Depths of Madness

EPILOGUE

At the bottom of the deepest shaft, broken into thousands of pieces, impaled on dozens of gnarled spikes, the fiend-stitched troll slowly, painfully regenerated.

Yes, it would take days before the bits of torn, greenish flesh could find their way back to each other and grow together once more, but as Tlork lay neither in acid nor in flame, he would eventually be reborn. Only a few universes of pain awaited him in the meantime, but Tlork was used to it. With stoic, brute will, the troll would endure.

For when it was done, Tlork would find that gray-faced thing and his little elf pet and smash them both. Yes, that's what he would do.

If only he could remember what they looked like.

Standing at the top of that shaft, the new master watched the agonizing process, his thoughts dwelling upon this labyrinth built over the fallen Negarath-the halls Demogorgon blessed, the darkness in which vileness dwelt, the depths of madness.

"The Depths of Madness," he said, his voice no longer slurred from missing teeth-teeth that had regrown, thanks to his fiendish powers. "A fitting name, perhaps."

His crimson and black robes were torn, but his wounds had largely healed. His fingers had grown back, too. Even his hair, formerly wild and tangled beyond the hope of redress, lay slicked back about his temples, except for a few stubborn spikes that hung over his eyebrows. His hands ached, but they would function fully with time, thanks to the potions he had found in Gestal's chambers.

More important was the red-purple flame that brewed around his fist-a reminder of enduring power. The gift of a devil, bought at the price of a soul.

Davoren Hellsheart allowed a tiny smile to play across his gray face. He could still hear the brute Gargan and the cruel Twilight shuffling, leaving the Depths of Madness behind them for the desert. Well, he was rid of them; they had served their purpose by destroying not one, but both of the Depths' former masters.

"I don't need them," he said to himself. "I don't need anyone."

Despite his faith in his lord Asmodeus-his confidence in success-Davoren was a bit relieved at the demise of both Gestal and Ruukthalmuramaxamin. He had thought for certain that he would have to challenge one or the other-preferably Gestal, he had thought until he had seen the powers of chaos triumph over the sharn. But the murderess and her thrall had secured for him a victory beyond his expectations. Somehow, he convinced himself that it had been his victory-that he'd manipulated them. He had won the spoils, had he not? This dungeon-the Depths.

As for Twilight and Gargan, he hoped the desert would kill them-he did not relish facing either again. Not because they could beat him-oh no-but because he hated them both so much.

"They are weak," he assured himself. He did not need them. "Let them die if they will. They shall not return." He had other concerns.

Asmodeus demanded power, influence, and worship, and he intended to give the devil lord all that and more. His first sacrifices would be the servitors of Demogorgon that had survived Lord Gestal's fall-the lizardmen. Then he would enslave the golems that had survived the sharn. They would make excellent servants. The grimlocks, as well, even if they did not understand order. As for the abeil-sacrifices.

And by the time he used up all the eligible sacrifices, Davoren intended to have reasoned out the magical operation of the portals that led into this place. Why waste good slaves when innocent, naive, goodly treasure hunters could so easily be had?

They deserved this. They all did, for what they and their kind had done to him.

"M-M-Master?" an echoing voice came from the shaft.

The troll had pulled himself together sufficiently to speak, though Davoren found that unpleasant. Soon enough, Tlork would be whining for food.

Davoren thought. Food was not a small matter. He was not about to stoop to the sludge the lizardfolk ate. The abeil, he doubted, would do any better. But Gestal had survived in this place, so there had to be some source of food and water. Davoren hoped he would not be forced into cannibalism. That turned his stomach. Perhaps the strange mushrooms he had glimpsed deeper in the city, with Twilight…

Davoren winced. Twilight. His groin still ached where she had kneed him.

How cruel she had been. She'd always thought herself better than him, never recognizing his talents, never even admitting his usefulness. Instead, she'd used him, like the spiteful bitch she was. And there had been nothing he could do about it. Nothing.

They would have laughed at him. All of them. His mother, his sisters, the other children, but Davoren didn't fear that. He'd made sure they would never laugh again. All of them. The stilettos he carried in his gauntlets still smelled of that blood-the one he had left, anyway. The other…

"Come to think of it," the warlock mused, "what happened to that knife? Shouldn't leave something like that lying around where…"

Then it occurred to him. Davoren had always possessed a quick and powerful mind, and it was a credit to the depth of this mystery that he hadn't reasoned it out.

It all made sense to him then, following a single key: Twilight's Shroud.

If Liet had been Gestal, it would have been a simple matter to arrange ambushes as they walked, but Gestal had vanished when the sharn's forces attacked-surely escaped to await Ruukthalmuramaxamin's next move. But if he had been gone, how had Gestal known when and where Twilight approached from the Depths to challenge him?

He could not have scried Twilight through her amulet. How had he still followed their every move after "Liet" had disappeared?

For that matter, how had he defeated Slip's truth scrying? It did not seem that Gestal had been able to cast his spells through the miserable Liet.

There was only one answer, only one possible solution: the only one who remained unaccounted for.

He knew who had left the bloody Asson doll for Taslin. He knew who had attacked Twilight-the only one who could have opened that locked door.

He thought Gestal had spared her in their confrontation, but he had been wrong. He knew now why, when they had first met, she had seemed to recognize "Liet," if only for an instant, before pretending they had never met.

And he knew then his greatest, final mistake.

He heard a little squishing sound, as of a frog hopping on stone. Davoren looked down and saw a pair of severed hands rocking next to his feet. Their slender fingers and golden skin left no question as to their origin. His eyes widened and his fingers blazed.

Then he felt something cold in his side and a growing wetness soaking his tunic. Irritated that perhaps he had brushed something damp, he moved reflexively to touch the spot but found that his hands would not obey. They shuddered, deprived of strength. Then they froze, as the locklimb venom seized his muscles.

"Master?" the demon-troll asked again. "Master, me hungry."

Davoren Hellsheart could reply only with the blood that leaked down his chin. Then his balance was gone and he pitched forward, only to tumble down the shaft into darkness and the gullet of a regenerating troll.

Through the darkness, he heard words. "Thank Master," Tlork murmured.

"Welcome," said a soft, high-pitched voice.

Tlork started to eat.

Paralyzed, Davoren could not even scream.

"Thank Master."

"Welcome," she said.

It wasn't true, after all. She wasn't the creature's master, or rather, she was, now that her master-the lord of Divergence, first servant of the Prince of Demons-was dead.

She had betrayed him, of course, but well did it serve, for he had taken her eyes-eyes he had used so many times, just as he had used her body. And now, with the mad sharn out of the way, she ruled the Depths alone, and she'd make some changes.

Soon, she would root out all the allies of the sharn-enslave the golems that had served him, and poison and burn the abeil colony that protected his temple.

She would not limit the purification to Negarath: the grimlocks, deprived of their god, neared the end of their usefulness. If they would not convert to the worship of the Fanged Lord, she would have them destroyed, to make way for greater, stronger servants.

It was she who had been meant to rule all, she who had led countless adventurers to their deaths. Now she alone survived- always survived. She could make it alone.

Alone, alone, alone.

She might have kept the warlock at least. He'd have been fun, but ultimately unfulfilling. Too self-absorbed, always thinking about his parents, and the children laughing, and the blood.

She'd read him easily, just like the fox before she'd recovered the shrouding pendant.

That time had been brief, but she'd been able to unlock the elf's mind and all her secrets had opened to the mistress, even some Gestal had never known.

Ah, Ilira. Barking like a dog, begging for attention, terrified unto death of her own insignificance. What lovely things she could have…

Well, can't have all the dolls you want, she supposed.

She'd get lonely, but she'd get over it. Plenty of playmates remained to lure here, more lives to collect, and now that she had the blood pool and the portals…

It was she who had fled the wrath of her people, she who had shifted the blame for her actions onto that innocent gnome's shoulders, she who had fled Crimel as the guards' arrows had pierced his body and their skiprocks shattered his bones.

She had never felt whole. There had always been something missing, something that one of the naive priests of the Halfling Bitch-Mother might have called justice, if such a vain and outdated concept could be formulated. Perhaps now, though, listening to those crunching, slurping sounds from below, she understood justice, or better-rightness.

Then she turned the bloody holes in her face toward the lip of the shaft, down to where the troll-loyal and strong, if dim and slow-witted-feasted upon the torn, shuddering carcass of the hateful disciple of the Devil King. She could not see, but by the blessings of the master, she could read minds without eyes. She felt Davoren, and Tlork, and loved it.

A smile curled onto her acid-burned features-a slight satisfaction, really.

For the first time in her life, Daltyrex Blacksoul-Mistress of the Depths of Madness and favored thrall of the Demon Prince, sometimes called Slip-had done something right.