The Crimson Gold

CHAPTER TEN

Later that Night

Tazi and Justikar sat in their room, without speaking. Just as the dwarf had said, the poison in their food made him somewhat ill. He had wretched into a chamber pot violently upon their return. Tazi moistened a cloth and offered it to him after he had emptied his stomach contents into the container. But he had pushed the offer aside and dragged his sleeve across his mouth.

"At least this rag has some uses," he grumbled, referring to the gaudy tunic Naglatha's men had provided him with after the griffon attack. "Are you going to vomit, too?" he asked, and Tazi thought he might actually be concerned for her.

"No, I'm fine," she thanked him.

"Good. I'm not doing her bidding alone," he replied.

So much for concern, Tazi mused.

And they sat in silence, waiting for the black-haired wizard to make an appearance. In fact, they sat for several hours waiting for Naglatha's return. Neither spoke, and Tazi used the time to mull over what she had seen during the evening's events while she sat in the windowsill of a trompe I'oeil, one leg dangling over the side and the other propped up against the window frame. She glanced over several times to the dwarf, but he simply sat hunched over on the small stool, his hands planted firmly on his thighs, a dour expression on his face. She wasn't sure if he was angry or perhaps contemplating the fate of his brother.

He's probably more eager to go than I am, Tazi thought. At least I am fairly confident my family is safe right now. He knows nothing about his brother, other than he lost contact with him.

She started to ask him about his sibling when Na-glatha quietly opened their door.

"Good," she said without preamble, walking over to stand between where they were seated, "you're both here."

"As if we had a choice?" Tazi quipped.

"You didn't," Naglatha replied easily, "but that didn't stop you before, now did it? "

Scrutinizing their "host's" face, Tazi could see a rosy stain across Naglatha's cheeks. Tazi wondered if the wizard had imbibed too much of the wine at dinner, or if the flush was from the excitement of her anticipated success.

"What now?" the duergar demanded, and Tazi felt sure it was impatience to find his brother that was weighing on him. She believed he wanted to proceed more than anyone else in the room at that moment.

"Now is when you go get me those spells, little man," and her tone turned deadly. She regarded the dwarf coldly.

"It's time, then?" Tazi asked her in an attempt to turn her attention away from Justikar. If she was drunk, then chances were her actions would be even more unpredictable than they had been previously, and Tazi knew Justikar was only alive because she had asked it. Naglatha hated the duergar, and Tazi was unsure if that hatred was for him alone, or if her dislike spilled over to anything dwarven. She didn't want to find out.

Naglatha turned back to Tazi and said, "Yes, it will have to be tonight. Tomorrow, Szass Tam will hold his council," she said, "and after he beats it into us all again that we must continue to make trade our highest priority, he will find a way to politely evict us one by one." She sighed deeply. "I don't think this chance will come again," she added, "not for a very long while."

"Then" Tazi asked, "where do we start? You've mentioned his book of spells several times, but you haven't given us an exact location."

"That's because I can't," she replied simply.

"Helpful," the dwarf spat.

"Do you have an idea where to start?' Tazi asked, redirecting the wizard from the duergar.

"There is a chamber I know of just beyond the banquet hall that descends into the lower depths of the Citadel," she told Tazi. "Follow it down. Supposedly you will find rooms of fabulous jewels and metals below. Not far past them will be the chamber that contains one of Szass Tarn's vast collections of spells. There," she breathed deeply, "you should see his prize book. Take it, or take as many of the spells that you can. But bring them to me."

"Not much to go on," Tazi replied. "And I'm certain there will be guards on so valuable an item. Not asking for too much, are you?" she inquired, unable to contain her sarcasm any longer.

Naglatha walked up to where she sat so nonchalantly and gripped Tazi hard under her chin. "I never said it was going to be easy," she hissed. "If this was meant to be a simple task, anyone would do." She released her biting grip on Tazi's flesh with a jerk and smiled again.

"I suggest that if you-" she paused and fleetingly looked at the dwarf as well and corrected herself- "if both of you want your freedom, bring me what I want. If you can't do that, then I recommend you die trying. It's that simple." She strode over the door and tossed a look back at the two. "But I have great faith in you, Thazienne. I know you like I know myself, and I am certain you will do well."

Before she left, Tazi pushed herself off of the win-dowsill and called out, "Any weapons for us?"

"My dear Tazi," she replied, "it is not as though you're venturing out unarmed." Tazi kept her face blank, but she feared Naglatha knew of her golden dagger. "You've got him, after all." She smiled broadly and pointed to the dwarf. "You chose him, you know. Hopefully you won't regret the decision." And she left.

Tazi looked at the closed door and shook her head. She turned to Justikar and nodded. "Let's do it."

It was simple enough for them to slip through the few passageways they were already familiar with and make their way to the corridor leading up to the banquet hall. Once more, they found themselves slinking down the array of exotic armor. Tazi slowed and reached out to touch a thin rapier that rested in the gauntlet of a statue of armor.

"Take it," the dwarf whispered. "You know you'll need it."

"Someone might notice," Tazi replied.

The dwarf ran a hand appreciatively over a large war axe, before pulling it free from its stand.

"Tonight, they're all going to be too busy plotting who to kill next to notice these missing items."

Tazi shrugged and reached for the rapier. "And I suppose if they do find that they're gone, they'll only watch their own backs." She noticed the thin, chain-mail gauntlets and after a brief hesitation, she took those, too. They slipped over her own leather gloves like a second skin, and she marveled at how light and flexible they were. She could see the duergar was equally impressed with his new weapon. He yanked a leather strap off of another piece of armor and strapped the axe to his back. For the first time since they had met, Tazi saw that Justikar look comfortable.

Tazi took a page from the dwarf's book and stole a scabbard for her weapon as well. With the rapier fastened to her side, Tazi suddenly realized she had missed the familiar weight there. She found that even she breathed easier now with the unusual steel next to her hip. She walked no less quietly, but straighter than she had since her auction. For a fleeting moment, she entertained the notion of trying to escape.

It will take Naglatha at least the night to notice I'm missing, she calculated. I could be in Eltabbar by morning and perhaps get some kind of word out to my family before the black-haired witch could do anything.

But even as she considered it, Tazi tossed the idea aside. Naglatha could have some magical means here to send out a message or even gain access to a gate to take her or those two fat slaves of hers to Selgaunt. And she twisted her head to look at Justikar.

He so desperately wants to find his kin, she considered a little sadly. I know how important blood is, and I'd like to help him, too.

She shook her head to free her mind and caught up to Justikar, who peered into the banquet hall from the entryway.

"All clear," h^ whispered. She wondered for a moment why he didn't use his thoughts more to communicate, but she figured it was probably a taxing feat and one that he saved for extreme emergencies. Or he might have been trying to reach his brother; she wasn't sure which, but she didn't know and he hadn't told her. That exact situation reminded her once more that she and the duergar had only the most tenuous of alliances. She still wondered if he would be there to cover her if her back was truly against the wall.

They moved past the deserted table, now bare of its finery, and found the corridor opposite it, precisely where Naglatha said it would be. Surprisingly, there was no trap on the door, and Tazi suspected there might be some magical ward on it. But her quick investigation revealed none, and the dwarf agreed with her. Tazi was surprised, given how powerful Szass Tam was supposed to be. Not for the first time, she debated if the absence of magic here meant he had his energies focused elsewhere. There was a faint light farther down, and the uneven flicker made Tazi think there were some torches at least partially illuminating the passageway. She knew she wouldn't need the dwarf's darkvision, at least for the moment, so she drew her new sword. Tazi shifted it in her grip once and noticed the balance was very good for a weapon not made specifically for her. It wasn't as finely crafted as the dagger, but she knew the steel, if it was indeed made from steel, would be more than accurate. She took the lead.

The passageway started out as many of the others had within the Citadel, finely carved and resembling a typical hallway, albeit one that steadily sloped downward. But as they passed farther into the depths, the passageway slowly lost its finished look. The decorated and covered walls became sparser until finally only the bare rock was visible. Even the stone lost its smoothness, and as the passageway curved to the right, the walls had returned to their natural, unfinished state. Tazi nodded to the dwarf that they were on the right course. She saw how closely he regarded their surroundings, scanning from one side to the other.

Tazi was tensed, straining to hear anything that sounded amiss, realizing she couldn't be sure of her surroundings. As they descended, she expected to come across some sort of guardians and was surprised they hadn't seen any. When the tunnel took a sharp turn to the right again, she turned back to ask Justikar a question. But the dwarf had stopped to study something in the rock wall that had caught his attention.

"What is it?" she asked him.

"That zulkir that everyone fears must come down here a lot," he replied.

"Why do you say that?"

The duergar grabbed Tazi's free hand and guided it over to the wall. He pulled her gauntlet off and laid her bare fingers on the surface.

"Do you feel those?" he asked.

Under her fingertips, Tazi could feel cold, hard lumps no bigger than her thumb. But in the fading light of the nearest torch some feet behind her, she could barely see the white twinkle that had so fascinated Justikar.

"Some people call them 'lich weepings,' but most know them as Kings' Tears," he explained. "There's a fortune in this wall alone," he finished, and Tazi could hear a touch of avarice in his voice.

"Maybe another time," she told him and replaced her glove and gauntlet. "I think I need you to take the lead now. The torches have all but run out," she told him. "There's a slight, greenish glow ahead, but it's very faint. I think I'd trust your vision better." She wiped her forearm across her brow, suddenly very aware of the growing heat.

Justikar padded past her and looked at the walls that cast the emerald glow. He shook his head at what he found.

"Ormu," he told Tazi.

She had run across the moss before, but never in such large quantities. But, while there was still a healthy portion that lived, much of it had dried to a crisp brown and died.

"This looks like it has been burned," she told the dwarf.

He nodded in agreement. "And recently, too. I think there must be something graver to the tremors those Red Wizards kept harping on." He moved in front of Tazi, and together they continued down the narrow pass.

Steam hissed out from several fissures in the rocks, and Tazi became increasingly aware of the danger all around them. She blinked hard as her sweat stung her eyes and didn't see the nearby threat. She was nearly scalded by a geyser of boiling water, but the duergar yanked her out of the way right before it blew.

"How did you know?" she asked him, breathing hard.

"You have to listen for it. I can't explain it better than that."

"I'm glad you're here," she admitted gratefully.

"I'm not," he groused, and Tazi smiled at him. At least he's consistent, she laughed to herself.

They were continuously on guard but came across no signs of anything living. In a relatively low tunnel, wide enough for them to walk abreast, Tazi spotted a small pile of what looked like white sticks. But she recognized them for what they were: bones. She raised her weapon higher, though she knew they were not fresh remains. Tazi reached down for one of them, but the dwarf knocked her hand away. She was about to snap at him when the realization dawned on her that they might be the bones of his brother. Her face softened some.

Justikar bent down and gingerly lifted one bone close to his eyes. He turned it around thoroughly and sniffed it. His nose crinkled up, and he threw the skeletal remains to the ground.

"Stinks," he told her. "Trog bones." She nodded and knew he was both relieved and frustrated that they were not his brother's.

"Judging by those teeth marks," she added, "something feasted on these creatures not too long ago. But where are they?" v

"Maybe the heat has something to do with it," Justikar replied. "Drove them away or something."

"Maybe," Tazi responded, less certain.

They walked farther and came to a split in the tunnel. "Any ideas?" Tazi asked the dwarf.

Unexpectedly, he pulled at the shoulder of his tunic and ripped his right sleeve off, tucking the torn cloth in his belt. Tazi could see that a series of black marks covered his arm. He held it up and consulted the designs. "We go left," he told her.

"What kind of map is that?" she asked.

"My brother's," he replied curtly. "Just before he left, he had this map tattooed onto his arm, figuring it was the best place to keep it."

"So did you," Tazi pointed out the obvious. "I thought you said it was your brother who was the dreamer."

"He is," Justikar answered her seriously. "I'm the one who has to clean things up."

"I'm sorry," she apologized, not exactly sure why she should suddenly feel so sad for him.

He shrugged, and they went farther into the depths, certain that Szass Tarn's cache of arcane knowledge would be along the same route his brother had taken, the only viable path through the depths below. Perhaps because they had come across no obvious threat as yet, Tazi and Justikar became sloppy. Perhaps the growing heat and steam obscured their vision and other senses. For whatever reason, neither of them realized just what they were literally walking into.

"Justikar," Tazi began.

The duergar turned back toward Tazi just as a tremor shook the tunnel. Before he could respond to her, though, the walls appeared to suddenly collapse around him and immediately obscured the dwarf from her sight. Tazi herself was knocked flat.

"Justikar!" she cried. As she struggled to regain her balance and blink the dust from her eyes, she couldn't comprehend how a portion of the passageway had closed over him so quickly. There appeared to be only a few stones between them, but Tazi couldn't make out any large boulders that could have trapped him so completely.

"Tazi!" she heard him cry in a muffled voice. She crawled over on her knees toward him. When she reached the large pile where she had heard his voice emanate from, she tried to move the debris away to free him. But even as she searched with her hands, she couldn't get a good purchase on any of it. She pulled off her gauntlets, and Tazi was startled to feel something that was not quite rock under her hands. The lump shifted at her touch, and Tazi heard the duergar scream in pain.

"Hold on," she called to him and drew her rapier. Acting on a hunch, Tazi slashed at the mass and was not really surprised when a strange, viscous fluid oozed from the gash she had inflicted. She did not expect, however, to hear Justikar cry out as though he had been cut, too.

She raised her arm back and prepared to slash at what must've been a monster, but never got the chance. A tentacle, thicker than her own forearm, encircled her waist with lightning speed. Before Tazi could counter the attack, she was lifted bodily and felt herself slammed into the tunnel wall. Dazed, she could see that the lump that covered the duergar had begun to ripple slowly, and she suspected that the creature, whatever it must be, was beginning to digest him.

"Hold on," she called out again. Though the tentacle had encircled her waist, and it held fast, her arms were still free. Tazi had not released her hold on her rapier even when the creature had smashed her into the passageway. She managed to raise her weapon, point down, with both her hands high into the air. With a deep grunt, she slammed the weapon down and stabbed the tentacle close to where it joined the main body. The blow was so strong that the rapier actually impaled the tentacle to the tunnel floor. Tazi was able to pull away the wounded appendage from her waist and free herself from its limp grasp. She scrambled over to where she thought Justikar was still trapped. She called out his name but received no response, and she began to dread that she might be too late.

As she turned back to retrieve her rapier, Tazi saw a portion of the war axe the dwarf had stolen from the halls above suddenly pierce its way through the center of the creature's body. Tazi grabbed a flap of flesh and began to pull. She groaned with the strain as she pulled. The dwarf popped his head out, and Tazi could see that he looked mostly none the worse for wear. Between the two of them, they managed to tear a wide enough opening for Justikar to extricate himself. He tumbled to the passage floor in a messy heap, and they both lay panting quietly for a few moments.

The ruined mess of a creature simply lay there, and Justikar shoved at it with his foot. All of a sudden, though Tazi wouldVe thought it was impossible, the creature disappeared down the passageway as though something larger had yanked it from the opposite side. Tazi sprang to her feet and grabbed her rapier, but Justikar waved for her to settle down.

"Rock worm," was all he said by way of an explanation.

"What?" Tazi asked.

The dwarf brushed at himself and sighed. "The thing's known as a rock worm. I should've noticed it, but I guess I was distracted. They simply expand and adhere to the sides of tunnels and wait for prey to stumble in."

"Like we did," Tazi interrupted.

"Hmph," Justikar grunted. "They lure their prey in and crush them in their stomachs. They've got two tentacles, one on each end," he explained.

"So that thing yanked itself away from us by using its other tentacle," Tazi surmised.

"So rather than wait around and see if it's got a mate," the dwarf added, "we should probably keep moving."

Tazi nodded, and the two of them maneuvered along their knees through a very low side tunnel. Suddenly, Justikar ripped the sleeve he had tucked into his belt into two wide bands.

"Here," he said to^Tazi and passed one of them back to her. "Use it to cover your nose and mouth. The smell is going to get worse from here."

"Worse than how we smell now?" she joked. The dwarf snorted.

When the tunnel widened into a larger vault, Tazi was aghast. She didn't need the dwarf to point out the features to her. They had moved from the cook pit right into the fire. The room was aglow with a flickering red light. And she hastily donned the makeshift mask before the smell of sulfur overwhelmed her and seared her lungs. The entire chamber was filled with pools of bubbling magma, each one nearly as wide as Tazi was tall.

"I think this is why we haven't seen much besides that worm," she told the dwarf, pointing to the boiling earth. "What could live down here?"

"Remember those bones," he reminded her. "Something does live down here," he added. "Something does."

"Over there, see that opening?" Tazi asked him after scanning the vault.

He nodded, and she said, "Looks like it's more intentional than just a random fissure, don't you think?"

"Good eyes," he complimented her. "Now let's see if we can get there without burning." And the dwarf, completely recovered from the creature's attack, hopped like a rabbit along the narrow bits of rock that separated the pools. Tazi sheathed her sword and held her arms out for balance. She could feel the heat against their undersides and knew they would burn if she stayed down here too long. Sweat poured down her back and the crease of her chest under her leather vest. Her hair was lank with sweat and hung in stands plastered to her scalp and neck.

She watched as Justikar jumped the last few feet over to the relative safety of the opening Tazi had spotted. The ground crumbled a little and she watched, horror struck, as Justikar pin wheeled his arms frantically to regain his footing. To make matters worse, a quake rocked the chamber at that exact moment. Tazi had to dodge a splash of lava that nearly engulfed her foot and couldn't help the duergar in time. Justikar righted himself, though, and Tazi joined him soon enough on the ledge.

"Let's get this thing," Tazi shouted over the noise of the quake, "and get out of here."

Sure enough, Tazi was right. The opening was not a natural occurrence, but had been hewn from the cave wall. She drew her sword again, and Justikar pulled his axe free, holding it high in front of him with both hands. He nodded to Tazi, and they moved into the room in unison. The place was lit only by the flickering of the lava pools from the other chamber. The glow revealed something had been in there recently before them. Tazi could see that torches were knocked askew, and a small dais had been overturned. There were papers thrown about everywhere, and there was an overwhelming stench, even stronger than the sulfur. She shook her head in bewilderment, not anticipating the chamber to look as it did.

"Did someone beat us to it?" Justikar asked.

"I don't think so," Tazi replied. "It looks too random, like someone or something just ransacked the place because it was here. And the smell," she paused and reached for something to steady herself, "is overwhelming even with this rag on."

"I don't understand, though," the duergar said. "Na-glatha made this out to be so much of a challenge, and other than a few pitfalls, this has been too easy."

"You're right," Tazi agreed. "If she had truly known how simple this was, she wouldn't have risked bringing someone else into her confidence." Tazi paused and looked around. "I think whatever is happening down here is more serious than any of those Red Wizards suspects. I think what's happening down here might be killing everything in its path."

Before she could say more, the ground started to rumble again, only stronger than the last tremor. Tazi was tossed onto a bookcase that had tipped over, while the duergar braced himself in the entryway until the quake subsided.

Tazi struggled to her feet and said, "Grab as many of the parchments and scrolls as you can, and let's get out of here before we get trapped down here."

Together they raced around, stuffing papers and scrolls into their belts. Many of the pages had been ruined, and Tazi wondered again what had done this and where had they gone. She sorted through some papers when another quake struck.

"Move!" the dwarf yelled at her.

"But I think there's more under the bookcase. If you give me a hand, we can-"

"There's no time. Trust me."

Tazi looked at him and nodded once. She staggered over to the entryway, while the ground moved and shifted under her. It was like trying to run while drunk, she thought to herself. She left the chamber with the duergar immediately in front of her. No sooner had they fled the chamber when a rending sound issued from the ceiling, and several large chunks of rocks tumbled down and sealed off the room with a deafening crash.

"Let's go back!" Tazi yelled, but the dwarf ignored her. He stormed past the now-sealed room to another passageway farther to the left. Tazi was confused by his actions as they had what they had come for, and the tunnel the dwarf was nearing looked like it continued farther underground. She raced over to him, dodging bits of the ceiling that continued to tumble free. When she finally caught up to him a short distance into the tunnel, a blast of heat stopped them both in their tracks. The dwarf moved slowly around the bend in the passageway and froze, his body as rigid as stone itself. Tazi peered around the corner and was forced to throw her hand in front of her eyes as a shield from the heat. Even still, she could not look away and was mesmerized by the sight in front of her.

The tunnel had probably continued down much farther at one time, but there was no way it was possible to pass any longer. The path had been transected by what could only be described as a river-a river composed entirely df molten earth. It ran with surprising speed, bubbling and gurgling like some cheerful meadow stream. Colors of gold and crimson and near-white blended together hypnotically, twisting and turning, reshaping everything in its path. It was an unstoppable force.

When Tazi was finally able to tear her eyes away from the amazing sight, she saw the dwarf continued to stare past the fiery death to what was no longer visible. His shoulders sagged as if in defeat, and Tazi cursed herself for not remembering that he was only here to find his brother and there was no chance of that now. In fact, she realized that their entire time down there, he must have been straining and hoping to find some sign of his kin, living or dead, to know his fate. She placed a hand on his shoulder and shared a moment of silence with him.

"We have to go back now," she finally said.

"I'll never know, will I?" he eventually asked.

"Let's go," was all she could say, and they turned away from the red river.

Tazi swung open the door to their chamber and saw Naglatha reclining comfortably on her bed. Unlike Tazi, who was slick with sweat and smelled of sulfur, Naglatha appeared fresh and rested. Tazi noted she had lost the flush to her cheeks and suspected that the Red Wizard had sobered up since they were gone. Tazi was too tired to even be startled when the door shut unexpectedly behind her. She and the duergar turned to see Heraclos and Milos now barring the exit.

"I wondered when you boys would show up." she quipped.

Naglatha swung her legs onto the ground and regarded Tazi and the dwarf for a moment before she demanded, "Well?"

Tazi ignored the threatening presence of her Thay-an Knights and grabbed the scrolls Justikar collected and her own stash and thrust them at Naglatha, too tired and too trapped to bargain with her.

"Choke on them," she said tiredly.

Naglatha took the tattered sheaf of parchment without saying a word. She turned to the dressing table and, clutching the precious spells against her breast with one hand, she swept the bottles and gewgaws onto the floor with the other. She spread the papers out and started to scan each and everyone one, her fingers racing over them. However, paper after paper was tossed ignominiously to the floor. Then she stopped and held one up. The woman's hands trembled as though palsied.

"This is it," she whispered, and the color returned to her cheeks like twin flames.

Tazi looked at Justikar and stepped forward. The bodyguards were watching them closely.

"We're done now," she told Naglatha, uncertain if the woman even heard her words, as enraptured as she was with her prize. "We've kept our end of the bargain, and we are quit of you."

Tazi turned bac^ to Justikar and added, "Let's get out of this curseid place." The duergar nodded, and they walked to the door. Heraclos and Milos, however, remained as impassive and immoveable as stone.

Tazi whipped around. "We struck a bargain, and we've met our part."

The Red Wizard tore her obsidian eyes from the parchment to meet Tazi's sea-green ones. "And you have succeeded beyond my wildest hopes. A bargain is a bargain," she admitted, and Tazi had a fleeting expectation that Naglatha might actually release them. "But," Naglatha continued, "I would not think of denying you the glory of watching what is about to transpire next. It is only fitting that you witness first hand what your actions have wrought."

Tazi reached for her sword with lightning speed, and she saw from the corner of her eye that Justikar had started to unsheathe his war axe, too. But before either of them could proceed any farther, Naglatha pointed at her and the dwarf with two of her fingers, and Tazi felt her body stiffen. She was suddenly unable to move even her smallest finger, and it was as though she had been turned to stone. From the corner of her eye, Tazi saw that Justikar appeared to be affected in a similar fashion. She remained frozen while Naglatha padded over to them on jeweled sandals.

"Now it is time to write history," she whispered gleefully to her captives. She marched past them, and her Thayan Knights opened the door for her. She looked around at the backs of Tazi and Justikar and added, "Don't keep me waiting."

Tazi suddenly felt her legs move of their own accord, and she turned like some clockwork toy to trail woodenly after the Red Wizard. The duergar marched stiffly alongside her. Though Tazi couldn't turn her head, she heard the heavy steps of the bodyguards bringing up the rear.

They advanced past the corridor that led to the banquet chamber and continued in a direction Tazi had not ventured to before. She struggled against Na-glatha's enchantment but, try as she might, she could not wrest back control of her body. She had no choice but to trail obediently, if stiffly, behind the Red Wizard as though she were a faithful hound. The dwarf was in the same predicament, and when he occasionally appeared in her peripheral vision, she could see his brow knotted in effort as he tried to unsuccessfully fight his way free of her control as well.

Turning a corner, Tazi felt herself grow chilly, and gooseflesh appeared on her exposed arms. Somewhere, there was a draft of air that had passed over her sweat-covered skin, cooling her. But Tazi could not see the source of the draft, only the back of Naglatha's head and a pair of smooth, double doors a few feet ahead of them.

Must be the council room, she thought.

Of course, the dwarf replied.

Justikar? she wondered.

Who else? he replied. Now what do we do?

I think we watch hell break loose, Tazi answered.

Comforting.

Naglatha flung сюеп the doors and strode into the room. Tazi could see that she was reveling in the sensation she was causing amongst the other wizards who had already gathered there. Though she could not turn her head, Tazi did have a fairly good view of the table, and the wizards already seated at it. After a quick inventory, Tazi realized that almost everyone from the night before was in attendance. And there was also someone unknown to Tazi with the others. He looked fairly young, but Tazi now knew that could have been a simple illusion of vanity. Out of everyone in the room, he was the only one with a shock of red hair. He sat slumped in his chair, with his head resting wearily in his hands. And he was the only one who didn't look up when Naglatha burst into the chamber.

He doesn't look well, she thought vaguely. He must be the tharchion who didn't attend last night. He must be Pyras Autorian.

The only person missing now, as far as Tazi could see, was Szass Tam. Naglatha, however, didn't feel compelled to wait for his appearance.

"Always one for an entrance, eh Naglatha?" chuckled the handsome Lauzoril. "Last night you were first, and today you are almost the last."

Naglatha smiled and stood in front of the gathered assembly. She placed her hands on the table and leaned forward, taking them all in with a glance. "I have within my means the ability to remove Szass Tam from his seat of power permanently," she stated simply. A few of the zulkirs and tharchions laughed quietly, but Tazi could see one or two prick up their ears and regard Naglatha with a shrewd gleam in their eyes.

"Better not let the Zulkir of Necromancy hear you speak like that," warned Pyras weakly, "even in jest." He then lowered his head back into his hands, squeezing his eyes shut tight.

"It is no jest, my dear, weak-willed Pyras," she replied, "and I am not afraid of him like you and so many of the others are." Naglatha nodded to her

Knights. Heraclos and Milos moved to separate ends of the table, their robes parting enough to reveal their impressive scimitars. Tazi and Justikar had no choice but to move along with them, still under her influence.

"Enough is enough," shouted Azhir Kren rising to her feet. Tazi could tell the tharchioness kept a watchful eye on their position as she challenged Naglatha. "What nonsense are you speaking of? "

Naglatha did not back down. "I know you hate Rash-emen, former general. Well, I say you have reason to hate them. We should take that country and any other that stands in our way!"

"And how to you propose garnering support for that?" she asked, but even from where Tazi stood riveted, she could see the other woman was intrigued as well. Naglatha had struck a nerve with more than just one of the guests within the walls of the Citadel.

"With this," Naglatha told them proudly, and she removed the stolen parchment from the concealment of her long robe. "With this one spell, all our dreams can come true. Thay can take its rightful place as the true power of Faerun. And we will claim that right through blood," she informed them, "not through petty commerce. People will say our names in hushed whispers and fear us as they should, not think of us as common merchants. We shall be terror itself."

Tazi could see some of the other wizards were starting to get agitated. But none of the others in attendance had brought any slaves with them for this gathering, and they were well aware that Naglatha's servants were all armed, even though they didn't know two were unwilling.

"And what will that do?" asked the black-eyed Zulkir Aznar Thrul.

"Watch as I call forth all the atrocities that live beneath the Citadel and the Thaymount. With these beasts under my control, I will finally rid this land of that undead lich once and for all. His end will be permanent with no hope of resurrection. And with him gone, we shall guide Thay into the future."

Naglatha held the parchment in one hand and gestured for silence with the other. Slowly, she began to read the ancient spell. Tazi heard uncertainty in her voice as she tripped over some of the words written in an ancient hand. But as she progressed through the spell, her confidence grew. A mild tremor shook the building, and the other wizards looked to the floor and each other in some confusion. The Zulkir Mythrell'aa, small as she was, was even thrown to the floor by its force.

Suddenly, from the other side of the room, a cracked voice cried out in anger.

"Stop!"

And Tazi found she could turn her head ever so slightly. She believed that Naglatha was so focused on her spell that she must have had difficulty maintaining her other enchantments, or she had simply lost interest in them. She turned her head farther, saw that the duergar had some mobility as well, and beheld a fearsome sight beyond him.

From a corridor opposite the one Tazi had used,Szass Tarn appeared. But it was not the visage that had charmed Tazi the night before. The lich was so enraged by Naglatha's impudence that he had entered the chamber wearing his true form. Gone were the healthy features of silky black hair and beard, the full cheeks and the coal eyes. Only his luxurious robes remained unchanged, though they now hung off of a skeletal frame and were frayed at the edges. He floated into the room, with his robes fluttering behind him like some winged beast of prey, and Tazi could see his eyes were burning points of red light in his skull, skin stretched paper thin across it. He held out one bony arm toward Naglatha and screamed again, but she ignored his skeletal claw and finished her heinous chant before the lich could stop her. As the last words left her lips, she raised her head to meet the lich's frightening stare and smiled in absolute triumph, the ground trembling beneath her feet.

From somewhere deep within the bowels of the Citadel, howls and screams slowly rose in volume until the cacophony momentarily drowned out all other sound within the chamber. Tazi pressed her hands against her ears.

But the noisЂi did relent and fade until the only sound in the room was a deep, rumbling laughter. Tazi looked to Naglatha, but it was not her. As Tazi realized the Red Wizard's hold over her was almost gone, she twisted at her torso to see where the sound came from. As soon as she turned to the table, Tazi could see that all the wizards faced Pyras, who was now rising to his feet.

Gone was his sickly pallor and demeanor. He continued to laugh deeply, and a smile formed on his full, fleshy lips. No one seemed more surprised by the turn of events than Naglatha herself. As he straightened himself, Tazi rubbed at her eyes, temporarily disorientated by the vestiges of Naglatha's spells, because she thought he appeared to be growing as he stood. But then Tazi realized that was exactly the case.

Pyras knocked back his cushioned chair and spread his arms forth. The muscles bulged and inflated along his arms, and at the same times, claws stabbed through the tharchion's former fingernails. With a tearing sound, his robes gave way as he reached a height of almost fifteen feet. Tazi could see his skin darken from its former pale flesh color to red and black. And his skin appeared to harden and split into a series of plates that more closely resembled armor than flesh. He dropped his head forward and screamed. Tazi watched, horror-struck and fascinated at the same time, as the skin on his face seemed to melt and run forward to accommodate the muzzle that sprouted out from the center of his skull. He threw back his head, and Tazi could hear flesh splitting and tearing. Great horns speared their way through his scalp and twisted above him, and a pair of giant, insectlike wings opened up from his back.

As the creature regarded the others in the room with his red-slitted yellow eyes, he flexed those monstrous wings behind him. Tazi saw some of the other wizards scramble backward, and one or two actually fled. Naglatha, however, was transfixed with wonder-but also surprise-as though this was not her doing.

Tazi turned to the lich and she saw something akin to recognition on his skeletal visage.

"Eltab!" he hissed.

The towering fiend laughed again and pulled back his lips in whatTazi supposed was a smile, though it looked more like a monstrous grimace.

"Yesss…" the demon hissed at Szass Tarn. "It is me once again."

Tazi turned to the lich and could see surprise play across his skeletal features, which was difficult to do.

"Did you think I was truly gone? " the tanar'ri lord mocked him.

"My spell of Twin Burning-" Szass Tarn began.

"It was incomplete, old man. You failed." And the creature flexed his great wings again, spanning the length of the table, reveling in his physical freedom.

Tazi, now completely free of Naglatha's power, drew her sword. She heard the dwarf snort. He was actually laughing at her and the sorry picture she presented. But he had freed his war axe as well. They stood ready though no one in the hall moved an inch. Somewhere deep in the corridors below, the screaming started up again, and the ground began to shake once more. Yet everyone was mesmerized by the tableau in front of them.

"You sought to bind me, that is true," the demon admitted. "But you made a crucial error in your ritual. You tried to close the gate on me, but you were sloppy, and left it open just a crack. And that was all I needed." He laughed again.

"Oh, it took time. But that was something I had. You understand that, don't you, dead man?" he looked at the lich, but Szass Tam remained silent. "I was weak after you tore me free from my prison under Eltabbar, and that was the only reason you were able to paralyze me with your Death Moon Orb and bind me to your Throne. But you weren't strong enough to make it last, though you thought you had.

"As I sat there, I reached out with my powers, knowing there existed a way to escape. Granted, I couldn't go far, but I didn't need to, did I? I found what I needed easily enough under your roof."

Tazi looked from the lich to the tanar'ri lord and wondered why neither struck the other. Or why no other wizard, including Naglatha, made a move to flee or fight. However, Tazi found she was just as spellbound as the others by the demon-king and wondered if that was somehow his doing.

"You kept your young puppet here, always under your wing, under your watchful eye," he explained in his ancient voice, referring to Pyras. "You needed him because of his weakness. So did I."

"Where is he?" demanded the lich, andTazi doubted the necromancer truly cared about the fate of his minion. The tanar'ri lord only smiled more.

"Over the years of my entrapment, I sent my energies over to him. Slowly, oh so slowly, so no one would know. And you helped me grow strong, Szass Tarn. You kept this vessel," he paused to tap his chest with a heavy claw, "so safe and so protected from harm. Even you must appreciate the irony in all of that. And all this time I have been waiting and watching and planning," the demon-king finished and the ground rumbled again.

"Now I am free," he cried amidst the howls from below and jumped onto the table in a low crouch. "And I shall have my revenge against you all," he warned them and swung an accusing claw at the gathered Red Wizards. "Just like your predecessors who called me forth on that windswept hill so long ago, here you all gather again-awaiting my return."

Tazi was briefly distracted from Eltab's monologue when she saw Naglatha sway and nearly fall. The woman looked truly frightened and calm at the same moment, like someone caught up in a dream or a nightmare.

"I was the instrument of Thay's birth, and I shall be the instrument of its death. From deep within the bowels of the Thaymount, my numbers have grown and are now released. With them at my side and with the power from the core of Thay itself under my control, I shall decimate this land and bury its people. From its very heart, I will strike you all down."

With that, the tanar'ri lord sprang from the table and took flight. His massive wings struck the chandelier suspended above the ceiling and ripped it free of its moorings. The massive circle of wood and metal fell with a crash, splitting the table down its length. Zulkirs Zaphyll and Lallara barely escaped being crushed by it though Zaphyll caught part of her robes under the broken remains of the chandelier. As she tore herself free, her amulet must have been wrenched off in the process, for Tazi watched as the young woman turned to a withered crone before her very eyes. She screamed and covered her face with her shriveled hands. Lallara wore a look of disgust and horror at her friend's transformation, but she pulled the old woman's arm around her shoulder and helped her hobble from the room nonetheless. They did not return.

Tazi turned back and saw the demon-king circle the room once, and she held her sword at the ready though she didn't believe it would do much good. She also noted that the dwarf stood at the ready as well, and she smiled grimly at him. The drafts of wind from Eltab's beating wings knocked several torches free, and they fell like rain. Tazi dodged to her left to avoid one that dropped with a thud to the stone floor. But others were not so lucky.

Tharchion Dmitra Flass, a woman that Naglatha had referred to as the First Princess of Thay, was too busy staring at the circling tanar'ri to notice the torch that fell near her. She was laden with jewelry and ostentatiously clothed with robe upon robe layered on her person. Because of that, she didn't immediately realize the torch had ignited one of her garments. When she did, she let loose with a high, piercing scream and began to run frantically around the chamber, unintentionally feeding the flames. Tazi tore her green eyes away from the beast at the sound of the woman's painful cries and saw no one moved to help her.

"Dark and empty!" Tazi spat and sheathed her sword. She turned and ripped a tapestry that had so far escaped the flames free from the wall and threw it over the tharchion when she passed by. Tazi covered her completely with the heavy fabric, smothering most of the flames with the cloth and her body as they rolled about on the cold, stone floor. She batted the length of the woman's body and rolled her over many times, despite the Red Wizard's feeble cries of protest. When Tazi was sure she had doused the flames, she pulled the tapestry far enough open to see Dmitra Flass's burned face. Tazi winced at what she saw.

Dmitra had been heavily adorned with earrings and necklaces, both draped around her neck and around her forehead like a series of crowns. The warmth from the flames had heated those metal objects until they were white hot. They had burned through the woman's flesh to varying degrees, some only leaving a few red lines and blisters, others charring her flesh an angry red and more ominous gray.

Now she bore tattoos of a different sort, Tazi mused. A touch on her shoulder brought Tazi back to the reality of the chamber. Tharchion Azhir Kren was crouched over them. "Let me," she told Tazi, and she bent over the injured Red Wizard. Azhir was the only one who had offered to help, and Tazi was impressed amidst the destruction that someone else actually gave a damn.

"Hush," she soothed the burned Dmitra and scooped her up easily in her arms.

"Is-is it bad?" Tazi heard the woman croak out between coughs.

"I've seen much worse on the battlefield," Azhir crooned to her. "We'll get it taken care of, and your husband will never even notice." And she carried her from the smoke-filled room.

Tazi picked herself up in time to see Eltab make one last pass around the chamber and shoot through the entryway with his wings tucked close against his body like the swallows that nested around Stormweather Towers did when they dived.

In an instant, he was gone.

Chaos reigned in the now-destroyed council room. Tapestries were burning from every wall and what furniture remained was also aflame. A heavy black smoke began to fill the chamber and Tazi noticed, between coughs, that the room did not have the ingenious ventilation system that the metal shop did.

Of course, the council chamber was not supposed to be on fire.

Tazi turned and saw Red Wizards running about and a memory flashed in her mind's eye. She remembered a boat that caught fire once in Selgaunt Bay years past. She had watched from the dock as every last vermin had scuttled from their hiding holes to escape the smoke and flames. They had squealed and clawed each other in a frantic dash to throw themselves into the frigid waters, only to drown. She couldn't help but think of that image now in the flaming chamber.

The quakes came closer together and grew in intensity. To her left, she saw Heraclos and Milos, both relatively unscathed, each grab Naglatha by an arm. With them as human shields, Tazi saw her former owner scurry across the chamber without a backward glance for the destruction she had helped loose on the land.

Wizards ran in every direction, most desperately searching for an escape from the acrid stench of smoke and seared flesh, dodging the chunks of ceiling that rained down on them all. Tazi searched for Justikar. When she finally spotted the duergar, he didn't see her. He appeared to be unharmed and was crouched low near the doorway where the demon-king had fled. Tazi was about to call out to him and realized it was not her place to stop him. He had failed to find his brother, and with Naglatha gone, she saw no reason for him to stay behind. She silently wished him good fortune. But the gray dwarf held his position and swung his axe in his hands a few times as though weighing something heavily. Finally, he swung it and cracked a part of the doorway with the force of the blow.

"Damn!" she heard him swear and watched as he then turned back into the room. She smiled in spite of herself.

Tazi saw that most of the wizards fled the chamber with a few, notable exceptions. The lich, Szass Tarn, stood as still as a statue while the room crumbled about him. Though he remained in his skeletal form, Tazi was once more struck by a sense of dignity as she watched him float a few feet above the ground, unaffected by the tremors. To her left, Lauzoril, Aznar Thrul and Nevron remained behind, somewhat singed but not too worse for wear. And Tazi saw that Azhir Kren, no longer burdened with the injured Dmitra, trotted back into the chamber to take inventory of the situation.

Tazi realized that at least these few cared enough about Thay, whatever their reasons, not to flee the scene of the crime.

The word "crime" echoed in her head. Tazi was at least partially, if not wholly, to blame for what had transpired in the room and for whatever horrors had been let loose. She shook her head and coughed into her arm. Realizing that they were all standing around like sheep that hatj no shepherd, Tazi spoke out.

"We need to get outside," she shouted to Szass Tam, knowing that the others would at least follow his direction. "There must be a window or something nearby because I can feel the draft against my skin. Where is it?" she choked out.

Szass Tam turned to her and fixed her with his burning gaze. For a moment, Tazi felt fear well up inside, threatening to consume her. But she knew now was not the time to succumb to such feelings. She bit back down on that fear and held her ground. The lich almost smiled at her.

"This way," he told her and pointed to a corridor nestled under the burning tatters of a tapestry.

Tazi nodded to Justikar who stood to her right. She pushed past the others and ran through the nearly black room to the burning tapestry. Without breaking her stride, she jumped through the flaming fabric, with her arms protectively in front of her face. The duergar trailed behind her, followed by the remaining Red Wizards.

The corridor opened up onto a large, stone balcony, and from it, Tazi could see that they were several thousand feet up in one of the peaks of the Thaymount. Straight below her was a dizzying drop.

Dusk was at hand-the sun only fiery ball at the horizon's edge, tinting the sooty glaciers red. Tazi was somewhat disorientated because with the artificial light within the Citadel, she had lost track of real time. She gripped the rock banister as another tremor nearly tumbled her to her knees.

Then the first of the explosions began. Tazi turned to the volcanic mountains in awe. She watched as one after another of the peaks of the Thaymount began to erupt, spewing fire and rock across the range like an unholy storm.

She stood there, a hail of ash falling around her like the first snowfall of winter. By that time, the others had caught up to her, and they were frozen in their tracks at the armageddon unfolding before them. Tazi hardly noticed when the lich glided up next to her, but she couldn't miss his frozen voice.

"And are you well pleased, lady?" he demanded of her.

"What?" she asked and turned to look up at his threadbare skull. There was no feeling of fear this time.

"Naglatha did not do this alone," he explained. "I know she had your help. Are you pleased with all you've done?" he asked again.

"I had no choice," Tazi replied and hated that she had to defend herself to the necromancer. "I had my reasons."

The lich nodded benevolently. "I hope so, woman, for look what you have wrought on my land. Consequences," he added, "there are consequences to every action. Now see yours."

Tazi refused to meet his accusing glare and turned back to view the destruction. As another eruption shook the balcony, the mountains started to disgorge molten flows of lava, red and gold. From several of the peaks, the burning magma began its inexorable path down the slopes li^e a deadly tide. She could see that there was nothing to stop its flow save for the villages and towns in its lethal path. And that was not the end of it.

Tazi watched as, first from one tunnel and the next, unspeakable horrors began to pour out of every crevice in the Thaymount. Like a row of ants leaving their mound, the line of creatures seemed unending.

Demons of all shapes and sizes crawled out of the ancient tunnels. Twisted versions of darkenbeasts took to the skies and even albino creatures that had never seen the light of day cautiously clambered out. Their numbers seemed immeasurable. High up on the balcony, there was a sense of unreality as though they were removed from the danger, but another quake reminded the spectators that they were every bit as vulnerable as the unknowing masses below on the Escarpment.

"There must be thousands upon thousands," Tazi breathed.

"Perhaps we can make it down below and warn the others to flee while they can," offered Aznar Thrul, who was sweating profusely, though not from the overwhelming heat.

"You mean flee so you can escape," Lauzoril corrected him harshly. "Always thinking of yourself, aren't you?"

So much for alliances, Tazi thought as the two traded insults.

"There might be a way to stop the demon," Nevron offered. "There might be a way to bind him again." Tazi recalled that he was the wizard Naglatha had said had an interest in demon spells. She turned to regard him more closely.

"Leave off," Azhir shouted at him, the image of unbridled fury. "Magic got us into this, but it will take an army to stop those monstrosities. Don't you agree, SzassTam?" she asked the lich, searching for support. The necromancer, however, remained impassive.

The Red Wizards launched into a tirade amongst themselves as to who had the better plan, seemingly oblivious to the rain of fire. Tazi listened for a moment then exploded at their bickering.

"Shut up!" she screamed. With ash falling around her and lava bombs streaking the sky behind her, she commanded their attention like a raging angel.

"Even in the midst of this-" she gestured with one gauntlet-covered hand to the hell behind her- "you cannot work together? Your land will die if you do nothing!

"Ignore everything else and see the obvious. Perhaps binding the demon might stop the waiting disaster, but no one knows. What we can see is death pouring down the mountainside. That needs to be stopped. And we have the means to do it."

"What do you have in mind?" Szass Tam asked her.

"On my way up, I saw the vast armies that dot the sides of the Thaymount. You yourselves bragged at dinner how many thousands of creatures you posses," she told the small assembly. "There must be more housed within these walls. We'll use them, one and all, against the demon spawn and as shields themselves, if we have\J: o. They will stop the lava flows," she finished.

The Red Wizards regarded her with stunned amazement. Szass Tam tilted his head and scrutinized her closely, contemplating her words. Even the duer-gar appeared taken aback by her suggestion.

"It won't work," Aznar Thrul stated flatly and shook his head.

"Why not?" Tazi shouted to be heard over the continued rumbling as another peak vomited out more lava.

"It might," interrupted Azhir Kren. "It just might."

"They'll never do it," Nevron disagreed.

"He's right," Lauzoril said. "Those beasts will never follow just one leader. Never."

"It has to be tried," Tazi argued. "What other choice is there?"

"There is another," Szass Tam offered. Before he was able to say more, a shower of molten rocks sprayed the balcony. The group sought shelter as best they could, using the support stones of the balcony for cover. Most escaped the threat, but one was not so fortunate. Azhir Kren screamed in agony as her shoulders and arms were struck by the red-hot projectiles. Lauzoril caught her before she tumbled off the balcony, unconscious from the pain.

"Inside," Szass Tam commanded the others.

"Back into the flames?" the dwarf demanded.

"There is another corridor," he replied.

Tazi and Justikar led the way again as Szass Tam and the others trailed behind, dragging Azhir Kren with them.

"To the left," she heard the lich say, and Tazi blindly felt her way through the smoke-filled hall until she found the route he meant.

As soon as she started down the passageway, her vision began to clear. She realized that they were dropping deeper into the Citadel, and they were quickly down below the level of the smoke from the council room blaze. The corridor began to twist downward in a spiral, and steps formed under Tazi's feet. She had no idea how far they continued down. Everyone had grown silent, and the only sound was the rumble of the mountains and the howls that grew in strength. Eventually, Tazi saw a glimmer of light ahead.

With the duergar at her heels, she led the way into another chamber and stopped in her tracks. Before her, the room opened onto a platform. Beneath that platform, it opened further into a cavernous mass too large for Tazi to see the end of. With glow lights scattered across the walls, Tazi beheld an unholy sight. Stacked up from side to side, shoulder to shoulder, stood thousands upon thousands of troops. But it was an army the likes of which she had never seen before.

Tazi heard the others behind her let out a collective gasp-all except for Szass Tarn. Tazi looked from him back to the forces lined up like clay figures, but at the ready. She could see that they wore armor and clothes in varying degrees of decay, and even from where she stood, she could see their skin had a grayish cast to it. Their rusty weapons glinted in the sorcerous light.

"I think you are^amiliar with them," Tarn said to her.

Even with the Citadel crumbling around their ears, one of the other Red Wizards found something to complain about.

"Szass Tarn," Aznar Thrul shouted, "you never said you had this many housed here. This goes against any agreement we might have-"

"Enough!" Tazi whirled around and shouted to the bald wizard. "Now is not the time!" He looked at her with his hateful, black eyes but held his tongue. She turned her attention back to the lich.

"Up there," she motioned with her sword, "you said there was another way. Let's hear it now."

"I think you were on the right tack with the obvious use of the armies. But for us to be successful, we must work together, lady."

Tazi shivered despite the heat when she heard the necromancer link himself to her.

"Explain," she said and hated herself for not seeing another choice.

"Lead the forces as you said, and I will work with Nevron to find a spell to bind Eltab," he explained to her. "I bound him once; I can do it again. With him under our power, the rest of the demons will obey. It is Thay's only chance." And, for the first time, Tazi heard true emotion in the lich's voice. She believed he might find a way.

"Will they follow me?" she asked and looked past him at the hateful troops of juju zombies. Though their bodies were dead, Tazi could see an evil light in their eyes. They shifted in place but made no sounds. Tazi almost wished they would groan just so she would know where they were when she turned her back on them.

"Do you take this on, lady? The choice is, as always, yours to make," the lich said and glided in front of her. Tazi saw the dwarf raise his axe questioningly.

Tazi looked from the lich to the dwarf and finally to the troops. Another quake shook the building, and she could hear inhuman growls from deep below them. She knew the hell that was loose was her doing, and Tazi shut her eyes solemnly. There was no other choice to be made.

"Yes," she replied and looked the lich straight in the eye. "I will."

"Good," he answered and seized her by her left shoulder. Tazi felt energy course through her like lightning, and she was joined to the lich. She screamed in pain and shut her eyes tight; all the while, the lich's bony fingers burned into her skin. Her head lolled back, and Tazi felt a strange power course its way through her veins. When he finally released her, Tazi stumbled a bit backward and blinked hard. Her shoulder ached where the necromancer had touched her, and when she was able to focus her vision, she saw a strange mark located there, no bigger than a gold piece where the lich's fingers had been. The burn resembled two hands, one skeletal and one human, gripping each other. She looked at him in wonder.

"They will answer to you now, Thazienne Uskev-ren," he told her, and Tazi was startled to hear Szass Tam address her by her given name. She briefly wondered what else he now knew about her and what, if anything, she might know about him after their intimate exchange. Save that for another time, she told herself.

Tazi surveyed the number of zombies and remembered the scene from above. "More," she told Szass Tam. "We need more than this."

"Come," he told her and Tazi saw he now smiled at her. He floated back along the platform to another passageway and motioned for the others to follow.

"How many tunnels honeycomb this place?" growled the duergar questioningly.

"More than you could discover in several lifetimes," the necromancer answered. "And even if you had the time, you would never find what you seek."

Tazi was certain that Szass Tarn now knew about Justikar's brother through her.

I'm sorry, she thought to the dwarf but got no response.

Farther down they went, all the while the screams and calls grew louder. A violent shudder gripped the building, and Tazi slammed into the wall and tumbled down some of the stairs, the dwarf right after her. Lauzoril struggled with the unconscious Azhir in his arms, and Nevron and Aznar clung to each other. Only Szass Tarn remained upright since he floated above the melee.

The corridor spiraled farther down, and Tazi braced her hands against the narrow walls to keep herself from tumbling again as the quakes continued with hardly a break between them. Tazi seriously wondered if the structure was going to be able to take much more abuse before it collapsed and buried them all. However, a few twists and turns later, they found themselves in another chamber. Not nearly as large as the one that housed the zombie forces, it was still of an impressive size. Tazi swallowed hard when she saw that it sheltered flocks of darkenbeasts. The creatures squawked and pushed against each other, snapping at one another's eyes. Standing as tall as the dwarf, the monsters had wingspans nearly twice that. Their bodies mostly resembled a bat's form, though a reptilian head perched atop their curved necks. Their skin was stretched tight across their skeletal frames, and Tazi could see their bones glowing through. Some were green while others were an odd shade of purple. They had razor sharp claws, and they scratched at the stone floor incessantly. Created by fell magic, the creatures could only survive as they were in the darkness. If sunlight struck them, they turned back into their original, untainted form, be it field mouse or rabbit, and died.

"And how can I control them?" Tazi asked and was afraid that she and Szass Tarn might have to bond again.

"These creatures are a bit simpler to manage. They respond best to mental rather than verbal orders. Pictures in their minds work best. I think you would be best served if you used your pet in this case," he told her.

"My pet?" Tazi asked.

The lich nodded toward the duergar. Tazi realized that the necromancer was aware of Justikar's mental abilities. Whether he knew that from his brief communion with her, or if he could simply sense the duergar's telepathic abilities, she wasn't sure. And it didn't matter. Tazi turned to Justikar and sat on her haunches before him. Another tremor shook the structure, and the darkenbeasts screeched and cawed at each other even more frantically.

"I can't ask this of you, but I will. Would you do this, Justikar?" Tazi asked the dwarf. "Would you lead these creatures into a battle we will probably lose for no other reason than to save people you don't even know?"

"With odds like that, how could I refuse, human?" he sniped.

"I mean it," she said, all joking aside. "Will you?"

The duergar regarded her with his river rock eyes. "I never joke," he replied. Tazi gripped him on the shoulders but restrained herself from embracing him any further.

"Out of my way," he said gruffly and brushed her hands aside. He stepped past her and the lich and faced the hordes of darkenbeasts solemnly. Tazi's skin crawled as she recollected what it was like to face the monsters in battle. She had no idea what the dwarf felt at that moment.

Tazi watched as he sheathed his axe and raised his hands out toward the screaming creatures as though he were pronouncing a benediction. His eyes widened, and Tazi could almost feel the tug of his mind. She saw that some of the creatures shrieked in apparent protest. Some flapped their wings in anger, while others just ignored the duergar. She could hear Justikar mutter foul oaths under his breath. It seemed to no avail, though, and Tazi thought he had failed. But, after what seemed to be an eternity, the crowd of birdlike things began to quiet down and calm themselves. Amazed, Tazi saw them fold their wings against their thin bodies and focus their small, black eyes at Justikar. Sweat rolled off of the dwarf, and he slowly lowered his hands. Tazi caught a glimpse of them trembling.

"I think we understand each other," he announced to the silent group, after collecting himself.

Tazi faced the lich again. "What else have you got hidden here?" she demanded.

"There is one more place to go. Follow me," he told her.

"Stay here," Tazi said to the dwarf. "I can see a gate down there. Does that lead to the mountainside?" she asked Szass Tarn. He nodded and Tazi turned back to the dwarf. "Wait with them until the last rays of the sun have faded," she instructed him.

"Then what?" Justikar asked her tiredly.

"Then kill everything in your path."

"I can do that," he replied with an evil grin.

Tazi followed Szass Tarn and the others to one last set of barracks within the Citadel. The room resembled a laboratory more than anything else, with shelves of jars and potions and a large vat off to one side. Large, armored humanoids milled about inside. Their stooped posture and pig faces marked them as ores. And these, like the ones Tazi saw with Naglatha on their journey to the Thaymount, had mottled skin the color of dried blood.

The tremors had set the beasts on edge, and they were quarreling with themselves. Unlike the zombies, though, their armor was in the best of condition, and Tazi could also see a wall that held an array of fine weapons behind them. The ores grunted and paced about, itching for something to crush, their yellow eyes flashing.

"These were to be a gift for Azhir Kren," the lich explained. "She has been anxious for some time to invade Rashemen, and I would not allow it. I thought if she had a set of new troops to train, it might keep her occupied for a while.

"They've been imprinted to recognize her," he continued and glanced at Lauzoril's unconscious burden. "Sadly, I fear she is in no condition to lead them now."

"What can we do so that they will follow me?" Tazi asked. "Unless, of course, one of you would like that honor on the field of battle?" The other Red Wizards remained silent. Bits of the ceiling tumbled down, emphasizing how little time they had left.

"What can you do to make them follow me?" Tazi asked Szass Tarn, knowing it would have to be her.

"That is the tricky part. Aside from Azhir Kren, the only other they would follow would be a leader of their own kind."

"What?" Tazi said.

"They will only recognize another Blooded One. You must become one of them if you are to lead them."

"How can I?"

"In the corner there," Szass Tarn pointed to the large vat Tazi had seen when they first entered the room, "is where we create the Blooded Ones. The young are dipped in a vat of alchemical blood and when they emerge-"

"They're stronger and more powerful and easier to control," Tazi finished for him.

"Correct," replied the lich.

"But I thought the process only worked on the young?"

"Correct again, Thazienne. In the past, it has proven potentially fatal on adults," he finished. "I do not know what else it might do to you, or how long the effects might last, if you even survive the process. But it is a risk you will have to take."

"My choice?" she questioned him.

"Always," he replied easily. "It is always your choice. Remember that."

Tazi faced the gathered wizards. Then she looked back, swallowing hard. "What do I have to do?"

"Climb into the vat and submerge yourself completely in the blood. When you rise, if you live, you should be able to marshal the ore forces."

"If…" she pointed out.

Tazi walked over to the wooden vat that was nearly ten feet high and swayed as another tremor rolled past. She climbed the small set of steps along the side of the container and peered over the rim. She saw the maroon liquid roll and slosh with the quake, thick and syrupy, and she briefly wondered where it came from. She banished the question immediately from her mind.

Doesn't matter now, she told herself.

Tazi felt her gorge rise and burn the back of her throat. The smell of hot copper filled her nostrils as well as a burning whiff of acid. She swallowed hard and looked over her shoulder at Szass Tam. He floated gently above the ground, his robes barely brushing the stones set in the floor, and regarded her with his cold stare. Tazi turned back to the vat and climbed the rest of the way up.

She balanced on the tiny platform for a moment, and the room grew deathly silent. Then she crossed her arms over her chest and stepped forward to plummet straight down into the pool of blood.

Tazi cut through the liquid like a knife. The moment she hit the fluid, Tazi felt every part of her catch fire. Hot and cold sensations ran along her body, from the ends of her hair to her toes. She felt nauseous and light-headed at the same time. She wanted to scream but knew if she opened her mouth she'd be drinking the tainted blood. Images stabbed through her brain-foreign and familiar at the same time, and she felt a rage burn into her. Lights flashed behind her eyelids, and she twitched spasmodically.

When she could stand no more, Tazi burst up from the blood like some blighted phoenix, and she sucked in great drafts of air. When her breathing had calmed a measure, she grabbed for the platform and pulled herself up. She hooked a leg along the side of the tub and used that and her arms to haul herself back onto the platform. She kneeled there for a moment, feeling her heart pound so loudly she was certain the organ might rupture from the strain. Her leathers were soaked in blood, her skin no longer recognizable.

She rose slowly to her feet and spread her arms wide, her hands curling into fists. Anger boiled up within her. Blood dripped from her arms and her hair was plastered to her face and neck in thick strips. Tazi was a study in crimson. She let her head fall back and bellowed out an animal cry of fury and pain. From the barracks, the ores stopped their quarreling and gradually lowered their arms. They heard Tazi's call and responded to her in kind. First one ore then another joined until all of them roared back as one. Zulkir Nevron clamped his hands over his ears against the horrendous cry.

Tazi straightened her head and opened her eyes. Blood tracked down her face like a trail of ruby tears. She met Szass Tarn's amazed stare and said evenly, "I'm ready."

Tazi was lost in a red haze. She pushed past the astonished wizards and entered the barracks of the ores. They continued to howl and snarl but parted before her. Some smashed chairs and others beat their swords and spears against the floor. Tazi spun around until she found what she was searching for: a gate like the one in the darkenbeasts' pen, which opened to the mountainside. She pulled at the handle fruitlessly, foot braced against the wall.

"Open it," she bellowed to the lich.

Szass Tam made a single pass of his skeletal hand, and the gate's lock sprung free. Tazi threw open the doors, and the raging ores streamed past her into the growing darkness. She cast one backward glance at the necromancer and charged after her troops.

The barracks opened up onto a gentle, downward-sloping stone field. Tazi felt the ground crumble beneath her boots. The heat from the mountains had turned much of the upper layers of rock to brittle pumice. To the east, the lava had made some progress down the peaks, and the demons continued to flow out of the crevices of the Thaymount. Off in the distance, Tazi saw the darkenbeasts swirling around Justikar and beyond them, the zombie troops began their march out.

A strange caw made Tazi turn her head and draw her sword. Not twenty feet away, a stable of riding animals was ablaze. The same intense heat that had cracked the ground beneath her had ignited the wooden slats of their pen. Tazi ran over to them and kicked out at the fence. Wood splintered everywhere, and the frightened mix of animals, eyes rolling wildly in their heads, burst out. Black unicorns and more ordinary horses galloped past her, as well as stranger creatures. One of the last ones to run past Tazi was Naglatha's own griffon: Karst.

She must have tethered it here, Tazi thought, and forgot about it in her hasty departure.

Tazi caught the beast by the neck, and it reared but couldn't break her fierce grip. Tazi swung her leg around the creature's lionlike body and hung onto to its mane with its mixture of feathers and fur. The griffon stood back on its powerful legs and thrashed about with its front claws in an attempt to buck Tazi from its back.

"No!" she screamed defiantly and held on tight.

Tazi had only seen a griffon once before in her life, though it was too young to be ridden. But, as a pampered child from a wealthy family, she had ridden her fair share of horses. And, as soon as she was old enough, Tazi had joined her brothers when there were mounts to be broken and displayed an aptitude for the task that surpassed her brothers, much to their chagrin. She hoped that breaking a griffon would be much the same.

Tazi wasn't disappointed. After a few minutes, the griffon settled down and seemed resigned to its rider. She kicked at its sides and clucked her tongue like she would've at a horse. The creature turned its large eagle head back toward her and glared with its golden eyes. And it took off in a grand, loping run.

Before the griffon had gone thirty feet, it sprang into the air with a great flapping of its wings. Tazi felt a moment of exhilaration as they soared into the air, the horror forgotten for one fleeting second. She pulled on its feathers like reins and turned the griffon, so they banked back around toward the barracks. Tazi leaned over to one side and shouted to the ores.

"To me!" and she didn't even realize she had switched from Common to Orcish, though the language was previously unknown to her. The ore troops stormed after her as Tazi headed over to Justikar.

With the wind rushing past her face, Tazi hoped her burning cheeks would cool. But the air was dry and hot and did nothing to soothe her. She could see the duergar cursing and shrieking at the sky, assembling his fell forces. Most, as far as she could tell, responded to him to one degree or another. As she glided in closer, Tazi saw that there appeared to be no end in sight to the line of monsters that spewed from the Thaymount, though they seemed to be mostly concentrated around one of the central peaks.

Creatures the likes of which Tazi had never seen, even in nightmares, crawled down the steep slopes. There were darkenbeasts by the thousands streaming from their caves. Unlike the others, these creatures had burning red eyes, and their bones glowed red as well-not the green and purple she had seen before. Otherwise, there was little else that set them apart from the creatures under their own control. Lamias slithered from their dens by the dozens. But these sluglike creatures were fat and bloated like corpses left too long in the sun. Mostly gray, they had long, stringy hair and shiny bodies. By the red radiance of the lava and the eruptions, Tazi realized they left a slime trail behind them, and her gut instinct told her that trail would be poisonous.

She tugged along the griffons left flank, and they banked that way, slowly gliding down to the dwarf. But in the other direction, Tazi observed a different group of Eltab's forces. Climbing with great expertise against the slopes were monsters as tall as an average human. At first glance, Tazi thought they were the lizardfolk indigenous to the Surmarsh that Naglatha had mentioned. However, like the Thaymount lamias, the lizards were albinos. And Tazi recalled that the other lizardfolk were supposed to be simpletons at best. From her perch, Tazi could see several of the ones in the lead clearly give orders to those bringing up the rear. She watched as they fanned out and moved down the cliffs like they were a part of them, descending on all their limbs or walking upright, changing between modes when necessary.

The griffon lighted down next to Justikar, and he pulled his stolen war axe free, ready to ward the creature off.

"No," Tazi called to him and jumped off her mount to stand protectively in front of it. The griffon flapped its wings and squawked at the dwarf.

"Remember me, do you?" he asked. "Well, I remember you and what I owe you."

"No," Tazi warned him again and shoved him back, striking him in anger for the first time.

Justikar stumbled from her touch and turned back to her in surprise. "Who did you slaughter?" he asked, and looked her up and down.

"No one yet," she replied bleakly, "but that's all about to change." She grabbed him by the shoulder and continued.

"You see there," she said and pointed to the range of peaks east of them. "As far as I can tell, most of the demons are escaping from those points." She released her hold on the duergar and squatted down, drawing a map in the fresh soot at their feet. "If we can get our forces to form a semi-circle from here-" she motioned with her finger to the drawing of the gorge between the peaks- "to here-" she then drew a line to the location where she had seen, from her aerial pass, a dormant field of ashfall- "we might be able to cut them off."

"And what about the lava?" he added.

Tazi looked up to meet his grim stare. "One thing at a time."

She rose up. "I'll take the foot soldiers and lead them into position. Can you handle those in the air?"

"Do I have a choice?" he grumbled.

Tazi heard the echoes of Szass Tarn's words when she answered, "You always have a choice."

Without waiting for a reply, Tazi mounted the griffon and kicked it hard with her heels. The winged animal leaped into the sky almost joyously, and Tazi felt that it was only happy when in flight. Or perhaps it just felt safer there, away from the trembling ground. Considering the black and red clouds of darkenbeasts that were forming along the gloomy horizon like a storm, Tazi was certain the beast would soon revise its notions of safety in the sky.

She pulled on its feathers, and they swooped down low over the battalions of zombies. Though dead, they wore an eager look on their faces as though anticipating the coming bloodshed. Tazi was uncertain how to order them. She reached over and gingerly rested her right hand along the fell mark on her left shoulder. She closed her eyes and imagined the undead lining themselves up as she had envisioned it. She kept the images clear and simple. When she opened her eyes again and circled back around, she could see that they had begun to take up her formation.

Tazi soared down close to the ground where the troop of Blooded Ones had gathered just downhill from the zombies. They were hardly winded from their run, and Tazi could see several of them were gnashing their heavy canines and sniffing the air hungrily. Watching them, she could feel the blood start to throb in her own head. She drew her sword and pointed toward the ashfall in the distance.

"We meet up with the soldiers to the west and form a line to the ashfall along the eastern slope," she called easily in Orcish. "We form that line and let nothing cross it alive. Do you hear me? " she screamed at them. The troop howled in agreement, beating their swords and cudgels against their shields. Tazi took to the air and assumed a position circling her growing wall of soldiers.

She could see Justikar holding an arm up toward the mass of darkenbeasts that were swirling around in frenzied flight, awaiting her signal. From one side to the other, the legions of undead and the Blooded Ones joined forces, forming a solid barricade, an unholy alliance. Farther north, Tazi could see more and more of Eltab's demons surge out of the Thaymount. Another eruption shook the region as Tazi turned her head from one side to the other to take one, last inventory.

"Now!" she screamed long and loud. Justikar released his hold on the darkenbeasts, and they swarmed forward. The Blooded Ones broke out into a full run, while the undead marched relentlessly onward. Tazi kicked at her winged mount and dived straight into the demon hordes, sword flashing.

Szass Tam and Nevron re-entered the council chamber. Lauzoril had taken the unconscious Azhir Kren to a more secure location, with Aznar Thrul trailing close behind.

The gray-haired Nevron had called after them, tauntingly, "Do you really think there is a safe haven in this place as long as the demon-king is free?"

Lauzoril had ignored them and wearily carried Azhir away. Aznar Thrul shouted back over his shoulder to them as he departed, "This is all your doing, with your secret scribblings, so you should be the ones to take care of it."

Several of the lich's human servants had come into the chamber not long after the Red Wizards and Tazi had abandoned it. They had tried vainly to salvage what they could from the room and douse the many fires that still blazed. The lich's zombie servants had pointedly stayed away, as he suspected they would, because of their inherent fear of those very flames. He briefly wondered how Thazienne was going to manage to get his troops to fight with the burning earth all around them, but dismissed those queries as her concerns to deal with. The lich had other matters that occupied his attention.

The room was in shambles. Two women batted at the tapestries that still smoldered with heavy blankets that they had scrounged up from one of the many linen closets. Another was mindlessly collecting up the bits of shattered dinnerware and glasses, simply needing to do something. An elderly man slapped several parchments with a broom. Some of the papers curled up at the edges and wafted around like injured butterflies, and he alternated between swatting them and trying to catch them. He had already collected a small pile and stacked it against the wall nearest him. That was where Szass Tarn went first.

"Nevron, go around to the far side of the table where Naglatha had been standing before this disaster took place," he ordered the other zulkir. "I'll start in on these."

As the lich approached the old man, he could see the fear in his faded eyes. Szass Tarn ruled with a fierce hand and had little tolerance for failure. Many of his slaves bore subtle and not-so-subtle reminders of their master's standards. And it was clear that the old man assumed the catastrophe did not bode well for any of those who served the necromancer. Szass Tarn appreciated his quivering, obsequious behavior but had no time for it at the moment.

"You did well. Please continue," he murmured to the slave and floated past him to the remains of his stolen scrolls. He snatched up the fragments and didn't even notice that the man wept tears of relief as he passed.

With the pieces of his spell scrolls in his skeletal grip, the lich searched for a place to try and piece together the fractured puzzle. He saw that a smaller serving table was relatively unscathed though overturned.

"Right that for me," he told the two women who had extinguished the last of the flaming furnishings.

They scurried over, coughing heavily, and flipped the table upright.

"You may go," he dismissed them without an upward glance. He began to lay all the vestiges of parchment on the smooth surface of the table. Scanning the remnants quickly with his sharp eyes and tracing a bony finger across them, Szass Tam tried to cobble together a binding spell.

Barely looking up, he called over to Nevron, "What luck have you had?" The gray-haired zulkir was on his knees, tearing away at a portion of the smashed council table. He tossed bits of the wood madly behind him, and Szass Tam was hard pressed not to laugh in spite of the circumstances. The Zulkir of Conjuration looked for all the world like a dog frantically digging up a bone.

"I think there's a scroll, or at least a good portion of one, under the table leg-if I can just reach…" his voice faded with the strain.

"Got it," he croaked triumphantly, and when he popped back out from under the wreckage, his hair was askew and a smudge of soot crossed his forehead. But Szass Tam saw that he had a mostly intact parchment in his fist.

"Bring it here," the lich ordered. "Let's see what we have left."

Nevron walked over quickly, though he too continued to cough from the lingering smoke. Out of the whole room, only Szass Tam was unaffected by it, since he did not need to breathe. The zulkir placed the mostly intact scroll with the other pieces Szass Tam had collected on the table. Together, they read over the documents as best they could. An occasional quake rocked the chamber, but the two men were silent for some time. Finally, Nevron breathed in sharply and turned his head toward the lich with a look of horror and awe.

"I can't believe you found this," he said quietly and pointed to one of the burned fragments. "How?" he croaked.

"That is not for you to know," the necromancer replied.

"My whole life has been in pursuit of these runes," he said mostly to himself. "And now, to find them here, broken and incomplete…"

"Perhaps you can now understand why one lifetime is not nearly enough," Szass Tam told him evenly.

"No matter for now," Nevron dismissed the discussion. "Without the other pieces, I don't see how we can bind Eltab. We might be able to stop the lesser minions, but the tanar'ri lord may be beyond our reach."

Szass Tam was silent for what seemed like an eternity. He scanned the puzzle pieces again as though he might have missed the keystone, but it was not there to be found. He balled up his bony hands and pounded the table with a cry of fury. Then he smoothed his robes with those same hands and regarded the other man solemnly.

"I fear you may be right," he admitted calmly, "but we must try, nonetheless."

And he and the Zulkir of Conjuration began to chant.

Tazi flew toward another flock of Eltab's darken-beasts, carving through them with her sword as she had the others. The griffon swooped into the herd like a hunting raptor and sliced at the flapping bat creatures with its razor-sharp talons. Tazi gripped her mount with her thighs to maintain her seat on its back and hung onto its mane with her left hand. She twisted around to spear a darkenbeast that tried to find purchase on the griffon's haunches. She dispatched the creature though it left a track of bloody welts along the griffon's rear left flank. It screeched in pain.

When Tazi turned forward, she ducked low and hugged the griffon's neck as another darkenbeast swooped toward her face, missing her by mere inches. More started to surround the griffon, smelling the blood, and it reared back, flapping its wings furiously as the smaller darkenbeasts cut off all escape routes. One after another dived at Tazi and her mount, and she swiveled from her right to her left to slash at the monsters. But their numbers kept increasing. As they slashed down one, another two took its place. The griffon cawed in panic as several of the flying creatures began to target its vulnerable wings.

Like a black, rotting infestation, one after another of the darkenbeasts attached themselves to the griffon's wings. Using their sharp claws, the demon-king's minions ripped the winged beast's limbs to shreds. Golden feathers coated in blood swirled about, and Tazi could hear the animal's suffering, but she was helpless to alleviate it. The sheer numbers of the dark-enbeasts weighed the griffon down and Tazi could see they were losing altitude.

A creature slipped past Tazi's defenses and punctured the griffon's right eye with its talon. Blood squirted out, and Tazi's mount plummeted beak first toward the ground, spiraling in tighter and tighter circles. The creatures that were clamped to its wings held fast, and as the ground came screaming up toward them, Tazi leaped from the griffon's back at the last possible moment.

She fell hard, taking the brunt of the fall on her shoulder as she tucked up into a ball and rolled forward to land in a crouch, weapon still held high. The griffon was not so fortunate, smashing headlong onto the hard soil. As it lay in a heap near a rock pile, Tazi could see it was done for. Its beak was partially broken and blood gushed out of the wound. The ruined eye dangled from its bloody socket to stare blindly ahead. Its wings were practically denuded of feathers, and multiple talon rakes crisscrossed its haunches.

Despite these wounds, the griffon was still alive, and a few darkenbeasts continued to peck and tear at its flesh.

"Off of him, hellspawn," Tazi shrieked.

She grabbed one of the creatures by the nape of its neck and cleanly ran it through. Some of the other darkenbeasts then shifted their attention from the dying griffon to Tazi. One hovered above her head, clawing at her face and tearing out handfuls of her black locks, while she stabbed another through its heart.

Dropping her sword, Tazi reached up and caught the one that was tangled in her hair, her chainmail gauntlets protecting her hands somewhat from the darkenbeast's talons. She flung the screeching monster to the ground and crushed its throat under her boot. With most of the beasts gone for the moment or dead, Tazi picked up her weapon and strode over to the griffon.

She reached out a hesitant hand and stroked the beast's bloody neck. It opened its one good eye and looked at her imploringly.

Tazi raised her sword and said, "I'm sorry for this." But before she could end the griffon's misery, a great war axe slashed down and practically beheaded the winged creature in one stroke. Tazi whirled to see Justikar breathing hard and leaning on his bloody axe with both hands like it was a walking stick.

"Now we're even," he spat at the dead beast.

"Justikar!" Tazi shouted, though she wasn't sure if it was anger or relief at seeing him that made her cry out so.

"It had to be done," he replied.

"But you didn't have to enjoy it."

"Yes, I did."

Tazi sighed and rested against the dead griffon, trying to catch her breath. She wiped at her forehead, thinking that it was sweat that dripped down her face and neck, but her hand came away wet with her own blood. She blinked at her gory fingers.

"Trying to look like me?" Justikar asked her with a smirk, and when she glanced at him blankly, he pointed at his bald pate.

"Darkenbeasts," she answered simply, and the dwarf gave her a curt nod. "Where are yours?" she asked.

"Gone," he replied.

"They're all gone?' she said in amazement.

"They've been slaughtered," he nodded bitterly, "but not before they took out most of Eltab's flock. There's the odd clutch scattered around, though. I can still 'hear' them. And they still listen."

Without another word, Tazi turned away from the duergar and clambered up the large rock pile that was just behind the griffon's body to get a better view. In the red blaze of the fires and the lava that continued its inevitable course down the mountains, she could see mayhem and destruction everywhere. Along the western ridge, bodies were stacked like cord wood. Tazi could make out some of the colors of Szass Tarn's troops, now truly dead. Strewn in between, she saw the occasional lizard claw or bloated lamia tail poking through the carnage. On the eastern slopes, Tazi watched as her ores slashed viciously at the albino lizards. The reptile men had acquired weapons from the fallen zombie legions and were quite proficient at using them. But Tazi's heart sank when she saw that demons still emptied out of the central peak.

She turned back toward the Citadel and closed her eyes. She summoned the last of the undead soldiers Szass Tarn had left at her disposal. They marched out and began to assume the positions of their fallen brethren. Wearily, she opened her eyes again.

"They keep coming," she told the dwarf. "Szass Tarn must have failed in his bid to stop them."

"You think he stuck it out?" the duergar asked. "I'm sure he and those other sour-faced wizards fled as soon as we stepped out onto the battlefield."

"No," Tazi disagreed with him. "Somehow, and I can't tell you why, I think he stayed. For his own, warped reasons he cares about this land more than we do."

"Than I do," he corrected her.

"It doesn't matter now, if we can't stop them," she said. She looked to the peak that erupted again and realized that it was the only one still active. It was also where the demons continued to emerge from.

"All that's left is to stop that demon," Tazi added, "and I think I know where I can find him. Justikar, you have to lead the rest of the forces in my place."

"It makes no difference," he argued. "As many as we throw at them, they match."

"No," she shook her head, "forget that. What you have to do is fortify the barricade now. It's the only chance the people of Thay have. Stack up the dead if you have to, but make a wall to stop the lava flow. I don't care if you have to kill every last one of them to do it. Understand?" she shouted at him.

Justikar smiled broadly at her. "Now you're finally speaking a language I can understand."

Tazi shot him a grin in return and broke into a run toward the central peak. She didn't look back at the dwarf. She had to trust him now; there wasn't a choice any longer. And still Szass Tarn's words about choices and consequences rang in her head.

With the last eruption, a series of lava bombs were released. One came whistling down like a meteor in the night sky and nearly hit Tazi. When it struck the ground, the explosion blew her off her feet. She landed hard and was dazed for a minute. As she lay on her back staring at the red-gray night sky heavy with smoke, an albino lizard came upon her, spear in hand.

It thrust its weapon at her, and Tazi rolled to one side, narrowly missing being skewered by the monster. Its spear stuck in the ground, and she rolled back over it, using her body to snap the pole out of the lizard's claw and knock the shaft to the ground. As she rolled underneath the unarmed lizard, she stabbed up with her sword and killed it. Tazi got to her feet and took up the spearhead in her other hand.

She jumped over bodies and ran in a crisscross pattern, dodging flaming missiles and debris. Tazi sprinted as though she wore blinders like a horse. She refused to see or stop for any of the slaughter around her. Ores raged beside her, overwhelmed in their own berserker fury, smashing the lizards and demons with incredible strength. Tazi was lost to her own red haze. She sliced anything that crossed her path and was as unstoppable as the lava flow, slowly working her way up the steep incline of the central slope along the only narrow path that was not presently engulfed in lava. At times, she had to sheathe her sword and use her free hand and the spear to hoist herself up through the rocks and boulders, walking a fine tightrope. She was covered in sweat from the intense heat as she finally neared the core of the volcanic peaks.

Close to the top, she spotted a lamia that had completely encircled a fallen zombie, locked together in a twisted, lovers' embrace. She ignored them and tried to get past. The lamia, however, struck out with its tail and slashed Tazi's right leg, while it continued to constrict the corpse of the soldier. The venomous stinger cut through her leathers, and Tazi hissed in pain. She grabbed the spear with both her hands and drove it into the monster with a grunt of rage. The weapon not only impaled the lamia, but the zombie as well and pinned them both to the ground. The two squirmed there, caught like a strange multi-limbed bug on a dissecting table. She climbed on.

Tazi had to scale the last twenty feet of the nearly vertical face of the volcano. She struggled for handholds and could already feel her leg growing numb from the lamia's sting. She fleetingly thought of her climbing boots, abandoned somewhere back in Pyra-dos a thousand years ago. She wiped at her eyes to clear the sweat from them and rested her head against her outstretched arms for a brief pause. When she turned her head back, she could see the forces of Szass Tarn lined up across the field of battle like a hasty dyke before the floodwaters. She continued up the last few feet thinking that she might be Thay's last chance.

She pulled herself over the rim of the volcano and slid into it a few feet on her stomach, scratching her arms and face. Tazi scrambled to her feet as best she could with her game leg and looked directly into the face of hell. The volcano was framed by heavy clouds of smoke, glowing a dirty red from the fires. The heat was almost too much to bear and near the center of the fiery furnace, Eltab stood with his arms raised, great wings spread wide. In the heart of the tempest, he was speaking a strange language. To Tazi, it seemed older than time itself. But, judging from the way that the center of the volcano bubbled and boiled in time with his chants, Tazi believed he was trying to conjure up even more lava.

"Stop!" she shouted down to the tanar'ri lord, her voice almost lost in the maelstrom. But the demon-king heard her, and he slowly turned around.

His skin glistened like fresh blood, and his eyes were twin suns, blazing brightly. Tazi thought he had even grown taller, if such a thing was possible. His horns were longer and more gnarled, twisted high above his head. His huge wings flexed and twitched in excitement. Eltab gnashed his jaws and saliva hung like icicles from his huge canines.

"Ah," he rumbled at Tazi, "it is my savior."

"What?" Tazi demanded.

"I owe all of this," and he spread his arms even wider, "to you. I saw through that weakling's eyes that you were the one who brought the spells to the dark-haired woman. You gave her the key to my prison, and I am eternally grateful."

Tazi swayed as her leg started to fail her. She drew her sword and held it low at her side. "I'm here to put an end to this," she said gravely.

The demon looked at her through slitted eyes. "I should strike you dead," he told her, "but I see something in you, something familiar." He slowly strode up the slope of the volcano and stopped ten feet from where she stood. Since Tazi was closer to the rim of the crater, she was evenly sized with the tanar'ri lord. He passed his hand in the direction of her leg, and suddenly Tazi felt strength pour back into the limb.

"That is a small measure of my gratitude, woman. There is so much more than that in store for you if you want it," he promised her with the voice of a serpent.

"I don't want your gifts," she spat back at him.

"Are you so sure?" he asked her slyly. "I see you proudly bear the gifts from others such as myself." He gestured to Tarn's mark, and the crystal of Shar's she still wore about her neck. Steorf was right about the chain's strength, she thought absently.

"All I want is your head," she said in a low voice.

"Try and take it then."

Tazi charged at the beast as he waved his hand at her again. This time, however, there was no healing gift. Showers of fire streaked from his fingertips. Tazi realized there was no cover for her to use, and she raised her sword instinctively as a shield. To both their surprise, the eldritch weapon Tazi had stolen from Szass Tarn's armory absorbed most of the demon fire, though a spray of it skipped past the blade. She hissed in pain as her shoulder was scalded directly where the necromancer had left his sign, but she hardly felt it as she watched her sword glowing with Eltab's absorbed bolts. The glow diminished, and the blade was intact. She charged him again.

Eltab backed up, and he and Tazi began to circle around the rim of the volcano. Tazi was very aware that she could not move too close to the bubbling core for longer than a few moments because of the excruciating heat. The tanar'ri lord closed his eyes and flung out his right arm. He roared in pain as an extension of his bones burst through the webbing between his claws and grew to a length of four feet. He fashioned a sword of sorts from his own body, bits of marrow and tendon dangling from it, slick with his blood. Suitably armed, he advanced on Tazi.

They crossed swords, and Tazi knew immediately that she was outmatched in size and strength. When she blocked one of his thrusts, she felt the vibration of the force through her entire arm and shoulder. She realized that if she was going to stop him, she was going to have to find a way to outwit him. Tazi knew her life was forfeit regardless. With a cry of anger, she lunged forward and stabbed at him at every turn. The demon-king matched her stroke for stroke.

Keeping one eye on the bubbling core to her right, Tazi thought it was churning even more, and she realized she hadn't felt a tremor for several minutes.

It's building up, she thought to herself. The demon sliced her across the forearm, and the wound burned as if it had been doused in acid. As Eltab started to press the advantage, Tazi vaguely wondered why he only relied on his physical strength and didn't use more of his sorcerous powers against her. She didn't think Tarn's sword could protect her from much more of it. And as she backpedaled toward the core, Tazi started to wonder if she had been mistaken from the start. Had Eltab been strengthening the forces within the volcano, or had he been feeding off of them instead?

She dodged a gurgle of lava at her feet and managed to get behind the tanar'ri lord, away from the core.

"Do you wish to fight," he mocked her, "or do you prefer to dance?"

"I prefer for you to die," she replied, realizing how foolish she sounded.

As she engaged him again, Tazi saw that on the opposite side of the crater, several of the Blooded Ones were scrambling up. Eltab had not yet seen them. Tazi was caught unaware, though, and as a bit of the superheated rock crumbled under her, she tumbled down. Eltab leaned over, and for a bizarre moment Tazi was sure he was going to help her to her feet. Instead, he scooped up a §mall handful of lava and threw the molten stuff at her. She vainly tried to raise her sword against the assault with little success. The weapon stopped some of it, but most of the deadly slag caught Tazi along her right side and leg.

"What I give," the tanar'ri lord told her as he pointed to her now re-injured limb, "I take away."

Tazi lay still. In spite of everything, she held her sword more out of instinct than conscious thought. The lava flowed down the blade and though it emanated its eerie light, the sword could not absorb the heat a second time. The metal burned down as well, and Tazi dropped the blade before it could scald her. As the flaming sword fell to the ground, the initial, numbing shock Tazi suffered wore off. She howled in agonizing pain and writhed along the crater rim. Eltab raised his bone-sword for the killing stroke.

From across the crater, the Blooded Ones responded to their leader's anguish in kind. The handful that had reached the rim screamed back in a berserker rage. The demon-king turned in surprise at the new intruders. The ores, though caught up in a frenzy, didn't attempt to run the gauntlet through the lava. They kicked and smashed at the boulders and loose rock along the volcano's edge and threw their haphazard missiles and spears at the demon-king.

While he blocked the assault, Tazi realized she had lost. Tears of rage and pain streaked her filthy face. The right side of her body was all but useless, and she could smell her burnt flesh over the sulfurous belching of the mountaintop. She watched helplessly as the tanar'ri lord raised his hands in the air, and a wave of lava rose up to shield him from the ores' strike.

Tazi decided she wanted to die on her feet. She pushed against the ground with her left hand and struggled to rise. A glint in her right boot caught her eye.

Still nestled safely in her secret sheath, the crimson gold dagger winked in the firelight. It was all she had eft, and Tazi bitterly realized that she and the bewitching treasure had somehow unleashed the chain of events that wrought the havoc all around her.

As Eltab turned to face her a final time, framed by the wall of fire behind him, Tazi reacted. She grabbed the perfectly crafted dagger and threw it underhand to strike the demon-king.

"This can go to hell," she croaked, "and so can you." With uncanny accuracy, the crimson gold caught Eltab straight through the heart. He looked down at the sorcerous metal shaft that protruded from his chest in shock and disbelief.

"I missed once," Tazi rasped in explanation, "and let a great evil escape. I don't miss anymore."

He dropped his bone-sword and wailed, all the while clawing ineffectually at the dagger. The demon-king literally began to peel into two beings. His whole body was engulfed in a cool, blue flame that started on one side of his body and raced to outline his whole form. Eltab's head snapped back, and he balled his claws into useless fists, unable to dislodge the dagger.

His howls pierced the night, but his hellish rage did not stop the smaller, human form that tumbled from the tanar'ri lord's glowing one. Tazi watched, awestruck, as a red-haired human fell forward, the crimson dagger still embedded in his chest. And the tanar'ri lord, no longer anchored to his human host, toppled backward into the bubbling heart of the volcano, his screams cut off as soon as he hit the molten bath.

Tazi blinked hard and lost her balance. She fell toward the lava, too weak from her wounds to be able to stop herself. As her knees buckled, Tazi felt herself jerked back by a strong arm around her waist. She twisted her head. Justikar's stern face peered back into hers-an almost worried expression in his eyes.

"That makes two," he shouted at her. "Now we're even!"

Tazi couldn't speak. She glanced back at the heart of the volcano, half-expecting to see the tanar'ri lord rise up from the lava, but the world exploded around them. A giant quake shook the peak so violently that the far end of the crater rim crumbled in on itself. The duergar managed to find purchase within a nook along the rim and hung on to it and Tazi.

The remaining Blooded Ones, however, were not as lucky. They tumbled into the core, followed along by the rush of boulders and rocks from the volcano rim. The earthen debris sealed off the heart of the volcano and stopped the last of the lava flow.

Tazi felt the dwarf move stones and rubble off of her. He held her in his sinewy arms, and Tazi could see from where they were that the remaining demon spawn of Eltab's were retreating back into the depths of the Thaymount.

"With him gone," she whispered and didn't even realize she spoke aloud, "Szass Tarn's spells must be able to take hold."

The dwarf simply held her without saying a word. Tazi's head lolled to one side, and she could see somewhat down the mountainside. The lava had been stopped. But mired within the now-cooling flow were thousands upon thousands of bodies. Everywhere Tazi turned, all she saw was a sea of red. Finally, her wounds were toe much. As oblivion called for her, Tazi welcomed the cold darkness.