"What does that look like to you?"

"I have no idea," Thane replied.

Hemingway Shaw, Yexhill Thane, and Floyd D'Arcy stood around the rock-strewn perimeter of Berston Groad's Grave, looking down into the hole that Thane and Hemingway had just created. At the bottom of it they expected to find the earthly remains of Berston Groad... a long-dead criminal of local fame. What they found instead was...

"Where's the body?" Floyd asked sheepishly.

"Hmmm." Hemingway crouched down at the edge of the grave.

"And what's all that stuff down there?" said Floyd. "Looks like..."

"Roots," said Thane. "Looks like those roots ATE Berston Groad's body."

"Maybe," Hemingway said cautiously, leaning forward slightly and pointing. He didn't extend his arm into the open grave... but he came close. He wasn't THAT curious. "Or maybe its still down there... in the middle of all that."

The interior of the grave was several times larger than it should have been. Its walls had been eroded or dug away from the inside, creating a circular pit into which several of the adjoining graves had collapsed. Bits of stone and shards of shattered coffins jutted from the walls like broken teeth, but there was no sign of the bodies. At its widest, the pit was perhaps 200 feet across.... with every inch of it crisscrossed with a web of roots converging in a large knot in the grave's exact center. The knot was big enough... just big enough... to enclose the original contents of Berston Groad's coffin.

"Cancer," said Hemingway.

"Eh?" said Floyd.

"That's what it looks like," Hemingway explained. "Cancer."

Hemingway pointed to the ball of roots hanging in the center of the pit.

"The original tumor," he continued. "The roots are like veins and arteries. That's how cancer spreads through the body. Only here, it used them to get to OTHER bodies. See there... see how the roots get thicker near the other graves?"

It was true. The roots were thicker and more numerous where the adjacent graves had tumbled... or been dragged... into the pit.

"It dug through the earth to the other graves, consumed what was there, and moved on....look..."

Hemingway pointed, following the largest, thickest roots with his finger. They vanished into the dirt wall of the chamber, tunneling to places unknown.

"This whole cemetery could be empty," said Thane. He turned to D'Arcy. "When was the last time someone dug a fresh grave in here?"

"Years," D'Arcy replied.

"It's worse than that," said Hemingway. "I think this might be where our underground friend got its start. Right here in this grave. This is where it was born."

"With Berston Groad!?" Floyd shook his head. "Nooo..."

"How did he die?" said Hemingway as he stood up. "Was it magic? Some exotic poison-"

"Stabbed in the back," said Floyd. "Everybody knows that."

Hemingway frowned.

"With what? It wasn't with my brother's knife was it?"

"I don't know."

"Think! It's important!"

"I don't know! I wasn't there!"

"THINK!" Hemingway advanced on the old man.

"Calm down, Shaw," Thane pressed his hand to Hemingway's chest, holding him back... as if he COULD hold back Hemingway Shaw. "He says he doesn't know."

"Have you LOOKED down there?!" Hemingway shouted. "That man was infested with some kind of... DISEASE! A disease that-"

"And you are taking that personally because...?" Thane raised his eyebrows expectantly.

"I'm NOT taking it personally, I just want to find out what happened here. It's important that we find out."

"I think its more important that we do something about that grave... or whatever it is now," said Thane.

"December should look at it," said Hemingway.

"We just gonna leave it like that?" Thane replied, concerned. "No, I think we should burn it."

"But December would-"

"I'll DESCRIBE it to him," said Thane. He reached for the magic ring on his finger. He stroked the jewel, which flashed red for an instant before erupting into a corona of flame surrounding Thane's hand.

"Burn it," said Floyd. "Burn it all."

"I wasn't planing on leaving any souvenirs, old man," said Thane. "Let's hope this thing isn't fireproof-"

Thane pointed his flaming at the open grave-

-then suddenly spun and shot a thick, wide arc of fire directly behind them... engulfing the tattered human figure that had just leapt at them from the top of one of the above-ground vaults. Red and orange flames slammed into the Disciple and knocked it back. Both flame AND monster hit the upper corner of the vault... knocking loose a chunk of stone as the Disciple bounced upward and vanished behind the structure...

...only to reappear a second later. Still trailing flames from its shroud, the monster charged the trio of humans.

"GET BACK!" Shaw and Thane both shouted at D'Arcy.

Hemingway Shaw grabbed the closest weapon... a large pick-axe... and met the monster's charge with one of his own.

"YAAAAAAAAA-"

Shaw swung the weapon at the Disciple's midsection, but the creature's feet left the ground and it flipped over Shaw's swing. While in the air, the Disciple's shroud wrapped around the top of the pick-axe, yanked it out of Hemingway's grasp and flicked it away. The creature landed behind Shaw, and its burning shroud snapped backward like a fist, catching Shaw in the center of his back-

"UNGH!"

-sending the fighter sprawling. But at that same instant, Yexhill Thane's spinning hook kick tore the Disciple's rotting jaw loose from its skull. With its jaw now hanging by rusty wires and strips of decayed sinew, the Disciple slashed at Thane. Thane ducked, then exploded upward with a front kick that shattered the dangling jawbone and drove several chipped teeth up into the creature's brain.

If the Disciple needed teeth, a jaw, or a brain, then the fight would have been over.

But it didn't.

Its arm reached for Thane's neck. Thane twisted to one side, grabbed the monster's wrist with one hand while driving his other hand into the creature's elbow-

CRACK!

The lower half of the limb came loose in Thane's grasp... remaining connected to the shoulder only by a few strands of wire.

"KILL IT!!! KILL IT!!!" Floyd D'Arcy screamed.

"MMMMRRRRRRRR!!!" The Disciple growled/gurgled. It threw itself into Thane, knocking him aside and snatching its dangling limb out of Yexhill's grasp. The wires yanked the arm back into place, and the flesh immediately began weaving itself together... as it had already done with the remnants of the shattered jaw.

The Disciple's eye-sockets gleamed murderously at D'Arcy, who had taken refuge behind a large monument. The shroud spread out behind it and the Disciple half-leapt, half-flew-

SHH-CHUNK!

-right back to the ground. Hemingway Shaw had not only buried his pick-axe in the creature's spine, but had hooked it around the Disciple's backbone.

"Let's see how much fightin' you do without THIS!"

Muscles rippling with effort, Hemingway pulled back on pick

shhhrrrRRRUCKT!

-and tore the spine right out of the Disciple's decayed flesh like a root being yanked out of loose earth. The Disciple convulsed... and dropped. It was still alive, but unable to stand without a properly supported skeleton.

"HAAAA!" Yexhill Thane charged past Shaw, carrying Shaw's war-hammer. He brought the hammer down on the Disciple's skull, shattering it with a single solid blow.

"GO!" Thane shouted over his shoulder. Only needing to be told once, Floyd ran. So did Hemingway.

Thane stood right where he was.

"I'LL STAY HERE AND KEEP IT BUSY!"

"Not with MY hammer you won't!"

Hemingway Hemingway raced past the rapidly re-assembling Disciple... snatching his hammer from the ruins of the monster's skull with one hand, and pushing Thane ahead of him with the other.

"BUT I HAVE TO STAY-"

"And have Harrison angry at ME for letting you die? Ohh-ho-ho no, my friend! You'll RUN or I'll pick you up and CARRY you!"

They ran. Hemingway got the distinct feeling that, if he hadn't been running behind Thane, that Yexhill would have turned around and gone back to fight that unstoppable thing.

Floyd D'Arcy was ahead of them, but they were gaining fast. Bringing up the rear, Hemingway got a good look at Thane's tattoo... which wasn't there when Thane had first taken off his shirt to dig, but had mysteriously appeared at some point during the fight. It looked like a dragon's tail winding is way up from Thane's lower back toward his shoulder. The tail was moving. At first, Hemingway thought it was the movement of Thane's muscles creating an illusion... but no, the tattoo itself was moving... sliding across his skin like a living serpant. It appeared to be getting longer... topping the muscular ridge of his shoulder and angling down toward his chest-

"THANE-" Hemingway shouted. "YOUR SHOULDER!"

"IGNORE IT!" Thane shouted back-

-and then a shadow streaked over their heads, dragging the sound of fluttering cloth and the stench of rotting meat along with it. The shadow dipped downward in front of them... turned... and headed straight for them.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!" The old man screamed.

"BACK THE OTHER WAY!" Hemingway shouted.

But Floyd D'Arcy was frozen in fear, staring with wild, terror-filled eyes at Dorath Chesterson's rotted visage bearing down on him.

It was Yexhill Thane that saved him.

With wire-tipped claws mere inches away from the old man's throat, Thane grabbed Floyd's shoulder and... instead of yanking the man out of the way... used it as a support to flip himself up and over the old man, bringing both of his boots around into the Disciple's face.

CRACK!

The Disciple's momentum knocked Thane AND D'Arcy to the ground, but Thane instantly rolled to his feet and stood defiantly between the old man and the monster.

"THANE, DON'T!"

"I can take him!"

"ARE YOU INSANE!?!"

"Get the old man out of here!" he shouted. Hemingway looked at his friend. Thane had stopped moving, but the dragon's tail tattoo on his back was writhing fiercely. Despite the movement, the tattoo's size remained the same. It had been getting longer before, but now it seemed to be... waiting.

Waiting for a fight.

Hemingway grabbed Floyd, threw the old man over his shoulder, and ran back the way they had come.

"Want them?" Thane said to the Disciple "Gotta go through me. Let's go."

---

"Sooo," N'Doki hissed. "De godling was right after all... you ARE behind de attacks. Heh... Somehow, I was expecting somet'ing more."

"I am MORE than enough!"

Casey/Trisk floated backward sharply while spraying fire from one hand. Angry flames spat across the room, engulfing the necromancer in a blossoming inferno that threatened to ignite the entire room. Trisk made a sudden pulling motion with his hand, and the fire reversed direction, flowing back into his hand like an obedient pet. The quick blast of heat had blackened one wall and part of the ceiling... but as the last of the flames retreated, a human form waded calmly through them.

N'Doki was completely black from head to toe... But not from the flames. He had wrapped himself in shadows, and as he stepped forward, the blackness parted like a curtain, revealing his sinister form... untouched and unharmed.

"You were saying..." N'Doki smiled.

"You WILL burn!" The young boy's arm shot out to cast another spell, but the necromancer was faster.

"I t'ink NOT!" he spat, unleashing a crackling torrent of energy from his shriveled fingertips. Deep orange lightning targeted the boy's chest, blasting him across the room and slamming him into a wall just as the boy's earlier attack had done to N'Doki.

"ARRRGH!" Trisk's voice screamed through Casey D'Arcy's vocal cords. The necromancer's blast was not lightning, but was a savage energy from a realm bordering on hell itself. The crackling lines of power cut like living claws ripping into both body and soul. The wounds it left spawned boils and weeping sores that bubbled across the boy's pale flawless skin...

"Old and powerful you may be... but not as old and powerful as N'Doki! It has been many years since I haf flayed the flesh from a child's bones..."

Writhing in agony, the boy's eyes flashed a fiery red. He closed his mouth in mid-scream, then opened it again to vomit forth a spinning ball of flame.

N'Doki was caught by surprise. The fireball struck his hand, cutting off his own attack... And then he realized that Trisk's latest weapon was not ordinary fire. The flames soaked through his leathery skin and concentrated in the bones of his hand. There, it quickly began to worm its way up his arm, burning him from the inside out.

Hellfire.

The necromancer hissed wordlessly as his arm began to sizzle and blacken. Now free of the necromancer's attack, Trisk/Casey thrust both hands at N'Doki and summoned a concentrated cone of hellfire.

"YAA! BANKITA!"

N'Doki waved his other arm, and shadows poured out of every corner of the room. They converged into a solid shape before the cone of hellflame... and screamed as they absorbed the attack intended for their master.

As the spirits held back the flames with their own power, N'Doki concentrated his energies into drawing the seething hellfire out of his body. The hellflame was a demonic manifestation, and as such could not simply be extinguished... it had to be drawn out and banished before it consumed him completely.

"Hagatin inver grathu - I command you to COME OUT!"

Tendrils of hellfire started oozing from his blackened flesh, doing still more damage on the way out.

The pain was quite invigorating.

"BEHOLD YOUR OWN EVIL, DEMON!" Trisk shouted. With howling bankita and roaring hellfire between them, N'Doki could not even see his opponent. "HIDING BEHIND THE SOULS OF INNOCENTS! FEEDING THEM INTO THE FIRE MEANT FOR YOUR OWN SOUL!!"

"DIS from a man fighting from wit'in de body of a CHILD!!" N'Doki shouted back. With the hellfire successfully banished... at the expense of much pain and vital energy... N'Doki turned his head to one side and spat a stream of thick black ooze from his mouth. The oily substance squirted out from between his sharpened teeth and hit the floor with a splatter... where which it began to flow across the floor toward Trisk/Casey.

Francesca D'Arcy chose this unfortunate moment to open her eyes and return to the waking world. With her back propped up against the wall, her first sight was her own feet stretched out before her. Her SECOND was of the noxious black slime oozing past her feet in an unnaturally straight line. As she watched, the slime paused... gathered into a small puddle and launched itself through the air at her seven-year old son's face.

"CASEY!" Francesca shouted... only NOW noticing the roiling inferno and the screaming black shape battling between N'Doki and her son. At the sound of her voice, Casey turned toward her-

-SPLAT!

And got a face-full of ooze. The black slime splattered across his face and tightened into a semi-solid jelly, sealing his nose, mouth, and both eyes.

Then it began to... slowly and painfully... chew through his skin.

"MMMPGH!" Both of Casey's hands flew to his besieged face. He grabbed at the black ooze and tried to tear it away, but it had somehow bonded to his flesh and would not yield. It even snapped angrilly at his fingers when touched it. "MMMM!!"

"HAHAHAAAA!" N'Doki cackled. He dismissed the protective cloud of bankita... many of whom had been broiled into oblivion by Trisk's hellflame.... and laughed at his opponent.

"MMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!"

Jeremiah Trisk's hands began to glow red-hot as he tried again to pull the slime off of him. There was a slight sizzle and a small puff of noxious smoke... but nothing more. Trisk had just learned that, like many things in hell, Stygian Ooze did not burn.

"MMMM!"

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!" Francesca got to her feet and ran for her son-

"NO INTERFERENCE!"

With the pointing of one twisted finger, N'Doki set three bankita upon the woman. They grabbed her and flew back toward the wall. The spirits passed through the wall easily... Francesca did not.

Were N'Doki not under orders to preserve her life, the impact would have turned Francesca into a splatter of blood and shattered bones. But the spirits threw her into the wall with only enough force to return her to the floor... hopefully, for her sake, with enough of a warning to remain where she was.

But N'Doki had no intention to exercise such restraint with the boy. No, this child... and the spirit that possessed its frail form... had earned N'Doki's rage.

But was N'Doki simply going to watch smiling as Trisk/Casey slowly suffocated...

...of course not.

"BANKITA! TEAR HIM APART!"

Again, shadows converged on Casey. The boy's arms swept outward in two sudden arcs, flinging streams of hellfire from his fingertips. The streams curved in on themselves, forming tight rings of rotating flame encircling the boy. The bankita, moving too fast to stop, slammed into the deadly barrier. Fiery magic tore many the spirits to burning shreds before they managed to pull free. Within the rings, Trisk was safe from the bankita, but he still struggled in vain to free himself from the ooze.

"GRRAAAAH!" N'Doki thrust his one good hand before him, using his own power to deliver a telekinetic wallop to the boy. The child AND his protective barrier flew up and back... this time crashing through the wall and sailing into the gray sky beyond.

Trisk's receding form stabilized in the air, and then the boy's body began to glow. Suddenly he vanished... replaced by a roaring pillar of flames molded into a small human shape. Now with nothing solid to hold on to, the Stygian Ooze fell away. Hanging motionless in the air, the flaming shape lashed out sending mulitple javelins of blue-green fire back into the house.

Snarling, N'Doki shouted a single unintelligible syllable. Shadows rose from the floor and engulfed him. They formed a massive black fist that carried N'Doki up through the ceiling and out of the room-

-just before the bolts of fire tore through the bedroom, destroying everything they touched and instantly setting the ceiling, two walls, and most of the floor ablaze.

The blast of heat shocked Francesca back to consciousness. She opened her eyes and saw the room around her rapidly becoming an inferno. She got up and ran... and nearly ran into the two people just reaching the top of the stairs.

"Who-"

"Get downstairs!" Gallows shouted, pushing Francesca toward the stairs and nearly sending her tumbling to the bottom. "There's an old man who needs help-"

"MY SON! That monster is KILLING MY SON!"

"I'll put a stop to that..." Reaching for his collapsible longbow, Gallows ran into one of the adjacent bedrooms and headed for the window...

---

"...so I says to Hemingway, I says: Hem, why the HELL are we wasting our time at the circus? We make less money every year, and any half-trained mage can put on a better show than we EVER could. Magic has ruined the performance arts, I tell you! All of our friends are dead now anyway... which is another story altogether, I'll tell you about it next... so I says why don't we-"

"Please, shut up," said Harrison Blackshear. "I'm begging you... PLEASE! You've told me your life's story SIX TIMES already!"

"Yes, but its such an interesting story! And I bet the boss hasn't heard it-"

"Do you really think I am so careless as to employ men without being more aware of their pasts than they are themselves?" said December.

"Oh. Well... I bet I know some stories you haven't heard before!"

"That is extremely unlikely," December replied.

"Stop me if you've heard this one! There was this guy with a glass eye... only the eye could really SEE! But it was cursed, so that he could only see-"

"Stop."

"Okay, there was this mage named Octerno who had these henchmen-"

"Stop."

"Well, there's the one about the suit of magic armor that could make-"

"Stop."

"Then there's the story about-"

"Stop."

"But I hadn't started telling the story yet! OHH, you're being funny! You know, you're not half bad once a fellow gets to know you-"

"No," December grabbed Emerson by the shoulder. "Stop walking."

"What is it?" Harrison stepped in front of Emerson and reached for his sword. He didn't draw the weapon, but he held his hand on the pommel nonetheless.

The three of them had been heading back to the city, and had actually passed the 'proper' limits of Bephal a few minutes ago. There were houses scattered around them... most of them empty... and the remains of an old well up ahead. The well looked like it had been smashed. It was just a pile of rock now. An old three-legged dog sniffed feverishly around the perimeter of the ruins. Beyond it, the street continued into downtown Bephal. Several buildings were puffing out dark smoke from their chimneys. The smoke rose to merge with the blanket of gray that still hung low over the city like a soiled carpet. There were people in the streets now. Not many... but enough to give the town some vague semblance of life. The were going about the business of fetching water, cooking breakfast, washing clothes and opening shops, completely oblivious to what had been going on during the night. There were a few cautious glances at the oddly ominous morning sky... but nothing more. After all... this was Bephal. "Odd" and "Ominous" were weekly occurances here.

But there was nothing about the scene in front of them that was overtly dangerous or seemed to be a cause for suspicion. At least, not to human eyes.

December turned his face from the city and looked at the houses around them. His eyes flickered faintly as he shifted the spectrum of his vision. The windows of the houses glowed with the heat-energy still trapped behind them.

"I don't see anything," said Harrison after a moment.

"Nor do I," December replied, frowning. "While there are many deserted sections of Bephal, this is not one of them. At least, it was not until very recently. The houses have been kept warm; an empty house would be the same temperature as the outside air."

"It's morning," said Blackshear, frowing. "and there's no one outside."

"Sure there is," said Emerson, pointing at the city ahead. "People everywhere..."

"However, the only living thing in our immediate vicinity is that dog."

"What dog?" said Harrison.

The dog was gone.

"That dog-" Emerson pointed. The three-legged dog had abandoned the well and was running away. Fast. "Look at 'im go! Wonder what got into him-"

"Mr. Shaw, in your travels, you have undoubtedly encountered stories of animals that could predict earthquakes."

"Yeah, plenty. Why?"

"They do so because they can sense minute vibrations under the surface."

"So?" Emerson thought for a moment. "...ohhhh. We're going die now, aren't we?"

"Let's get out of here..." Hars took a step back.

"Do not move," December spoke in a low whisper now. "It will track us by our vibrations. If we are fortunate, the creature has not already acquired our location-"

The ground beneath them began to vibrate. It was barely perceptible at first... but they felt it. Something was moving under the ground. It was getting closer.

"So much for luck..." said Emerson.

"Prepare yourselves. Do not move until I say. Wait until the creature is about to surface, then get clear and attack the tentacles as they come for you. If we do enough damage, we may be able to drive it away."

"You don't have any weapons," said Emerson.

"I do not need any."

The temperature around them began to drop quickly and steadily...

The vibration intensified. It was directly beneath them now...

Emerson whimpered and drew his knife. The enchanted blade looked woefully inadequate in his hand.

"Steady, lad..." Harrison hissed. His words came out in a thick cloud that hung in the suddenly sub-freezing air.

December held his hands in front of them, placing them short distance apart. The space between them began to glow as he poured his power into it...

An audible rumble rose from the ground. Dirt and small rocks shifted around their boots... dancing to the beat of the approaching doom.... closer... closer...

"...eeek..." Emerson squeaked. Nervous sweat had frozen into tiny jewels of ice on his forehead.

...closer...

"NOW!" December shouted.

Emerson and Hars sprinted in opposite directions, while December jogged at 90-degrees to both of them.

The ground where they had been standing together exploded in an mountain of mud and rock that, for a moment, concealed enormous cylindrical trunk that had erupted from below. The six-foot diameter tentacle rose straight into the air, then leaned forward. It's main body moved slowly, but the thin tip lashed out like a whip, whistling through the air after December.

December stopped and spun on one booted heel... throwing the ice gem at the base of the tentacle and then quickly ducking to one side. The tentacle caught him across the shoulder and knocked him back. He hit the ground just as the ice-gem shattered, exploding into a blast of arctic fury concentrated at the hole where the creature had emerged.

The single tentacle jerked repeatedly in the air, writhing as the heat was sucked out of its body. With a deep rumble, it sank back down into the ground. Bits of ice and frozen flesh chipped off as it retreated.

December's cold-storm faded...

...and with an even deeper rumble, several more tentacles emerged out to replace the first. A cluster of them sprayed out of the hole. Several of them went after Emerson and Harrison, but most of them came slithering for December.

December stood and, scowling furiously, let them come.

---

"HAAA!" Harrison roared as his blade sliced the first slithering tendril out of the air. Greenish-black ichor spurted out of the severed appendage, but Hars paid it no attention. There were several more tentacles right behind it. They came at him from all angles. Harrison Blackshear's blades whirled in the air... and every arc was another chunk cut out of the monster's hide. Some of the tentacles were small enough to cut through in a single slice. Others took multiple blows, which Hars delivered in quick and merciless succession. He was NOT going to be eaten alive by this thing! Hars never stopped moving. Spinning, slicing, and howling like a madman, he shredded one tentacle after another until-

"-eh?"

Harrison stood in the road, surrounded by the quivering remains of a dozen or so wet tendrils... and nothing else.

"That was IT!?" he said, confused. The creature had apparently given up on him.

"HELLLP!"

Emerson was having considerably more trouble. He'd reached one of the houses and now he was climbing up to the roof... with an assortment of fresh tendrils closing in fast. And MORE tentacles wiggling out of the windows of the house he was climbing on!

"EASY, LAD!! HELP'S ON THE WAY!"

Harrison charged. One lowly tendril slithered after him, cutting across his path and undulating toward him. Harrison sliced with his right sword. The center of the tendril jerked backward, while the end looped around Harrison's feet, tripping him.

"-AH!" Harrison pitched forward, twisting in the air and landing on this back. His left sword came down in a solid chop that missed his own ankle by less than an inch. The tentacle that had caught him came away in two halves. He rolled to his feet-

Emerson was on the roof now. He had his blade in one hand, shouting a challenge at the tendrils that had chased him there.

Meanwhile, the entire house began to sink into the ground.

"GET OFF THE HOUSE!" Harrison shouted.

Realizing that he was about to be taken... house and all... Emerson took a running leap off of the roof.

Tentacles quickly snatched him out of the air and yanked him down toward the hole in the street.

"EMERSON!"

---

Emerson knew he'd been suckered as soon as his feet left the roof.

"Aww, hell..." he groaned as the creature's appendages snagged his legs and torso and then wrapped him up in a neat little package.... all in the span of a second. At the last instant, Emerson inhaled... getting as much air into his lungs as he could while tightly clenching all of his muscles.

When the creature had him, he exhaled and relaxed.... his chest and muscles shrank, giving him room to move despite being bound almost from head to foot. It wasn't much...

In the following second, Emerson stabbed his golden blade outward it into the strands of tough flesh that bound him. His intention was to saw the blade back and forth, cutting himself free... but at the first stab, the dagger's enchantment flared to life.

Emerson gasped as the knife sipped a bit of life-force out of the creature and poured it into him. His muscles burned with strange, new energy. His bones and tendons hummed; his joints purred-

-and everything went black as the creature sucked him down into its hole. The musty stench of mud and water closed in around him.

not too late! not too late! not too late! Emerson chanted as he slipped his shoulder free... temporarily dislocating it in the process. He wiggled his left arm loose, sliding his arm upward out of the tentacles. At the same time, he continued cutting at the rope-like roots binding his right arm. Several of them came away. Emerson twisted and pulled and strained... pushing his skill and flexibility to their new, amplified limits-

And suddenly, Emerson was free!

He clutched his knife between his teeth and grabbed the first thing he touched with both hands. He climbed.

Emerson found himself scrambling up the trunk of a four-foot thick tentacle like a startled cockroach. Tendrils lashed out and reached for him, but he wove in and out of their clutches with supernatural ease. He darted back and forth, changing directions at random while spiraling up the tentacle's wet surface toward the dim daylight. The fact that the tentacle itself was moving upward only served to get him to freedom all the more quickly. He reached the surface in seconds, springing clear... flipping in the air... and hitting the ground already running.

"LETS GET OUT OF HERE!" He screamed, looking around for Harrison and December. Harrison, he spotted easily. December was...

"Oh, no! DECEMBER!!"

Emerson turned around and ran back the way he had come...

---

The Disciple hardly even stopped to confront Thane. The shroud wrapped around Yexhill and snatched him out of the way so quickly that he barely had a chance to reach his magic ring. The shroud whipped back-

BOOM!

And slammed Yexhill into a large tombstone. The marble shattered, and the shroud, with Thane still wrapped within it, continued to flail-

Repeatedly smashing Yexhill into every tombstone within reach-

BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!

-before flipping him up into the air... catching him again... and slamming him head-first into the side of a stone monument.

BOOM!

Satisfied, the Disciple turned and sailed after Hemingway and D'Arcy... its shroud catching the air and carrying it along in a swift, low glide...

Behind him, Yexhill Thane got up and brushed the dust off of his ring's force-field just before it flickered away.

"Oh, now it ain't gonna be THAT easy," he said as he started running after the Disciple, tearing past the ruined graves. Ahead of him, Hemingway had reached Berston's grave site. He dropped Floyd and had turned to fight while D'Arcy scrambled away.

Yexhill ran faster. He leapt up onto one of the tombstones... his feet touched it only for an instant as he propelled himself upward and forward.

The leap, powerful though it was, would have taken him nowhere near the Disciple, but Thane had touched his ring the instant before his feet left the stone. The magical gem gleamed white... and suddenly Thane weighed no more than a feather. With almost no weight to drive him down, Thane's leap carried him higher... further... and when he canceled the ring's spell he dropped like a stone-

-right onto the Disciple's back.

The impact drove the creature's head and shoulders into the ground with a crunch. They continued to slide forward for a few feet, and Thane used that momentum to roll free. He and the Disciple rose at the same time-

-just as Hemingway's hammer roared past Thane's right shoulder and demolished the Disciple's face with a loud-

KRUNCH!!

The Disciple jerked backward, and the hammer landed at Thane's feet. He picked it up and swung it while the creature was still off balance.

CRACK!

The war-hammer destroyed one leg in a single swing. Thane had been hoping to take BOTH of them out, but-

"INCOMMING!"

Thane ducked to one side as Hemingway came up behind him, swinging a pick-axe in a downward arc-

CHUNK!

The tool ripped the Disciple's chest open along a long jagged line. The stumps of shattered ribs jutted into the opening like teeth...

-teeth that closed around Yexhill Thane's arm as he shoved his fist into the monster's chest.

"EAT IT!" He shouted as his magic ring erupted into a ball of flame inside the Disciple's torso.

The Disciple swelled like a balloon... and then fire burst out of its mouth, melting away the wire stitches that held it shut. The top of the Disciple's head blew off and flipped up into the air atop a plume of orange fire.

"YAAAAAA!" Thane howled as his own fire burned him.

"GOTCHA!" Hemingway grabbed him around the waist and hauled him backward, pulling his arm free. They both went stumbling away as the Disciple burst into flames...

...and came after them.

"I thought I told you to get out of here!" said Thane.

"And since when are YOU in charge?" Hemingway replied.

"Split up. Whichever one of us he follows, the other one can come around behind and attack it again! GO!"

Hemingway and Thane separated, running.

It went after both of them. The burning monstrosity turned toward Thane, while its cloak whipped in the opposite direction. Hemingway threw himself to the ground, and the shroud went past him and wrapped around a nearby statue. It pulled... the statue began to crack and lean forward, but the shroud released it before it fell.

"Hmmm... I've GOT AN IDEA-"

The trailing edge of the shroud whipped back and slapped across Hemingway's chest, sending him flying backward-

-right into Berston Groad's grave.

"AAAAAAaaaa..."

Thane was running for the tombstones. He couldn't see what happened to Shaw, but he didn't like the sound of that scream. The Disciple was gaining on him, and Thane was all out of ideas. He had another minute or so before his ring's shield-spell could be used again, but he had nothing that could actually STOP the creature behind him.

It was times like these that he wished he'd beaten a few more of the ring's secrets out of the mage he stole it from before he'd killed him.

But, of course, it was too late for that now. He only knew a few of the ring's spells, and he'd exhausted them all. All he had left was invisibility-

Thane touched the ring, and he vanished. He stopped running and dropped to a low crouching position, hoping that the Disciple couldn't-

WHAM!

The Disciple snatched him up, hooking one rotting arm Thane's shoulder and lifting him into the air....

...when the world stopped spinning, Thane was hanging upside down, staring into the Disciple's face. The creature had perched on the corner of one of the above-ground vaults, and was dangling Thane over the edge, holding him up with the end of its shroud wrapped around his ankles.

The Disciple was looking at him curiously.... if 'looking' was in fact the correct term for a creature that had no eyes. Thane's invisibility spell had faded, and now he was caught with no tricks remaining. Fire didn't hurt it. Invisibility was a joke. The shield would regenerate in a few seconds, but all it would do was let the Disciple toss him around for a a while... THEN what?

And why was that damned thing just LOOKING at him like that!?

"You want something, don't you..." Thane said. "...what is it? What do you want? The old man? I don't know where he is-"

Thane started bouncing up and down as the Disciple's cloak shook him... yanking him in several directions as if it were trying to shake the coins out of his pocket.

When the shaking stopped, Thane was another couple of feet closer to the Disciple's face... well within range of its rotting stench. The shroud tightened painfully around Thane's feet. The pain sharpened as the lengths of wire within the cloth began to jut into Thane's skin and wiggle underneath his flesh...

"mmmmmmmm...." The Disciple growled ominously.

Thane could tell right away that this wasn't going to be pleasant.
---

Hemingway grabbed for the roots as he fell, intending to use them to break his fall. The first root he grabbed snapped... as did the second, third, and fourth-... and fifth-

WHUMP!

Shaw hit the bottom of the pit, landing on his hip and right side. He didn't break any bones, but moving his right leg brought a hiss of pain to his throat. He waited for the stars to clear, then tried it again. A little better. He could move. Getting OUT was an altogether different matter. Maybe he could climb...

He reached for one of the roots. When he pulled it, the root snapped in the middle and fell down around him.

"...hello, what's this now?" he said to himself. He looked up and saw the clear space he'd created when he fell. The pit was a spider's web of roots, but he'd fallen right through it as if it were as delicate as a REAL spider's web. Everything he'd touched on the way down was in tatters.... some roots were even collapsing under their own weight just from the slight jostling they'd gotten during his fall.

Hemingway stood up.

He grabbed another root... it didn't even survive long enough for him to pull it. The simple act of grabbing it crushed it to a semi-moist pulp in his hand.

"Dead," he said, picking up the severed end of another root and examining it. It looked thick and healthy on the outside, but its core was rotten... almost hollow except for a few strands of fiber and an occasional drop of oily sap. The others he examined were the same.

"Everything in here... all these roots... they're all dead-"

"You have to help him!" said a man's voice. It was D'Arcy, looking down at him from the mouth of the grave. "It's gonna kill him!"

"I can't climb out of here!" Hemingway shouted back.

"Use those roots-"

"They're dead. Too brittle... see..." Hemingway tore down a fistful of roots to demonstrate. "I brought a rope with the digging supplies... it's up there somewhere. Tie one end around the base of that broken statue, and throw the other end down! Hurry!"

Floyd vanished. Half-a-minute later, a rope slithered down from above. Hemingway had to jump several times to reach the end of it, but once he caught it he started climbing as fast as he could.

---

"I suppose you're wanting to hear some screams, eh?" Thane said, still dangling from the Disciple's cloak like bait on a hook. His feet felt like they were on fire, but if rusty wire wiggling under his skin was the Disciple's idea of torture, then the creature was going to be disappointed. Thane had endured much worse. Hell, he'd done worse to HIMSELF.

"Aaa!" Thane gave a fake scream. "Aaa! Aaa! Satisfied? Now put me down."

The Disciple glared at him. Its decayed face traveled up and down the length of Thane's suspended body... examining him.

"Look, I’ve been tortured by the best of them," said Thane. "You don't scare me... all you can do is kill me. And I've considered doing that myself so many times that you'd be doing me a pretty decent favor if you-"

The Disciple raised him up slightly. Thane's head had been even with the monster's face, now he was looking at the shroud that held him. The monster's head was below, even with Thane's dangling hands...

...which the Disciple was taking an unhealthy interest in.

Then it sunk in.

"Magic..." Thane whispered. "You want my magic! My R-" Thane stopped. If the creature had already known that Thane's magic was in his ring, then it wouldn't have been searching for it... it would have lopped off Thane's hand and been on its merry way. But it didn't know.

Thane imagined that it didn't know a LOT of things...

So he decided to educate it.

"Here... take it." He slid the magic ring off of his finger and tossed it at the Disciple, who caught it with one gnarled, wasted hand.

"...mmmmm...." The creature looked down at the ring clutched greedily in its palm.

"Doesn't work by looking at it. You have to put it on."

The Disciple looked up at him.

"Go on," said Thane. "Won't work unless you put it on your finger." Thane extended his middle finger in demonstration. "Go on..."

The Disciple slowly slid the metal ring onto its finger. At first the ring was far too big for its shriveled digit, but once it was on, the band shrank to fit the monster perfectly.

"Therzez ya go," said Thane, smiling.

At the sound of the remote activation code... 'Therzez'... the ring's security failsafe flared to life. It was a trap that Gallows would have been proud of. Thin beams of light... dozens of them... unspooled from the jewel's facets, crisscrossing and merging into pattern reminiscent a blooming flower. The pattern rotated rapidly in the air; the beams sliced across the Disciple's flesh... cutting skin, bone, wire and cloth with all the ease of a hot razor through soft butter.

The magical display lasted three seconds-

beee-zzzzZZZT!

-at the end of which, the Disciple's body fell apart in a pile of cauterized chunks, each no larger than a man's finger.

The ring had turned the creature into a jigsaw puzzle.

The beams had touched Yexhill Thane as well... but, since he was not wearing the ring, they had played across his flesh like harmless beams of ordinary light. However, now devoid of any way of staying in the air, Thane fell. He twisted in the air and landed on his back... several sizzling pieces of the Disciple broke his fall. The larger pieces were already starting to merge back together. He quickly searched for the chunk that was wearing his ring. He put the ring on... taking care to deactivate the failsafe... and stood up-

He fell down immediately. His feet hurt like hell; some of the Disciple's wire was still dangling from his ankles. He pulled the strips of wire out... creating an even bigger mess of his feet... and tried again to stand up-

-only to find himself suspended in the air again.

This time, it was Hemingway Shaw.

"Too slow, old man..." said Shaw as he threw Thane over his left shoulder. Shaw's RIGHT shoulder was occupied by Floyd D'Arcy, who was protesting loudly at the indignity of being carried around like a sack of wheat. "We gotta get some distance before that thing sorts itself out!"

Instead of a thousand tiny pieces, the Disciple's remains were now six distinct and recognizable piles of flesh being pulled together by wire. Thane caressed the jewel of his ring and doused the entire mass with a dose of fire.

"Let's go!" he shouted. "Back into the city...that thing's gonna be up and after us soon!"

Hemingway Shaw was no runner, but even weighted down by two full grown men and his own equipment he ran for the cemetery gate like a champion sprinter.... much to the jostled dismay of his passengers. As they reached the gate, Thane risked a glance behind them. Smoke from the burning grass marked the spot where he'd torched the Disciple's remains... but there was no sign of the Disciple, whole OR in pieces.

Not that he expected there to be.

"It's gone!" he said to Hemingway.

"Oh, I can guarantee you that it's not gone," said Hemingway. "Things like that don't just get up and go away."

"Right," said Thane. "So I wonder what's next..."

---

The shadow-fist emerged on the rooftop, where it twisted open like a rose... with an evil, twisted shape rising from its core. N'Doki stepped out onto the uneven rooftop and confronted the flaming thing that had been Casey D'Arcy.

"CHALLENGE!" N'Doki shouted, his voice amplified with dark magic. With fingers twisted into a symbol of power, N'Doki swept his hand before him.

The transmutation of flesh into fire was an impressive, but magically expensive trick. Jeremiah Trisk's fire was about to be blown out, and N'Doki doubted that the undead mage could ignite another-

A whirlwind of sand, sharp rocks, and choking black dust rose from nowhere and spun toward the flaming figure. Trisk was obviously expecting something more solid. When the threw fire into the miniature tornado, the whirlwind swallowed the flames, extinguishing them and using their energy to fuel a sudden lurch forward to swallow Trisk himself.

"ARRRRRRRRRRRGGGH!"

Trisk's flaming body winked out and returned to normal... leaving his all-too-solid flesh as the mercy of the whirlwind. Spinning rocks and waves of razor-sharp sand ripped the clothes off of his body and began to snatch away chunks of skin as well. Trisk dropped quickly from the sky, trying to out-run the whirlwind. He pulled ahead for a moment, but the storm caught up and swallowed him again. Screaming, Trisk/Casey gestured...

Below them, the fire in the bedroom responded to its master's call. The flames drew together and surged out through the hole in the wall. Instead of curling upward toward the roof, the flames flowed around perimeter of the house to approach the combatants from behind.

The crackle of the flames was N'Doki's only warning. It was almost enough. His protective chant was still half-done when the column of fire rose up from below, made a hard 90-degree turn, and shot across the roof like a flood. It caught N'Doki from the side, and turned his entire world into heat and pain.

N'Doki howled as layer after layer of skin vanished. Flailing his darkening limbs, N'Doki darted blindly across the roof, but the flames followed him, keeping him at the center of the firestorm that was rapidly turning him to blackened ash. He opened his now-lipless mouth and shouted-

The crack of lightning boomed overhead, and water poured from the sky in a torrential downpour that had not been seen by man since the great flood of New Venyce.

The rain swept the fiery flood away in a rush of burning hot steam. When the steam cleared, N'Doki lay in a scorched heap at the corner of rooftop. Jeremiah Trisk touched down on the opposite corner. His... Casey's... body was bloody and battered from the necromancer's whirlwind. Were the mind controlling the body not that of an old and experienced mage, the boy would have collapsed from shock and pain long before now. Breathing heavily, Trisk crouched on the wet rooftop and caught his breath... gathering strength as N'Doki's rain faded back into the ether from which it had come.

N'Doki lifted his head. It was barely recognizable as human... but the carnivorous smile of sharpened white teeth was unmistakable. The fight was not over.

"TASTE HELLFIRE, FIEND!" Shouted Trisk as he fired several daggers of hellish flame from his fingers.

N'Doki hissed at the oncoming daggers...

...and sank into the roof. Gone.

Swift shadows radiated from the point where he vanished. Six of them zigzagged across the rooftop. Trisk unleashed more daggers of hellfire that impaled five of the shadows... each dying with a hellish scream... but the sixth slipped past and raced toward him-

-then it, too, was gone.

Trisk looked down just as two black hands... shadows granted substance by the necromancer's magic... reached up from the roof and clamped down on his legs. Sharp claws jabbed into his flesh and scraped across his calf and ankles, peeling away strips of flesh

"AAAIIIIIIIIIIIIARRRRRRG!"

Instinctively, Trisk floated upward, but was forcefully yanked back down to the roof. Spheres of hellfire boiled around his hands, but he dared not use it lest he sear away his own feet. The necromancer's shadowy claws continued to hold him and... with a familiar crackle... they unleashed bolts of hellish orange electricity that danced up and down his legs.

Trisk screamed-

-twang-
zzzzz-THWOCK!

A solitary arrow... shot by an archer hovering at the edge of the roof... struck the rooftop and exploded in a blast of light. Not just ordinary light, but searing, burning, bright DAYlight... brigher than the brightest summer sun. Pierced by a bolt of direct sunlight, the shadow leapt up from the roof and re-assumed the form of a man. A decrepit, pitiful, burnt shape.... a shape that Jeremiah Trisk seized upon the instant it turned solid.

Howling, Trisk shoved a double-fist-full of hellfire into N'Doki's face-

-but the necromancer caught his hands in his own and shoved the weaker boy back. Glittering sparks of hellflame dripped from the boy's hands seared into the necromancer's flesh, but he paid them no mind.

"YOU WISH TO UNLEASH DE FIRES OF HELL..." N'Doki hissed furiously, eyes glowing with rage. "...UPON ONE WHO HAS PERSONALLY FED BETTER MEN THAN YOU INTO THOSE SELF-SAME PITS!!? I SHALL SHOW YOU HELL, JEREMIAH TRISK! YOU AND DE BOY! YOU BOTH SHALL ROAST IN DE BURNING FIELDS OF DE DAMNED!!"

N'Doki could spare no energy to repair his burnt form, and so it looked to all the world as if a savagely burnt corpse had risen from its funeral pyre to attack young Casey D'Arcy.

At least, it looked that way to Gallows.

He notched another arrow and let it fly.

-twang-
zzzz-THWUCK

N'Doki grunted as the arrow sank into his back. As soon as it was buried in flesh, the enchanted arrowhead shot out three curved prongs that anchored themselves tightly in place. The cord attached to the arrow's shaft led all the way across the roof... ending wrapped around Gallows' forearm.

The archer's cape billowed wildly as it carried Gallows backward. The cord drew tight and yanked N'Doki away from Trisk, pulling him across the roof like a man being dragged by a running horse.

Seeing his chance, Casey finally unleashed the twin bolts of hellfire. Flames chased N'Doki across the roof, but the instant before they hit, Gallows' cord came loose... and N'Doki's body transformed into a swarm of biting flies. Millions of ravenous, flesh-eating insects gathered in a dark cloud. The combined buzzing of their wings merged into a half-human voice:

"NO MORE INTERFERENCE!!!"

"DAMN!" still hovering, Gallows dropped the now-useless cord and reached for one of his dwindling supply of arrows. His fingers had barely touched one when-

"...nnnNNOOOOO INTERFERRRrrreeee....."

Three dark shapes... shadows with substance.... grabbed his arms and flew straight down toward the ground, with Gallows clasped firmly in their talons. They easily overcame his cape's flight spell, and before Gallows could even think of one of his own spells to cast-

WHUMP!

He was unconscious, with a face full of fresh Bephal dirt.

Meanwhile the swarm had set upon Trisk with an angry vengeance. Trisk cast a quick spell, and the cloud of bugs hit him the instant it was done.

Concentric spheres of flame erupted from his body, incinerating wave after wave of the insects as they slammed into it. The flies kept coming... and so did the flames. It was a race to see which would give out first: Trisk's layers of flames, or the necromancers swarms of insects. Hot sweat rolled down Casey's cheeks as he held on desperately to the flow of power that protected him. But he was weak. Already the flames began to flicker...

...the outer layers died. The swarm dove in closer; insects immolated themselves on the inner barriers now... then those barriers started to falter...

"NNNR!!!" Casey's young voice groaned. Too much power... he could not hold...

"DIE!" The buzzing of the insects hissed at him.

One more sphere of flame left... the necromancer could feel his opponents power slipping away. But his own energies were not infinite. Every insect that died destroyed another tiny part of him... and the massive swarm had already been reduced from a millions to mere hundreds...

"...hrrrr..." The last barrier flickered... but held.

Trisk poured the last of his energy into a final gambit. Instead of letting the final barrier die, he dismissed it... drawing his power back into himself and then sending it surging outward in one flaming wave. Just as he expected, the last few insects darted in when the barrier vanished... and all were caught in the expanding wave that flashed out from Casey's exposed body.

-bzzzzzZZZARRRRRRRGGH"

When the last fly hit the flames, its burning corpse exploded back into the full-sized shape that had spawned the entire swarm.

Hissing and spitting... too weak for words... N'Doki fell flat on the roof. Regenerating his body from one dying insect took a painful chunk out of the necromancer's power, and now he could barely manage to keep himself from sliding down. Casey/Jeremiah had already collapsed. The boy was holding on to the peak of the slanted rooftop. He couldn't pull himself up. Blood from his shredded ankles streamed down the surface of the roof like red rain.

He was done.

N'Doki looked up at him.

"...hhhhhhh...."

N'Doki lifted one hand... a skeletal frame of charred bones, devoid of skin and almost stripped clean of flesh. With a gentle push from within, N'Doki forced more flesh and power onto those bones. Not a lot... just enough. The bones lengthened... the tips of the fingers turned into tiny claws with just enough muscle-

CHUNK!

He drove his claws into the material of the roof. They went in deep and easy, still lengthening once they were anchored in place.

He pulled himself up. Just a little. Then a little more. A little mooorre...

"...hhhhe....."

Then he raised his other hand. Another gentle push...

CHUNK!

Another long, painful drag as he hauled himself upward toward the boy.

"...hhhhehe..."

CHUNK-draaaag

CHUNK-draaaaaag

"...hehhehheh..."

CHUNK-draggg
CHUNK-Draaaaggg

"...heheheHeH...

CHUNK-DRAGGGG

Casey/Jeremiah looked down at the approaching sounds. For the first time, the mage's eyes showed fear. Fear and horror... for the black nightmare that was literally dragging itself up the roof after him was not in ANY WAY a human being! Not in ANY WAY! It was something foul and unholy and-

CHUNK-DRAAAGGGG

An abomination!

CHUNK-DRAAAAGGG

"HeHehHEHHE-" N'Doki laughed at the look on the boy's face. Trisk pointed at him, delicate sparks twirled around the boy's fingers... but nothing more. The extent of the mage's power had been exceeded and, unlike the necromancer's... there was no more.

CHUNK-DRAAAAAAG!

"HEHEHEH! AHAAAAHAHAHAAA!"

"NO!" The great mage gasped, terrified. "NO!"

CHUNK!

N'Doki's hand came down right next to the boy's leg. The necromancer pullllled himself up beside his foe-

CHUNK!
DRAAAAAAAG

-and kept going until he had reached the top. Then he stood up... bones cracking and crackling as he straddled the peak of the roof. N'Doki's burnt shell of a body rained black cinders down into Casey's face. He reached down, grabbed the boy by the neck, and hauled him up.

"HAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!" The necromancer's laugh was a dry, dry hiss merged with the cackling of some insane carrion bird.

"You fool..." Trisk stuttered weakly. "You'll d-destroy everything..."

"No," said N'Doki. "JUST YOU! N'DOKI DECLARES THIS CHALLENGE FINISHED!!! I HAF WON, AND NOW YOU GO TO HELL!"

Orange sparks danced between the necromancer's fingertips as he prepared to reach into the boy's chest and rip out his tiny beating heart.

"Won?" Trisk said with the slightest hint of calm. "And what knowledge have your efforts gained you? None. You have gained nothing save your own exhaustion... too weak to help your master or the others! Or yourself! You are all doomed! Tell me who has won, now, demon! But MY work is still to come, and I will not let you end it. Take the boy, damn you! I will find another way... there are always other ways..."

Casey's body convulsed as Trisk evacuated it. An ephemeral cloud seeped out of the pores of Casey's skin... the cloud floated away, hissing back at N'Doki.

"...another way to save us..."

Casey went limp in the necromancer's grasp.

"...save us all..."

N'Doki watched the soul drift away. He lacked the power to prevent its escape... and in fact, for the first time in many years, N'Doki felt truly weary. He looked at the bleeding child that he held. Twenty minutes ago he would have taken great pleasure in killing this thing and then laughing at December's chastisement. But now, the challenge and most of his own power were gone. He could still rip out the boy's heart, but doing so now would be tragically anti-climatic. And a waste of energy.

Besides... the possibility of future carnage would likely increase if he followed December's request and let the boy live.

"...bankita..." N'Doki whispered, suddenly tired again... to tired to bellow, roar, or even command. Instead, he simply spoke: "Take dis one to his modder. Gently."

Vicious shadows surrounded Casey...and gently lifted him from N'Doki's hands. Like the spirit of Jeremiah Trisk, they drifted away... moving to the edge of the roof and then swiftly lowering out of sight. When they were gone, N'Doki sat down on the roof and waited.

For what, he wasn't sure...

---

The first tentacle wrapped around December's arm and snapped tight...

...only to fall away in pieces as its brittle flesh shattered under its own strength. The air next to December's skin was cold enough to turn metal into glass. The creature's flesh froze the instant it touched him... actually, the instant BEFORE it touched him. With his own temperature still edging steadily lower, December marched forward into the onslaught.

The creature would retreat if injured, but it would most likely close its hole up behind it as it had done before.... but not before December got a look at it. He would not be so foolish to follow the creature into its lair, but he would at least see what sort of creature sat at the bottom of these tentacles... and see if there were signs that anyone was trapped down there with it. Like J'Hasp. For that, he had to get closer.

The creature kept trying to snag him, but December was not easy prey. For him, the monster's attacks were like being pelted with dozens of small rocks. The creature tried again and again to grab him... snare him... entangle him... Yet all it could manage to do was slap him around with brittle appendages that shattered on impact. It had apparently not learned what many of December's adversaries had discovered the hard way: Everything Freezes. Even the ground froze beneath December's feet froze as he approached the hole where the beast had emerged. More tentacles slithered out... several of these were tipped with poisonous barbs.

December hesitated... paused to push his temperature even lower.... and then continued walking toward them. The first barb came at him. December had simply weathered the previous attacks without reaction, but he wasn't willing to test this beast's poison. December lunged to one side and grabbed the tentacle before it could pierce him. When he touched it, the barbed end cracked off in his hands. He dropped it and ducked as something brushed past his shoulder... not close enough to pierce his hardened skin, but close enough to freeze in his arctic aura.

-crackle-

The tentacle stiffened in the air. December swatted it and it shattered... just as two more barbs dove toward his chest.

-shluck!-
-chuck!

Two small knives caught the poisonous barbs in mid-air, impaling them both. The bulbous poison sacks splattered, and the tentacles retreated.

"You can thank me later!" Emerson Shaw shouted at him. "After we're finished rescuing you!" He had two more knives balanced between the knuckles of his left hand, while his right clutched the Berston Groad's magic dagger. Beside him Harrison Blackshear was putting both swords to good use, keeping the flailing, slashing tentacles at bay as they tried to fight their way toward December.

"We'll clear a path!" Hars shouted. "Get ready!"

"MOVE BACK!" December called. "I KNOW WHAT I AM DOING!"

"But you're SURROUNDED!"

"I AM AWARE OF THE SITUATION! I HAVE EVERYTHING UNDER CONTR-"

Suddenly, the ground fell away beneath December's feet.

The thin layer of frozen dirt that he was standing on cracked, and December went down. He reached for the edge of the solid ground, but it froze at his touch and became too slick to grab. He slid-

-and fell into darkness.

He hit something that crackled noisily with the impact. Mud... mud that froze when he hit it. He was in a small, bowl-shaped pit with steep walls leading up to the thick layer of dirt above. He was deep. The creature had created the pit and weakened the dirt directly under him until he fell through. The thin shaft of light from above illuminated a large hole in the center of the pit.

December lowered his temperature... preparing to fight off another swarm of tendrils...

Mud?

...mud...

Mud meant water...

...water from the subterranean stream that fed the wells in Bephal.

The creature had accidentally or intentionally bored into the underground well system, and, if the roaring sound December was hearing was accurate, this entire pit was about to be flooded.

Accidentally? Oh no, this was quite intentional. When that water touched him, it would freeze... trapping him in solid ice. And if he lowered his temperature, he would be helpless to defend himself.

"...clever," December hissed as he slid down to the hole. "But not clever enough."

With the rush of water growing louder in his ears, December held out his hands and started forming an ice-gem. He tossed it down the hole. It hit something... a column of cold air blasted up out of the hole. Somewhere down below, a large plug of flash-frozen water expanded to plug the 'well' that the creature had created.

It was a very temporary solution. December examined the pit he occupied. It was not deep, but the walls curved inward near the top to create an overhead dome. Climbing out was not going to be an option.

Suddenly, a thick sheet of mud began to slide down one of the walls... mud loosened by the vibrations of something moving nearby. Something large. Clots of mud dropped from the ceiling, freezing when it splattered against December's skin and clothing. December could hear the vibrations now. The entire chamber was shaking-

-and the sound of rushing water returned. The creature was creating another hole to flood the pit.

"HE'S STILL ALIVE!" Emerson Shaw called out. His boyish face had appeared overhead, looking down at December. He pointed. "THERE HE IS!"

"SHAW!" December shouted. "I REQUIRE YOUR ASSISTANCE!!"

"What... things not as 'under control' as you thought?" said Shaw. "Here-" Shaw reached down, but his hand came nowhere near December. "Hmmm..."

"TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!" December eyed the chamber walls with a look of studied concern. At any moment, the situation was going to become considerably more complicated. December raised his temperature... a process as easy, and with the same general effects, as a man slowing his own rate of breath. If the creature struck now-

"Grab my legs and lower me down!"

Above, Emerson lay on his belly. Harrison Blackshear grabbed the man's legs and held them while Shaw slid into the hole... arms extended.

"GRAB MY HANDS!"

December reached up... still not close enough.

FWOOOSH!!!

A liquid blast exploded from one of the wall, first pelting December with a thick layer of mud, and then pummeling him with a column of water that knocked him across the pit. He hit the opposite wall... the power of the water shoved him into the soft mud, almost burying him.

Water started bubbling up from the original hole in the pit's bottom now. In the blink of an eye, December was submerged to his waist...

"LOWER!" Emerson shouted. Harrison lowered him. December pulled himself out of the wall and reached... still not enough.

The water was to his lower chest now, but drowning was not his concern. Nor was freezing himself solid. Once the creature realized he was vulnerable...

"ALL THE WAY!" Emerson ordered. Harrison, who was already on his knees, now lay flat on his chest and lowered Emerson down as far as he could.

Another section of wall bulged outward. A handful of tiny roots wiggled out of the mud.

...testing the temperature of the air, no doubt.

The small roots retreated-

December jumped... his fingers grazed Emerson's but he could not grab hold.

"AGAIN!" Emerson shouted.

December jumped.

-more mud sprayed December as several larger roots erupted from the wall and whipped through the water like aquatic snakes.

December caught Emerson's hand.

"PULLL!"

Harrison started to pull them up.

"DAMN, HE'S HEAVY!"

"YOU'RE TELLING ME!? I'M THE ONE WHO JUST GOT HIS ARM STRETCHED!" Emerson shouted back.

The larger roots wrapped around December's feet just as they cleared the water. They yanked him back down-

"MY ARRRRRM!!" Emerson squealed. He and December had grasped each other by the forearms, but Emerson's fingers lost all of their strength. December was too heavy... only HE was holding on now...

Now even more roots were surging into the watery pit... dozens of them reached up and ensnared December's legs.

They pulled.

"AAAAAAAAAAAGGGH!"

With December's weight and the creature's tentacles pulling one way, and Harrison's strength pulling the other... Emerson's arm was about to come right out of it's socket.

"TAKE MY SWORD AND CUT THEM FREE!"

Holding Emerson with one hand, Harrison drew one of his swords and held it out.

"CUT YOURSELF FREE!" Harrison shook the sword.

December looked at it...

...then looked down at the pit below.

The creature was down there. The reason he'd come to Bephal was down there.

J'Hasp was down there.

"TAKE IT, MAN!" Harrison shouted "TAKE IT!"

"Rescue me," December said calmly.

"That's what we're TRYING to-"

December let go.

[To Be Continued]