Interlude: The Hollow House

Once, a long time ago, the estate belonged to the Voytz family. Closer to the fog-shrouded, undead-haunted gloom of the Katze Plains than most would dare, it had been commissioned by Count Voytz - a man of morbid temperament, with a perverse sense of humor - as a summer home. The isolation worked in favor of it, allowing him to entertain a rotating series of mistresses without fear of scandal...But that idyllic time only lasted as long as his house's wealth endured.

A series of reversals, culminating in the deaths of the Count and his oldest son in a tragic hunting accident, had left the fortunes of House Voytz in a dire state. His second-eldest had been a rather more pragmatic figure; Unburdened by a sense of romance and saddled with substantial debts, he'd done the only thing he could. In lieu of repayment, the Eight Fingers had taken possession of the crumbling, yet still serviceable manor - It'd served as a safe-house, a stash for contraband before the long trek to Re-Estize or E-Rantel.

In truth, it was too out-of-the-way, too isolated - and, rumors whispered, too haunted - to be much good as either. It was a desolate place, made more so by the howl in the voice of the wind, the grim, jagged peaks of the Azerlisia Mountains meaning that the surrounding land was often storm-racked and lightning-blasted. Despite the decaying comforts on offer, few would wish to linger, whatever the reason - the general belief was that the place was haunted, and that was a hurdle no payout could overcome.

The Dust trade had changed all that. All of a sudden, there was a pressing need for a permanent presence in the region, to facilitate the collection and processing of raw Laira. It was, after all, cheaper - and safer - to package the finished product on-site for transportation, though the apothecaries of E-Rantel meant higher quality and less wastage. In addition, palms had to be greased, caravans guarded from opportunistic monster attacks and banditry, an eye kept on the villages and plantations that grew Laira to ensure that no-one was skimming off the top...

-All that, and the nameless estate had still remained mostly unoccupied. Few wished to linger for too long; Caravans preferred to make a brief stop to replenish their stores, then press on rather than stay for the night. A skeleton staff ensured that the place was manned, but turnover was high - You couldn't pay people to stay for too long. It didn't take a superstitious mind to be distressed by the bleak vista, the whispers (some said) that were borne on the night winds.

But the Ninth Finger had found a use for the hollow house.

And the skeleton staff that once manned the place became skeletons in truth.

For Rolth, every night since that day had been a terror. In the cold light of dawn, with the Great Work ahead and the promise of the glory to come, it was easy to ignore the worm of doubt; but when night fell, when the shadows drew close and the lightless hours lay ahead, sleep came fitfully if at all.

Drink helped. The hollow house's cellars were well-stocked, and few raised an eyebrow at his habits - A glass or two of wine helped keep the night terrors at bay, and it wasn't like there was much to do now other than drink and gamble now that the full blast of winter had arrived. Larn's games of cards helped pass the time, and Sevrance was an endless font of dirty stories. The eternal, non-stop rambling of Falk and Karcan was like a puppet-show; when you got bored, you could tune them out.

"We should get a woman up here," Larn had said, once. He'd been deep in his cups then, and everyone had thumped the table and agreed that it was a good idea. Then the obvious had dawned, and a silence had descended as they stared at each other; the only way a woman would ever visit this place would be as part of the Great Work. Besides, their patron wouldn't have liked it...And none dared to defy him.

None would even dream of it.

Rolth had a dream he never shared with anyone. It wasn't a grand dream, like the one Master Khajiit most assuredly had. It wasn't even particularly ambitious, not like Larn - who wanted to rule a city someday - or Falk, who aspired to the Inner Circle of the Society. No, what he wanted to do, really wanted, was to be the kind of man who did things right. The kind other casters would look at, and say: "That's Magus Rolth. There's a man to watch."

It wasn't his fault that his work hadn't been recognized. That the Magician's Guild had thrown him out - How was he to know that the circle's wards hadn't been sanctified? Magister Ysalt was the one in charge, and he should've known better. If you looked at it that way, Rolth was more sinned against than sinning; He couldn't have predicted the summoning would mean a half-dozen deaths. In fact, he'd barely been involved.

So he'd run to Zurrernorn, and he'd found that things were much the same as with the Guild. Worse, even; At least in the Guild, punishment didn't run the risk of ending up as one of the unblessed dead, set to toil eternally. He'd persevered, because he'd had little choice - When you were in, you were in for life and all that came after.

The tedious, grinding scutwork had taught him an infinite capacity for taking pains, and - after six years of patient service - Master Khajit had plans for him in mind. He'd been humbled and honored in equal measure, especially since there was a hint of revenge to the plan; All of E-Rantel, reduced to a city of the dead. That would show them all.

And then everything - everything - had gone wrong.

Dream. Or is it a memory?

The dead - as copious as an army, as unstoppable as a cresting wave - spill from the cool shadows, from the mist that hangs over the cemetery. They are all shapes and sizes and stages of deterioration, some cloaked in their own rotting flesh, others pale and naked bone; they fill the fog-shrouded graveyard with the profusion of a disordered marching band, shambling with lurching stride.

Their faces are uniformly pale and decomposed, like an endless orchard of shriveled fruit left to rot - A thousand pairs of lifeless eyes locking in unison upon the battered gates, mindless hunger driving them on. Bony fists crash again wood, the distant ring of steel-on-steel, the screams of the guards, like an echo of someone else's war-

Two figures whirl into view around the side of one of the crumbling grave-columns: the dark reaper and the giggling murderess. Their desperate combat is extraordinary, almost too fast for the eye to follow - Strike, evade, duck, slice, jab.

Two perfect killers unleashed.

"Kill him!" The Master's withered hand curls into a claw, clutching the Orb of Death like a talisman. The tendons stand out beneath his sickly skin, his crimson robes soaked with sweat as the sickly purple glow wells up from between his fingers. "Kill him, you useless slut-"

Rolth is backing away, slowly. The atonal chanting of the ritual has faded to nothing, the moans of the mindless dead not quite drowning out the clash of steel-on-steel, the flash of crimson sparks; Master Khajit's features are contorted with incandescent fury, but something tells him that the Master is no longer in control of things.

The burning remnants of the undead dragons sprawl across the shattered stone, white flame smoldering within their gaping wounds. Ash rains down from above, the corpse-titan combusting from within as it lolls brokenly against the wall it was meant to breach. The twitching phosphorous light of the inferno casts a surreal illumination over the mausoleums and tombs, the unquiet dead silhouetted against the light-

Like the end of a beautiful dream, everything is falling apart.

A single adventurer did all this. One man, terrible and graven in his aspect, surging from the dark like a nightmare. The pitiless glow of his crimson eye, the shattering howls of his devil-forged weapons...

This is the worst trouble Rolth has ever been in, and he desperately wants to wake up.

The others are exchanging glances, a secret, silent communication. No-one wants to be the first to flee, to draw the Master's wrath - But Rolth is fairly certain the Master has more immediate things to worry about. Larn's dropped his staff, shuffling his feet as he edges away from the ritual plinth, the others tilting back in fear like corn stalks bending in the wind.

A golden blade clashes with a wicked needle-pointed stiletto, a ringing chime pealing at the impact. The speed-distorted figures resolve into solidity, the fog rippling in the aftermath of the lightning-quick exchange.

But only one is hard-pressed.

"-Kuh. What the hell are you, you bastard?"

Gravel crunches underfoot, as the murderess coils upon herself, poised to spring again. Steel glitters in her hands, like talons - There's something feral to her, a viciousness unfettered by sanity or restraint. She's breathing hard, her breath smoking in the chill of the night; Blood drools from the wound in her thigh, droplets spattering the stone.

"...You're quite something, you know. Why not be my woman instead?"

"Are you stupid? Aren't you taking this a bit too lightly? It's no fun if you're not taking this seriously-"

"You know you can't beat me. No-one can. So...How about it?"

"...Hah? Are you an idiot? There's no way that I, Clementine-sama, could possibly lose! Besides-" Low, now. Mocking. "-I'm not into virgins like you."

The dark figure stiffens.

"Oya? Did I hit a nerve?" The smirk widens, like a wound worked in flesh. "That's it - That's the face I was hoping for! You-"

In that moment, even Rolth realizes that she's made an awful mistake. She's woken something up, something best left slumbering. Spite is a spur, spiking the reaper out of his languid good humor and into wrath.

Abruptly, the dark figure is in front of her. Rolth cannot say where he came from, except - perhaps - the shadows.

"Impenetrable-"

One golden blade goes clean through her shoulder, and carves her arm off with an effortless flick. As she draws breath to scream, the other blade cuts through her head diagonally, removing a third of her skull in a single blindingly-fast swipe. Blood and brain matter, black in the foul light, jets into the air as Clementine's head comes apart.

For good measure, Wolfgunblood kicks her corpse out of his way.

Master Khajit's eyes go wide with horror.

"A, acid Javelin!" It's a desperate invocation, the hateful bolt hissing through the air - Wolfgunblood does nothing at all that Rolth can see, and the spell flickers out before it can strike him. Acid spatters a grave marker, smoking as it eats through already-crumbling stone…

The pale reaper doesn't turn. Instead, he swivels his head. The motion is all the more terrible for how slow, how deliberate it is, red-glowing eye shedding an awful light.

His eyes narrow.

And Rolth is running, running, propelled by the fear that gives men wings. He runs like he could run forever, as graves erupt in geysers of earth and bone, the shambling dead hurling themselves at the unstoppable figure to buy their Master a sparse few seconds of life. The others are fleeing too, like a murder of crows startled into flight; the cries of panic and terror eclipse even the broken moaning of the dead-

"Cowards!" Khajit wails, but none pay him any heed. For this is death; Not the apotheosis preached by the Elders during the Black Masses, or the infinite darkness from which they draw their power. This is something more primal, more total - And, most of all, immediate.

Rolth runs.

Forever.

The tunnel is pitch-black, but Rolth can finally see a frail light ahead. He's already fallen twice, tearing his hands and knees against the rough floor - But the air gusts along the confining space, now, a flight of stone steps leading up to a small door of metal bars.

He's this close to weeping in relief. He's going to live.

Larn and Sevrance are with him - Both ashen with fear, Larn mumbling under his breath as he wrings his hands. None of the others made it; they could hear the bubbling screams, the explosions, the roar of the pale reaper's devil-forged weapons, and felt only relief that it wasn't them.

"He's hunting us," Sevrance mutters, the only one to keep hold of his staff. "Come on, come on-"

Rolth struggles up the cracked steps, fighting to draw the rusty bolt on the bar-door. Beyond, he can see the midnight landscape of derelict buildings and sheds, outside the walls of E-Rantel. Dimly, he can hear the shouts of the guards, glimpse the flicker of torchlight...All turned inwards, towards the cemetery. Towards the shambles of the Great Ritual of Death.

His numb fingers are still fumbling with the bolt, when Larn grabs his wrist.

"The Crown," he hisses, his teeth chattering in panic. His face is streaked with ash and grave-dirt,

It takes Rolth a moment to remember. The Crown of Wisdom, forgotten amid all the ruin.

"Yes, but-"

"Don't be a fool!" Sevrance spits, sallow face drawn in a mask of gut-twisting fear.

"They'll kill us if we leave it. You know they will."

With a lurch, Rolth realizes that Larn is right. The thought is a cold fist around his heart, his blood turning to icewater in his veins.

"We're going back," he says, fighting a surge of nausea. "-Sev?"

Sevrance stares at them. He shakes his head, because the alternative is just shaking.

"Come on, then. Before I decide you're both mad."

The light in the sanctuary seems opaque, as if stained by the foul nature of the place. Stone gargoyles leer from ancient obsidian pillars, carved hands cupping tongues of sickly green flame.

At the very heart of the chamber, surrounded on all sides by water, stands the remains of an ancient stone circle. The ritual markings, once worn to indecipherability, had been re-consecrated by fresh sacrifices; the bitter stench of the offerings linger like a miasma, a hanging odour of burnt meat and incense.

They step from stone to stone to avoid the stagnant water, hopping from one raised block to another. The wet rock shines like glass, moisture dripping and trickling down out of the arched roof.

When Sevrance slips - splashing, clumsily, in the knee-deep water - Rolth helps him scramble back onto the slab, hauling him up. Before, with Master Khajit at their head, it seems effortless; Now, every motion is clumsy, a struggle to fight the inertia of their own limbs.

And the fear.

Always the fear.

Larn is ahead of them all, eager for this to be over and done with. He reaches the islet that holds the stone circle first, staggering towards the solitary figure that stands, utterly silent and utterly still, within the binding wards.

He stops. The pale oval of his face, framed by his hood, swings back.

"There's something-" he begins, even as Rolth half-stumbles, half-wades to the raised platform.

"There's something he-"

Things begin to happen very, very fast. Larn has time for a choked, strangled cry as something seizes him by the throat, his robe flapping around his ankles as his feet leave the ground. His eyes bulging in his skull, he claws at the air around him, as though trying to fight off or prise away the unyielding grip that has him in its grasp.

A sickly light swells. Sevrance rears up, already chanting - He levels his staff, trace veins of energy crackling along the carved length. Something too fast to see, little more than a distortion, blurs across the intervening distance-

The staff explodes, taking three of his fingers with it. Retching, clutching at his mangled hand, Sevrance sinks to his knees; Thin sprays of blood jet from the ruined stumps, staining the water pink.

And Rolth sees it. A blemish of light, almost perfect, but not so perfect that the shadows behave correctly around it. It is a heat-haze blur, gaining solidity and detail by the moment as the veil draws away.

Just a man. Long-limbed and lithe, his face lean and refined. His clothes are dark, immaculate, without ornamentation or design, his limbs and back braced by skeletal frames of dull metal. A dust-cloak wraps his upper body, turned around his shoulders three times, fluttering in his wake like a funerary shroud.

One gloved hand grasps a long double-edged dagger, the other locked around Larn's throat.

Something about him. Something about those pale blue eyes - striking, mesmerizing - and the bland smile that never quite touches them.

For one eternal moment, the frozen tableau lingers: Sevrance, nauseous with shock. Larn, his face going purple as he slowly strangles. Rolth, looking straight into death's face.

And the Vanisher says:

"-I suppose you want to live, after all."

Rolth woke, struggling upward through smothering blankets of hungover sleep. Chilled with sweat, his limbs quivered as he stirred.

He'd been dreaming of the not-so-distant past, again. From that moment on, everything had changed - they'd been given a second chance at the Great Work, a chance that had most assuredly saved their lives. Their patron had changed, but the work remained the same; Only, even Master Khajit had his moments of humanity.

Their new master had none.

The thought made his chest ache, a twinge of not-quite-healed pain. With new allegiances came new oaths, fell and terrible - But it came with power, too. The Orb of Death was nothing, nothing, compared to what they'd been given.

If they'd known before...

There was a wretched taste in his mouth. Rolth fumbled for the square, squat bottle on the nightstand, the one constant amid the decaying finery of the room-

It was empty.

He swore. Rolled over, scrubbing at his face with one hand, the world pitching from side-to-side as Rolth hauled himself upright. His sleep-gummed eyes ached, as he shook himself till his ears rang.

Outside, it was dark. The house had gone to sleep, and the lights had been put out. The dead that toiled on the grounds needed no illumination to go about their work - After the last Laira harvest, they had been sent to clearing and seeding the ground for the crop to come. As tireless and singular as automatons, they made the rounds without complaint or surcease, lurching unstoppably through the breathing dark.

Despite their broken-limb shamble, there was an eerie silence to them, made worse by their implacability. The first, and only, warning an intruder could hope to receive would be pallid hands grasping and throttling, then the agony of rotten teeth sinking into flesh. The dead were relentless, for they had no capacity for fear.

Rolth, as he freely admitted to himself, was entirely the opposite. After that night, he'd been nothing but fear.

Rolth pulled on his boots and stepped out into the hallway, pulling the door of his room closed behind him. His eyes adjusted to the gloom; Some little starlight was seeping in through the skylights and smudged window panes, and certain shapes had a silver outline. The rest was blue-black darkness. He could plainly feel the chill winter breeze now, gentle but distinct.

With the full span of the grounds available, each of them had staked out their territory; Larn in the east wing, Falk in the central hall, Sevrance (who hadn't been the same since he'd lost his hand) prowling the grounds. No one knew where Karcan had holed up, but he seemed comfortable enough.

The halls of the manor were dark and cold, but Rolth was used to both. For most of five years, that had been their lives - the slow drip of meltwater, the scuff of footsteps against stone, the brittle rasp of Master Khajit's voice. They'd worked by lamplight, and sometimes by the sickly illumination of conjured flame; Most of the time, it was too dangerous to risk either, which meant working by touch and by memory.

The knack had yet to leave him.

Up ahead, there was the beginning of a sound; A clatter, then a faint thump followed by a low exhalation, like a sigh. Just the vaguest sense of a presence, like a memory one couldn't actually remember having.

Rolth - not thinking, acting on instinct - said:

"Sev? Is that-"

No answer came. His legs carried him another half-step forward, before he could stop himself; Squinting, to make out the vague blurs, almost invisible within the soft-edged shadows. Two, rather. At Rolth's words, the smear of shadow grew a head, then shoulders, then underwent a sudden mitosis that left a half-glimpsed figure standing over a crumpled form in robes.

There was the faintest flicker of a deep and arterial red, a hue from his most terrible nightmares.

He knew this.

He knew what this was.

Terror seized him, twisted his guts into a knot. Rolth could feel the scream boiling up from within him, and knew - right then - that if he let it go, it would never stop.

"You!" Unbidden, the words forced themselves out of him. The sight of that pale face, that terrible eye, clenched a cold fist around his heart. "It was you, all along!"

Wolfgunblood blinked, wrong-footed. His oriachlcum blade gleamed, in one upraised hand. Dark blood drooled from the golden blade, fat droplets of gore that marred the peerless finish of the gilded age. "-the fuck?" he said, canting his head to the side.

Somehow, beneath the fear, Rolth felt the inexplicable flare of insult. "All this time, you've been after me-" he spat, the brand on his chest burning cold. "You've always been there! I knew it!"

Wolfgunblood shrugged, and took a step towards him. It broke the spell; Rolth screeched in terror, the empty bottle tumbling from his hand, and fled. Dimly, he heard glass shatter, scattering shards - Vomit burned the back of his throat, his legs churning as he lurched back the way he'd come.

His staff. He'd left it in his room. It was his only hope.

Rolth reached the door, clawed for the handle. It flung open, so hard it slammed the wall. His gaze swept the darkened room, fixed on the figure already standing there-

"Think fast," Wolfgunblood said, and shot him.

Rolth's eyes bulged in his skull, as his right knee exploded. The pain was beyond belief, beyond imagining; His mouth opened so wide it cracked at the corners, so wide something in his throat tore. The world slid sideways, and his head smacked the unyielding floor so hard, dark spots shot through his vision.

Someone, somewhere, was screaming - a strange, high shriek, a wail of wretched agony that went on and on and on.

Oh, he thought, through a haze of shock. It's me.

And, mercifully, everything went dark.

When he woke, there was light. The hard glow of lanterns, shining almost into his eyes - A short figure standing before him. A shadow, silhouetted by the light.

For a single blessed instant, Rolth remembered nothing. But then unwelcome memory came crashing back, and his throat constricted with remembered terror-

"I'm a friend," the shadow said, and somehow the sound of its voice made it true. Rolth couldn't see the figure's face, but - somehow - the gentle curve of that ivory mask told him that everything, at last, was going to be all right.

He was with friends, now. The best friends he'd ever had.

Distantly, somewhere close:

"-all the others?"

"...only needed one."

"-might have told us more-"

"...will be sufficient. Fate will provide."

"-a real piece of work, you know that?"

Other voices. One was achingly familiar, and Rolth shuddered without knowing why. The slight motion sent a sudden, surprising pain shooting up his leg, knifing through him hard enough to make his teeth clench-

"Where-" Something was wrong, and he couldn't seem to place it. He tried to push through the fog in his mind, but found only a grey numbness.

"-What happened?"

Now the pain was starting to announce itself from other parts of his body, as well. An ache in his skull, a ringing in his ears, a counterpoint to the gnawing, stabbing pain in his leg. And with the pain - seeping in - came a kind of primitive unreasoning horror. Like some dread revelation, just around the corner-

And again his friend came to the rescue.

"No, it's all right. It's nothing serious - It doesn't even hurt anymore. Remember?"

It was so eminently reasonable, Rolth found himself nodding along. The pain faded as quickly as it rose. All in his head, he supposed.

"I...can't seem to get things straight," he confessed, a little thickly. For some reason, he couldn't get his lips to work right. "I was dreaming - It seemed real, but just now, I couldn't remember…"

"Of course you don't," the mask said, kindly. "Help us help you. Tell us everything."

Rolth nodded, because it seemed simplest. In truth, he felt oddly numb, oddly disjointed - But he didn't want to let his best friend down. Something tugged at the corner of his mind, a whisper of caution; But he did so want to tell them. He'd wanted to tell someone for the longest time.

And so he did.

The flight. The escape. Master Khajit. The Crown of Wisdom. The nightmares that never ended, that had become his reality. The brief days and long nights in the hollow house, still haunted by the dreams.

Once Rolth had begun, he couldn't stop. It felt liberating to confess everything at last, to unburden himself. To finally speak of the five years - five years - of darkness and waiting, then the long, long mourning that had followed, once everything had gone wrong.

How they'd been exiled. How they'd been brought here, with the simple goal of continuing their work. How fodder had been brought in - from where, he hadn't known, and he hadn't asked - to be turned, raised from death into their second lives of service. How the earth had been sown with a bitter crop of carrion, Laira vines struggling fresh and green from the sockets of empty skulls.

How the wagons had come to take the dead away, leaving the hollow house empty once again. Until the next time.

He even told them about Magister Ysalt.

And all the while, his best friend listened. She - and Rolth was certain it was a she - was perceptive, that way; She understood things about him even before he did. That none of it was his fault, not really; he'd only done what he needed to do to survive. What else could he have done? It was just the times.

When he was done, there was a long silence. Long enough for Rolth to get anxious - He didn't want to let her down, after all. Not the way he'd let so many people down; He wasn't sure if he could bear that.

Somewhere beyond his field of vision, there was the vague sense of other presences. With it came a vague fear - What if the reaper was with them? What would he do, then? As he looked into the soothing blankness of that faceless ivory mask, Rolth wondered where Larn and Falk were. They'd been gone for a while, now. Surely-

And his best friend was speaking again, and his doubts retreated back into the crevasses of his mind.

"Who do you serve?"

Rolth...hesitated. Unbidden, some formless terror was creeping back.

"I...can't say," he said, trying to make her understand. He wanted to, but he couldn't.

"We know the rest. Who is your patron?"

"No-"

Caught between two contradictory urges, Rolth writhed in his seat. He could feel cold sweat soaking through his robes, the dull ache of his leg spiked to a blaze. He gnawed his lip, so hard he tasted the coppery tang of blood, straining without knowing how-

"What's his name?"

"Please!" He couldn't. His chest ached, now - Worse than ever before. He stared into the mask, imploring, feeling his windpipe squeeze shut, a darkness dancing at the edge of his vision. All of a sudden, he was aware that his wrists were bound behind him; He pulled and pulled, the ropes creaking, sawing into his flesh-

"Where is he?"

The pain was worse than ever. It felt like serpents writhing within him, eating him up from within. There was a cold, slicing agony, all color draining from his face, a wretched numbness to his limbs.

"Stop," Rolth gurgled, froth foaming at his mouth. "Stop it-"

"Tell us."

"The V-"

A dark, stricken look crossed the necromancer's face. His jaw worked for a moment, trying to form words.

There was a brittle sound, an unpleasant liquid gurgle, and his head fell forward. Blood streamed from burst vessels in his eyes, his body folding in on itself. Teeth clicked together one final time, and he went limp, lolling in his seat.

Then there was only a last, rattling exhalation, and the patient drip-drip-drip of dark arterial blood.

Evileye let out a low hiss, as she took a step back. Even after so long, the face of death was not a welcome one. Especially not a death like this, where he'd tried to say something that the rest of his mind and soul simply forbade.

It was Tina who tore his robes open, her hand splaying against the cooling flesh of the slumping chest. Frowning, she canted her head to one side, listening. "It was inside him," she said, at last. "-Seen the like before, but not like this."

Her gaze flicked to Tia, a quick, uneasy glance. It was like the bad old days, all over again - Closer to home than ever before.

They'd seen the shambling dead toiling away at the grounds, the humid steam that had risen from the earth amid the long stalks of Laira. The black, loamy soil - churned by bone-handled shovels - had revealed yellowed slivers of human teeth, shreds of meat yielding to the biting edges of spades and mattocks.

It wasn't the dead that had troubled them. It was the way that they had been so casually put to use - not as guardians, but for infinitely more mundane tasks - that told of a merciless efficiency untroubled by humanity. And now, this; It spoke of both brutal paranoia and frightening sophistication, a mind that would go to absolute lengths to cover its tracks.

With his usual calm insouciance, Wolfgunblood stirred. He'd been leaning against the wall, his arms folded across his chest as they'd tied off the cultist's leg; In the long days of traveling, Tina had never seen a man so unflappable, so utterly unmoved by everything around him. He had the absolute assurance of invincibility, and it had never wavered - Nothing phased him.

Nothing.

The estate had been warded, but he'd simply shaken his head and led the way. It seemed like overconfidence, but Tia had realized - with faint unease - that Wolfgunblood had simply strode through the alarms and wards, breaking them without setting any of them off. When she'd followed, hopping and stepping over the glyphs, he'd asked-

"Is something on your mind?"

"How are you doing this?" she'd replied.

He'd merely smiled - a beautiful smile, for a beautiful man - and said "We all have our secrets." Then, without warning, he'd vanished into the shadows, and gone about his work.

Not blended in. Vanished, without so much as a whisper of effort, without the faint ripple left by magic or a ninjutsu skill. He'd simply swirled his coat about him, and disappeared.

Even now, she was still wondering how he'd done that.

All this time, he'd been watching events play out, his eyes - one crimson, one amber - hooded, his expression revealing nothing except carefully calculated boredom. Silver spurs clinked against the floor, as Wolfgunblood rested a gloved hand on the hilt of Bardiel.

"What now?" he asked. His voice was mild, but Evileye tensed, all the same - Her small shoulders drawing up beneath her cloak, her voice low beneath her mask. Wolfgunblood had never been anything but carefully, almost exaggeratedly, cordial to her; Yet, he still rubbed her the wrong way. There was something between them that neither Tia nor Tina had been able to decipher, something Tia doubted that Wolfgunblood had noticed.

Or perhaps he did.

Perhaps he simply didn't care.

"Back to Re-Estize," Evileye said, at last. Blonde bangs swayed, lightly, against the smooth oval of her mask. "Then-"

She stopped, abruptly. Lifted her head, as if at something only she could hear. "What-" she said, then, "No!"

For the first time, consternation flickered across Wolfgunblood's chiseled features. He had Bardiel in one hand, a blade in the other, lips peeling back from his teeth in a non-smile. With speed beyond belief, two swift steps took him towards the shadows-

But then there were no shadows, not anymore.

Abruptly, there was a soft gust of light, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. Alien, sterile, it poured upwards between the floorboards, through the cracks in the walls, a cold white void that was somehow more terrible than the darkness all around.

The spasm that killed Rolth had unleashed something far worse, something that had been laying in wait all this time.

There was a high, rising sound. A drone, like the relentless surrusation of insect wings. A sense of numbing dislocation, a whirl of nauseating color-

Even as the hum built to a painful pitch, as the blinding light turned them all to stark silhouettes, Tina uttered what she should have said all along.

This is a-

The light of the blast washed over them all, and swept the world away.

Next: Incursion