know you will likely laugh at me but in my heart I feel danger for you, for..." she had trailed off, unable to continue.

"I too, my daughter, I too. However, I am not merely a man who can define his life according to his own wishes. I am a king, and so I have more to consider than my personal safety, comforts or concerns. This journey is important my love, else I would not make it."

"Can you not send another in your stead?" Ursula cried out, watching him closely, knowing his answer before he even spoke.

"You know I cannot send another to fulfill a task I am not prepared to undertake myself. Ursula, look at me," her father said as she stubbornly hung her head before him, "please. That's better. You must know that I would not willingly endanger my life, nor do I willingly endanger that of anyone else. I do not wish to cause you pain. You know this, do you not?"

"Yes Papa," she replied sadly, not really surprised to see there were also tears in her father's eyes.

"Then you understand I must make this journey?"

"I understand Papa, but I wish you would trust me. That you would share some of your burden with me as you used to with..." Ursula had stopped short of speaking her brother, Einreich's name.

King Erich had turned away from Ursula, but not quickly enough for her to miss the look of pain etched across his face. Although her father had given her older brother his blessing and permission to leave court, Ursula knew it still hurt their father that he had wanted to go, for whatever reason. Einreich, or Slade as he preferred to be called, and her father had always been alike, in character and personality. The two of them had been incredibly close. They had been so close, in fact, that their relationship had often provoked jealously in her eldest brother Ulrich. The young princess cursed herself for bringing up painful memories at a time like this, when she now knew her father felt the same sense of danger that she did.

"I'm sorry Papa," she said, laying one hand on her father's broad chest.

"Do not be sorry for speaking of him little one. Yes, your brother's decision to leave pains me still but I do understand his reasons." Erich held Ursula's gaze before continuing, "I do not begrudge his desire to do something greater with his life. But Ursula, I do not want you to think, now or ever, that I do not trust you as I once trusted him. You are, and have been since the moment of your birth, the light of my life. You are the delight of my old age..."

"Papa, you're not old," Ursula interrupted.

"Perhaps, perhaps not but you are still the joy of my heart. I wish only that you complete your education and that you fulfill, to the best of your abilities, the commitments you have made," at this Erich had paused and looked over his shoulder at his retinue of bodyguards, "and then make the life for yourself that you should have. I trust you Ursula, just as I once trusted your brother, but the time is not yet right for me to engage you in confidences which you are still too young to handle. No, do not turn away my dear. Youth is neither a hindrance to be wished away, nor a problem to be circumnavigated but it does bear certain restrictions. You grow every day, in wisdom, beauty and strength. Continue that and you will soon be the right hand to me that your brother Einreich once was."

"Papa, I know you have Ulrich to rely upon now, but I thank you..."

"Ursula, listen to me very carefully," her father had interrupted, "I have asked Ulrich to watch over the family and the people of Saxenburg in my absence that is true. He is the eldest, it is his right. But I do not wish you to think for a moment that Ulrich has any place in my heart that you do not have." At that point her father had looked away, his blue eyes clouded, obviously troubled, "I have no reason to doubt your brother."

Even at the time Ursula had thought it a strange comment to make, however, their conversation had been cut short for at that moment it was announced that the provisions were ready and it was time to begin their journey. Her father had embraced her, holding her tightly to his broad chest before kissing her goodbye. Even though her early morning rendezvous had not turned out as she had hoped she had still been grateful for those final moments with her father. Now, of course, with her father missing and likely dead the young princess was even more grateful for that precious time. At the time, Ursula remembered, she had been preoccupied with her own thoughts and unable to shake the feeling that her father was in danger. That was the reason, she felt now, that she had missed the subtle warning her father had given regarding her eldest brother.

For the first few ten-days following her father's departure life in the palace at Anglia had gone on much the same as it had when her father was in residence. Her mother, Queen Urda, had been failing for many years, losing her sight, her mobility and finally, her intellect. Ursula still spent several hours a day with her mother but it was painful to watch the formerly strong, beautiful queen as she struggled to accomplish the most basic tasks. It hurt the young princess when her mother was unable to remember who she was or where she was.

### A Queen's Death

 At the close of the first month of her father's absence Ursula had gone early to her mother's chambers. She had been driven there by the same sense of impending danger that she had felt the morning of her father's departure.

Arriving outside her mother's door Ursula had been stunned to see her mother's handmaid, Gilta; a gruff dwarf originally from the mountains bordering Laxdale and Kemet, who was utterly devoted to the aging queen, standing outside in the corridor instead of her usual post at the Queen's side.

"Gilta, why are you not with the Queen?" Ursula had demanded.

"Oh Your Highness," Gilta began, tears streaming down her lined, weather beaten face, "I wish I was but your brother, the Prince, he sent me out. Your lady mother, the Queen Urda, she's not well. I don't know what's happened but it's as though her insides are wrenching themselves outside. I asked the Prince to call for a priest but he sent me out and is attending her himself." Gilta broke down completely, unable to continue.

"Stay here, Gilta, I will check on the queen myself," Ursula said, patting the now sobbing dwarf on the shoulder.

The princess went to open the door to the Queen's chambers only to find the door had been barred from the inside. For a moment Ursula was so shocked she simply stood staring at the closed door; never in her life had she known of a locked or barred door within the palace complex.

"Ulrich," Ursula had cried out, coming to herself and banging on the door, "why is this door barred? Let me in, I want to see Mother."

For a few moments Ursula heard nothing but silence, just as she was about to knock again the door opened a crack.

"Ursula, forgive me, I merely barred the door to ensure Mother's privacy, please come in," Ulrich said, standing back and opening the door fractionally wider to allow Ursula to slip inside.

Unlike Ursula and Slade, who both resembled their father with their extreme fair hair and dark blue eyes, Ulrich had always more closely resembled their mother, who was daintily built with dark coloring. Ulrich shared their mother's shiny blue-black hair, dark eyes and her diminutive stature. Ulrich was shorter than even Ursula by half a head, and a full head shorter than either their father or Slade. Ulrich also shared their mother's much more slender build, although the daintiness that was so attractive on Queen Urda was less attractive and seemed almost effeminate in her eldest son.

"Ulrich, why was this door barred? Why was Gilta sent away?"

"Forgive me, sister, but I deemed it best under the circumstances to give Mother some privacy. I was about to send someone to call for you when you arrived. Come quickly, I fear Mother is not long for this world," Ulrich turned away walking back to their mother's bedside.

The sight of her mother was a terrible shock to Ursula. Although Queen Urda had been unwell for some time she had, for the most part, retained the grave air of dignity that had been the hallmark of her life. Now, however, the Queen seemed a mere shell of the woman she had been only the day before. Sweat stood out clearly on her brow, a strong stench filled the room and a quick glance around showed the young princess that her mother's inside had been, as Gilta had put it, trying to wrench themselves outside.

Whatever illness had struck her mother down so quickly appeared to be centered in her bowels and her stomach with both of those organs trying to purge themselves. Ursula walked closer to the bed, taking up her mother's hand, which was cool and clammy. As Ursula bent to kiss her mother's cheek she was struck by the waxy appearance of her mother's skin and the strange smell on her breath. In the back of her mind those two things were somehow significant but in that moment Ursula could not remember what that might have been.

As Ursula looked down at her mother's sightless eyes staring endlessly at a ceiling she could no longer see, her own tears had begun to flow. Sitting on the Queen's bed, holding her hand Ursula tried to talk to her mother but received no response. How long the young princess sat on the edge of the bed, whispering words of encouragement to her mother and her queen her did not know. All the while she sat there she had prayed to any gods who might be listening to spare her mother.

She also wished that her father was by her side instead of her eldest brother, whom she had never truly felt close to, not in the same way she and Slade had been close. The minutes had stretched into hours and Ursula did not move. Finally, after the sun had reached its zenith in the sky Ursula heard her mother take a last choking breath before lying still. At that moment Ursula had laid her head on her mother's stomach, powerless to stop the flow of tears streaming down her face.

With the death of Queen Urda a change had settled over the palace of which Ursula had been initially unaware. Wrapped in her grief over losing her mother, desperately missing her father and without even her dearest brother to talk to she had not noticed at first the new deference being shown to Ulrich. Although Ulrich had been left as Regent during their father's absence he had not been taken very seriously by the palace staff, the guards or even the populace.

Queen Urda's death seemed to have changed all that. Suddenly people began treating Ulrich as High King. At the funeral for their mother Ulrich had dressed in light weight plate mail, obviously copied from their fathers rather than being the actual suit of mail that their father typically wore, as well as the full royal regalia. On Ulrich's orders the funeral had been rushed, allowing no time for any envoys from the other kingdoms to attend, something Ursula had found unusual. Even more unusual had been Ulrich's decision to give their mother a warrior's traditional funeral pyre before sending her remains out to sea. When Ursula had questioned him about it Ulrich had replied he was simply honoring their mother, stating Queen Urda had been as much a warrior as any one of them in her own way.

At the time, although Ursula had found it strange she had not been suspicious. While she had never been very close to Ulrich he was still her brother and she had no reason then to doubt him. It was after the funeral that she began to notice the change in Ulrich. He now wore full regalia almost all of the time and went everywhere with a handpicked crew of royal bodyguards, something her father had never done. He also began to have strange visitors, not received openly in the palace reception hall, but who met with him privately in his own chambers. More disturbing Ursula noticed that at none of these meetings were there any Knights of Belenus present nor were there any of the monks from the Black Lotus monastery.

Whenever their father had conducted affairs relating to the governance of Saxenburg Erich had always included both the Knights of Belenus and the monks, preferring as many different viewpoints as possible to ensure the best decision was reached. Looking back on it now she realized that if she had thought anything at the time it was simply that Ulrich was not really fit to rule and handled authority badly. Each day that went past Ursula counted as a day closer to her beloved father's return, a day closer to the time when Ulrich would resume his role as a Crown Prince and life would go back to normal.

In the meantime Ursula continued her studies in preparation for her final examination at the Black Lotus monastery just as her father had asked. There had been a time when Ursula had wanted nothing more than to join the ranks of the warrior monks and serve her kingdom. Two years ago when Ursula had begun to study under Solomon the strict ideals of the monks had seemed perfectly suited to the life she imagined herself leading. All the monks swore vows of poverty, chastity and humility, devoting their lives to study, to preserving the history of The Kingdoms and to aiding the royal family of Saxenburg in times of need.

As the day drew closer to the irrevocable moment of swearing those vows Ursula had found that some of those restrictions no longer seemed as appealing as they once had. She still enjoyed the physical aspects of combat training, still believed in the ideals of protecting her people and her family. She also still enjoyed the study of the history and lore but she now knew that in her heart the isolated life of a monk was no longer truly her desire.

Still, with the continued absence of her beloved father, and now her mother's untimely death, Ursula found that her studies provided some small measure of comfort. Becoming a monk, whichever monastery you would like to serve, was not an easy task. The potential monks of any monastery were rigorously trained in many various disciplines. The Black Lotus monastery trained potential candidates ruthlessly in all forms combat, although their main emphasis was on unarmed combat and strict physical conditioning. Despite the seriousness and strictness of their combat training they were actively discouraged from using the skills they honed daily. A warrior monk, she was always told, fought only when absolutely necessary and all other avenues had been exhausted.

In addition prospective monks were expected to study extensively. Not only the histories of The Kingdoms but they were also required to become proficient in languages, alchemy, herb craft, and the cultures, traditions and laws of kingdoms other than their native home. The sheer volume of information required to pass the basic entrance examinations into most monasteries eliminated all but the very best and the Black Lotus was no exception. The few each year that were finally accepted into the ranks of the warrior monks were always exceptional.

Ursula did not consider herself to be exceptional, and she had no way of knowing if her efforts would even be acceptable to the monastery. Although, as she threw herself more deeply into her studies, she found that not only did the exercise pass the time, she was also learning at an incredible rate. Far more than she would have believed possible. Ursula found her studies interesting and challenging enough to provide her at least a partial distraction while she awaited the return of her father and his retinue. Something she reminded herself daily must surely be drawing nearer.

In fact, Ursula was surprised to find that if it had not been for Ulrich's increasingly pompous, officious manner, she would have actually been happy. Her mother's death, while sudden and tragic, had not left the emptiness that she had expected. Likely it was because the beautiful Queen had been steadily ailing for almost a full year so her death had seemed to be almost a blessing. That was how she had felt until that fateful morning a ten-day ago.

At that stage in her study of herb craft Ursula had progressed from learning about the simple, readily available remedies such as oak bark, powdered crystals and common snake venom to studying the far more exotic, powerful and very hard to acquire ingredients such as milkstone, dragon's blood and treant sap. These ingredients were extremely potent, and could often be used in two different ways, either as a poison or, in the right quantities, as a healing agent. While reading through the various uses and effects of dragon's blood, in particular that of a black dragon, Ursula finally discovered the reason for her mother's waxy skin and the odd, unpleasant smell to her breath before her death. Those symptoms, in fact the entire course of her mother's illness from the first onset of her blindness, the lack of feeling that had developed in the Queen's legs and her madness and eventual death, all these pointed to a slow and steady administration of black dragon's blood given in ever increasing amounts. Ursula had flung the book away from her in utter shock. The young princess was certain then that her mother, Queen Urda, had been murdered. There was no possible way that dragon's blood could ever be administered accidentally.

Ursula had stood so quickly that the wooden chair with its padded and embroidered seat cushion had fallen heavily to the floor. She had to find Ulrich; her brother had to know immediately that somewhere within the palace was a traitor, a murderer who had escaped detection, until now. Racing down the long corridor's she looked everywhere she could think of for her brother. Ursula had finally found him, with their father's senior advisors in attendance, in the throne room. Ulrich was wearing the royal regalia as had become his custom, which she found offensive enough, but now he was seated on their father's throne, which shocked her completely. Saxenburg law was abundantly clear and definite on that point, only the reigning monarch was permitted to sit in the High Throne. To the right and positioned slightly lower was the secondary throne, used by Saxenburg's queens or regents. That was where Ulrich should have been seated, not on the High Throne of their father.

Seeing her brother using their father's traditional privileges had disturbed Ursula so much that for the moment all thoughts of her mother, and her demon sent death were pushed completely aside. That her father's advisors, who owed allegiance to none but the High King, should be kneeling before her brother only made Ulrich's crime that much worse.

"Ulrich, what are you doing?" Ursula cried out in shock, "The law forbids..."

"Ursula! You should not be here sister. You know well that the throne room is off limits to all except at express invitation!" Ulrich interrupted her harshly.

"I have as much right to be in this room as you do, brother, while our father, the High King is absent. I came looking for you."

"And so you have found me, however, I am very busy right now and you will have to wait for a more suitable time for an appointment."

"I need make no appointment with you Ulrich, and the law forbids you the seat on the High Throne, as you well know."

"Ursula, do not push me too far, I will deal with you later," Ulrich said angrily, clenching his teeth as he always did when embarrassed, "I am in the middle of important affairs concerning the future of Saxenburg and cannot be bothered with your petty concerns."

"I will leave brother, but before I do I must tell you the reason I was searching for you," she began, slightly ashamed to note that her voice quavered with unshed tears.

"Ursula, I have been exceedingly patient but now is not the time," Ulrich answered.

"Now is the time! Ulrich, our mother was murdered! I've found the proof, I know the agent that was used to kill her."

Ursula opened her eyes, coming back to the here and now, rubbing away her tears with the heel of her hand. Ulrich's look of abject panic upon hearing her conviction that their mother had been murdered had not immediately caused her to be suspicious but his actions over the intervening days had finally convinced her of his guilt. He immediately ordered an interrogation of all the palace staff, by whatever means necessary, including torture. Eight days later he had finally secured a confession from their mother's handmaiden, Gilta.

Ursula had demanded to be allowed to speak with the aging dwarf, knowing of the woman's absolute devotion to Queen Urda, but her brother had denied her the privilege. She had then tried to talk to her brother, tried to convince him he must have made a mistake. She had insisted that regardless of what Gilta may have said it simply was not possible for her to be the guilty party. She had pointed out that the dwarf woman would have had no opportunity to even obtain the dragon's blood in the first place, but it had all been to no avail.

Two days ago Gilta had been executed, beheaded according to the traditions for the murder of a Queen, in the palace courtyard. Ursula had been sickened by the punishment, by Ulrich's refusal to accept he had erred, by her brother assuming the role of a High King rather than merely a regent but mostly she had been repulsed by the fact that Gilta's punishment had been both public and humiliating. Something that would never have occurred if her father had been present. Only yesterday Ursula had demanded to see Ulrich and she had questioned his right to perform such a barbarous act without their father's approval.

Ulrich had granted Ursula her audience, where he had coldly informed her that King Erich would not be returning, that he, Ulrich, was her monarch and overlord and would be crowned King of Saxenburg in an official ceremony in twenty-seven days time. As shocked as she had been by his pronouncement she had been even more shocked by the chosen timing. Twenty-seven days, or twenty-six days now, meant that Ulrich intended to be crowned on the Day of Victorious Ascent. A day dedicated to Vadatajs, marking his rise to power that began with The Sun Ascension festival. A vile and evil day of perverse worship that was contrary to everything that Saxenburg believed in, and her brother intended to stage his undeserved coronation on that day. It was at that moment that Ursula finally saw the truth she had been desperately trying to ignore. It was Ulrich who had murdered their mother, and all to gain the throne.

Rubbing one hand across her flat belly Ursula pushed herself away from the wall. Trying to stem the flow of tears, she refused to accept that her father was dead. If that were true then it meant the end of all of Ursula's dreams, not only the dreams for her people or her kingdom, but her dreams for herself, as a woman. For if her father was dead, then surely so too would Wulfstan be dead, and that she could not bring herself to accept.

"Oh Wulfstan," she whispered, closing her eyes and picturing his beloved face. He was her father's favorite bodyguard, her childhood playmate, her one true love. That their love was forbidden, both by Saxenburg law, because Wulfstan was not royalty, and by her own initiate status as a monk, made it no less real. Somehow, she vowed, she would find her father and Wulfstan, and together they would have vengeance on Ulrich and his schemes.

### Leaving Ixlan

 Tares listened as Nikolai outlined his plan to gather certain supplies, which would be put to use as a disguise. Then they would be able to leave, not only the city of Diablis but the island of Ixlan, which lent its name to the entire Ixlan archipelago. On the surface the necromancer's plan appeared to be unnecessarily convoluted and difficult and contained some, to Tares at least, extremely distasteful elements it was nevertheless an excellent plan. It also demonstrated a great deal of forethought. As much as he might have liked to have protested the plan he could think of no good reason not to proceed exactly as Nikolai outlined. The minotaur priest could see that the plan offered them all their greatest chance of success.

"I will go along with your plan Nikolai," Tares began slowly, "although I'm sure you're aware that it will be difficult for me, however, I see the sense in your arguments. I do have one condition."

"Conditions Tares? I thought you had agreed to trust me," Nikolai said with a mocking smile.

"I have and I will but we must do this one thing."

"And what might that be? What's so important that you're willing to risk everything, including his safety?" Nikolai questioned scathingly.

"That you tell Slade the truth," Tares paused briefly, watching while the necromancer absorbed the implications of Tares' demand before continuing, "about everything."

"Absolutely not, no way." Nikolai said angrily, "I told you before I have no idea whether or not he can be trusted and I will not," he hissed through clenched teeth, "jeopardize our friends life on the off-chance that he is who and what he says he is. I won't do it."

"Then we are at an impasse for I will not go ahead with anything unless you do."

"Have you forgotten the ring, priest? That means I'm your boss. Now I don't know how they work things down at The Tears of Belenus but in the real world when someone's in charge it means they make the decisions."

"I understand that, Nikolai," Tares stumbled slightly on the necromancer's name but he forced himself to use it, "but I am guided by Belenus, as you are guided by Bhaal. I know this is the right thing to do, I know we must do this."

"I could kill you right now, tell everyone it was an accident and do it my way," Nikolai said calmly, with not even a hint of anger.

Tares knew well that Nikolai had spoken nothing but the truth. By insisting on telling Slade the truth he was risking his life and yet, deep within himself, where all messages from Belenus came, the minotaur knew beyond doubt it was the right thing to do. He also knew instinctively that it would be better not to answer so Tares simply waited silently for the mage to decide. If Nikolai was determined that he would not accept the guidance of Belenus's servant while he was working on Belenus's errand then the big minotaur would certainly die. The moment stretched out interminably as Tares waited and then Nikolai did the last thing the minotaur had ever expected him to do; he laughed.

"I have to admit it Tares," he said, "You followers of Belenus have got more guts than I would have credited you with. All right, I'll tell Slade everything but only Slade and only because you seem so certain it's the right thing to do. If I wasn't sure of your loyalty to our friend I wouldn't do it anyway."

"Thank you," Tares answered with a long shuddery sigh, slowly releasing the breath he had not been aware he was holding.

Together the two of them walked back towards the opening. Wulfstan, still mercifully unconscious, had been placed as close to the exit as possible to allow the cooling breeze to play over his badly burned body. Lara and Darzan had found some long grass and leaves and had fashioned them into a thin barrier between the soldier and the stony ground. Neither Slade nor Roulibard had returned from their errand yet and Trunk sat down near Wulfstan's head and laid one huge hand on the wounded soldier's forehead.

While Tares prayed for healing over Wulfstan's prone form Nikolai gave his instructions to Lara and Darzan. When Lara glanced questioningly at Tares, the big minotaur nodded gravely but did not cease praying. From the corner of his eye Tares saw Slade and Roulibard return, slipping quietly in through the small opening.

"I'd say that whoever built this tunnel was pretty clever," Roulibard began before trailing off when he looked at Wulfstan's slowly healing body.

"What did you find?" Nikolai asked Slade after a moment when it had become obvious that Roulibard would not continue.

"It is very clever actually," Slade said, "we're outside the city walls but still fairly close. Somewhere in the region of the main harbor, I'd say. The entrance here comes out forty or fifty yards from an abandoned fishing hut, one of the long ones where they used to process the catches. You can still smell the stink but it basically seems to act as a cover for the entrance so if you just walk around the hut it'd be easy enough to blend in with everybody else."

Nikolai gazed unseeingly at the stone wall and bit his lower lip, obviously thinking.

"But we're outside the city walls you said?" Nikolai questioned, trying to visualize their position.

"Exactly, here," Slade squatted down and picking up a small piece of stone he began to sketch a rough diagram of their position in the dirt, "we're here, to the north is the road running up into the highland area. To the south is the main road to the smaller villages, the city walls end about here," Slade used the stone to point to each location before drawing in the rough location of the walls, "and between there and the main harbor is what's left of the old fishing village. Basically it looks like The Dark One just left it all in place, letting it fall into ruin by the way, and walled up the parts of the city he liked. It's not as populated as the city, of course, and it's pretty rough but I'd say this area is where most of the poor and the pirates make their homes. There's a small open air market place but I doubt they had much in the way of supplies, for that you would have to get inside the city walls."

"Can we get out to the east?" Nikolai asked after studying Slade's crudely drawn map intently.

"The east? Not without going back into the city itself, the only way east is through the east gate on the other side of the city, and the harbors right here. Why would you want to go east?" Slade asked, looking up at the necromancer, a puzzled expression on his face.

"That's something I will need to explain," Nikolai answered, gesturing Slade to follow him back down the tunnel to the same spot where he and Tares had spoken earlier.

Roulibard leaned against the hard-packed earthen wall and slid down till he was sitting beside Wulfstan's still unconscious body. Trunk, sitting the other side of Wulfstan, was still a mess, his normally tough, leathery skin still oozing liquid everywhere the flames had touched. The giant creature had one hand lying gently on Wulfstan's forehead, almost as if he were imitating the minotaur priest in his prayers. Roulibard was amazed at how much healing Tares had achieved just in the short time that he and Slade had been away.

Although still unconscious the soldier seemed to be nearly whole again, the new skin pale pink and slightly puckered yet undeniably healed. Looking into Wulfstan's face Roulibard decided, with some surprise, that he was pleased the big man would make a full recovery. He hated the soldier and his sneering, mocking, arrogant manner but Roulibard would not have wanted to be the cause of his death. As he reflected on his relief he wondered, not for the first time, exactly what manner of man he truly was; in the short time he had of clear memories he had discovered that he was capable of incredible rage. He was pleased to discover that his rage did not extend so far as to make him a killer. That was not how the young mage had pictured himself.

The big minotaur finally sat back; sweat dripping off his bovine head, his large nostrils flaring with exhaustion. Roulibard watched as Tares' prayers continued to breathe life into Wulfstan even though the priest had physically stopped praying.

"He'll be all right?" Roulibard asked quietly, not taking his eyes off the soldier.

"Yes, he'll probably sleep for a while, although," Tares paused, a strange note in his voice catching Roulibard's attention, "possibly not. It can be very difficult to tell sometimes."

"I'm glad," Roulibard said with relief.

"As am I. I believe that we have a long journey ahead of us, it behooves us to have as many allies as possible, even if that means working with those we would not ordinarily."

Roulibard looked up, Tares was gazing down the tunnel in the direction Nikolai and Slade had walked a troubled expression on his stern face.

"You don't like Nikolai do you?" Roulibard asked.

"No I do not and yet," Tares paused again frowning, "I will put those feelings aside and find a way for the two of us to work together."

"This is important isn't it? I mean more important than The Dark One trying to take over Saxenburg?"

"What makes you say that?" Tares turned to look at Roulibard, fixing the wizard with his gaze.

"I don't know exactly, but I mean it has to be if Nikolai's involved doesn't it?"

"I didn't know that you knew Nikolai that well," Tares answered slowly.

"I don't, I mean," Roulibard struggled to answer, a frown now marring his usually open, smiling face, "I don't think I've ever even met him before today. I just know...somehow."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"Didn't Slade tell you? That I cannot remember a single thing about me or my life except for the past two days?"

Although the young mage had spoken in a light, airy tone Tares heard the very real pain underlying Roulibard's statement. The priest could not imagine anything more horrific than to lose your memory. After all, what was a man if not the sum of his memories and existence? Without that how would you ever find a place in the world? A shudder tore through Tares' body as he wondered what manner of tortures had been used on Roulibard that they would leave no outward mark and yet strip his mind to an empty shell. Little wonder the wizard seemed such a negative personality, leaving so little impression that at times the big minotaur had found that he had even forgotten Roulibard existed at all.

"And you remember nothing?" Tares asked, fascinated and horrified at the same time.

"About me? Practically nothing, but I've got pretty good, I suppose you'd call it 'general knowledge'. I remember things about The Kingdoms, things about history, I know I practiced magic but I don't really remember doing so but it's like," Roulibard looked away as he tried to find the right words, "I don't know, like I can smell magic, taste it. I remember, or I think I do, how it feels but how to actually do it, the words of even the simplest spell, the most basic spell components? All gone. I assume that I must have a family somewhere; I mean everyone comes from somewhere but as to who they might be I remember nothing. I'm human and I can speak the Common tongue, I'm pretty pale skinned so it's unlikely I come from Kemet or Brikenwald, yet I don't get any sense of coming from Ixlan, Saxenburg or even Padyian. I think I must've been a good alchemist because I can remember and recognize herbs, plants, and stones but I can't remember a thing about how to put them together. I don't remember one single thing about me before I woke up," Roulibard stopped abruptly, got up and walked away, slipping out of the small entrance. Tares could not be certain but he thought he heard the young mage softly crying but he decided to leave Roulibard in peace. Instead, with a deep sigh the minotaur priest stretched out next to Wulfstan and closed his eyes, within seconds he was asleep.

Tares woke, after what felt like minutes but in reality had to have been at least an hour and possibly more, to the sounds of a heated argument between Wulfstan and Roulibard. As he rose to his feet, slightly unsteadily as he still felt the draining effects of his healing prayers, he was stunned to see how completely Wulfstan had been cured. The minotaur priest cast a curious glance at Trunk and then walked closer to the arguing pair until he was standing right behind Wulfstan, towering over the tall soldier.

"I could've died you fool," Wulfstan was shouting into Roulibard's face.

"I'm telling you I don't know..." Roulibard tried to speak only to be cut off by Wulfstan, who by now was pushing the smaller man in the chest.

"I don't know, I don't know, that's all you've had to say for yourself. Wretched spellcasters never think for two straight seconds about the effects of what they're doing." Wulfstan stopped when he realized that he was surrounded by 'wretched spellcasters'.

"Wulfstan, that is more than enough," Slade cut in commandingly, "Roulibard didn't mean for you to get caught in the crossfire. He was doing his best to help, now forget it. Thanks to Tares you're not dead, nor in any immediate danger of dying."

"Unless, of course he doesn't shut up, in which case I may kill him myself," Nikolai drawled quietly. Tares was not sure whether or not Wulfstan heard Nikolai's comment but if he did the soldier obviously decided to ignore it. Turning away, disgust written all over his handsome face, Wulfstan thanked Tares gruffly before bending to pile equipment into a large, leather backpack.

### The Festival

 Lara and Darzan had evidently gone into the city and had acquired all the equipment that the necromancer had told them to obtain. Lara was still dressed in her own clothes. The necromancer was wearing a long, hooded black rode with the red tinged eyes that were Vadatajs' symbol emblazoned on the back and the others were all dressed in grey, shapeless robes.

Nikolai's plan called for himself and Tares, disguised in the black hooded robes worn by the priests of Vadatajs, to lead the rest of the group in a long parade through the city. This was a highlight of the Sun Ascension Festival; leading the 'chosen' to the altars, which were situated on the two small hills on the eastern side of the city. Once there the 'chosen' ones would be subjected to some of the more sickening rites of Vadatajs' worship before eventually being sacrificed on the rough stone altars.

Tares did not like the idea of even pretending to participate in such a vile distortion of worship. He had been forced to agree with Nikolai that the plan gave them all a degree of anonymity it was unlikely they would achieve any other way. The ritual priests were reviled even by the worshippers of Vadatajs, making it unlikely that anyone would even look at them and those chosen for the rituals were typically viewed as objects of pity and revulsion, meaning that no one would look too closely at them either. The only difficulty in the plan was, of course, Lara. While the height of Trunk and Tares would likely go unremarked in the city, where there were many ogres and half-ogres residing within the walls, Lara's lack of height made her an obvious halfling or a child and children were never used in these particular rituals.

Nikolai had solved the difficulty by suggesting that Trunk carry the halfling woman, close to his chest with her legs dangling. It would not be a very comfortable journey for Lara, as the procession was designed to be a dancing kind of march, but it was the only possible solution. Lara, when told of the plan, had simply giggled and jokingly told Trunk not to drop her or she'd bite his feet. The rest of the necromancer's plan was simpler; once the procession arrived at the location of the stone altars they would simply continue walking down the hill towards the harbor on the eastern side of the island. All of the altars were isolated from each other in order to allow plenty of privacy to implement the ritual. Apart from Diablis city itself the majority of Ixlan consisted of mostly small fishing villages. Many of which had now become pirate havens so it was unlikely they would encounter any guards or resistance during the procession. Once they arrived at Melion, the harbor village on the far eastern side of Ixlan, Nikolai had arranged for someone to meet them there so they could board a ship and set sail for Saxenburg.

Although there had been some surprise at the elaborate nature of Nikolai's idea the only one who truly seemed put out by the plan had been Darzan. The beautiful pirate had been hired by Tares and Lara to help facilitate the prison break and then to captain the ship that would get them away. The minotaur's instinct would have been to simply allow Darzan to return to her ship, the pirate having already been paid; Nikolai had overruled Tares, insisting that they all stay together. Once Slade had supported the necromancer Darzan had no longer protested, except to state that her own ship and crew were closer and easier to get to than whatever arrangements Nikolai may have made.

The dark-skinned pirate had raised the obvious question of how Nikolai had managed to make these elaborate plans if he had been confined in Diablis prison for the past three months. The necromancer had caustically replied that Ixlan was a place he was intimately familiar with and refused to answer any further questions. Slade had cut through their argument by pointing out they were wasting valuable time. After that Darzan had donned the grey robe without further comment.

Traditionally the processional marches began once the sun had reached its zenith. Each line of marches originated from different points within the city and was timed to reach the various altars after the sun had fully set but before the Sapphire moon had begun its journey across the sky. Nikolai would be the first in line with a long black rope tying him to the first 'chosen one', who would be linked to the next and so on until finally reaching Tares who would be taking the rear position. With their hooded robes they were virtually invisible while being in plain sight. Tares had wondered at first how they would disguise the very obvious shape of his horns under the hood but the necromancer had already thought of that, and had instructed Lara to acquire several blankets, which he then wrapped around Tares' horns, disguising them completely once the hood was raised.

Diablis city was laid out as a roughly rectangular shape, the longest part running east-west. This was the route they would have to travel to get from where they were on the western side of the city to the altar Nikolai had chosen outside the eastern gates. It would normally take at least two hours to walk from one side of the city to the other. As the processional marches were intended to be travelled slowly it would likely take nearly twice as long. Picking up the small, round ceremonial drum Tares said a silent prayer to Belenus for their protection. Nikolai, with his own drum at the ready, walked quickly down the line, doing a final check to ensure that everyone was prepared and fully covered. Satisfied at last that they were as ready as they could ever be the necromancer led them all out, beginning immediately to measure out the slow and steady beat on the drum while they marched.

Their procession through the outer part of Diablis towards the walls of the city proper helped Tares to slow his rapidly beating heart. Although everywhere he looked he saw poverty and desperation there were initially, no signs or symbols relating to the worship of Vadatajs. As the group moved through the city gates Tares saw that two enormous evergreen trees, representing the everlasting nature of Vadatajs, had been erected either side of the huge stone gates. There would be, he knew, a matching pair at each of the three other gates into the city. Underneath the trees the crowds gathered, already in an advanced state of drunkenness though there were still at least four hours till the setting of the sun.

Although Tares tried to keep his eyes cast down he could not help himself from sneaking glances at the roiling festival. The Sun Ascension Festival always began with the sun's first rays. A whole day dedicated to drunken revelry and orgies designed to encourage the sun, now at it's weakest point of the year, to rise strongly once again. In truth the worship of Vadatajs was more common in the far south, even among Tares' own people, to his very great shame, where winter truly did seem to weaken the sun, with each day becoming noticeably shorter. Here in the north there simply was not that much difference between the seasons. That fact had not stopped The Dark One from introducing the perverted religion to the people of Ixlan.

The Sun Ascension Festival was the single most important rite in the worship of Vadatajs, bringing together the three elements of fertility, blood and chaotic behavior, which were all beloved by the daemonic god of debauchery. Everywhere Tares looked he could see that the city had been decorated for the festival. Garlands of blood-red flowers had been hung from doorways, phallic symbols and crude images were strategically placed in every available location and the wine, ale and mead flowed in an unending river. Already many of the drunken citizens were indulging in lustful activities, doing openly on the streets things that should have remained private. The minotaur barely suppressed a shudder; the activities going on behind closed doors would be that much worse. Knowing that for many of the citizens of Ixlan this vile worship was imposed upon them against their will did little to ease Tares' troubled heart.

As they drew closer to the eastern gate Nikolai began to steadily increase the tempo on the drum beats, walking faster in time to the music. From what Tares could see there were at least three other processional marches all converging on the eastern gates at the same time each one with cold and deadly precision. All around him the people lined the streets cheering drunkenly, becoming whipped into a frenzy of blood lust at the prospect of seeing the 'chosen ones' torn apart in honor of Vadatajs. The display and their behavior was sickening, yet Tares reminded himself that if they knew no better he did not have the right to condemn their form of worship, but he longed to be able to enlighten the people about the joy of following Belenus rather than the evil Vadatajs.

It was a crucial part of Nikolai's plan that their procession be the first out of the gate; that way as they marched toward the altar they could steadily increase their pace until they were out of sight of the following processions. Unfortunately as they drew closer to the gate Tares could see that there were at least two other processions in front of their position, and likely the third as well. The necromancer was obviously aware of the situation as he began to beat his ceremonial drum a little faster, urging them all forward.

Even as he increased his speed Tares saw that it would not be enough. The first of the other processional marches was already too close to their position; it would look out of place and draw too much unwanted attention if their march were to break formation any more than they had already done. They would simply all have to trust that Nikolai had some alternate plan in place for this eventuality.

As it turned out their processional march ended up being the second last to leave the eastern city gate. Just being out of the accursed city came as a relief to the big minotaur, who felt as though he were able to breathe cleanly once again. How Nikolai intended to deal with the situation once they reached the stone altar, roughly three miles north east of the city, Tares had no idea but he was felt sure the necromancer would come up with something.

The western side of the city near the harbor they had come from was made up from the impoverished, decrepit remains of the original fishing villages. The eastern side where they now were, however, was vastly different. Obviously once used for farming purposes it had long ago been abandoned leaving the fallow land to revert to a natural state. Wildflowers grew in abundance alongside myriad herbs and other shrubs, the landscape sloping steadily upwards to the hills. Tares sighed deeply; this would be a beautiful country if only it were not so oppressed by The Dark One and his perverse preference for Vadatajs.

### The Dark One's Justice

 Looking up the hill towards the stone altar Tares stopped in sheer shock. Standing there as if Tares had somehow conjured him with his name, was The Dark One himself. As usual he was heavily robed, the black linen cowl covering his entire body and leaving his face shrouded in deep shadows. Standing to his left was an equally robed, although not hooded, dark skinned wizard Tares recognized as Malachi, The Dark One's chief lieutenant.

On his right was a tall elven woman, wearing the same elaborate heavily embroidered white robes that the creatures they had encountered within the prison had been wearing. Her long shiny blue-black hair was held back from her face with a thin gold band bearing a large opalescent crystal in the centre and similar crystals adorned her delicately pointed ears. Her features, like the majority of the elven race, were beautiful. She had large, almond shaped eyes, dusky skin, wide, sensuous mouth, yet in this woman those very features were cold and repellent rather than attractive. Her eyes were narrowed almost to slits in arrogant disdain, the clear skin stretched too tight over her prominent cheekbones and the sensuous mouth was pulled into a thin, cruel smile. At their feet, kneeling with his hands tied behind his back and his feet tied together was a human male.

"Come closer my people," The Dark One began, spreading his arms wide as though welcoming them into his presence, "come closer you who are to be privileged above all others. You, priests of Vadatajs, chosen from birth for the honors you receive this night have come here, as you have done every year to honor the sun, the great symbol of our beloved deity. You bring with you those special few so carefully chosen to spill their precious life blood in honor of the great Vadatajs."

Tares noticed that the tall elven woman was openly sneering at this speech of The Dark One's, clearly displaying her disdain for the worship of Vadatajs. The big minotaur wondered with a growing fear how The Dark One would react should he notice what he would undoubtedly consider blasphemous impiety.

"Yes, you have come again, as you always do and let me assure you first that you will continue to do so. This celebration is too important; it holds too much meaning for our beloved citizens to abandon it. So fear not. Although many, many things will change in Ixlan, this day and most especially this night, will not be one of them."

Tares could hear a low, questioning murmuring spreading through the priests that surrounded him. Obviously The Dark One's presence and his cryptic remarks were not a typical part of this ceremony. Glancing around the minotaur could see the other members of the various processions beginning to mill around, moving closer together as if for protection. In the deepening shadows and growing confusion the big minotaur moved forward until he was standing next to Nikolai.

"I don't understand, this doesn't appear to be a usual part of the ceremony. Do you know why The Dark One is here?" he whispered to the necromancer.

"No, I don't know but I don't like it. Something is wrong." Nikolai whispered back, falling silent when The Dark One began to speak again.

"You have no doubt heard many rumors, hints of great things to come and I have come here this night to assure you that the rumors are true. No longer will you, or I, or any of us remain in subjection to any of the gods, not even Vadatajs."

At this statement the gathering crowd gasped openly in amazement. Tares was utterly dumbfounded; for The Dark One, for any one to make such a claim was completely incomprehensible.

"Fear not, my people; although this is new to you soon you will come to see the beauteous liberation that awaits you. No longer dependant upon the gods, any of them, for our lives, for the bounties of the land of Kaynos, to be able to rely only upon ourselves and the power that lies within. The gods have been as a huge rock around our neck for far too long, with their demands for tribute and sacrifice. Well, no longer," The Dark One's voice rose, yelling defiantly into the growing darkness, "from this day forward we pay homage to ourselves! We render tribute unto us!"

As he finished speaking The Dark One raised his hands high above his head, pointing towards the darkening sky. As if in response to The Dark One's thoughts came a sudden rumble of thunder, loud and menacing, followed by bolts of flame that struck the great stone altar with a fierce heat so intense that the heavy rock actually began to melt. Over the noise of the crackling flames and the still echoing thunder Tares could hear those around him beginning to whimper in fear, some openly crying. The minotaur priest found it difficult to believe that The Dark One was responsible for the powerful elemental display, yet that must mean the magic had been performed by either Malachi, or the elven woman.

"Behold," The Dark One spoke into the mayhem, "the power granted me by Shallendara, our new high priestess, the mediator of a power unlike anything seen before in all The Kingdoms. Power not dependant upon gaining or retaining the favor of the gods, power not restricted to mages, power for all. But," he held up one pale slender hand, requesting and receiving silence, "there must still be sacrifice. There must always be sacrifice, for how else would we learn? I bring before you tonight a traitor. One of my own who had witnessed the incredible power of witchcraft and yet he still chose to defy me, to defy the will of Shallendara, to defy the new order. I bring before you Luca. Luca, who knowing all that you now know, chose betrayal instead of obedience and worse yet, he chose to try and lie about it. Now tell me, my people, what do you think should be the punishment for the traitor? How should I respond to such open defiance?"

"Kill him!" The shout went up all around Tares, quickly becoming a chant among the throng. The minotaur felt sickened knowing that soon he would be a witness to a human sacrifice, beyond his power to prevent.

"I cannot watch this," Tares whispered to Nikolai.

"You don't have a choice. Count the numbers, there are too many people here, if we make a move now we'll be dead in minutes."

"But to simply stand here...," Tares trailed off.

"Pray, pray to Belenus, pray to any god you can think of, but pray," Nikolai said harshly, his voice rough with barely suppressed emotion.

If Tares was surprised by Nikolai's injunction to pray he did not have time to dwell on it, the crowd, eager for blood, was becoming increasingly restless. Bowing his head the minotaur prayed earnestly to Belenus, trying desperately not to hear the joyous cries of the crowd as Luca was tortured right in front of them. What manner of people, he wondered, could take such delight in the suffering of another?

Yet it was obvious that the crowd was delighted by the torture being inflicted on the unfortunate Luca. Apparently these people did not care to whom they gave their devotions as long as their lusts for blood, violence and perversions were met. As the cries of the crowd grew ever louder and more excited Tares kept his bovine head bowed, feeling his own hot tears falling inside the folds of his robe.

Eventually the unholy sacrifice was over, although Tares believed he would be haunted by Luca's primal screams for the rest of his days. Finally daring to raise his head the big minotaur saw The Dark One's coarse robes were shiny with blood, appearing only as slightly darker patches on the black material. Still standing in their original positions to either side of him were Malachi and the elven witch, Shallendara. While Malachi's face was impassive, Shallendara was smiling, obviously pleased at the display she had just witnessed. Tares fought against a rising nausea as he wondered what horrors still lay ahead.

"My people, come closer," The Dark One began again, his voice deep and soothing as though the public torture and sacrifice of a man was a normal occurrence. Tares wondered with deep foreboding if soon that would not be the case, if witchcraft denied the gods and worshipped only itself they might well see such sacrifices all over The Kingdoms.

"I have shown the way, I have given to you before all others the privilege of witnessing the dawn of a new day, a new era. From this moment forth this night, this festival shall be known forever as the Ascension of Shallendara, for it is she who has led us out of the darkness of enslavement towards the light of power. I leave you now, my people, to do that which you came to do, yet you will do so now with a new purpose, a greater understanding. All of you who follow me in this new dawn will receive power and riches beyond your wildest dreams," here The Dark One paused significantly, looking out into the crowd, "while for those who choose, foolishly, to betray my wishes...well, you have seen how I feel about those who betray me, and how I deal with betrayal."

In an elaborate puff of smoke The Dark One and the elven witch Shallendara disappeared, leaving the lieutenant Malachi behind. Tares glanced uneasily at Nikolai but the necromancer was merely gazing ahead indifferently.

"You heard our lord, the rituals will continue in the manner you have observed. You and you," Malachi singled out two of the other processional marches and directed them to the other altar on the nearby hill, the other group he directed to the third of the stone altars, leaving only Tares and Nikolai's pseudo group standing before him in the darkness.

"You, come up here," Malachi ordered peremptorily, watching as the other marches moved off in the directions he had indicated.

Walking slowly the remaining distance up the hill Tares was encouraged, the wizard was now alone, they all had weapons and very soon they would be completely out of sight of the others. By the time The Dark One realized this lieutenant was dead it would be too late; they would be well on their way to Saxenburg. The minotaur generally disliked killing but was willing to shed blood if necessary, and this was a clear case of necessity. One life for all of theirs. Nikolai had obviously reached the same conclusion, even if he did not share the big minotaur's scruples, because he was marching purposefully up the small hill towards the wizard. Tares reached carefully under his robe to ensure that his heavy headed mace was in position but did not produce the weapon yet; the wizard might yet leave them as well, as The Dark One had done, thus rendering his death unnecessary.

Before Tares could formulate any further plans Nikolai had reached the top of the small hill and walked straight up to the wizard standing before the stone altar, embracing Malachi like a brother. Tares stopped abruptly in sheer astonishment.

"Nikolai, my old friend," Malachi said warmly as he hugged the necromancer.

"I knew it," Wulfstan cried out as the others gasped in shock, "it's been a trap all along."

"No, as usual Wulfstan what you know wouldn't fill a small thimble," Nikolai replied caustically before continuing, "Malachi is on our side. He's our way out."

### Under Arrest

 Lord Michael Strong stood on the bow of the small boat watching as the high plains of Saxenburg drifted slowly past. The river roads of The Kingdoms was not Michael's preferred method of travel, and leaving behind his beloved mount, Heimdall had been a wrench. However after his meeting with Lord Nexus he had not wanted to take the extra time to travel overland back to Saxenburg.

By coming along the rivers he had cut his journey time in half and Nexus had assured him that someone would follow along with Heimdall as soon as possible. This particular river junction would bring him to within a half day's ride to both The Tears of Belenus and Anglia, the capital city.

Sighing Michael pushed his heavy, silvery white hair back from his face and turned away from the view before heading back to the cramped quarters below deck that had been his home for the past two ten days. Inside the tiny bunk room the Grand Knight finished his packing, fitting everything he required into a medium sized leather pack. Mindful of the promise he had made to Lord Nexus, Michael had originally intended to go straight to the Black Lotus monastery to speak with Solomon about letting the mage have access to the monastery's library. However, with Patrick missing he recognized that he could ill afford to be absent from his Knights for any longer than absolutely necessary. Consequently he had decided he would first check in at The Tears of Belenus before heading to the monastery.

As he was tying the last of the knots on his pack to secure it he heard unusual noises coming from above. Pausing, one hand on his sword hilt without even being consciously aware of it, Michael listened, frowning slightly. It sounded as though the boat was being hailed by guards although they had not yet arrived at their destination. This was an unexpected development; there were no guards on any of the river roads, only stationed at the boarding ports and around the cities. Straightening up he strained to hear more, surprised to hear that they were indeed being hailed and ordered to stop by what sounded like Saxenburg guards. Shouldering his pack the Grand Knight pulled on his heavy gauntlets and set off up the nearly vertical ladder leading to the upper deck.

Coming up on deck Michael looked out to shore to see a full regiment of soldiers mounted on horses behind two senior guards standing on the shore. Grappling hooks had been used to bring the boat into shore and the knight could see that the men holding the ropes were struggling to hold on; Michael sent a brief prayer to Belenus asking the god to stay the water temporarily. Immediately the boat came to a complete standstill, the ropes going slack. At this overt sign of Belenus's favor to his Grand Knight many of the waiting soldiers moved back, even their horses shying away. The two senior guards, whom he recognized as Bjorn and Gunnar, both very senior soldiers in Saxenburg's army, paled slightly but held their ground.

"This is an unexpected pleasure. What can I do for you?" He said, keeping his voice even, although he was certain there would be nothing pleasurable in this strange summons.

"Lord Michael, I have come at the request of High King Ulrich and order you to accompany my men and I back to Anglia for an immediate audience with the King." Bjorn answered, his tone almost mocking, secure in the overwhelming odds of his many men ranged against only Lord Michael and the small crew of the boat.

"By all means, may I assume you have a mount for me?" Michael asked politely. Bjorn shot Gunnar a confused look, which confirmed the knight's initial suspicion that they had expected him to fight and, of course they would have expected him to lose.

"Sir that can be arranged," Gunnar answered, stepping forward and indicating to one of the soldiers holding the now slack ropes to relinquish his horse to the Grand Knight.

"Wait a minute," Bjorn hissed at Gunnar, in what the knight guessed was intended to be a whisper but was nevertheless as carrying as Bjorn's usual tones, "We can't just put him on a horse. How do we know he won't just ride away?"

"I thought I was being escorted to an audience with the King?" Michael said to Bjorn, "Why should I ride away from such a privilege?"

The knight turned away from the spluttering Bjorn and gravely thanked the boat's captain and crew for a swift journey before jumping clear from the still boat to the grassy shore. Glancing in Gunnar's direction Michael thought he detected a gleam of a suppressed smile on the young soldier's face. Without waiting for Bjorn to direct him any further the Grand Knight walked confidently to the waiting horse, a large dirty brown mare, and mounted quickly.

"Well," he said, sweeping one hand before him in an obvious invitation to Bjorn to mount, "lead on."

Michael watched, a small smile hidden by his long moustache, as Bjorn reluctantly followed his orders and mounted his horse. Jogging his horse forward the Grand Knight drew level with the frowning Bjorn and gave the young soldier a paternal pat on the shoulder.

"You know if you had waited to meet me at the quay you would have saved yourself and your men at least a days ride and you wouldn't have anyone walking home either. Just something for you to think about for next time son," Michael said giving him a cheery wave before moving forward, as though he were leading this pack of soldiers instead of being their virtual prisoner.

Lord Michael managed to maintain his outward appearance of smiling, nonchalant calm throughout the afternoons ride, yet inwardly he was furious. It galled him to be taken prisoner, however politely, but he would not throw his life away needlessly by any attempted escape. Michael knew that he would one day make the ultimate sacrifice of Belenus and die for the cause but his death would be an honorable one, not one that came from fighting those he had sworn to serve. He would not cause the deaths of even one of these young soldiers who were only following orders, not even the officious Bjorn, so resigned himself to the afternoon ride. Ulrich was another matter and he vowed to Belenus that the arrogant prince would pay for his presumption.

Bad enough that Ulrich had usurped his father's role as High King but to move against the Knights of Belenus, sworn to Saxenburg's service was far worse. The Knights of Belenus had been inviolate for eons, ever since the foundation of The Tears of Belenus, which legend said had been founded by Belenus after the War of the Gods, the conflict where Belenus had become the chief deity of all Kaynos' gods.

It was the very sanctity of the Knighthood that allowed the servants of Belenus to be effective at all. The people of Kaynos knew that regardless of their race, profession or even their religious creed, they could find sanctuary, healing or assistance from any one of the Knights of Belenus. It was the entire foundation that the Knighthood was built on. When the warrior monks of the Black Lotus were expelled from their original home in the deserts of Kemet for violation of Kemetian law due to their collection of arcane texts, it had been the Knights of Belenus who had found them a new home. Resettling the monks in the warren of caves dotted throughout the extinct volcano of the Castellan Mountains in Saxenburg.

When the High Elves of the Kingdom of Kodeshka had elected to open their borders to allow trade with the other Kingdoms of Kaynos it had been the Knights of Belenus that had facilitated that event. Helping the elves train envoys to travel throughout the land and using the Knights to spread the news among The Kingdoms. People came to the Knights because of their honesty, integrity and because they answered to no one but Belenus, despite being sworn to protect Saxenburg's royal family. That Ulrich would consider himself to be above the unspoken law of non-interference that had held for centuries beyond counting was utterly incomprehensible to Michael.

The question of how and why Ulrich had felt able to move against the Knights was one that preoccupied Michael's mind during the long ride to Saxenburg. Obviously Nexus's suspicions that Ulrich was allied with the witch Shallendara were well founded. The Grand Knight doubted that Ulrich would dared make such a move without powerful allies behind him. Even so Ulrich's arrogance was astounding. Michael believed the most disturbing aspect of Ulrich's behavior was not even his alliance with Shallendara, but his usurpation of the throne. Ulrich either knew, or had strong reason to believe, that High King Erich would not be returning to Saxenburg, and that could mean only one thing. He hated to think it but he had to concede it was likely, even probable that Ulrich was responsible for King Erich's disappearance.

The journey should only have taken a little over two days; however with Bjorn insisting on the many guards riding a circular perimeter around Michael the trip had taken nearly twice as long. It was late on the afternoon of the fourth day, with the Sapphire moon just beginning its ascent, when the towering white stone walls of Anglia city came into view.

Anglia was Saxenburg's oldest city and had been the capital for almost a thousand years. Nestled against the only possible site for a harbor on the rugged eastern coastline the city was protected on all sides. To the north were sheer cliffs leading down to a treacherous inlet, the east was guarded by the vast expanse of the Eastern Sea and the huge stone walls guarded the southern and western gates into the city. Built on the highest point of the plain lands Anglia was an extremely easy city to defend.

As they rode towards the massive Horned Gate in the west wall of the city, Michael wondered if that was the reason why he had chosen to move the headquarters of The Tears of Belenus out of the city proper. Twenty years ago, when he had been elected Grand Knight, Michael had abandoned the elaborate and luxurious temple complex in Anglia and rebuilt the headquarters. It was now a much more modest group of buildings located a half days ride from the city on the plains where the inlet from the Eastern Sea became the Castellan River. The headquarters were now, as the god had intended them to be, open and inviting to all and any who required the services of the Knights.

Anglia in comparison, with its walls forty feet high and ten feet thick and the two enormous wooden gates, the Horned Gate they were approaching and the Hammer Gate in the south, with their wide reinforced bands of dwarven steel, was a veritable fortress, neither open nor inviting. Although with Ixlan under The Dark One's control and only a day away across the Eastern Sea it had likely been prudent of Erich's father, Vidar, to reinforce the city as he had.

As they rode through the great Horned Gate the knight noticed that Ulrich had made some extensive changes during his month long absence. While Saxenburg had long maintained a large standing army soldiers were not a common sight in the streets, at least not dressed for battle. Now everywhere Michael looked he saw soldiers, some guarding the gates, others walking the streets and the people seemed terrified of them. From what he could see Michael estimated that Ulrich had tripled the size of Anglia's army. That was evidence of very long-term planning.

Riding through the paved streets towards the palace Michael saw signs of other changes Ulrich's reign had effected. The typically bustling streets of Anglia were unusually quiet, eerily reminiscent of the streets of Diablis in Ixlan after The Dark One had taken over. Normally at this early twilight hour, Anglia, indeed all of Saxenburg, like most of the cities in the northern parts of Kaynos, would still be busy and industrious. The marketplace and street vendors should still be trading and the people going about their business, often until the rise of the Ruby moon. Now, just after the Sapphire moon had risen, most of the marketplaces were closed, shutters were closed in people's homes, even the inns and taverns had done little more than light the traditional travelers lamp, which always sat in the front window of any of these types of businesses.

As they drew closer to the Palace, situated in the centre of the city, Michael saw the most disturbing changes yet. Anglia's large Palace complex was laid out in a diamond pattern. The Palace, home to the royal family and the seat of Saxenburg's political power was located in the centre of the diamond with four smaller buildings forming the points of the diamond pattern. The Palace complex had only two entrances, one facing the south and the other facing west or to the rear of the Palace. Just inside the western entrance stood a small guardhouse, under High King Erich it was little more than a formality and manned by a single guard. Now there were at least six soldiers guarding the entrance that Michael could see and beyond that was a courtyard hidden from view of the bulk of the Palace complex.

This courtyard had once been used to house the Palace's many hunting dogs, and to one side Michael could see that the dogs were still there, although they were now penned up in kennels lining the wall of the armory. Now Michael saw at once this space was being put to a very different use. An executioner's block, bearing myriad chips from the axe and stained black with blood, stood proudly in the very centre. The dark stain spreading out around it confirming Michael's worst fears that once again heads were being taken with regularity in Anglia. Something that had not been practiced in Saxenburg for centuries. Dismounting in the Palace stables, near the main entrance to the Palace the Grand Knight felt sick to his stomach, disgusted with Ulrich's duplicity and revolted by the evidence of his growing tyranny.

Bjorn and Gunnar, along with a score of soldiers, moved in front of Michael, another score of guards taking up a position behind and beside him, as if they were still waiting for him to attempt an escape. In this tight formation they all marched through the wide Palace doors. Once inside Michael's guards had to assume an even closer perimeter around him as they marched him towards the reception hall.

High King Erich's elegant reception hall was a large and airy room easily fifty feet in diameter and paneled with dark maple imported from the Kingdom of Kodeshka. It had graceful marble pillars, made by the mountain dwarves of Laxdale, both functional, supporting the weight of the high vaulted ceiling and beautiful lining the sides of the rectangular room. The hall boasted two long tables carved in the same dark maple, with comfortable high backed chairs padded with soft fur cushions. At the back of the room had once stood the five thrones for the royal family, although Michael noted sourly that Ulrich had removed them all, except for the High Throne.

### The Hand of Witchcraft

 "Michael," Ulrich said looking down at the knight from his position on the High Throne, "so nice of you to join me."

"Ulrich," Michael answered, ignoring the hard shove in his back indicating he should kneel.

"You will address the High King as 'His Majesty'," Bjorn hissed in Michael's ear, pushing hard on his shoulder in an attempt to force the knight to kneel. Without conscious thought Michael opened himself up to the power of Belenus, feeling the rush of almost electrical power course through his body, forcing away Bjorn's hand and knocking the young soldier to the ground in the process.

The surrounding soldiers jumped back, uttering little yelps and gasps in fear. He realized that they had, quite simply, forgotten the power at the Grand Knight's disposal. It was not in his nature to wish to bring harm to anyone for any reason but he also knew sometimes a display of force or power, even to the point of causing pain or death, was the only way.

"I see the god favors you still, Michael," Ulrich said quietly, although the knight was pleased to note that the would-be king's face was a little pale.

"A Knight retains the favor of Belenus as long as he serves the will of the Crying God. You should know that Ulrich, you were once trained in the ways of the Knighthood, in fact I taught you myself."

"Oh I remember, Michael. I simply no longer claim any allegiance to, nor deference of Belenus. There is no longer any need."

"I see, you hold yourself and your actions above the gods, above the chief of all the gods?"

"I hold all men above the gods. The gods and their petty powers are no longer of any importance," Ulrich answered with a small smirk before turning to one of his attending guards and giving a whispered instruction.

Michael kept his face impassive although he felt a sinking sense of foreboding. He believed he knew the nature of Ulrich's whispered instruction and was certain it would provide the answer to his arrogance, his usurpation of his father's throne and his renunciation of Kaynos' gods. After a brief wait the guard returned, alone. This surprised Michael; he had been expecting the guard to summon the elven witch, Shallendara. Instead the young guard handed Ulrich a small, wooden box and resumed his former position.

"You see Michael, inside this box lies the answer to the questions I know must be burning within you. I hold here in my hand," Ulrich's voice was taunting as he caressed the small box, "more power than you have dreamed of and far, far more power than the gods ever granted to any being. This," Ulrich held the box up slightly allowing Michael to see there was a symbol of some sort carved into the lid of the box, "has granted me, and those who choose to be loyal to me, freedom from the tyranny imposed by Belenus and all his kind. No longer do we have to debase ourselves, giving up our treasures, making continual sacrifices in the hopes of petty blessings. Now we are free to keep all our treasures, dispense with the sacrifices and bring about our own blessings. What say you to that Michael?"

"I say Ulrich you mock the gods, any of the gods, at your own peril. Whatever power you think you have discovered lies under the command and control of the gods of Kaynos. It is not yours."

"Somehow I knew you would say that," Ulrich said laughing loudly, "and yet, you will see Michael. You may leave us now," Ulrich said to Bjorn and the accompanying guards, who left reluctantly as though they did not trust the score of guards remaining in the reception hall.

"Now Michael, I would like you to tell me where you have been this past month," Ulrich asked silkily.

"I'm sure that you would Ulrich, however, I have no intention of telling you anything. Whether or not you choose to trample the traditions of Saxenburg and deny the gods is your own affair. However, the running of the Knights of Belenus is my affair and its business is between myself and my god."

"I would have expected no other answer from you Michael. But despite your reluctance," Ulrich said as he slowly opened the carved box, "you will tell me everything I need to know. You will have no choice, and no protection."

Ulrich's laugh was high-pitched, almost girlish in his anticipation of using whatever was contained within the box. Michael watched warily as Ulrich withdrew a large chunk of crystal, roughly the size of a man's fist and clear, yet with hints of many color's within its depths. The would-be High King stood up and held the chunk of crystal to his chest. Michael's sense of foreboding grew as Ulrich began to walk towards him.

Suddenly Michael's mind felt clouded, as though he were drunk on mead or wine. He tried to pray, to appeal to Belenus to aid him, but found he could not form the words, even in his mind. Standing there he watched Ulrich approaching him, drawing closer and closer. Michael could feel his body swaying beyond his ability to stop. Something about the crystal was wiping his mind clean, stripping him of his memories and emotions, leaving him an empty vessel. The only rational thought or feeling Michael retained was a growing sense of fear; he could not fight this power and the god either could not, or would not assist him.

"Now Michael, you are going to tell me everything I want to know. Where you have been, who you have seen and why," Ulrich asked again.

Michael tried to fight the fog in his mind, tried to resist the urge to simply answer Ulrich's question but he was powerless. It was as though he stood outside of himself, watching a stranger. He could hear his own voice answering, telling Ulrich everything of his journey to The Republic of Malerok, his meeting with Nexus and their plans to stop the coming war. How long he stood there answering Ulrich's questions Michael did not know. His mind so clouded it seemed to last both an instant and an eternity. Eventually the fog began to clear; Michael felt his wits slowly return to him as if he had woken from a dream. Ulrich once more sat on the High Throne and had replaced the clear crystal within its box once more.

"Thank you Michael," Ulrich said, his voice smug with triumph, "I suspected as much but it is nice to have it confirmed. It is also nice to demonstrate the power available to me. I suggest that you and your traitorous friends think long and hard about the power we possess before you decide to fight against us. You know now with this power, Shallendara and those who have allied themselves with her, myself included, must surely win."

"I concede nothing Ulrich, for your tricks, and that is all they are will ultimately be exposed and defeated," Michael responded heatedly.

"Believe what you will Michael, it matters very little to me. So little that I have decided that I do not need to have you killed. As High King I could have you executed for treason, however, I hereby pronounce you exiled instead. You have until sunset tomorrow. I want you and all your Knights out of Anglia and out of Saxenburg." Ulrich stood up and said casually over his shoulder, "Do not return, for I will not be so generous should I see you again Michael."

Michael stormed out of the palace. His mind was a whirlpool of conflicting emotions, a towering rage at Ulrich's arrogance and treachery, a burning sense of humiliation, but underneath it all was a very real thread of true fear. The powerlessness he had felt under the effects of Ulrich's crystal would not soon leave him.

What he did not understand was how Shallendara had managed to imbue the crystal with witch-type powers. While it was true that traditional forms of magic, both arcane and divine, often used inanimate objects, such as a wizard's staff or a priest's talisman, as a receptacle for certain spells they could only be used by the original caster of the spell, or by a more powerful spellcaster. Michael knew that Ulrich possessed no magical talent whatsoever so how was it possible that he had been able to use the crystal to perform witchcraft? If Shallendara was capable of creating objects that allowed anyone to work magic then the war was going to be far more difficult to fight than he could ever have believed.

Michael ignored Ulrich's order of immediate exile and went instead to call upon the monks of the Black Lotus at their library located adjacent to the city's main temple to Belenus. The temple stood on a small rise overlooking the triangular harbor, a squat rectangular building made of pure white marble with graceful archways and two enormous, perfectly round openings in the roof glazed with real glass, allowing Belenus's pure and holy rays to illuminate the temple. At the eastern end of the temple, right up against the cliff, was the monastery's library. It was built like all the monks libraries, shaped like a five-pointed star with each point of the star representing a different area of learning while the main office and reception area, for those rare guests the monks allowed into their libraries, were received in the centre of the star. Unlike the temple, which was only a single story, the library was comprised of many floors, two of which were visible above ground but Michael knew there were at least two levels cut deep into the earth, and probably more than that. The monks did not give up their many secrets easily, even to friends of long standing.

As Michael drew nearer to the temple he noted with sadness, although not surprise, that the temple doors were boarded shut, no lamps shone in any of the windows and there was no sign of any activity. Ulrich had obviously moved just as quickly and as brutally against the temples as he had against the Knights. Michael could only pray the monks had not fallen victim to the same fate. More than ever before Michael needed the assistance of the monks, in particular their intimate knowledge of Saxenburg's subterranean caverns. Using the caverns was the only was that Michael could evacuate all the Knights before Ulrich's impossible deadline.

### The Black Lotus Monastery

 Although it was not boarded up the library was closed and dark with little to indicate whether or not there was anyone inside. Given the secretive nature of the monks the closed library may have had little to do with any moves Ulrich may have made against them. Taking a chance that someone remained in the library Michael marched to the front door and knocked.

"Sharper than a sword, deadlier than poison, brighter than the Eastern star, endless as the ocean," came a muffled voice from behind the heavy wooden door.

"Only knowledge can be as sharp as a blade, as deadly as a poison, brighter than any star and like the ocean has no end," Michael replied, praying he had remembered the correct wording.

Hearing the bolts slide back from inside Michael breathed a sigh of relief, he must have remembered the code correctly. The heavy door opened silently inwards, revealing a patch of even deeper darkness inside, and after a quick glance around the deserted streets he stepped over the threshold. Once he was inside the door was bolted closed behind him, leaving him standing in an absolute and unnatural blackness.

After a few moments, during which time his eyes never adjusted to the dark, which confirmed his suspicion that the blackness was the result of a spell, a young woman approached, carrying a small candle in an elaborate boat-shaped holder that had been carved from bone by its appearance. Tall and slender, with strawberry-blonde hair falling in waves to her waist, the woman wore a long flowing robe of coarse linen, dyed the palest purple and decorated with a single lotus blossom on the left sleeve. From memory Michael knew the lotus on the left indicated the young woman was a lore keeper, had she been a warrior monk the lotus blossom would have been embroidered on the right sleeve.

"Lord Michael, I am Anifrig chief lore keeper here and I regret to say that I have been expecting you," she said her voice low and reminded Michael inexplicably of honey.

"I don't doubt that for a moment Anifrig, given the things I've seen since my return. I have come to beg for the monastery's aid if you'll grant it, and if it's possible an interview with Solomon."

"Our aid you shall have, of course, Lord Michael but I am afraid an interview with Solomon will not be possible..."

"Anifrig I'm sure you've seen enough to realize that I do not ask lightly, I understand," Michael began but the young lore keeper interrupted him.

"Solomon has already left Anglia, Lord Michael. Since Ulrich's ascension to the throne life in Saxenburg has become, difficult, shall we say, for any who oppose him, or appear to anyway."

Michael could only stare blankly before shaking his head. It seemed as though since he had left for Malerok his world had turned upside down, becoming unrecognizable, as though he wandered now in a nightmare. Quickly the knight took hold of himself; the lives of the Knights of Belenus depended on him and whatever assistance the Black Lotus was still able or prepared to offer.

"How long ago did Solomon leave?"

"Four days ago, when the proclamation was made of Ulrich's kingship and pending coronation. He feared for the life of the Princess Ursula. You are unlikely to be aware that the Princess discovered that Queen Urda had been murdered. Ulrich moved, brutally against the alleged assassin, claimed to be the aging Queen's dwarven handmaid, she was the first of the ritual beheadings in Anglia."

Michael swore softly under his breath. In light of all that he had witnessed since his return the news was not unexpected but it was another blow, he had known Gilta, the handmaid personally and knew of her complete loyalty.

"If you will follow me Lord Michael I have some things that Solomon left here, he foresaw they would be needed," Anifrig continued, before she turned away and walked down a long hallway illuminated only by the small circle of light from the candle.

"I am afraid I cannot lift the spell of darkness, nor would it be prudent to do so at this time. One of the local wizards placed the spell after Solomon left. I have rarely ventured outside the library. I elected to wait here for your return. It is my understanding that most of the Anglia guards, the new guards at any rate, believe the library to be abandoned," Anifrig said.

"A sensible ruse given my recent reception at the Palace," Michael said.

Anifrig merely smiled in response. Soon they had reached a white painted wooden door at the end of the long corridor. Opening the door Michael saw dim lighting coming from below, moving forward he noted a staircase leading down, lit at the bottom with torches illuminating the staircase and probably the room beyond.

"As you can see Lord Michael the spell need only to be in place on the floors above ground," Anifrig said, still smiling, "if you will follow me," and she began to walk down the stairs, after first ensuring the door was closed and bolted behind them.

They passed two other floors before the staircase emptied into a cavernous circular room, roughly fifty feet in diameter that had been rough hewn from the bare stone. From his position on the bottom step Michael saw there were three passages leading off from this central room. Between the stairs and the nearest wall, on Michael's right, were set up several stone tables, which were essentially giant boulders whose tops had been flattened and polished to create a tabletop. The stone tables were scattered with what appeared to be maps, diagrams and other assorted parchments and scrolls. Against the far wall were innumerable shelves, all brightly illuminated from the many lanterns attached to the stone walls and placed between each shelf. The shelves contents ranged from books and scrolls, to clothing and armor, food and water supplies and even spell components, potions and unguents. Michael was astonished but the rooms held still more surprises.

To his left, against the same wall as the stairs, were a series of cots, arranged barracks style, lining the curve of the wall all the way to the mouth of the nearest passage. The lines of beds disappeared into the shadows but the knight estimated there to be easily four or five hundred of the cot beds. Between the passage near the bunks and the next passage, which was closest to the shelves, was what seemed to be a kitchen area. There was an enormous fireplace cut directly into the rock, which had heavy iron pots resting over or near the flames and a long wooden table directly in front. Set at a small distance from the main table there were other wooden tables, each lined with low, backless benches on either side. From his vantage point at the bottom of the stairs Michael could see little else, as the room stretched out into shadows, but everywhere he looked the room was a hive of activity.

Michael turned to Anifrig in stunned disbelief.

"How?" he said, stammering in his sheer amazement, "how have you done this?"

"This is not a recent development Lord Michael," Anifrig answered, gently amused, "when the monks were expelled from Kemet over a hundred years ago the leaders of that time were determined they would never allow themselves to become so vulnerable to the whims of ruling governments again. Perhaps better than anyone in The Kingdoms we know that rulers change, politics change, laws change; only knowledge remains immutable. So the decision was made that all of the various monasteries and libraries throughout The Kingdoms would need to be in some way connected. With some assistance the monks of that time period effectively created an underground kingdom."

"How far," Michael was awed by the implications of what he could see, what he was being told, "I mean, just how much land does this 'underground kingdom' cover?"

"Far more than you might imagine, Lord Michael but less than you would fear. Our aims remain as they always have, to gain knowledge not power or control. Now, these precautions will be able to bring about a great deal of aid in the coming war."

"You already know then?" He asked surprised, although he reminded himself that he should not have been. It was highly likely the monks had known of the impending war long before he or even the mage, Nexus had known anything.

"Oh yes, we have known for some time that war was inevitable, and as you can see here Solomon has been preparing. Much of this particular facility will be moved, however, given Ulrich's current agenda. We will likely have to make our move soon, probably in the next few days." She paused, frowning slightly.

"I have been left to make that ultimate decision," the young lore keeper continued, "and feel certain that the move must come before the coronation but until then we must utilize our resources and remove the Knights of Belenus to Solomon's new proposed location."

"And where is that, if I may know?" Michael was grateful for the assistance but he was also slightly put out at how much had been done without either his knowledge or his consent.

"Of course you must know Lord Michael for you will naturally play a vital role in the days to come. The new location is the Castellan-Kemetian Mountains; near the site of our original home."

Michael threw back his head and laughed aloud at the irony, the only thing he had found to laugh about since he had returned to his homeland.

### Trusting the Enemy

 Slade pushed back the hood of his heavy robe and stood watching as Nikolai held an urgent, whispered conversation with The Dark One's lieutenant. He had been as shocked as Wulfstan when the necromancer had embraced Malachi. Being a spell caster himself he did not share Wulfstan's distrust of magic but now Slade was beginning to wonder if perhaps the soldier had not been right to mistrust Nikolai. As though he sensed Slade's thoughts Nikolai turned towards the former prince, bringing out his small dagger which he used to cut the ropes binding them all together.

"I realize that you have probably all got a lot of questions, you especially Slade," Nikolai said as he worked, "all I ask is for you to trust me a little while longer."

"I never trusted you in the first place," Wulfstan spat angrily.

"Slade, look," Nikolai appealed directly to Slade, ignoring Wulfstan, "I'm not armed, apart from that I'm also exhausted. You can see for yourself that Malachi's not armed. I swear to you on the name of Bhaal that this is not a trap. I just need you to trust me for a little while longer."

"I will swear on the name of Thoth that I mean none of you any harm," Malachi broke in, his voice low and intense. The chief lieutenant's weather beaten face had the thick, full lips, high cheekbones and broad forehead of the Kemetian natives and his close cropped black hair was just touched with silver at the temples. Malachi's large, liquid dark eyes appeared soft and kind and he had an air of quiet dignity.

Slade looked up at the lieutenant, surprised. He knew that Thoth was the god of the book, dedicated to learning, knowledge and maintaining the balance. Thoth was the male counterpart and consort of his own beloved woodland goddess, Suelta. If Malachi were a worshipper of Thoth then Slade's inclination was to trust him. The question remained as to how it was possible that a follower of Thoth could work so closely with The Dark One? Although Slade wanted to trust the dark-skinned wizard, and to continue to trust in Nikolai, he felt there were far too many unanswered questions. Slade was reluctantly coming to the conclusion that Wulfstan had likely been right about Nikolai all along.

"Trunk like Malachi, he Trunk friend," the ogre-troll rumbled as he too moved to embrace the wizard, just as Nikolai had. At the sight Slade gave vent to a deep and frustrated sigh. Regardless of his personal feelings about Nikolai the warning dream Slade had been given about his father had made it abundantly clear that he was to 'follow the Trunk', and that meant Slade would accept whoever Trunk was willing to accept.

"All right, Nikolai," Slade said finally, his reluctance obvious, "it appears we will have to trust you for a while longer."

"What?" Wulfstan turned on Slade in shocked anger, "Are you crazy? This mage has gotten us into nothing but trouble, how can you keep on trusting him?"

"Wulfstan," Tares interrupted before Slade had a chance to answer, "I do not like the necromancer any more than you do, however, I do believe that we are all, for the moment, on the same side."

"He's got to you too Tares? Unbelievable. What is it you do to people Nikolai? Some kind of mind control? Get everyone thinking you're the good guy? Well you can't control my mind."

"Which only proves that I have no such power," the mage answered caustically, "for if I did I could easily control such a tiny mind as yours."

Wulfstan started to move forward, his hand going to the blade he wore underneath his robes only to find himself held back by both Tares and Slade.

"We will serve little good and achieve nothing if we fight among ourselves," Tares appealed to Wulfstan.

"Say what you like," Wulfstan answered angrily, shaking both of them off him, "I don't trust him and I never will but fine, go ahead, do what you like."

"Are you planning on leaving us then Wulfstan?" Nikolai inquired in a dangerously quiet voice.

"Oh you'd like that wouldn't you?"

"Stop it, both of you," Slade cut in, "Nikolai, I presume we're not going to stand on this hillside all night?"

Although Nikolai would have dearly loved to cut down the arrogant Wulfstan he knew that he had already lost a great deal of Slade's trust and could not afford to lose more. Instead he turned with a tight lipped smile and explained that Malachi had a secure place near the eastern harbor where they could all spend the rest of the night. After a good nights sleep they would board a specially prepared boat at dawn that would take them to Saxenburg. Once they reached the secure hiding spot, Nikolai went on, he and Malachi would both be perfectly willing to answer any and all of Slade's questions.

At that comment Slade merely raised his eyebrows. The necromancer had already told him twice before in the space of this single day that he would be totally honest with Slade and yet each time Slade had discovered Nikolai had, in fact, not been completely forthright. Slade doubted very much that Nikolai would be any more forthcoming on this occasion than he had been on the previous ones. Still, Slade told himself, soon enough he would be home in Saxenburg where he would be able to see for himself how much of the necromancer's story was true and how much was false.

In a sullen silence that spoke volumes the group set out down the other side of the hill, Nikolai and Malachi in the lead. With the exception of Lara, who seemed to take every new development in her stride, everyone else seemed to be preoccupied, each one with their own thoughts. Slade found himself mulling over the things Nikolai had told him earlier. The necromancer had admitted that he had not been completely honest with Slade. In fact Nikolai had implied that he was not sure whether or not he could trust Slade. At that thought Slade almost laughed. That Nikolai was as unsure of him as he was of the necromancer was perhaps the most bizarre of all the days disturbing revelations.

As the Sapphire moon began to rise the group trudged wearily across the eastern plain of Ixlan towards the harbor, a journey of close to eight miles. Slade was exhausted in body, mind and spirit. The horrors of his stay in Diablis had left him weak and ill-equipped for the exertions of today. It was only the sense of urgency he felt regarding his father that continued to drive the young druid forward.

Nikolai had spoken of the dangers posed to The Kingdoms, of the need to unite against a greater threat. In his heart, Slade knew that his motivation, his only motivation, was his own family. When they had spoken earlier Nikolai had seemed convinced that High King Erich was likely dead, his brother Ulrich, allied with Shallendara and already on the throne and had claimed ignorance of the fate of Slade's beloved sister, Ursula. Regardless of whatever else may happen along this journey Slade was determined to find out the fates of every member of his family.

Eventually the group reached the outskirts of a small fishing village, remarkably clean and intact compared with its twin on the western side of Diablis city. The village had been arranged in a loose semi-circle around the harbor. There were private homes nestled beside market stalls and other businesses, all closed tight for the night. As they were approaching from Diablis, which was set on high ground, the tiny village was spread out before them. Malachi walked the group confidently to a small, two-story building close to the harbor that had obviously once been used as an inn or a boarding house. Although clean the darkened village appeared to be deserted, but on closer examination Slade noted small signs that indicated there were still people living in the village.

"What is this place?" he asked Malachi.

"A leftover," the dark-skinned wizard said sadly, looking around him. "Before The Dark One took over here all, or most at least, of Ixlan was like this," Malachi continued, "Little villages made up of groups of families living on the coast. They were not rich but they made a decent living, fishing mostly but also processing coastal herbs and flowers for trade. Then he came and all of that ended. Some of the villages, like this one, found the only way to survive was to become 'invisible'. They do what's required, they've learned to say all the right things but try to stay their own people, retain their old way of life. Most of the people here still even worship Niord, the sea god, but they're some of the last."

As the others walked wearily into the boarding house Slade paused for a moment on the doorstep, looking around. Never before had it been made so clear to him the damage that had been wrought in this once beautiful island paradise. Now finally, seeing this small village with its villagers hiding in their darkened houses, Slade was coming to understand his father's fervent desire to reclaim this land. Breathing deeply of the sea air Slade vowed to Suelta that if ever the time came where he could help to free these people, he would do it. A sudden breeze through the treetops caused the leaves to rustle; a subtle sign from Suelta that she had accepted his vow.

Turning Slade walked inside, closing the wooden door behind him. The main room of the boarding house was a large, square room taking up most of the lower floor. To Slade's left was an open fireplace against the wall that had obviously not been used in many years, with uncomfortable looking high-backed chairs ranged in semi-circle around the fireplace. On his right was a long, scratched wooden table with two low benches placed on either side, evidently used for communal meals. At the back of the room a set of doors probably led into the kitchen area, and likely whatever bathroom accommodations this building possessed, and the remaining door would likely lead to a storage room. In the far left hand corner was a set of rickety looking stairs. After the austerity of his cell in Diablis prison it seemed almost as luxurious as the palace at Anglia to Slade.

"How secure is this Malachi?" Nikolai asked.

"For a night, fine. I wouldn't risk any longer than that but you won't have to, I have the ship ready to leave at first light. There's food by the way, nothing fancy but something to fill your bellies," Malachi continued indicating the rickety staircase, "There are beds upstairs, again nothing fancy but good enough to stretch out on for a few hours rest. Once you're on board ship, of course, you'll have a couple of days to really recuperate..."

"It doesn't take more than a day to sail from here to Saxenburg," Slade interrupted.

Malachi and Nikolai exchanged a quick glance, causing Slade to abandon his initial idea of postponing his questions for later in favor of getting some sleep; now he saw clearly he would not have that luxury.

"You said there was food?" Slade asked, continuing when Malachi nodded, "we'll eat first and then talk. All of us."

The meal was simple and easily prepared and soon they were all sitting at the long wooden table, drinking spring water out of rough wooden cups. Slade smiled slightly as he noted how the group had arranged themselves. Trunk, due to his size, sat at the narrow end of the table furthest from the door; beside him on the bench nearest the wall were Nikolai, then Malachi, Lara and Roulibard. Sitting on the opposite bench Tares sat closest to Trunk, with Darzan next to him, Slade sitting next to the beautiful pirate woman and Wulfstan opposite Roulibard. Almost, Slade thought to himself, as though it were the 'good guys' versus the 'bad guys'; if the situation had not been so serious Slade might have found it amusing.

"I would like to start by telling all of you," Slade said quietly, "that I do not begin to understand why the gods have seen fit to throw this rather unusual group together, but I believe in my heart that it's important. While we were still inside the prison Nikolai, you told us certain things, most of which I now know were not strictly truthful. Since then you've told me some other things, again you weren't completely honest." Slade held up one hand flat for silence when he saw Wulfstan open his mouth, "He did not lie, Wulfstan. Let me make that plain to everyone, to the best of my knowledge Nikolai has not told any of us an outright lie. Although he has," Slade paused, searching for the right words, "rearranged the truth somewhat. What he has told me is more than enough to disturb me. What I want to do now, and I realize that we're all tired, I'm tired, but this is important. So, what I'd like to do is have every one of us come clean. We all have elements to this story but for probably a lot of reasons, we, and I include every one of us is keeping something back; even me." Slade was wryly amused at the sudden rapt attention his statement had generated, particularly from Nikolai.

"I will share my 'secret' with you but first I would like Nikolai to share a few secrets with us," Slade concluded.

All eyes turned to the necromancer as Nikolai sat with his back against the wall. The efforts of the day could be seen clearly in the dark shadows under his clear blue eyes and the fine lines around his beautifully modeled mouth. Slade could not claim to actually like the necromancer, in fact the young druid found him slightly repellent, yet to his surprise he felt he was coming to respect Nikolai.

"Well first of all I owe you an apology Slade," Nikolai began leaning forward with his elbows on the table, "I initially thought of you as someone weak, you couldn't handle the pressure of court life so had run away to play in the trees. I see now that I was wrong, you're not weak and I think you're a real leader."

"Slade good. Trunk like Slade," Trunk interjected.

"Yes he is, my big friend," Nikolai laughed, giving the first genuine smile Slade had ever seen on the mage's face, "although he's probably more to your taste than mine."

"Trunk not eat Slade. Trunk not eat people," Trunk said, his broad, grotesque face screwed up in disgust.

As everyone laughed and reassured the ogre-troll, Slade eyed Trunk speculatively. Trunk's seemingly inept command of the Common tongue had gone a long way to lowering the rising tension level in the room. It suddenly occurred to Slade to wonder exactly who and what Trunk really was, and how he had come to be so inextricably linked with Nikolai.

"That said," Nikolai began again, "if you will all bear with me for a moment I would like to start at the beginning. My beginning. A little over two years ago now my mentor, Lord Nexus, received some disturbing information that was, unfortunately, very incomplete. Nexus asked me to go to The Northern Badlands to further investigate. He also asked me to go with a companion." Nikolai paused, looking at Trunk, his eyes shadowed with sadness.

"That companion was Sir Patrick san Decroix."

### An Unlikely Friendship

 Slade found he was somewhat surprised, even though he had known that Nikolai was working with and for Lord Michael Strong it still came as a shock to hear that the necromancer had worked closely with Sir Patrick, second in command to Lord Michael and one of the most famous names in all The Kingdoms. Looking up the table towards Tares, Slade saw that this information came as no surprise to the minotaur priest. Nor, Slade noted as he glanced across the table, was it a surprise to the halfling woman, Lara.

"Patrick and I worked extremely well together, far better than I could ever have imagined. In fact, we became friends. Unlikely friends maybe, but still friends. And I mean that in every sense of the word, Patrick and I became closer than brothers. In fact, he saved my life, twice." Nikolai stopped and stared down at the wooden table top. Watching him it was obvious to Slade that Nikolai's friendship with Sir Patrick was not only very real, but had come as a complete surprise to the necromancer.

"In any case our mission was very successful." Nikolai continued eventually, "We discovered that someone, at that stage we didn't know who it was, was recruiting people of all races and that those people then seemed to disappear. It seemed pretty clear to both of us that someone was preparing a secret army. It also became very clear, fairly early on, that this was no ordinary army. Everyone that was recruited shared one common trait."

"Witchcraft," the interruption surprisingly came from Roulibard.

"Yes." Nikolai answered, "Witchcraft. Every one who had disappeared had, at one time or another, been accused of witchcraft. As you can probably imagine, at that time, this left us with more questions than answers. After all witchcraft was just an anomaly, something weird that happened sometimes with old women in villages. It wasn't something that anyone took seriously, except to hunt them down and kill them. Well, from what we discovered they were still being hunted, but now they were being recruited."

"Makes you think maybe we should've just kept killing them," Wulfstan muttered quietly, his fear at the thought of witchcraft obvious to Slade although possibly not to the others.

"Only you Wulfstan," Nikolai began; his face flushed brick red, his hands bunching into fists that left his knuckles white. Trunk reached out and laid one huge hand on Nikolai's shoulder, almost Slade thought, as though the creature was comforting the necromancer. His upper lip curling in disgust Nikolai leaned back, obviously determined to ignore Wulfstan's comment.

"As I was saying, we knew that an army was being formed but we didn't know who was behind it, and could only guess at why. Just before we left the Badlands we also learned that there were people, we thought they were from the Silent Hand and they were looking for the Dragon Clans," Nikolai paused dramatically.

"What?" Slade was horrified; the thought of the damage that could be wrought by a single dragon, let alone colonies of them was absolutely terrifying.

"Exactly. We suspected that whoever was behind the secret army was likely behind the search for the Dragon Clans as well but we didn't know. We got back to Malerok. Lord Nexus was waiting for us. He and Lord Michael had uncovered information of their own, and Patrick and I gave Nexus our report. It all tied in with the information he and Lord Michael had discovered, which when put together, gave us a name. Shallendara. She had been on the Council of Nine in Malerok but was dismissed for having some rather, how shall I put this, unsavory notions. After that she had seems to have disappeared and no one really knew where she was. There would be reports, occasionally, of different places where she was said to have been seen. The one thing we knew for certain was that she had been to the Hidden Palace to see The Dark One and we were pretty sure she had been to Brikenwald Court to see King Karlos. Lord Michael had also managed to prove, I realize now through Lara, that the Silent Hand were very much involved in all of this. Not, as I misled you earlier Slade, to assassinate any member of Saxenburg's royal family. Their job was solely to eliminate anyone that Shallendara and those with her, considered to be a threat to their plans; including myself and Patrick."

"Is that why he's not with you any more?" Slade asked, willing for the moment to ignore the anguish that the necromancer had subjected him to through his misrepresentation of the facts.

"I almost wish that were true, if Patrick were dead that would be one thing but this...," Nikolai broke off, obviously upset and hung his head, "and I blame myself. Even though we had a lot of information, we really knew enough to begin to prepare but I insisted on going back. I believed we could find out more and that the more we knew the better prepared we could all be. I convinced Patrick and together we convinced Lords Nexus and Michael to let us make one more trip to the Badlands. As it was we were captured almost immediately. We were barely across the border, just south of Fort Doom. They separated us at once. I was tortured and questioned for hours at a time, and it went on for days while they tried to figure out how much I knew. Finally with some help from a friend I was able to escape, and he said he'd help Patrick as well. I made my way back to a spot that Patrick and I had arranged in advance and waited for him there. I got the shock of my life when Trunk wandered in three days later. I almost killed him. Then he gave me this," Nikolai said pulling out the ring of Belenus and placing it on the table.

Slade stared at the ring, then at Trunk and then Nikolai, unable to comprehend what he knew this must all mean. He kept trying to tell himself that he was tired, that he was overwrought, and yet he knew that every word the necromancer had said was true. The evidence of the mage's truthfulness was written all over Nikolai's face, including the shine of tears in his eyes.

"You mean that Trunk? But, I, I don't understand," Slade stammered.

"Neither do I exactly but somehow while they held Patrick they transformed him into...this," Nikolai gestured towards Trunk with a small shrug, "and he calls himself Trunk now. I don't know how they did it, I don't know how to fix it and I have no idea exactly how it's affected him. He can communicate and some of the time seems to be almost like himself, but for most of the time he's just, well, just like he is now. Outwardly he seems to have characteristics of both ogres and trolls, which is why he's still suffering from the fire because as I'm sure you all know, fire is the worst thing in the world for trolls. It's the one thing they can't regenerate against. I think, but I'm not certain, that most or all of his healing powers are still there but he obviously can't cast any complex spells that require verbal prayers or spell components. But he remembers me and, even though he must know that what has happened to him is my fault, he doesn't blame me." As Nikolai lowered his head Trunk reached out and clumsily patted the mage on the head, very much, Slade thought to himself, like a parent would comfort a child.

"We were planning on making our way back to Malerok," Nikolai eventually continued when he had regained his composure, "when Trunk was captured again. That was a ten-day ago. I probably should've continued on to Malerok, let someone else deal with it but I couldn't do it. I followed, waiting for a chance to get him out of their clutches again. I actually broke into the prison, although The Dark One knew well I was there, he just didn't think I'd get out again. Most of the rest you already know. I only went there to save Trunk and my goal is to get him to Lord Michael, who I'm hoping will be able to cure him. As for you are concerned, Slade, I overhead a few conversations while I was a captive in the Badlands, and all of them were about you. I never heard enough to put all the pieces together but it was obvious to me that the Hand, and Shallendara, is very interested in you and for some reason High King Erich. Why I don't know but that's the main reason why I felt I couldn't trust you, I'd never heard of anyone the Hand was interested in not ending up dead. Except for me and Trunk, I suppose. I didn't know the full extent of who was behind this and I wasn't willing to risk Trunk anymore than I already had. I owe him my life. He's my friend. So that's it. Somehow I have to get Trunk back to Saxenburg, get the information I have back to Lord Nexus and," Nikolai paused for a rueful chuckle, "keep an eye on you Slade."

Nikolai had barely finished speaking when Tares began to laugh, a deep full laugh that was completely unlike his normally serious demeanor.

"I believed you necromancer, you had me completely fooled," Tares could barely speak over his laughing.

"I assume you mean about the ring?" Nikolai asked, continuing when Tares nodded, the minotaur unable to speak for his laughter, "Yeah, I've never actually spoken to Lord Michael personally and I had no idea whether or not they'd send anyone to look for me and Trunk. I did think that if the Knights sent anyone it would likely be you but mostly because a minotaur can pass pretty much unnoticed either in the Badlands or here in the Islands. I needed your help, Tares, because you were the only person I felt fairly certain about, so I lied."

"That would always be your way would it not, Nikolai?" Tares asked kindly, "It would not occur to you to simply ask for my help."

"Would it have occurred to you if our positions were revered, Tares?"

"I do not know," Tares answered thoughtfully, "but we must all learn to try if what you say is true."

"It is." Nikolai said simply.

"Oh, and again," Wulfstan cut in sarcastically, "we're all just supposed to take your word for it because you say so. For all we know you and this creature killed Sir Patrick, stole the ring and you're part of this, this," he stumbled, searching for the right words, "whatever it is, if it is anything."

"Wulfstan he's telling the truth," Lara cut in, "well probably most of it anyway. I knew he was working with Patrick ages ago. Michael, sorry," she corrected herself before Tares could interrupt, "Lord Michael, spoke very highly of Nikolai, he had a great deal of respect for his talent. Plus a lot of the things he was telling us about the secret army, well I'd heard some of that while in the Hand myself. I know that you don't like him Wulfstan but I do think we can trust him. I mean he got us this far didn't he?"

"Oh yes, he delivered us right into the hands of The Dark One's chief lackey," Wulfstan responded sulkily. There was a pause as all eyes turned slowly to the dark-skinned wizard.

"I admit that I work for The Dark One but I have done so, for many years now and at great personal risk to myself, as a spy." Malachi spoke with quiet dignity, "I was sent here nearly twenty years ago to keep watch over The Dark One and to aid the people of Saxenburg wherever possible and, to the best of my ability, I have done that. I aid anyone who needs it, but I have to do so very carefully because I am still needed here. At least for the moment."

"And let me guess you actually work for Nexus too right?"

"No Wulfstan, I was sent here by High King Erich."

Slade's head swung up in surprise; many times as he was growing up he had heard his father speak of a 'secret weapon'; something that his father had hoped would one day help him to retake Ixlan.

"You," he said looking at Malachi in shock, "you're the secret weapon?"

"I suppose you could call me that, yes." Malachi answered before telling his story.

He told the group how he had been born in Kemet and raised to be a priest of Thoth but had always been drawn to arcane magical power. In his adolescence Malachi had been caught experimenting with the arcane and been brought before the Council of Clerics for trial. It had been Malachi's extreme good fortune that High King Erich had been present that day. Otherwise he would have been tied and bound then left to die slowly in the vast desert sands of Kemet, the typical punishment inflicted on those who practiced the arcane arts in that extremely religious land. Instead Erich had pleaded with the Council to exile Malachi instead and allow Erich to take the young man with him back to Saxenburg; a proposal the Council had reluctantly agreed to. Erich had sponsored Malachi's education, sending him to The Malerok Republic for his formal training.

"Once I had finished my training I returned to King Erich, ready to serve in Saxenburg for the rest of my life but King Erich had other plans. It was on his instructions that I returned to the schools in Malerok, where I studied with the necromancers of Bhaal. In fact, in order to maintain my disguise, I still attend the regular meetings held by the necromancers of Bhaal, which is where I first met Nikolai. It was as a supposed devotee of the blood god that I was eventually handpicked by The Dark One to come and work for him. I may not like what I have to do but I do recognize the necessity. That's why I have been with The Dark One for so long and why I will stay as long as I can."

"You knew about this Slade?" Wulfstan turned to the young druid, unwilling to completely trust the mage.

"In general yes, but not the specifics. Either way it's another confirmation of Nikolai's story."

Wulfstan snorted, shaking his head but he gave no further opposition. Watching his former friend Slade reluctantly acknowledged that Nikolai was correct in his assessment of Wulfstan; the big soldier did fear magic and all those who used it, including Slade. With a sigh Slade put the problem of Wulfstan's prejudice to the back of his mind; it was not something that could be easily resolved and certainly would not be resolved tonight.

"So we now have the truth from Nikolai. We have heard Malachi's tale. Am I correct Tares that you and Lara were sent here by Lord Michael to find Sir Patrick?" Slade asked.

"That is correct, although, I had little hope that we would find him alive. However I do believe Slade that it is the wish of Belenus that I, at least, continue to work with you in your attempts to find High King Erich. I believed that before I learned of Nikolai's revelations and am even more convinced of it now. Obviously I still have a debt to Sir Patrick that must be discharged but it appears to me that, for the moment, we are actually all working towards the same goals," the minotaur priest had recovered his usual composure and spoke with a grave sincerity that was impressive. As he listened to Tares speak Slade found that he was unconsciously nodding in agreement. He had also felt strongly that the gods themselves desired for this group to stay together, to work together but for what reason, Slade did not know.

"I agree." Slade said eventually before turning to Darzan, "Tares and Lara hired you to help them?"

"That's true, but I'm in no hurry to head back to Diablis city. I'm pretty sure the guards would have recognized me, which means that my name and my reputation, not to mention my life is pretty much in the balance. I might be able to convince The Dark One that I was just working a hire, it's what I do, but for now I'd just as soon stick with you guys and do what I can to help. I can't say that I bring a lot in the way of information to the group but I'm an excellent sailor, I can wield a blade and I think I've survived a pretty long time in the pirating trade, which proves I've got a few skills that might be useful."

"We can certainly use your help Darzan," Slade answered before turning to Lara, "So what about you Lara? We could certainly use your help but from what I've heard here tonight I think it's likely to be fairly dangerous. If you would prefer to leave us I'll understand."

"No, I'm not leaving," Lara said, annoyed that the former prince was treating her as though she needed protection. Sometimes people forgot that she was a highly skilled assassin, even if she had sworn to no longer practice her profession.

"Thank you Lara," Slade smiled warmly at the little halfling, "What about you Roulibard? Do you want to leave or would you like to stay and help us?"

"I'm in," Roulibard answered, relieved that Slade was not going to press him for any information, "I'm not sure how much help I'll be but I'll give it my best."

"Thank you. Now, the only question that remains, Malachi, is why you've made preparations for us to sail somewhere other than Saxenburg, which is the place we all really need to go?"

### Ulrich's Treachery

 Malachi did not answer immediately, reaching instead for his cup and drinking deeply.

"Before I answer that Slade, allow me to ask you a question. How closely have you stayed in contact with your family since leaving court?"

"Not terribly close," Slade answered, surprised by the question, "I've seen my father quite a few times, either in Saxenburg or on his travels to the Grove, my sister a little less frequently, Ulrich probably twice in all the years since I left, my mother not at all."

"I see. On the occasions you saw your father, or when you returned home to Saxenburg, did you ever discuss the political situation?"

"There is no political situation in Saxenburg. My father is High King and the throne has been in our family for generations. The people of Saxenburg love my father. I'm not sure I understand what it is that you are asking me," Slade said, his voice rising unconsciously.

"Saxenburg has changed a lot since you left, Slade," Wulfstan interrupted.

"What do you mean?" Slade knew he sounded defensive but he could not help himself, he was feeling defensive. Slade knew his decision to leave had hurt his father deeply. Occasionally he had even wondered if he had made the right decision. Now it seemed to Slade that he was being told that, in fact, he had not made the right choice in leaving.

"Just that," Wulfstan said quietly, with none of his usual arrogance, "The people still love King Erich, and they love the Princess Ursula. But Queen Urda has been failing in health for some time and your brother is unbearably arrogant. He often proposes all manner of changes even though none of them would be in Saxenburg's best interests. There is a growing feeling among the people that if Ulrich becomes High King it will be the worst possible thing that could happen to Saxenburg. Yet with you gone and Princess Ursula unable to inherit the throne in her own right, Ulrich is the only one who can succeed King Erich. Saxenburg is not as secure as it used to be, Slade, that's all I'm saying. King Erich knew that, but he didn't want to pressure you into returning. I don't know for sure obviously but I think one of the reasons King Erich has travelled so much these past two years has simply been to give Ulrich some time and experience at ruling, under your mother's guidance, in the hopes that he will grow into being a better king."

"If that is the case," Malachi said, "then it has not worked. I happen to know that The Dark One is attending a grand coronation of Ulrich, the new High King of Saxenburg in less than a ten day."

"But my father is not dead!" Slade cried out, shocked and hurt by Wulfstan's revelations and Malachi's pronouncement.

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. At this point in time I do not believe that it matters. Your brother has assumed the throne and whether it was done legally or illegally it is still done. That he has invited The Dark One, something your father would never have countenanced, and has also invited Shallendara as the guest of honor, does not bode well for your being able to even get into Saxenburg. Your brother, Slade, has allied himself with those we must now consider our enemies."

"If he has, and I'm only saying if," Slade responded angrily, "then I believe he has done so out of misguided motives, he cannot be aware of the plans of this Shallendara or The Dark One."

"Slade, I realize this must be difficult for you but think on this;" Malachi said, "your brother will be crowned High King in seven days. Do you know what day that is?"

"Seven days from now?" Slade was frowning as he searched his memory for why that seemed so familiar, "The Day of Victorious Ascent. Seven days from the Sun Ascension Festival comes The Day of Victorious Ascent," Slade finished in a whisper as he remember that The Day of Victorious Ascent was yet another Festival day of Vadatajs, "I see."

In truth Slade felt slightly sick. The thought that his brother, his flesh and blood, could be willingly involved with Shallendara and her unclean brand of magic disgusted him. Yet, the evidence appeared clear and Slade remembered that Ulrich had always been ambitious. Ambitious enough, Slade admitted, that Ulrich would ally himself with Shallendara if he believed it would give him greater power. Deep in his heart Slade hoped that Ulrich's only crime was one of misplaced ambition rather than knowingly entering into an unholy relationship with the elven witch. Regardless Slade was determined that one way or another he would have to return home to find out for himself.

"I appreciate that you are trying to aid us Malachi but I must return to Saxenburg. Even if Ulrich has done these things I must see him, speak to him," seeing Malachi about to interrupt Slade held up one hand, "I must do this. He's my brother."

"Very well, I can see that nothing I say will change your mind but there is one more thing you all need to know before you leave here. Before I left the Hidden Palace tonight I received confirmation from a very reliable source that The Dark One has planted a spy within your group, and in fact, the spy has managed to communicate with The Dark One at least once since joining you."

"A spy? But how would he have even known..." Slade trailed off, the implications were astounding.

Apart from Wulfstan all these people were strangers to Slade until today. How could anyone, even The Dark One have known in advance the chain of circumstance that would bring this group together?

"There is little The Dark One does not know. Now he also has the aid of Shallendara. The elven witch truly does seem to possess the power to read minds, as well as being able to see the future and control people's thoughts and emotions. I confess freely, it frightens me," Malachi said quietly, "I know of no way, magically or otherwise, that can deflect the tremendous mental powers that the elven witch undoubtedly possesses. Obviously she knew enough to convince The Dark One to plant a spy within your ranks, and as I say I also know beyond doubt that whoever the spy is, they attempted to communicate with The Dark One."

"Attempted?" Darzan asked quickly, "What do you mean attempted?"

"My friend within the palace was able to intercept the message before it reached The Dark One. As a result all that he currently knows is that Nikolai and Sir Patrick are together once again. For whatever reasons The Dark One, and Shallendara, views the two of them being together as a significant threat to their plans. The rest of the information was, thankfully, ignored in the heat of The Dark One's anger over that revelation. I was able to destroy the parchment myself."

"Was the information important?" Slade asked when it became obvious that the dark-skilled wizard would not continue.

"I'm not sure but it may have been. I hope you will understand if I choose not to reveal any more than that."

"I understand," Slade began, "but it does not make things very easy for us. We have to work together. Already we have vast differences of personality, opinion, very little trust and now we are told that one of us is a spy. Are you absolutely certain Malachi?"

"Unfortunately yes. I wish I could ease your burden, for I have a strong feeling, coming from Thoth I am certain, that this group has an important role to play in the events to come and, as you said, working together is critical. But one of you is not what they seem to be. Furthermore I will offer this warning; The Dark One employs only the very best."

Slade raised his eyebrows and looked around the table only to see each of the others doing the exact same thing. Slade knew that every one of them, except for the spy of course, would be looking at the others, trying to determine who among them was not what they seemed, who was a spy. Without a word being spoken Slade knew it was limited to only a few people. Slade felt fairly certain of Nikolai, Trunk, Tares and Lara. He was less sure of Wulfstan, his father's bodyguard, or Roulibard of whom they knew virtually nothing, or even the beautiful Darzan. Any one of them could have been the spy. For that matter given how long Malachi had served The Dark One as a spy for his father, Slade thought, how could he even eliminate Tares or Lara? How ironic that the only ones Slade felt he could be completely certain of were the monstrous Trunk and the necromancer of Bhaal.

They all sat there in silence for a long moment, until Slade finally pushed himself away from the table and stood, slightly unsteadily from the weight of his exhaustion.

"There's little point in staying up any longer, or in dwelling on what we cannot change at the moment. Until I have proof, one way or the other, I intend to treat each and every one of you as a friend and ally. I'd ask you to do the same with each other, but I realize that's probably impossible for some of you. For now, let's just try to work together. You said before there were beds upstairs Malachi?" Slade asked turning to the dark-skinned mage who nodded in reply, "Then I'm going to try and get some sleep. As I understand it we have only a few hours before the ship will be ready to leave."

Without another word Slade turned and walked away, hearing the others doing the same behind him. As he walked up the shabby stairs Slade's heart felt heavy, how was it possible that he had gotten himself caught up in this mess? The very reason he had left court in the first place was because he had no interest in politics, intrigue and scheming. Yet here he was surrounded by those very things. There was an old Kemet proverb that stated 'if a man tries to run from himself he will meet himself coming', something Slade had never understood before this day. Slade lay on the lumpy straw mattress without even bothering to take off his boots and said a quick prayer to Suelta before falling into a restless sleep.

### The Dreamer

 This far below ground there was no natural light, no warmth, no sound. The subterranean cell was tiny, containing only a rough stone bench that served as a cold, hard bed and in the corner a large, milky crystal standing nearly five feet tall.

Lying on the stone bed was a man, ordinarily a ruggedly handsome man but now his face was flushed with fever and his once muscular frame was wasted from near starvation. There was only one door into the cell; a door used very, very infrequently. As the man lay tossing in fevered sleep the door opened silently admitting two people, making the tiny cell even more crowded.

"How long has he been feverish?" The woman's voice retained some of the musical lilt common to the elvish people but long years immersed in dark and unclean things had robbed Shallendara's voice, as it had her looks, of most of their beauty.

"Several ten-days My Lady, the healers have had no effect," answered the strange creature by her side.

The creature was a thing of nightmares, tall and thin with an overlarge round head, marked by tentacles resembling the legs of an octopus growing out of it. It had enormous oval eyes of jet black surrounded by white, without any visible pupils and a gaping maw for a mouth. Whether it was male or female was impossible to tell. It wore elaborate, heavily embroidered wizards robes and multi-colored crystals adorned its long thin fingers.

"This is unacceptable. He is unable to answer any of my questions while his brain is addled with fever," Shallendara did not raise her voice yet her anger was unmistakable.

"True," the creature replied, showing no signs of fear at Shallendara's displeasure.

"I wonder. If I did not know better I would say that this illness has been deliberately sent to thwart me."

"My Lady, surely you know such is impossible."

"Is it? The gods themselves would surely stop me if they could, and by now they must have realized what it is that I seek."

"And if they have?" The creature, still watching the fevered man, shrugged in apparent indifference.

"Just because we are no longer dependant upon the gods does not mean that we should underestimate their power. Until I have the answers I seek the gods have powers at their disposal I do not possess."

The creature did not answer. It merely moved past the elven witch towards the man lying on the stone pallet. Gently laying one long finger on the man's perspiring brow the creature tilted its ungainly head to one side, as if listening to a distant conversation.

"He dreams of his son," the creature said eventually.

"His son who now sides with us. His son who believes, in his complete and utter arrogance that I will hand him the keys to conquer The Kingdoms. Arrogant and ambitious men are always easy to manipulate," Shallendara said with a harsh laugh.

"Not Ulrich. His other son, the one called Slade."

"He is of no consequence," Shallendara said with a dismissive shrug, "if he is not already dead then he certainly soon will be. I am sure that The Dark One can be relied upon in that small matter."

"Then I am afraid I can tell you nothing else My Lady. The fever is too great."

"Then send for more healers," Shallendara said after a long pause, "I must have the information and only he possesses it."

"Are you certain My Lady? There are no others?"

"None. He holds one part of the puzzle. The great dragon, if I can find whoever that is, holds the other. The texts are absolutely certain on that point. But there is little to be gained in my seeking out the Dragon Clans until I have the information Erich possesses, I have to be able to negotiate from a position of strength. He must be cured of this fever."

"I shall do what I can My Lady," the creature answered, "but I believe that to cure him we may have to send for a cleric."

"Very well. Just make sure he is lucid enough to be questioned and soon, in the meantime keep an eye on his mind. I want to know any unusual thoughts he may be having," Shallendara answered finally before sweeping from the room.

"Naturally My Lady," the creature said with a low sweeping bow.

Before leaving the room the creature again laid a finger on Erich's brow, pausing as images flashed into his mind from Erich's feverish dreams. Again and again came the image of the young princeling turned druid, Slade, yet behind him was something else, someone else. The creature could not see clearly who else occupied High King Erich's fevered thoughts but whoever it was held a position of supreme importance to the sick king.

A position, the creature knew, of even greater importance than his son Slade, for Erich's mind was still trying to protect the identity of this 'other'. As broken and damaged as Erich's mind undoubtedly was, nevertheless it was managing to do so. This was something the creature found very, very curious.

The End

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