Perhaps it is appropriate that this volume begins with my final true adventure with the Mythseekers. Yes, we were together for a time beyond this, but it was never as it was in the good days. It was never these treks into forgotten civilizations and haunted tombs, in search of forgotten knowledge and exotic treasure. All that remained ahead was the war, and when we joined it, we lost what made us special and we were soon sundered.

To properly understand the import of this chapter, I find that it might be necessary to dwell on my names, for I have many. Belromanazar of Thunderhead, of course. The elves know me as Oribeiros, the Dirge of the Ageless. For a time I was Ashuz the Blackspear. And then the orcs call me Malthu, the Traveler's Moon. There is one sobriquet that looms larger than the others, for it is what I am known through the cancerous spread men call the Heacharid Empire.

While the Heacharid curs cower from me in their cathedrals, they whisper a name in their prayers for deliverance: The Dreadstorm.

You have heard it. None upon this plane have not heard that name. At times I have loved it, at others I have loathed it. I have learned to accept it, for it will remain attached to me forever.

The source is a power, but how I acquired this power is shrouded in riddles and half-truths. The Fourfold Chronicle has told a version of the tale. The Lament of Axichis tells another. The Historiae Heachariae yet another. They are correct on the details of this power, but not how it came to my possession. It was not a treasure from Milgoghur, nor the amazon dead imbuing their champion, nor a deal cut with a demon.

This is the true tale, of the source of this power and of she who would give me a name spoken only of in whispers.

I first beheld Diotenah the Shadow's Daughter during the ambush that nearly killed me. The Mythseekers had descended into the lost city of Tann, delving into its depths to learn why the dwarves had abandoned it. It had been deserted in the upper levels, merely a few of Qhoth'raza's lesser children to give us bloody welcome. We should have been suspicious, for no warren remains unpopulated, but there were always just enough of the widowspawn to allay our suspicions.

Alia of Freeport moved at the head of our little group. The rogue was tiny, her body compact and supple. She wore a costume of brown leather, open to reveal a flat belly, a green kilt about her hips. Her skin was pale and dusted with freckles, her green eyes bright and inquisitive. Her long, copper-red hair was done in vinelike plaits, collected in a long tail. Her magic blades Fire and Ice were sheathed at her belt, her hands empty and out as she probed the dark.

Velena Grimm, our witch and leader, stayed in the middle. She was of middling height and stout, with bountiful curves, heavy breasts and hips, and a shapely buttocks. Her skin was ivory, and covered in a variety of black tattoos. Her long black hair hung free, her pale eyes a counterpoint to the darkness of her hair and costume. She wore a black gown belted at her waist, with numerous beads, animal skills, and other small fetishes dripping from her.

I stayed behind Velena, a glowing cloud at the tip of Spire, my ironwood staff. The light it shed was fitful, but enough for us to navigate by. Oddrin, my night eft familiar, sat on my shoulders. His eyes and the line of glowing spots down his body added a touch of light to my spell.

Xeiliope, daughter of Xelyphe was last. The tallest of us, she was also the most heavily muscled. Her canary blonde hair was cut short, her golden eyes bright. She carried her magic spear, Daybreaker, in one hand, a circular shield with the round sigil of Axichis painted on its surface. Her Valkyrie armor was a metal breastplate and scaled kilt, with accompanying bracers and greaves. For those with the senses for it, it glittered with magic.

We had just defeated a coven of widowspawn and wiped the ichor from our weapons, when we emerged from the winding tunnels into a great, vaulted chamber.

"The Tannites gathered in great underground plazas for their high holy days," Alia said, her keen eyes probing the darkness at the edge of my spell's light. "Every week there was at least one."

I had stopped being surprised at the rogue's encyclopedic knowledge of dead cities. As she was fond of reminding us, How else will I know where they keep their valuables?

"They haven't gathered here in many centuries," Velena said.

Alia came to a stop, her arm flung out. "Everybody stop moving. Right now."

We obeyed without hesitation. Experience had taught us to trust our rogue. "What do you see?" Xeiliope asked, clutching Daybreaker and peering into the dark as though there would appear an enemy to fight.

"Bel, would you bring the light?" Alia said. "Walk in my footsteps."

I followed her along the blocks of the floor. The glowing cloud at the tip of my ironwood staff flung beams of light out into the dark. The floor, formed of great blocks of stone intermittently covered by shattered tile and sprinkled with cave dust, continued into the dark.

"That's what I thought," she said. "Trap."

I could see nothing, but Alia was never wrong when she uttered that warning. "Where do we walk?" I asked.

Alia moved cautiously about, stopping at barriers only she could see. I followed, bringing the light with me. "Follow me," she said. "Step where I step and we should be able to get across. There looks to be a bridge of sorts up the middle of the room. Bel, can I borrow Oddrin?"

"He's on the way." I knew what Alia had in mind. The night eft's glow would serve well. Oddrin flowed from my shoulder, slithering through the air to Alia. He would not perch on her, but stayed near her, his glow brightening to help her navigate.

Velena and Xeiliope moved around me, and I brought up the rear. Light at the front of our little column and the back. As we made our way across this bridge only Alia could see, an intense feeling of dread closed over me. I took it to be funereal aspect of Tann finally burrowing beneath my skin. Later I would understand that I was actually sensing the fell power of a necromancer.

A sound bloomed at the edge of hearing so gradually that I didn't notice it was there until Alia hissed, "Ssst! Stop!"

The lost city held its breath as the four of us were still, our senses reaching out into the dark. Now I the sound wormed into my consciousness, a low rumble that raised my hackles and filled my limbs with the cold energy of fear. Then, a faint scraping, all around, of something, many somethings, moving over the dusty stone. We gripped our weapons, readied our spells, knowing that a fight was descending upon us.

Ahead on the path, a ghast stepped into Oddrin's blue glow.

Though I had never beheld a ghast before that moment, there could be no doubt about what it was. Its hairless skin was stark white, tinged gray where its thick blood collected. Its head was a parody of humanity, with distended jaws filled with sharp, interlocking teeth, pointed ears, a small nose, and huge eyes of pure black. It was impressively muscled, walking on hands and feet like an ape. It opened its hideous mouth and where I expected a hiss, the beast was eerily silent.

"Can you get behind me, Alia? I will dispatch this abomination," Xeiliope said, advancing, her spear and shield at the ready.

"It's one monster," Alia said. She drew her blades with a flourish. An arc of flame and a matching one of frost shimmered in the air with the twirling swing. "The day I can't take one monster..."

She trailed off. Two more ghasts stepped from the darkness. Then three, then more, and then legion. So many that they were far out of range of the light, the only evidence of their presence a great roiling shadow and the scratch of their talons on stone. I noticed something then, a strange detail that only made sense later: every one of them sported a scar upon their throats.

"Retreat. Alia, get back to the mouth of this bottleneck. We'll fight them there," Velena said.

I turned. More ghasts melted from the shadows behind us. The sheer number of them was overwhelming, their wormy, pale flesh catching the light as they advanced, hemming us in. "Retreat isn't going to work," I said, gripping Spire and beginning an incantation.

"Alia, you need to hold off the front. Xeiliope, get around Bel and me."

They advanced on us, and their leader emerged from the dark ahead. This would be the first time I laid eyes on Diotenah the Shadow's Daughter, and though I did not yet know her name, she cut an impressive silhouette.

She was a ghoul, and alone among her ghasts, she stood fully upright. Where their skin was tinged in gray, hers was blue, collecting in the seams of her body and in the blush of her cheeks and pits of her eyes. Her eyes were as black as theirs, her ears smaller but as pointed. Her teeth had the same interlocking formation and glinted silver in the dark. She wore a black crown with horns rising on either side of her hairless head.

She was of middling height, muscled and slender with a dancer's build. Her breasts were tiny swells against her chest. Her waist was small, her belly flat, and hips slender. She wore a costume of black tulle, the remains of a funerary wrap stolen from some unfortunate grave and altered for the graceful lines of her body. It ran about the back of her neck, then over her small breasts in two strips, then collecting as a long loincloth over the front and back of her pelvis. She was more nude than clothed, an alluring but dangerous sight.

As she strode into the light, she brought fear with her. It closed over my heart with a fist of ice. She gestured with her black-clawed hand, a silver ring glittering from her index finger. She bared her metallic teeth and whispered something in the feathery language of the ghouls. Though it was impossible to know for certain where her black-in-black eyes looked, I felt her attention on me.

The ghasts heard and understood, loping across the bridge on both sides. Had they screeched or howled, they would have been less terrifying. Their low rumble, a sound felt rather than heard, worked the core of my humanity, an atavistic fear that pushed me to flee. There was nowhere to run.

I mumbled my spell, hurling the sheets of lightning through the advancing horde at our backs, trusting Alia and Velena to handle the front. The first bolt struck the lead ghast in the breast, a burn blossoming over its heart, talons of lightning scorching black veins over its flesh. The lightning jumped from him to his closest fellows, and from them to another line. They fell, slain by my magic. A living foe might have hesitated, even fled at the destruction. The ghasts merely loped over the fallen corpses of their fellows, not even recognizing they were slain.

"Wizard, one side," Xeiliope said. She squeezed past me, setting her shield, Daybreaker over it in her amazon fighting stance. She snarled at the ghasts, "Come now, meet your death!"

I glanced behind me. Alia had killed several, their corpses decorated with slashes, burned and frozen. She was building a hill of bodies, forcing the ghasts over difficult ground before they could meet their end at the deadly blades of the rogue. Velena stood behind her, pronouncing curses on each. As Velena's magics took hold, the ghasts would slip at an inopportune moment, enough for the rogue to finish one off with a clean cut to the neck.

With Xeiliope as a living wall, dispatching the ghasts one at a time with brutally precise strokes of her spear, I gathered my power for another sheet of killing lightning. I hurled it through the next of them and then again. No matter how many I killed, there was a fresh batch charging over their dead fellows. My endurance was flagging and though I'd killed many ghasts, their numbers were inexhaustible.

"Alia!" Velena screamed.

I turned and saw that the rogue was down. A ghast had her pinned beneath one taloned hand, its whole weight ensuring Alia could not move. Another pair of ghasts loped over the mountain of their dead friends. Behind them, I glimpsed their mistress, the necromancer, her silver teeth flashing, her black eyes alight with pleasure in carnage.

I retrieved my Shattered Mirror from its pouch, collecting the flash of light from the bolt of skyfire I flung through the beasts that menaced Velena and Alia. Six more images of me appeared across the battlefield, most of them scattered through the flat area than none dared walk upon. They mimicked my movements, simulacra of life, real until touched.

A frown rippled over Diotenah's horridly beautiful features. Ghasts saw these mirages and loped to attack. The necromancer whispered her Ghoulish warning, but it fell on deaf ears. For a moment, time froze as I watched the ghasts charging out over the trapped area.

Then, one came down at the end of its stride and the ground crumbled beneath it. Like lightning bolts, the cracks spread. More of the ghasts hit these trigger points, the cracks joining, growing deeper, thicker. A terrible din filled the air as the floor collapsed.

I gathered another spell behind my lips, and it left in a gust as a great weight slammed into me. A ghast knocked me to the lip of the narrow bridge I now stood on. I windmilled my arms, Spire falling from my hand, the light vanishing into the hole below.

"Bel!" Velena called, reaching to me.

It was too late. The ghast that hit me turned, and I fell. The beast followed me off, into the choking dark and I knew nothing else for a time.

I awoke with a pounding headache. Rock dust hung heavily in the air, coating my mouth and lungs as I breathed. Oddrin nudged me, and it was only his glow that allowed me to see. I was atop a pile of rubble, and the broad back of a ghast was nearby. No breath betrayed it, but then, ghasts no longer had to breathe.

A light shuddered not far away. It was Spire, the power of the spell I'd cast on the tip still active and calling to its master. Distantly above I heard the sounds of battle. I got unsteadily to my feet and swooned, but I did not fall. My entire body was a mass of agony, but I could move every limb. That would have to do.

With Oddrin's help, I saw that I was in a mass of broken stone, much of it balanced precariously in heaps, ready to fall down and finish the job the fall started. I stepped around the ghast that had fallen with me, with the intent of finding where my ironwood staff had fallen.

The ghast moved suddenly, exploding from the rubble, rock dust raining from its white bulk. By the glow of my familiar, the ghast's black eyes met mine and its great mouth opened to bare its teeth. It made no sound in its throat, betraying no hunger, no anger. It was an automaton built to kill and that was what it would do.

I reached for Ellisyr's sword, girded to my waist, but my injuries dragged at me. The ghast flung its arm out, catching me in the chest and sending me sprawling. No spells came to my lips. This was a fight for survival in a pit, brutal and base.

It ended with me atop the creature, stabbing it over and over with the elven blade until it moved no longer and its face was a ruin, leaking its nauseating gray blood over the shattered rocks. I staggered to my feet, wiping the weapon on my robes. The sword of my lover's husband had saved my life. Ellisyr wouldn't have appreciated the irony, but then, he was dead.

I found myself chuckling and the sound was chilling. The noises of battle had vanished, and now all that greeted my ears was my own footsteps, scuffling and echoing over the rubble. Oddrin led me to Spire, and I sheathed the sword and leaned heavily on the staff.

The spell winnowed out. Darkness enclosed over me. I crouched instinctively, reaching out with my senses for noises of other ghasts stirring. I could only hear the rushing of my blood. Oddrin found my shoulders, wrapping about them shedding his blue glow in a tiny aura. I was very small in a very big place.

My breath came in quick, panicked gasps. Alia, Velena, and Xeiliope were gone. Dead maybe. I was in a ruined city infested with endless hordes of ghasts. I fought against the rising tide of terror, reminding myself of my deeds. I had faced an elf lord in battle. I had defeated an orc chieftain in single combat. I had cast Vexacion's city into the abyss.

A hand closed over mine. I whirled, ready to smite what I found.

It was a child. A ghoul child. She was small and slender, wearing a bit of sackcloth as a makeshift smock. As with every ghoul, she was hairless, lacking even eyebrows. Her flesh was white, tinged blue, like that of a corpse. Her pointed ears twitched as she cocked her head at me with innocent curiosity. Her pure black eyes looked into mine and her lips peeled back from her sharp teeth. Her hand was cool to the touch.

For whatever reason, this calmed me. I saw no malice in her face. She whispered something in the Tannic dialect of the Ghoulish language, and though I could not understand her words, I understood her intent, as she tugged at my hand. I allowed myself to be led.

I walked hunched over, Spire in hand, Oddrin giving me the fitful illumination I needed to see a few feet before me. She led me to a tunnel in the wall and then inside. Behind us, I heard movement, unmistakably the sounds of ghasts freeing themselves from rubble.

The little girl turned and put her finger to her lips. The digit ended in a hard, black claw, curved at the tip. She uttered no sound. I nodded.

She led me deeper into the dark and I took care to step where she stepped and nowhere else. The sounds of the ghasts diminished behind us, and though I was in agony, I felt safe. My heart ached for my companions, and I knew I would find a way to come to their rescue or else wreak terrible vengeance on the necromancer.

Perhaps there are those who wonder why I did not employ Fidget. A companion of sorts, one who could fight. I can only say that I did not think of it. Perhaps the fall scrambled my brains more than I realized. It was only later when I recalled the figurine that I cursed my foolishness.

After a long walk, the tunnel turning and branching numerous times, it finally opened up into a chamber. The ghoul led me to a wall and let go of my hand. I sank to a seated position in exhaustion and pain. Oddrin threw his glow over her. She watched me, her head once again cocked as though she could not imagine such a strange creature as me.

I touched my chest. "Belromanazar," I whispered.

She touched hers. "Maireili."

Yes. This was how I met my Maireili for the first time. Most chronicles skip over this inauspicious meeting, never mentioning how or why she joined my household. It was not here, for she was a child. The first thing she did upon meeting me was save my life, a more impressive first impression could not be made.

"Thank you, Maireili," I said, though she could not understand me.

She smiled. "Diotenah," she said. Then she bared her teeth and flung her hand out as I had seen the necromancer do.

"This is the necromancer's name," I said.

"Diotenah." She pointed at me, then pointed at my blade.

"You wish me to slay the necromancer. We find ourselves in accord. Do you know anything of my friends?" Then gestures. I pointed at myself. One. Then added fingers. Two, three, four. "Friends."

Maireili, bless her, has always possessed a keen mind. Though I knew it not then, she had lived in Tann on her own for years, after her parents had been taken for Diotenah's army. She was resourceful and clever, and knew the fallen city better than even its mistress. She understood my meaning swiftly.

She nodded to me. "Diotenah."

I started to rise. She shook her head, putting her hands out. She put her hands together, rested her head on them and closed her eyes, then pointed to me.

"I need rest." I chuckled, and the sound was less horrible than it had been. "You are probably right. A short rest will do me good."

I fished around in my pack, removing rations of salt beef and hard biscuit. I held some out for her, and she sniffed it and wrinkled her nose in disgust. She vanished, silent as a shadow into the dark, then returned, clutching a bone with scraps of rotten meat still clinging to it, and began to gnaw. That was when I remembered ghouls cannot eat anything that hasn't begun to rot. One of the habits that makes them less than popular in most civilized areas.

I was not about to make my delightful partner feel ashamed for such dietary restrictions, and I ate with her. Though my stomach turned when she cracked the bone between two rocks, muffling the sound with some funerary wraps, and sucked at the rotten marrow.

She had been right. Even the short rest I took put some strength back into my aching limbs. My head still pounded from the fall, but the pain wasn't quite so great and the world didn't seem to heave about like a ship at sea.

"Diotenah," I said. If I understood Maireili correctly, she was telling me my friends were with the necromancer. Living or dead I couldn't be sure, but I trusted the little ghoul. I took her hand, the claws at the ends of her fingers capable of opening my flesh like paper, but she never dug in. The ghoul led me back into the dark.

I do not know how much time passed as Maireili guided me through Tann's permanent night, but I know that my aches returned with reinforcements. The little ghoul was tireless. She walked on hands and feet as often as she did on two legs, her subterranean methods of locomotion displaying shocking efficiency. She let go of my hand early on, once she could trust that Oddrin would light the way and I would not step where I shouldn't. Alia had taught me well.

Maireili led me from the warren of her twisty tunnels out into the main halls of Tann. She knew when to push me into a corner, finding shadows that only she could perceive. The subterranean city possessed wide boulevards, massive statues standing silent sentry in the dark. These gave us ample places to hide while packs of ghasts loped through the streets on their patrols.

She led me down a side passage into a lower level of the city, then back into the tunnels before she turned to give me another warning of her finger to her lips. Ahead, the tunnel opened up. The sound of chains tinkled in from a room away. Maireili dropped to all fours, moving as I had seen the ghasts do. I wondered if this was something she learned or something more natural to ghouls. Humanity knew very little of her people, even in Rhandonia where we did not kill them on sight.

Maireili paused at an archway and beckoned me forward. The stench was palpable, of filth and rot, clinging to the air in a stinging miasma. Oddrin's light illuminated this awful place. Cages lined the walls filled with miserable ghouls. Men and women, clad in filthy rags languishing in captivity. They shied from me in terror until Maireili came to the bars, speaking to them in their nearly silent tongue.

She pointed to the locks and I shook my head, showing my palms in a symbol of helplessness. We would need Alia for that. "Friends," I whispered to her, holding up my four fingers. I gestured emphatically to my little finger, and bless her, Maireili seemed to understand.

She spoke to the ghouls and they gestured, pointing to the darkness at the other end of the room. Maireili crept forward and I followed her, finding the dungeon was extensive. Many of the cages, though, were empty. I had the impression that they had once been full. She guided me into the walls once again, and I felt us climbing along this new passage.

Ahead, I saw a pool of green fire. As we approached, I saw that it was in fact a hole looking down into a great chamber. The center of the room was a dais, an altar stained with blood and decorated with blasphemous bas reliefs. Braziers surrounding the dais blazed with green fire, throwing leaping shadows through the chamber. Diotenah stood on the dais, surrounded by a horde of her ghasts. The apelike creatures were in disordered ranks, their chilling whispers reaching through the chamber like the fingers of phantoms.

Maireili pointed into the dark, and there I saw my companions, chained to the far wall. They had been disarmed and stripped of armor. They each bled from a few wounds, but they all appeared intact. A great, grasping mass of fear that had been infecting me bled away. I touched Maireili's shoulder and murmured my thanks.

Before I could even begin to think of a rescue plan, Diotenah whispered something, reaching out with her talons. Her silver ring glinted from her finger, once again drawing my attention. This was a treasure. Magic ran through the silver circlet in heavy waves.

A pair of ghasts advanced up the middle of the gathering, a struggling ghoul clutched between them. He was emaciated with his captivity, his wrists and ankles blue and raw, trickles of azure ghoul blood running from the wounds. I did not have to speak Tannic Ghoulish to know what he was saying. He was begging for his life. The poor devil. Had I my full strength and the Mythseekers behind me, I would have tried to rescue him. Sadly, I knew any attempt would result in my capture beside the others, and likely all of our deaths.

I could only watch and hope I could forgive myself for inaction.

The ghasts brought the ghoul to the altar, shackling each wrist to the floor, forcing him to kneel in front of it. One tore away the hapless man's loincloth, casting it to the floor.

Diotenah walked around the front, each movement of her long legs showing their grace and sleek musculature. She stopped in front of him and though I could barely hear her words, I felt magic. Maireili buried her head in the crook of my neck, and I wrapped my arms about her, fruitlessly trying to comfort the terrified girl.

The necromancer's words twined around me like serpents. The scent was of rotting meat was cloying and I felt the slick burning of venom on my fingers. I watched her bend down, and the ghoul cried out, the one loud noise he ever made. A sound like ripping cloth, and she threw her head back, a wad of meat in her teeth. Blue ichor ran down her chin. A line of magic, clear to me, ran from the ghoul's neck to Diotenah's mouth. She ate the meat and I realized then I was witnessing an awful perversion of ghoulish culture. Not merely the act of cannibalism, but the fact that she could stomach fresh meat.

The ghoul stared at her with mute uncomprehending eyes. His throat was a ragged ruin. Diotenah swallowed her cannibal feast and spoke more of her fell incantation. The words fell from her lips in a miasma of green smoke, wreathing the ghoul. His choked gurgling became something else. I knew what I was watching then. The necromancer had eaten the ghoul's soul along with his throat.

He died against that altar. Then the change began. What was blue became black, his blood now like oil. I watched his body thicken, muscles bulging over a frame now apelike in proportions. His face stretched, his jaw growing to grotesque proportions. His staff fell from his body and rotted into dust, leaving a smooth place between his legs. The wound on his throat knit, leaving only a lumpy scar.

The ghasts freed him of the manacles, for the hapless ghoul was now transformed into one of their brethren, an undead abomination. As though he always belonged there, he joined the rest of the ghasts in the congregation, worshiping their high priestess.

Diotenah drank in their adulation, her whispers rippling through the room, taken to every corner by the unique design. Diotenah then strode from the room, her ghasts following. I pointed down to my companions. Maireili shook her head and I jabbed my finger at them again, miming the breaking of shackles. We needed to get them out, keep the necromancer from perverting any more of Maireili's tribe. I pointed to my little finger, reminding her that it was Alia who could save them.

She stared at me in mute frustration, then beckoned me along. We descended, and we found ourselves at the exit of a lower tunnel. I watched as ghasts moved by, their loping knuckles then back feet. I moved to the exit. Maireili was still. I paused and she pointed to herself, then to her feet. I understood. She would be safe enough here.

With the pack passed, I slipped out, finding myself on a wide and winding staircase. It lead to the ritual room, now empty. The scent of the ghasts hung in the air, that charnel house smell that spoke of old death sunk into the very stones. The green light was out, and I could navigate only by Oddrin's glow. I made my way around the edge, to where my friends were chained.

"Bel, is that you?" Alia's voice. She caught the light of the night eft first.

"I'm here," I said.

I found the three of them. Alia and Velena focused on me, but Xeiliope was swooning, a nasty wound on the side of her head. Their arms were up, hanging from the shackles bolted to the stone wall. "Thank all the Gods," Velena said. "When you fell, I feared the worst."

"Don't thank them yet." I went to Alia's manacles. If I could get her out, then she would have the others out in moments.

"Can you see the lock?" she asked.

I brought Oddrin over to shine his light on the iron shackles, hoping that it would be a simple pin that I could free. It was not. "I can't pick this thing," I said. I directed Oddrin up to the place where the chains were hooked through a U of iron driven into the wall. "If I get you off the wall, can you do the rest?"

"Who are you asking?" She had lost none of her confidence.

"Move swiftly," Velena whispered. "Xeiliope is hurt."

I gathered the chains in hand and pulled. I felt no give. I braced a foot against the wall and tried again. Xeiliope uttered a pained moan and that put strength into my limbs. I strained against the wall. Something felt like it gave, deep in the stone. The bruises of the fall dug their claws into me.

"Bel," Alia said.

"Hold, I feel it beginning to give."

"No, Bel--"

Powerful arms grabbed me front behind, pulling me from the wall and spun me about. Spire clattered to the floor. The braziers caught all at once, hurling the goblin light through the room. Ghasts held me from either side and I faced the necromancer herself, her ghasts arrayed behind her. Oddrin fluttered for the ceiling, but a ghast leapt up with disturbing strength, catching my familiar in hand. Oddrin snapped and struggled, but the beast held him fast. My heart was clothed in ice. If the ghast merely killed the night eft, my power would be gone. The ghast was content to hold for now, but I had no illusions. I stopped my struggles, and Oddrin mirrored me.

Diotenah cocked her head, staring at me with her black-in-black eyes. It was a mirror image of how Maireili looked, but where the little ghoul displayed curiosity, this was the sensual interest of a predator. Her lips skinned back from her silver teeth. "Thou art a wizard?" she asked in heavily-accented archaic Rhandic. Ghoulish accents are strange to human ears, as their language lacks both sibilants and fricatives, making those sounds mushy when they speak another tongue. Even an attempt to speak at conversational volume strains their voices like a shout.

"I am, creature," I said.

She inclined her head. "Well met, Creature. I am Diotenah the Shadow's Daughter, lord of Gurghann Urad." I would learn later, this was the Ghoulish name for this necropolis.

"I am Belromanazar the wizard."

"Yes." Her accent nearly swallowed terminal S sound, rendering it only as a suggestion. She issued an order in Ghoulish, and her ghasts dragged me to the altar. I looked to Oddrin and he was safe for now, clutched in the talons of the ghast.

"Unhand him!" Velena screamed.

"Let him go or I'll gut you like a fish," Alia promised.

"I have long waited for one of thy kind," Diotenah said, ignoring the dire warnings of the rogue.

"I will not serve you," I vowed.

Her grin widened, her teeth parting, and I realized she was laughing without sound. She said something in Ghoulish. A ghast took my belt from me, Ellisyr's sword now out of reach. The ghasts holding me gripped my elven robes and pulled. Any other cloth would have been torn from my body. After a moment, she gave another order and they pulled the garment over my head. I stood before her in nothing but my boots. In the dim light I could see what the fall had done to me. My body was a map of ugly red and purple bruises.

Diotenah approached, running her talons lightly over my chest. "Thou wilt serve my designs, Belromanazar the wizard." A Ghoulish command, and the ghasts threw me heavily onto the altar. My breath left me in an agonizing gust as every one of my bruises throbbed with fresh hurt.

I thought of Maireili. She had been smart. Had she sensed the trap? Was that why she refused to accompany me? I should have heeded her. I could not think clearly with Alia, Velena, and Xeiliope in danger.

The ghasts shackled my wrists to chains on either side. Then my boots were taken from me and manacles clanked shut about my ankles. I was helpless, facing the hole in the ceiling where not long ago I had watched the fell rites of this place. Diotenah loomed over me.

"Thou hast what I need," she said.

The ghasts were chanting now, a sound at the edge of hearing that wormed into my tissues and filled me with dread. Diotenah, with a single motion, dropped her funerary wraps to the floor. She stood before me, nude, clad only in the black crown on her brow and the silver ring about her finger.

Her breasts were small, scarcely lumps, and her nipples a cobalt hue. Her mound was small and hairless, a lacy innerfold an insouciant blue revealing itself. I smelled her arousal, a scent of decay like well-aged meat. Without meaning to, I felt myself beginning to harden. I did not want to couple with this creature, but my body would betray me.

She spoke works to her congregation and the green fire blazed higher. I felt her magic once again slithering over me, its scent combining with hers, imparting her arousal with power and import. She climbed up on the altar and sat astride me, just above my staff. Her sex pressed against my belly, leaving a viscous trail of her juices. Her flesh was cool to the touch, like marble in an unlighted room.

Diotenah was at once beautiful and hideous. I both wanted and was repulsed by her. I wished my hands were free that I might caress or strangle her. She looked down at me, baring her carnivorous teeth. She was already undulating, miming the act of love.

Her talons came down over my chest. I saw her ring clearly for the first time. A skeletal snake cast in silver, it wrapped about the base of the index finger of her left hand. The power coming from it was palpable, and I knew for certain she was the one who crafted it. She had forged and concentrated her power in this device. I knew not what it did, but it was the most powerful object I had ever sensed. Being close to it was like breathing in the frigid air of a snowstorm.

A burning line pulled my attention from the ring. Her claw traced a circle over my chest, the flesh parting with disturbing ease, my blood bubbling from the wound. Each cut was agonizing, far worse than a mere draw with such a weapon. A hiss came forth, a green mist from each, joining the miasma of magic collecting over the altar. She spoke her spell as she inscribed the fell symbol on my chest.

Perhaps that should have killed my desire, but I remembered the blissful pain of Allegeth's sharp teeth across my staff. I only grew harder, more intent at taking this fascinating creature. My reluctance was rapidly being replaced with a snarling need.

With each line of the symbol, I felt a connection, a binding. The slashes bound me to her, and to the magic she was working. Though I was no necromancer, I could feel my soul linking with hers, and through this, I felt her designs. I knew them as I knew where my nose was in the dark, for it was a part of me. Love might link one soul to another, but so could a necromancer, without the warmth and companionship. She made us as one.

"Before thou fillest my dark womb wizard, thou wilt please the Shadow's Daughter," she said.

She moved up me, her sex drawing close to my face. I felt myself hard as the rocks of Tann now. I wanted to grip her, take her in every way, leave her mewling and senseless. I had only one tool at my disposal now and I would use it. I thanked Black Mira Sauret for her instruction, and my companions for the frequent practice they had granted me.

She eased up, the muscles standing out on her lithe, dancer's legs. Her sex opened its blue petals, its scent enfolding me. Perhaps I should have been disgusted, but the uniqueness of her aroma compelled me. She settled down, pressing her sex to my lips. I would have lifted her, give myself more space to work, but I believe this was more about her domination of me than my technique. Still, I would show her the skills I had learned between the thighs of my varied loves.

I would have liked to tease those dancer's legs, to probe those azure crevices for sensation, but she was insistent. As soon as my tongue left my lips, it was within her sodden folds. Her taste was pungent, like meat on the razor's edge of spoiling. I found the bitter flavor intoxicating. I took it up as I ran my tongue from the base of her sex to its apex. I found her pearl, nestled within its fleshy hood, and I teased it from its hiding spot, brushing my lips over it in an ecstatic kiss.

She was thrusting now, whispering in Ghoulish, either the remains of her spell or perhaps the languid language of love. I felt her talons in my hair, the tips lightly scratching over my scalp as she drew my face to her sex.

I moved from her button, hunting for more of the liquor that flowed freely from her, collecting in my beard. I entered her now, already picturing the moment that I would take her with my staff. Her taste was concentrated here, a bitterness that stung but was no less wonderful for it. It was not the nectar of my other loves, but a caustic liquor that intoxicated me.

I moved back and forth, entering her, then to her pearl. Her hips thrust against me. Looking up at her lithe body, I watched the muscles of her belly bunch beneath her taut skin as she writhed in pleasure. Her mouth was open, her sharp teeth glittering in the green light, her eyes closed, her head thrown back.

Her pleasure was boiling in her now. I felt it in the gasp of her breath, in the increasing staccato tempo of her undulations. I caught the edge of the spell that cavorted about us and knit us together with ineffable sutures. We were linked, her and I. A corrupt energy circled like vultures, waiting to descend and feed.

I kept up my attentions, finding where her body jerked, where she hissed with an intake of breath. I was bringing her along, and though I wished I could have used my hand, to explore all of her, I was doing well enough. When I sensed her ready, I took her entire mound in my mouth.

Her eyes snapped open. She pushed against my chest, frantically working her hips against my mouth. A quiet scream came from her lips. I felt the energy of the magic now, flowing not into her, as was intended. No, as her pleasure peaked, the power flooded into me. The bruises on my skin went from red to purple, some taking the hue of subtle green. The symbol in my chest blazed, not with the necrotic energy of the necromancer but with the crackling lighting of my own magic.

She threw her head back, helpless as I sucked her sex into my mouth. My tongue lashed her pearl, taking her again and again. She spasmed against me, and a wash of her liquor flooded into my mouth. I swallowed greedily, drinking it along with the magic. I brought my arms up and the chains clinked, but they no longer felt as heavy as they had.

"Clever," she whispered, climbing from my face. She bent over, her face in mine, her silver teeth a breath from my lips. "Thy skills will not save thee, wizard."

I leaned up, sucking her lip into mine, my eyes fixed on her. "I may be bound but you face me on my battlefield."

"Brave words. I have chosen well the father of Ughor the Shadow."

She crawled down me, her eyes fixed on mine. She nipped my skin, drawing blood each time, and I felt the roiling pleasure within me grow. I saw now her dark designs. Ughor was one of the Old Gods, worshiped only in the dark places of the world. Diotenah saw her self as his daughter, but she would become his mother upon this plane. She would need my life, my soul, to break the barrier between worlds. A powerful one. The power of a wizard.

She raised up once again, reaching back. I felt her hand wrap about my staff, her talons lying flat against my flesh. She bent over once again. Her sinuous tongue, a shocking blue, slithered from between her teeth. She ran it about the fresh wounds of the symbol she carved into me. The sting brought a hiss to my lips and a need for my spear be sheathed within her.

I felt her guide me to her sex. Her soaking folds barely teased for a moment, and then she pushed back, taking me to the hilt. She sighed, sitting up, then gazing down on me with triumph glittering in her black eyes. Her hips moved in circles as she worked me in and out.

"Spill thy seed, wizard" she whispered. "Placest thou the Shadow within mine womb."

I grit my teeth. I was close. All of this, and I was ready. The sheer horrible beauty of the necromancer, combined with the overloading of my senses both magical and mundane, placed me on the precipice. Her sex gripped mine as she bounced her hips. The power of my bliss built, demanding to flood into her, fill her poison womb and incarnate the avatar of her dark lord.

I knew that if I moved, I would finish more quickly, but if I stayed still, she would finish me regardless. I had to take action, to seize the initiative. I had boasted that this was my battlefield, and I would show her. I began to match her stroke. Her huge eyes opened wider, a gasp escaping her as the head of my staff touched the gates of her womb. My own chest heaved as blood fell from the symbol etched in my chest. The color faded from the white-blue of the storm to the sickly green that blazed in the braziers on either side. She had taken the advantage.

I whispered my own spell. Once again, I thanked Allegeth, though the image of her scaled visage in my mind brought a spark of pleasure and nearly loosed the gates. I had to maintain my concentration. As soon as I spilled, I was dead, my soul consumed.

Clouds slithered from the place where Diotenah and I were joined. Between the glistening blue folds of her sex and the engorged flesh of mine, the clouds crawled up her lithe body. She watched in fascination, never ceasing her movements. She knew that with my injuries, I should not be able to call this, but it was the pleasure I took from the knight's kiss, the piece of her, that allowed me to bring my great weapon to bear.

A tentacle of cloud ran up her body, over one breast. Another wrapped around the back of her, slipping between the hard globes of her buttocks. A rumble shook them and she shuddered, her brow furrowed with sudden pleasure. Her mouth was open, her hips bucking on mine.

I knew then that I had a chance. She was not the experienced lover I was. I felt it in the rudimentary nature of her movements. She did not spend numerous hours pleasuring and being pleasured by the incomparable Mythseekers, who now depended upon the endurance their attentions had helped gift me.

I gripped my bliss, my will moving through my storm. I send another rumble, and claws of lightning ran over her lissome form. She let out a quiet cry, shivers overtaking her body. I felt her clench over me and a fresh wash of liquor spilled from her sex.

Once again the spell filled me. The blue of the deep parts of her flesh faded to the gray-blue of a stormy sky. I yanked at the chains and the sound of crumbling rock greeted me. My arms could now move and I grasped her smooth thighs, running my hands over her taut muscles, a caress as tender as our loveplay was deadly.

She stared down at me in horror, a strange expression on her monstrous face. She continued to move against me, momentarily slowed by the rush of bliss that had taken her.

"You are mine, Shadow's Daughter," I told her.

She leaned over, her breath washing over me. "Thy strength will fail."

I kissed her, my tongue running between her lips. I felt a rush of my blood as my tongue sliced open on her teeth. She swallowed, then reared up, spitting. "Don't like fresh blood, do you?" I teased, thrusting into her.

"Thy act be rash," she whispered, rocking her hips with greater strength. She was right. My bliss built, and the blood had momentarily allowed her to divorce herself from pleasure. My body cried out for her, longed to complete the rite, even though it would mean my death.

I thrust into her, finding the trilling of bliss that never really went away within her. My clouds brushed between the hemispheres of her buttocks, the lightning spidering through her there. It crackled up my length and into her body. It caressed her with the bright energy of the storm. She shuddered again, her entire body now heaving on the end of me. The waves of ecstasy crashed over her. She had no respite.

Another clang, another crunch, and my hands were on her powerful waist where she twisted. I moved her now, pushing myself deep. The clouds twined around us and lightning raked her button. She cried out, perhaps the first cry ever torn from her ghoulish lips.

The chains tore free of the altar. I got to my knees, still inside her. My mouth went to her nipples, sucking them into my mouth, thrumming them with my tongue, worrying them with my teeth. The storm kept is lovely assault on her. She was helpless, her head thrown back, her joy and terror crying to the heavens.

The bliss was over her now, an endless wave of ecstasy as I took her. With each thrust, her skin grew grayer. Her eyes sank into her skull, white-blue light flashing from their depths, lightning crawling from her empty sockets. I thrust into her brutally now, and her body gave way, dissolving before my eyes. Her flesh came apart like ashes, floating into the air to be eaten by the green flames.

I watched the ring uncoil from her finger, slither over her vanishing flesh, then up my left hand to twine about my index finger. The digit grew cold as her power joined my own. Since this moment, the Ring of Diotenah has never left my finger. It will only leave at the moment of my death.

Diotenah was gone, now only her last, ecstatic cry echoing in the chamber. I stood upon the altar now, the pleasure boiling inside me. Then, at once, it tore its way out of me in an ecstatic burst. Sheets of lightning washed over the gathered ghasts, called by my inarticulate howl. They shuddered, every one of them speared by the ineffable energy of the storm. One by one they fell, scorches over their hearts. None would ever move again.

The air in the chamber was bright and I couldn't tell why until I realized it was that I shed light. Oddrin, his captor now dead, flapped to my shoulder. My body buzzed with the magic looking for a place to go, settling for knitting me back together and filling my limbs with strength.

The Mythseekers gazed at me in wonder. I went to them, pulling the chains from the walls one by one. I could already feel the power of the spell fading. The light shedding from the lightning that crawled over my body was dimming. The symbol Diotenah had carved into my flesh was vanishing. In a day, it would be entirely gone.

"Bel? Are you well?" Velena asked.

"I am," I said, though I felt a presence with me, a dark and slithery presence. I would come to know it well.

Alia, using a shard of bone, freed us of the manacles. Velena tended to Xeiliope. I retrieved my clothing and was getting dressed when Maireili slinked into the throne room, squinting against my fading light.

She looked about and nodded in satisfaction, then beckoned to me. I took Xeiliope's arm over my shoulder, and bore her weight with the last of the spell and my ironwood staff. Maireili guided to where our possessions waited. With her bag of herbs and unguents, Velena healed the wound on the amazon's head. I almost asked her to help me, but I noticed that the pain in my head was entirely gone.

We freed Maireili's tribe from their cages. They insisted on loading us down with some of Tann's treasures as thanks. Before leaving the forgotten city, I knelt before Maireili and took her small hand in mine. Her black claws lay over my palm.

"Maireili. Thank you for my life."

She smiled shyly and said something in her Tannic dialect. I did not understand the words, but I understood her meaning. I left her, thinking I would never see her again. I am pleased that I was emphatically wrong, though it would take long years before we were together again. When I next saw Mareili, she would be a woman.

The Ring of Diotenah would be how I came to be called Dreadstorm, though I would not know its powers until I could use it upon a true field of battle. Sadly, that opportunity would present itself far too soon.