The soul poked his sandy-haired head up through the hole in the stone floor, looking around cautiously.

"Level Five?" he said, emerging slightly further. "Any surprise decapitations?"

Nothing happened. He turned and yelled back down the hole, "Aye, this one's clear, Lord Richard!"

"Well then get up there!" Richard called from below. "I haven't figured out how to make these staircases any wider."

The soul clambered out through the hole in the floor and stared around himself, face pinched. The walls were a slightly more pastel red than the lower levels, and there were no pits of magma to be seen. He sighed, his shoulders slumping.

With a hiss, something silver arced through the air and neatly sliced his head from his shoulders. He crumbled into a little pile of ash on the ground. Richard, just emerging from the hole, dropped back down below the level of the floor.

"A surprise surprise decapitation." he said over his shoulder to the soul behind him. "Classy. Hey up there!" he called. "I come in peace, I guess." Turning back to the soul again, he asked, "Am I doing it right?"

The soul shrugged. "Sounds right so far, my lord."

"Don't just say that because you think I'll be mad if you don't." Richard insisted, wagging a finger at the soul. "Because if I get surprise decapitated, I really am going to be mad."

The soul gulped nervously. "Er, you could be a bit more assertive, my lord." he said.

"Assertive. Right. Okay, I'm coming up now!" Richard called, and hoisted himself up through the hole. Behind him, a single-file line of ten thousand souls stretched down the spiral stair and away into the red-hazed distance.

Landing on his feet, Richard looked around critically, one hand on his hip.

"One, two, three, duck!" he commented to himself, just as a silver blade went whizzing over his head. "Now that was not very polite!" he admonished. "And here I am, only trying to help."

Before him stood a massive demon, hog-faced and barrel-chested, its black wings fanned out in full, smoke rising from its black cloven hooves. "Do not think I will fall for your tricks, wizard." it snarled. "The Demon Lord of the Fifth Hell is no fool."

"Of course not!" Richard said, hands raised, palms out in a placating gesture. "Nobody said you were." He turned to the soul which had been standing behind him. "Did anyone say this lovely specimen here was a fool?" he asked.

"Er, you—" the soul began, when it suddenly burst into flames and ran away screaming bloody murder.

"That keeps happening." Richard said, scratching his chin. "They just go up like that for no reason." He turned back to the demon lord with an ingratiating smile. "As I was saying, nobody intelligent here thinks you're a fool."

"I have seen what you did to those before me." the demon lord asserted. "And your rein stops here."

"Oh dear." said Richard. "That's going to be a problem, you see, because here I've gone and promised all these souls I was going to set them free from hell. They're going to be quite displeased about that. Remind me, again, whose souls are kept in the fifth hell?"

"Wielders of black magic." the demon lord replied. "But I don't—"

"Boy, for someone who isn't a fool, you sure are stupid." Richard said, and grinned.

The demon lord looked around himself and saw a mass of souls circled around him, staring with glowing eyes.

"Would you look at that." Richard said, shaking his head slowly. "How many would you say there are? Three hundred? Four? All these people with their massive amounts of power being suppressed by . . . oh, something around here. I'm sure I can break it, whatever it is."

The demon's skin looked much paler than it had a few moments ago. "What do you want?" it asked.

"I want a lot of things." Richard replied. "A coat of arms made out of real arms, a giant robot kitten, a pillaging shovel . . . but mostly what I want right now is to watch these people kill you." he said. "So first I'm going to break whatever you're using to keep them in check. Then I'm going to sit back on my soul-throne and watch."

"No, please—" the demon stammered, taking a step back.

"Can't he~ar you!" Richard sang. He stretched his arms out to the side while lightning crackled between his fingers. "Not over the sound of how awesome this is going to be."

The air began to shimmer, and smelled of ozone. The demon lord roared and leapt at Richard, only to be flung backwards by a massive bolt of electricity that struck from nowhere. Suddenly, a large gem set into the high stone ceiling exploded in a torrent of flaming shards, raining down upon the crowd of souls.

Richard smirked, and said simply, "Get 'im."

Through a cloud of thick, acrid smoke, a black-robed soul approached Richard and bowed. He was pale of face, his eyes steel-gray and piercing.

"My lord," he said softly, "the demon lord is dead."

"I think he was dead five minutes ago, but far be it from me to discourage overkill." Richard replied. He was seated on a wobbling stack of souls, arranged roughly into the shape of a throne. "But I guess we should be moving on anyways."

"Indeed." said the soul, hanging at Richard's left elbow as he propelled himself off his soul-throne and began striding towards the smoldering remains. "My lord, will you hear a brief message?"

"Probably, unless something deafening happens." Richard replied, then put his hands on his hips and gazed critically at the ceiling. "I have got to figure out how to make those staircases wider."

"I am—or was—a member of a powerful sect, which I believe may interest you. We are a legion of sorts—a consortium of powerful warlocks, formed to wage war on the light."

"A sect, you say?" Richard said, raising an eyebrow. "Is it a dangerous sect?"

The soul looked puzzled. "I . . . as a fraternity of the most powerful instruments of black magic, I would suppose it is quite dangerous."

"No can do, guy. Mother always told me to practice safe sects."

The soul gaped at him. Richard snapped his fingers and brightened considerably.

"Ah! I think I just figured out how to make the staircase wider. Stand back—I'm about to try science!"

He raised his arms, fingers splayed, and glared at the ceiling. A line of white fire shot from his fingertips and split the ceiling wide open. As the blocks crumbled, they fell into the shape of a sweeping grand stair, complete with banisters and volutes. Richard clapped his hands together and grinned.

"This is so cool!" he cried, and went dashing up the staircase, bare feet slapping against the smooth stone.

The pale-eyed soul sighed, looking mildly concerned, then followed slowly.

Light streamed down from the top of the red stone staircase, pale and golden, catching motes of ash as they floated through the air, illuminating the smoke and making it glow from within.

"You see that?" Richard said to the pale-eyed warlock, one arm draped around his shoulder. "That right there, my friend, is daylight."

Behind the two of them, a sea of hundreds of thousands of souls murmured amongst themselves, stretching off into the distance, not an end to them in sight. Richard slowly ascended the stairs towards the streaming daylight, gesticulating with one hand, grinning lazily.

"You see, once you get into the swing of things, it really isn't hard. All of these demons are terrific idiots, if you catch them off-balance. So here I am, undeniably brilliant and inarguably the most powerful creature in all of the Thirteen Hells, and what am I going to do with it?"

"What, my lord?" the soul inquired dutifully.

"I'm going to delegate it to you." Richard said. His hand tightened on the pale-eyed man's shoulder when he tried to pull away. "I've got far more important things to do than look after all these murderous traitors and their lesser-sinning cousins. So while I may be Lord of the Thirteen Hells, indisputable ruler of all that is infernal, you can be my secretary. And in return, I won't turn you into a smoldering pile of ash. How's that?"

The soul gulped. "Very fair, my lord."

"I thought so too. But then I thought, 'three hundred thousand is quite a lot of minions. Do I really need three hundred thousand minions?' And what do you think I decided?"

After a moment, the soul replied, "You would much rather have the best hundred thousand."

"Exactly!" Richard cried, slapping the soul on the back. "This is going to be a beautiful subservient relationship." He cleared his throat and turned to face the sea of three hundred thousand sinners, then whistled so loudly the walls rang. Silence fell. "Yeah, so I can only take about a hundred thousand of you guys out with me." he said. "I'll give you an hour to sort it out amongst yourselves."

The calm sea instantly became a roiling mess of fighting bodies, dust clouds rising like smoke from a bonfire. Richard put his hands on his hips and turned back to the door.

"I never really thought I would miss sunlight." he said, climbing the last few steps. He could see out the portal, where snow piled deep around the trunks of budding trees. "But I do. I'm going on ahead. In an hour, follow me with the survivors."

"But—"

"Toodles!" Richard said, and stepped out the door into a strange in-between world, where the snow-covered ground began just inches before his own bare feet, but retreated when he tried to step onto it. The walls of the cave surrounded him still, but he could feel snowflakes whispering past his face.

Before him stood a figure in a black robe, a long, polished scythe held in one bony hand.

Hello again, Richard, it said, its voice echoing off of nothing.

"Hi." said Richard. "Long time, no see. How're things?"

You know I cannot allow you to leave.

"Actually, I'm not so sure on that count." Richard replied, taking a step forward. His toe brushed the retreating snow. "See, I just killed thirteen demon lords in very quick succession. The ninth one gave me this nifty gem where I can put all the excess power so it doesn't rip me to shreds." He indicated a diamond-shaped, reddish stone that hung from his neck. "It's really convenient. Never let it be said that demon lords aren't accommodating when you threaten to hang them from their own entrails. Except Lord Four. But he made a pretty good piñata, so I can't hold it against him."

No one escapes death, said the figure, not even you.

"Speaking of which," Richard said, taking another step towards the black-robed figure. The snow scurried backwards away from him. "The whole time I was down there, I kept a close eye out for people I recognized. One person was notably missing. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

Your mother? Of course. Her time is not yet over.

"All those times you came lurking around with your cryptic warnings, those weren't about Mother, were they? They were about me."

I thought you would have figured it out sooner, Death replied with a shrug. I couldn't be sure of the exact timing.

"Oh, of course not." Richard's fists clenched and his eyes narrowed. "Enough small-talk. Let me out or I'll crush you, too."

Even you cannot kill Death, the black-robed figure replied, shifting both skeletal hands onto his scythe.

Richard took a single step forward, and his foot pinned the snow to the ground. The tunnel behind him rushed backwards into the distance and vanished, leaving him and Death alone in a wide, snowy field.

"Challenge accepted," he growled, and touched the gem around his neck. White light exploded from it, engulfing him and the robed figure of Death, clearing the snow in a wide circle around them. When the light faded and the powdered snow cleared from the air, Richard and Death stood at opposite ends of the circle, eyes sharp upon each other. Death's scythe glowed blue along the edge, and hummed in the air; lightning crackled along Richard's arms, and his outline quavered against the frigid air.

You have been busy, Death commented, turning his scythe ever so slightly.

"Very." Richard replied.

Then let us decide this, once and for all.

Richard grinned. "Come at me, bro." he said.

Death rushed forward, his black robe trailing into smoke at his feet. Richard flung a bolt of lightning at him, which he dodged seemingly without effort. Six more lightning bolts followed, each causing only a slight deviation in the path of the flying skeleton. The scythe sliced downward, tearing the air open as it went. Richard leapt to one side, hearing the blade hum past his ear. He landed hard on his side, cupped his hands together, and breathed into them. Death swung his scythe downward, and Richard flung a fireball into his chest, knocking him backwards. Richard leapt to his feet and struck black-robed Death with three bolts of lightning before he even hit the ground. The scythe went flying from the skeletal fingers, twirling through the air, landing twenty feet away and sliding in circles through the snow. Death began to sit up, when Richard's foot came down hard on his sternum, pressing him into the snow.

"You dropped your scythe." he said.

What do you hope to accomplish? Death asked, his bare teeth clacking together, the black holes of his eye-sockets glowing with a soft blue light. Freedom?

"That's the general idea."

There will be no freedom for you. Death replied calmly. Not now, and not ever.

"We'll see about that. Say, if I kill you, can people still die?"

You cannot kill me. You may defeat me for a time, long enough to escape back to the realm of the living, but I can never truly be killed.

"Good enough for me." Richard pressed down hard and Death's ribcage crunched. "Do you feel pain?"

Not as such, no. Death replied. Are you finished? I'm a busy fellow.

"I'm sure you are." Richard reeled his leg back, grinned like a maniac, and punted Death's head far over the horizon, one hand shading his eyes from the glare of the watery sun.

"Touchdown." he said, putting his hands on his hips and smirking. The smile slowly faded, and he put a hand to his head. "Whoah, I feel fun—" And he collapsed in a small, dark heap on the ground.

When he woke, it was night, and the sky was dusted with a hundred trillion stars, peering impassively down at him. He attempted to rise and heard something crack.

"Nobody said 'freeze,'" he commented through clenched teeth. Steam began to rise off of him, and then he erupted in flame. He rose, brushing off his arms, as slowly the fire went out. "That's much better." he said. "I suppose one of the problems with not having body heat is—who am I talking to?" He shook his head sadly. "I hope this isn't going to become a habit."

Richard held up one finger, peered at it for a moment until blue fire shot from its tip, then cut a perfect circle in the air with it. The interior of the circle fell inward like a pane of glass, revealing a red, rocky tunnel.

"Awesome," said Richard, and stepped through the hole. "Honey, I'm home!" he called. He waited a moment, then frowned. Stepping out of the hallway and into the wide atrium, he commented, "Awful quiet in here. Oh."

Before him was a sea of ash, piled in drifts and waves. Not a single soul was to be seen among it. At his feet, the pale-eyed warlock soul slowly struggled against a scythe that had been driven through his chest and into the stone steps behind him. He looked up, mildly miffed, and said, "Hello, my lord."

"It's been more than an hour, hasn't it." Richard said tonelessly.

"At least four hours, my lord." the soul replied. "But I think they had all destroyed each other by hour three."

"And how did that scythe get in your chest?" Richard inquired, looking down upon the soul.

"I believe it was Death, my lord." he answered.

"Did he say anything?"

"I'm . . . sorry?"

"Did he say anything when he stabbed you? You know, one-liners, anything like that?"

"I . . . don't believe so, my lord."

"Some people have no class." Richard said, exasperated, and turned to leave.

"My lord!" the soul cried. "What about me?"

Richard turned his head. "What about you?" he asked.

"Am I not coming with you?" There was a note of panic in his voice.

"Nope." said Richard, and casually tossed a fireball over his shoulder, incinerating the soul in an instant. "If I'm going to have thousands of undead minions, they'll be mine from death to life."

Something tugged on the third finger of his left hand. He looked down and smirked.

"Timing couldn't have been better." he said.

The graveyard was cold, lit in colorless relief by the moon and the bright white snow. Two dark figures stalked through the night, huddled against the chill, their breath puffing ahead of them like smoke signals.

"This ain't right," one said to the other, as he knelt before the large tomb in the center of the graveyard. "And it sure as hell ain't smart."

"Shut up and work." the other growled. "I ain't havin' any more of your damned superstition."

"Ain't superstition." the first mumbled, prying at the door to the tomb with a crowbar. It slid open slowly, brushing aside the snow to reveal the dark ground beneath. "'S open. Can I go now?"

"No. Get in there." said the second man, shoving the first sharply in the backside with his foot. The kneeling man fell flat on his face inside the tomb, where it was too dark to see anything.

"Lantern." the first man called, pulling himself to his feet and holding out a hand. "And what if there's nothin' in here?" he asked, accepting the lantern. "What if we come all this way for nothin'?"

"What part of 'shut up and work' din't you understand?" the second demanded, lurching into the tomb behind him. He pointed a thick-fingered hand. "That one. Most recent."

The first man shook his head, setting down his lantern. "Best we'll get off him is his weddin' ring. And what's that worth? Hrrrnk. Oi Tom, this thing's heavy."

"Let me, then." said Tom, shoving his associate out of the way. He took the crowbar from him and had the stone coffin open in moments. "Hain't been kind to his face, has it?" he asked with a chuckle. "And lookee here, a weddin' ring. Pure gold, I'd say."

"Ain't worth it, Tom." the first man said, now looking pale and sweaty in the lantern light. "I got a bad feelin' about this. A real bad feelin'."

"Hrm, stuck on there, ain't it." Tom said, tugging at the ring on the desiccated finger.

"Tom," the first man squeaked, "Tom, I think I sawr him move!"

"I'll have her off in a jiff, Greg, don't get so hung up. Ain't like he's gonna miss it." The ring suddenly gave and slid off the finger. "Hah! Got her."

Greg was backing away slowly. "Tom—!" he said, gasping for air. "Tom, somethin's wrong. I can feel it. We gotta get out of here."

"Come off it, Greg! Don't be such a bloody—"

The corpse jerked violently, a full-body twitch that thunked it against the inside of the stone coffin. Tom leapt backwards, and the corpse's arms raised straight upward, wrists limp. It sat up slowly, mouth gaping, eyes sightless and wide.

"Aiii liiiiiiiiiive!" it cried, voice rattling and rasping in the dead throat. Tom rushed from the room screaming, while Greg fell to his knees, clutching at his chest. The corpse chuckled and vaulted over the side of the coffin, landing on bare feet. It wiggled its toes and stretched. "I'm so glad someone was around to see that." it rasped, then turned its gaze to the grave-robber, crouched on the floor and gasping for breath.

"Congratulations." hissed the corpse, crossing quickly to him. "You have the honor of being my first undead minion."

The last thing Greg saw was a pair of featureless yellow eyes, with neither iris nor pupil, gleaming in the lantern light.