(The Coliseum, Roman Republic, 811 Ab Urbe Condita)

  “Now, hear me. Got a lot on that plate. It needs to be perfect. Senator Balbus wants the best Games for his nephew’s complete opening of the Sinae route.”

  Only his steel nerves prevented Septimus Calletus from rolling his eyes. The adventures of Aulus Tertinius Regulus, the aforementioned Senator’s nephew, had been the talk of the City for most of the year. He was a fairly successful merchant, and he’d single-handedly built a large trade route from Persia, across the Indus, and up to Sinae at the edges of the world, beyond Alexander’s borders. Goods were now flowing in larger quantities than the centuries before, notably the incredible cloth of the east, sericum – silk, as the barbarians called it.

  “It is going to be perfect, boss. The customer is going to get what he funds. Of course, it would help if you could tell us what’s scheduled.”

  “You think the Senator’s factotum said anything? Even to me? He wants all the fighting to be “genuine”. I could explain to him all I wanted until Jupiter would get bored and smite us, but no. All I know is the theme is going to be east against west – while Rome watches, of course – and that’s it.”

  And, of course, Septimus had to refrain again – barely – a laugh. Well, he was a hyacintus. Not actually blue-painted like the savages of conquered northern Brittanicus; that was only a hint of blue covering half of his face, but he wore wolfskin – specially made and padded internally with metal wires and rings to reinforce it without too much showing and wielded a short axe and shield. He doubted that the actual savages used that particular accouter, but it was made familiar after the Brittonic Wars and the attendant triumphs. With the pacified isles, there was a movement to remove the “offending” display, but people pointed out that there were no longer any of the actual pictish warriors running around, so what were they complaining about?

  He looked at his team for today, which comprised three murmillo, and a pair of old-style gallus. Western it was.

  “I assume Titus is East?”

  “He’s the best thraex we have,” the ludus’ master acknowledged.

  Septimus slapped his hand on the boss’s shoulder.

  “Now scoot. Let us get warmed up while we wait for the pompa. Titus probably needs you more than me. If he’s supposed to bring glory to the eastern commerce, he knows he’ll have to work for it. Since he’s against me.”

  The boss moved out, throwing a last look. Septimus knew he was a perpetual worrier. One of his ludus mates had told him that was for the best; pessimists could only get good surprises, for the bad stuff never did surprise them. And, of course, when the ludus master got good surprises, he tended to give them extras. For contracted gladiators, as opposed to slaves he’d purchased, it was a good life.

  Provided the spectacle was good, and Senator Balbus’s nephew was pleased with the spectacle his old man had purchased. On the cheap – the Games were going to be held for only a single day.

  “Pompa!” a Coliseum worker yelled.

  With a long habit, Septimus stopped warming his muscles for the upcoming spectacle and started toward the tunnel leading out of the preparation area and into the Coliseum itself. Others were coming out of their prep rooms, and the front of the formal procession was already streaming out of the darkness into the sunlight.

  “How come we don’t rate a front parade?” Gallus, one of the – well – gallus of his team asked.

  “All those pricks are doing one-on-one fights; that’s all they’re good for. We do it like real fighters – never alone, always in teams.”

  “Yeah, but I’d love to have one of those silvered armors.”

  “Well, ask old Cnaeus to promote you.”

  Septimus did not need to look back to know the man was making a face, and he let himself a smile. As if the boss would entertain one of his gladiators asking for a promotion. He gave promotions, he did not agree to suggestions or hints.

  As soon as he stepped out into the light, following the procession, he blinked several times to clear his sight after the darkness to see the sun-drenched area of the Coliseum.

  He immediately noticed the floor of the arena was divided into three sections. One was made of fake buildings, columns, and small walls rising to half a man’s height. A fake forest – well, a dozen trees altogether – was taking another third slice, and the last section seemed to have rock piles representing mountains between white sand. He had no idea what these were, but he could make a guess – the forests of the northern isles as the westernmost part of the Roman Republic, the city itself, and the eastern whatever it was.

  He had a better appreciation of the actual investment in those Games. Putting up that amount of customization on the Coliseum’s floor for a mere day was a message in itself.

  As he contemplated the arena setup, trying to get strategies for the upcoming fights, his legs worked automatically, keeping him in lockstep as the entire cast of gladiators paraded around the edges of the Coliseum, showing themselves to the crowd and, more importantly, the various VIP lodges located near the floor.

  Of the highest importance, even above the sponsor of those Games, was, of course, the Consulate lodge. The two consuls that ruled over the Roman Republic rarely made a random appearance on Games, but one showing up marked the importance and significance of said Games… and it looked like there were people in the lodge, which meant almost certainly one of the two would be there to attend today’s Games.

  Well, no pressure, he thought. There were two risks involved with the presence of a Consul, good and bad. One was that he could be displeased by a badly staged fight, ordering it to conclude rather than have the referee simply proclaim victory. That one was if you were on the losing side. The other was the rudis, the symbol of final victory and potential retirement from the gladiator career. If you kept going as a rudarius, that’s when the money racked in. But that was not as easy as it looked.

  If he ever got the rudis, Septimus would half-retire. He’d stay in the ludus, training more gladiators and specially hyacintus, which was never a popular specialization among the gladiators. Most of the freemen who contracted with the ludus didn’t pick that one. Septimus did, and he’d proven himself time and again.

  Finally, the pompa was over, and he and his team took place at one of the staging points for the “forest” area. All of the teams were from his own ludus, which made things simpler. You knew all those guys, and there was little risk of getting wrecked by one of the other two big ludus of Rome.

  As the sponsor rose and started to shout, his voice repeated all over the place from carefully emplaced professional repeaters, he noticed the light dimming. Septimus looked up, expecting the shades of the Coliseum coming up to shield people from maybe the excesses of the sun, but rather than cloth being wheeled in over the mighty arena, there were… clouds.

  He could have sworn that, one minute ago, the sky was clear and blue, with barely a wisp of white stretching above the arena. But here were clouds, boiling up from the east, heralding one unannounced storm.

  Someone’s paid a mighty sacrifice to the gods, he thought. Of course, more people claimed to be able to direct the weather than actually did so, but if some rival of Balbus decided to throw a shade over the triumph of his nephew… such a man might be in a position to find the right aruspice and thrown his own fortune into making curses.

  For Septimus, that promised misery. If the weather turned, cloth awnings would shield the spectators… but not the gladiators. Nothing was worse than fighting under the rain, just like the real thing.

  The repeaters stopped, not because the weather worried them but because Balbus had apparently stopped. The man was visible on his sponsor’s lodge, looking up, and while the light was falling as the clouds darkened, Septimus looked up again.

  Lightning was flashing in the middle of the cloud cover. But that was not mere lightning that had people worried, rather it was the behavior of it just above.

  This was… slow lightning. Instead of bright flashes coursing inside the clouds, it moved slowly, stretching and twisting. Then the lightning bent and started to reach toward the ground as if Jupiter had thrown a mighty bolt, but lazily.

  The crowd screamed, and some started to run as the twisting lightning stretched until it finally reached the ground in the middle of the Coliseum’s floor. There it stood, a column of twisting light that jerked like a bacchanalia dancer on strange substances before it started to split into two individual lightning conduits.

  In between the two lightning bolts stood blackness absolute. The two conduits moved away from each other, stretching the blackness, and Septimus was reminded of some kind of door. A gateway into the afterlife, he could imagine.

  Something – no, someone – walked out of the black.

  The figure stretched out dozens of cubits high, his head coming up to the middle of the Coliseum’s bleachers. He – for, despite its marble-white smooth and unmarred skin, he was obviously a male with his parts wrapped in leather strips that extended and covered a fifth of his skin in a seemingly random fashion – felt like a god stepping out of the heavens, yet one nothing like the ones he’d known about. No Jupiter, or Portunus, or Orcus. Septimus had to refrain himself from prostrating against the supernatural presence. The Coliseum might have gotten the visit of a god today, but he was one of the best gladiators of Rome and, like Rome’s real soldiers, bent for no one.

  Even a god.

  Septimus Calletus, you stand at a crossing, the voice thundered, and he grasped his short axe even tighter.

  He’s coming for ME?

  Do you stand for a meaningless life here, until the end of your world, or do you yearn for more? Do you want to go to the end of a mortal life knowing nothing more, or do you want to find endless service for a greater purpose?

  The god did not wait for an answer. He turned and moved back into the darkness of the portal. Up above, the clouds had darkened to a pitch black like a starless night, and only the two frozen lightning were providing light in the darkness of the Coliseum.

  Septimus Calletus, son of Rome, started sprinting toward the gate.

  As he did so, most of the gladiators started running as well, converging on the open gate into the god’s realms beyond.

  (Trenches east of Verdun, France, 1918 AD)

  “Men of France, we stand in reach of the final victory,” the lieutenant exclaimed.

  Sergeant Remi Hector shut down his ears. Lieutenants came and went. The average life expectancy of one on the Verdun battlefield hellscape was measured in months, and he did not expect this one to do any better.

  Worse, this newest officer, whose demesne now encompassed the areas that Remi had unfettered actual control over, was spouting more rear-echelon propaganda, believing in all the lies that the army headquarters regularly shouted across the country and the field of battle, ever proclaiming the impending victory of France over the “Boche”, the despicable Germanic enemy.

  Hector had seen the entire Great War, the War to end all Wars, unfold at an insane pace. They went from fighting with rifles, as wars had been fought for pretty much forever, to deploying steel monstrosities – invented by the British, no less – to using mustard gas, to even more. The latest rumor was that the Kaiser had weaponized polio or something similar and expected to make the soldiers of France into invalids, letting his troops – which would be immune, of course – sweep over their heads. He wouldn’t dismiss this off-hand, for in this insanity of a war, anything was possible.

  The lieutenant, however, was certainly not a veteran like him. In fact, if Remi had to bet, he would have sworn the lieutenant probably didn’t even have a mustache when the war started after that Archduke’s assassination in the east.

  And how everyone now wishes they didn’t have so many treaties and obligations, he thought briefly.

  Sebastien Hector, the private next to him, started to unwrap a parcel, ignoring the droning of the lieutenant. When they discovered they shared a last name, they’d swapped histories, but Remi was from near Brest, as far as possible from Verdun as one could be, while Sebastien was from a small town in upper Saone, a few hundred kilometers from here. Despite the commonality, they didn’t seem to be related at all, but that didn’t change their chance link.

  As things went in the trenches, sharing things like a name counted for far more than the simple curiosity it would bring in happier times.

  “Winter shouldn’t be far,” Sebastien commented.

  “I don’t think they’ll let us make a break for Christmas like last time,” Remi replied.

  “Not after the high command demoted to privates every officer overseeing the areas where this happened. And ensuring they were on the first charges after the new year.”

  “I wonder if the Boche did the same.”

  “Well, this gave us some use of those officers, didn’t it?”

  Remi had to repress a laugh. Laughing while the lieutenant was making a speech would probably turn into a problem he didn’t need.

  That’s when he realized something had stopped. The lieutenant had stopped talking, and as he looked back at his new officer, the young man jumped down from the slightly raised crate he’d used. This would have been a stupid thing to do, raising your head above the trenches for a Boche sharpshooter to try their luck, but the lieutenant was on the shorter side and probably needed that crate not to look stupid. Or at least not stupider than he already was.

  “Probably think he’s a regular Napoleon,” Sebastien commented again as the lieutenant started making his way across the trenches, doing some inspection, it seemed.

  “All he needs to do is put one hand in front instead of both of them on the back,” Remi replied.

  “Bets? Over under three months?”

  “You’re for over three?”

  “Do I look stupid?”

  “Neither do I. Hard pass.”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “Pffft.”

  The man slowly advanced toward their position, looking at various people, even once slapping on the man’s shoulder. As he departed, Remi could see the man rolling his eyes behind the lieutenant’s back. He repressed again a laugh but straightened himself slightly as the brand new officer reached his post. No sense in getting himself noticed. Even if he didn’t expect the fresh lieutenant to last long, one officer pissed at you could turn your life into hell. Or a worse hell than the trenches already were.

  “So… sergeant,” he started, looking at the chevrons on Remi’s uniform.

  “Lieutenant?”

  “All is good in your squad?”

  “So far, so good. It’s been a quiet couple of weeks.”

  “We’re waiting for the delivery of new goods,” the lieutenant announced. “The headquarters has a shipment of those new American-improved designs for tanks inbound. As soon as they’re here, we’re going to see how fast the Boche will retreat.”

  Assuming they’re not bombed out of existence, Remi thought.

  “I wondered. Those limey-lite across the Atlantic may claim they’ve joined the war, but what have they done for us lately?” Sebastien said.

  “They’re trying to open a second front up north. That will divert resources from here. And then we’ll break through.”

  He slapped Remi on the shoulder, as he’d done on the other groups he’d visited, and moved away without waiting for a comment.

  “That’s what they always say,” Sebastien finally whispered once he’d moved out of hearing range.

  “Well, it’s Dead Day tomorrow, and there’s nothing moving…”

  Remi slowly stopped. Something had been bothering him for a while, and he finally realized what it was. Artillery was always there. Even without a barrage, one position sometimes fired randomly, ensuring no one attempted to sneak into the no-mans-land. Random shell bursts were a sure way to winnow the mad lads from the real soldiers. Only the terminally stupid went in unasked.

  “You wonder if he’s not correct? None of the Boche has fired for, what, two hours now?” he asked Sebastien.

  “Want to look?”

  “Let’s. That’s not usual, and I hate not usual.”

  They moved next to a small turn-around of the trench, and Remi brought out his magnifiers. He placed them very carefully on top of the lip of the trench, waited to see if some sharpshooter would take a shot at the reflection in the glass, then raised himself to put his eyes to the glasses.

  God’s hand took him and threw him away.

  For a pair of seconds, he failed to understand what happened. But to his left, the trench was now… much wider. Ripped bags, stones, and pieces of hardware… and he realized, pieces of men as well. There was nothing burning, just ripped-out bits.

  Sebastien was lying on the trench wall. He realized his friend’s face was showing a line of blood, but it didn’t pump out… yet Sebastien wasn’t moving. He reflexively put his finger on the private’s neck, as he’d been shown years ago.

  Nothing.

  That’s why blood’s not pouring, he thought, numb. It’s going to stay below the wounds without a heart to pump up.

  There was no whistle to announce another shell, but the next explosion was further away to the left. He realized he might have been at the edge of whatever slice the Boche artillery was going to pummel, and that was why he’d survived – again – where others had not, would not.

  He peeked up, trying to see if the enemy would use the barrage to try to claim back the trenches they’d taken from them less than five weeks ago.

  Instead of Boches coming screaming at them, he saw a coming cloud. But not the yellow-orange of the dreaded mustard gas. This was yellow-green in a way that was even more sickly than the usual gas.

  Whatever the Boche had concocted, it was new. Remi doubted it was some weaponized polio or whatever rumors had been floating around. But this one was coming, and he reached for his belt, where his gas mask should be.

  He pulled a strap, cut cleanly. A one with some blood still on it. While he’d been distracted, he’d failed to notice one piece of metal had sliced at his side. He’d been luckier than Sebastien, for sure, but the shrapnel had almost got him.

  He looked back at the slowly rolling greenish fog. The dreadful cloud swirled as if the wind was picking up. Remi should have been worried, but all he felt was numbness. Four years of the Great War, from the mobilization and the insane rush with taxis ferrying them, of all things, and the odds were finally going to catch him.

  The fog rose further and further and then parted, leaving… blackness. An utter blackness that was not of his world.

  Is this it?

  But what came out of the blackness was not the angel of death coming to escort him out of his life and the hell on Earth that was his existence.

  It was a gigantic knight. Armored, with a helmet like a Boche officer minus the pike, and with metal pieces covering all over the figure. He heard a whimper and realized another soldier had survived the shelling and was now cowering in the trench, having seen the battlefield’s newest insanity. The soldier was muttering at high speed, probably praying.

  Remi Anatole Hector, you stand at a crossing, a voice came across the no-mans-land, like a voice he’d never heard.

  You have seen the horrors of the world. Will your life be wasted for a country that is nearing its end, or do you want it to have worth? Are you a warrior or just another soldier?

  The knight paused, looking at the trenches in front of it. Looking at him.

  For a second or two, nothing happened. Then the figure turned and headed back into the darkness in the middle of the green poison cloud.

  For a second or two, Remi stood still. Then, he reached for the lip of the trench, pulled himself up, and started slowly walking. He reached for his gas mask as the fog neared before remembering that it was gone, somewhere behind him. He let it lie and continued walking toward the darkness and the end of it all.

  Behind him, loud booms sounded as the artillery barrage picked up. They sounded like the end of the world itself.

  (Heart of the Long Forest, 211th year of Queen Herald of Dusk)

  “You can rise, Neira the Herne, Neira the Bane of Mountains, Neira the Bringer of Peace, Neira the Wanderer.”

  She lifted from her kneeling position, where the Queen had just emplaced twin leaves of gold. The Queen now sat back on her throne, folding her hands in her lap as she looked at one of her biggest Champions with a perfectly frozen, impassible expression.

  She is probably as bored as I am.

  “In view of your exemplary deeds and the results of the War of the Far Vales against the dwarves of White Mount, which you so long prosecuted, the Herald of Dusk has decided to grant you release from service to the Crown now that you have the greatest honors, and there is nothing more to be achieved,” the Court Chambellan intoned.

  She looked briefly at the stump of her right hand before focusing again on the royalty. Many people considered the Queen’s name to be an ill omen, despite the simpler origin that it came from the fact that when she was born, the birth took so long that it went over the entire afternoon and only came to its conclusion when dusk fell.

  Like all elves, the most distinctive part of your life was part of your name. The Queen probably had a private name like Neira, but that one was forgotten after over two centuries of reign.

  Also, there was the matter of no less than four wars over those centuries against the dwarven enemies in the mountains to the north. No other reign had had such a plethora of conflict, making more people talk about a cursed reign begun with such a dark omen.

  Neira walked backward until she crossed the wooden border, separating the parqueted black floor of the audience area and the lighter wood covering the entrance area. Once there, she bowed slightly once and then finally turned, heading to the doors of the Queen’s Hall without looking back, as was proper.

  The outer guards on both sides of the doors leading to the audience hall did not even move as she exited, and the doors behind her closed. She did not look at them either, moving ahead without a pause.

  Only once she’d crossed the Three Gates and back into the outer periphery of the palace grounds, she allowed herself to relax, or rather slump slightly. Most of the guards had saluted as she crossed, as befitting one bearing golden leaves, the highest distinction an elf could get without dying in the Crown’s service.

  Of course, they’d release me from service, she thought as she looked again at the stump that ended her right hand. At least it was the right hand. It could be worse; it could be her main hand. Any other wounds, healers would have been all over her until it was gone, but the cold iron of the dwarves was far more damaging than anything else. She’d been told over and over again that she’d been lucky to survive that particular encounter.

  But with the dwarven clans' overlord’s last heir dead and a succession crisis on the cards, the hated little creatures finally sued for peace. All it took was half of her force dead and her off-hand having to be cut and cauterized before iron poisoning wormed its way across her arm and killed her.

  But peace had a harsh cost. Far higher than war. Even she knew it was only a matter of time before the next war.

  Someone else would have to wage that war.

  Sometimes, she wished to curse the fates that had made it so that her world was shared between actual people and the twisted small caricatures of people that haunted mountains and all places at high altitudes. But she was not the goddess of Earth, ordering the life across the world. Philosophers might argue that even dwarves had meaning in the system of the world, but usually, philosophers didn’t have to hunt, go into the untamed wilds, or seek the blighted areas where dwarves twisted the natural world and destroyed the order of that world.

  It would have been better if the Kingdom had not been confined to a large peninsula, but a peninsula still. Boot-shaped, stretching into the Mother Sea, but almost entirely closed off by the dwarven mountains to the north, with only a few places eastward to open up into the wider world. Most of the Kingdom’s trade came from sea elves, endlessly traveling across the seas of the world. But the dwarven threat was real, always there pushing its shadow over the Kingdom.

  She raised again her stump, caressing it with her other hand. Well, that one was the other distinction she’d got from her century of distinguished career. Now, she guessed she’d have to settle. Maybe find some nice man, one that would not be overly intimidated by the golden leaves and one that would not be bothered by iron-poison wounds and the risk to potential children.

  A rare breed, indeed. Well, I have time to find him now.

  At least she had a home to go to. One that she’d rarely visited over the decades, but she now had to figure out how a home felt.

  “Leaf-bearer, do you know anything about the sickness?” someone asked as she slowly moved across the street.

  “Excuse me?”

  “One such as you must have heard more, right?” the woman that had interrupted her asked.

  Neira frowned.

  “I bear the golden leaves, but that does not mean I am all-knowing. What is that sickness you’re talking about?”

  “I asked around. I have a young kid, fifteen years old, and he’s still horribly short. And I know a dozen kids that are the same…”

  “I am the Herne, not the Serpent. I hunt. I do not know the slightest about healing except doing whatever they tell me. I am sorry, but I have no answer for you.”

  The woman almost started again, but, sensing Neira’s mood, she stopped herself, bowing slightly in honor of the golden leaves before retreating three steps.

  Neira the Herne sighed.

  As she walked out, she reflected on that encounter. Even though she was no longer a Crown agent, people expected her to solve all their problems.

  And I can no longer draw a bow. Even problems with an arrow solution are out of my reach now.

  Now that she’d heard about some weird sickness, she found herself seeking signs of some sickness. And people looked healthy enough. Nobody had lost parts, iron poison traces, or anything there. The only thing she could see that could hint at sickness was trees being early in oranges and reds, despite the warm weather and the equinox still a month away.

  The year is not going to end well. Even with peace.

  Then she spotted the tree. Where other trees merely looked covered in reds, this one was shedding its leaves by the hundreds as she looked. All the other passersby were also stopping as they noticed the shedding by the tall tree. They started whispering among themselves as she watched, mesmerized by the accelerated fall that was hitting the tree.

  The tree started bloating suddenly.

  She almost stepped back. Because a tree’s midsection dilating was definitively out of order. She wondered if that was linked to the sickness she was hearing about. Could trees be sick the same way as people?

  The tree’s bark split up. An opening into wood appeared; a darkness that was far deeper than it had any right to be at the side of an avenue of the Kingdom’s capital.

  A stick figure came out of the black.

  It was three times taller than any elf had ever been. It had no face, merely a square block with vents opening in it. And it looked like it was made of shaped wood beams, although they were bound in metal bands.

  Is that iron?

  Neira the Herne, daughter of Varla, you stand at a crossing, a voice came out of the stick figure’s vents, as deep as the Earth itself.

  You are no longer the Herne, but will you be the Wanderer? Will you leave a kingdom that has nothing left but the Dusk of life and see where the hunt goes on?

  She blinked twice. Was the figure talking to her, really to her? Had the thing out of the tree come for her? For what purpose?

  She raised her stump above her head, showing what she thought of her ability to pursue the hunt.

  Iron is not doom, just a weakness.

  The stick wood figure turned and walked back slowly into the black opening in the tree.

  Neira the Herne, Gold Leaf bearer of the Kingdom of the Long Forests, blinked.

  (Ruins of Selis Castle, Carp Highlands, 5th year after ?)

  The man fancies himself as a paladin, Sark thought.

  That was a foregone conclusion. Nobody but a warrior who knew, really knew, that he was working as a direct representative of a higher power would seek him out under most circumstances.

  He probably even thought Sark was somehow at fault for some crime. As if Sark bothered committing crimes.

  “You are an abomination,” the “paladin” called out.

  “Really?” he laughed back, taunting.

  Noise told him that the man had jerked at the answer. Either he was unsure of himself, or he hadn’t expected Sark to reply and give him a direction.

  “Things like you which reject the natural order of things are.”

  “You described every single mage there is.”

  Sark was already moving, silently. He knew every corner of the ancient ruined castle. Two centuries ago, he’d found the abandoned and forgotten structure and made it as a rear base, a safe haven for when things got too heated, and he had to make himself forgotten in the short memories of the still-living. He’d made a good lair, complete with a library full of romance stuff for fun reading.

  Well, sometimes, the still-living still remembered his existence and didn’t want to let the dead lie.

  “Mages used to help, unlike your kind.”

  Used to? That’s a first. I never knew any who did that.

  “So what brings you to my decrepit demesne?”

  “Retribution.”

  The wall exploded. Sark dodged, incredulous. The paladin appeared to be more talented than he’d assumed. He had to be an actual one; tracking the undead like him and blasting stone walls, even ruined ones, took real power. Sark doubted those powers actually came from any deity because if a deity could grant such power, it could do stuff more directly, not just “help those who helped themselves,” as the priests were wont to say. But that did not change the beliefs of those who wielded those “divine powers”.

  His brother had been a priest, wielding such miracles. And he knew better than anyone how his sibling made it up as he went, trying his best to guess the will of silent deities that might not even exist, as far as Sark was concerned.

  Instincts, supplemented by arcane senses made only more acute by various supplements, made him duck as a blast of arcane energies passed just over him.

  “A miss is a miss,” he taunted.

  Anything to unsettle what might be a real challenge. He didn’t care about much of the castle ruins – it wasn’t as if he entertained visitors – but the devastation might push him out of home.

  He moved silently and refrained from using magic. Levitating or anything else might be detectable by the paladin. He just chanced a little bit of projection.

  “So retribution. Over what?”

  Let’s see if he aims for the sound of the voice or the origin of it.

  “The plague.”

  “You have to be more specific. Mankind has been plagued for pretty much all of its existence. Much to the dismay of your priests.”

  “The plague that brought us so many ghouls, feasting upon the freshly dead.”

  “Well, I’m not a ghoul; I’m a lich? I don’t feast on the dead, so why…”

  A wall exploded.

  Okay, the sound, not the source. Let’s move him to a better position.

  “As if you did not benefit from the plague. The less living, the better off you are.”

  Sark snorted – without a sound, of course – at the idea. He liked the living. They were way more interesting than the dead. The dead, by large, were horribly predictable. Liches, Wights, Master Vampires, sure. The rest, like zombies, well… brainless did apply there. The living were a lot more… varied by the virtue of there being a lot more of them.

  “You sound pretty convinced you know what I like.”

  “After seeing the plagues, yes.”

  Another wall blew up, the one Sark had anticipated. The paladin was chasing his projected voice without even suspecting that Sark would use deception.

  I mean, come on. Half of the mages worth the name know how to project sound. Okay, maybe a voice is harder…

  “Well, I like having the living around. Not too close, not too far, just the right way…”

  A wordless yell answered him as light briefly flashed.

  Gotcha.

  “You know, I think we should stop there,” Sark stated.

  “You will not escape!”

  “No. YOU will not escape.”

  Before the paladin had a chance to react, runes were triggered, and a great whooshing sound came from where he’d been. Sark stopped stooping and righted himself, turning back toward where he’d triggered the trap.

  There goes half a decade of work. Congratulations, whoever…

  The room without a ceiling where he’d emplaced one of his personal designs, a shrinking domain, still bore the traces of paladin wrath. It also had a small silvery sphere that was a foot wide and still shrinking, in the middle of a large and now half-burned summoning circle.

  The domain was the containment field for an otherworldly summon. Sark had managed to rewrite the summoning so that it did not summon anything, just the containment, and then let it collapse on itself… and whoever was standing in the hidden summoning circle.

  If he had enough flexibility, he’d have smiled.

  The ball of the domain shrank, shrank, until it stopped being there and released a massive burst of mana.

  It should have been all, but instead, from the point where the containment had dissipated, a blob of darkness appeared.

  Wait, I removed all of the summoning aspects…

  The blob expanded, and Sark slowly backed away. With the circle blown up into twisting the ritual, anything could happen. The darkness grew, and grew, and grew, until it occupied the entire room.

  A giant of a figure came out. Sark had never seen such a summoned creature. It had blue skin, like a marble he’d seen once, decades before his transition to lichdom. It also had three pairs of arms and three eyes, aligned vertically on the not-quite-a-face that the figure sported. A flowing tunic covered the torso and hips but not much more.

  He also immediately realized that the out-of-this-world giant moved very much unlike a summon, with a smoothness and purpose that mindless summons never had.

  Sark Hither the Third, Sark the Unliving Lich, you stand at a crossing.

  “Well, that’s true. There was once an intersection of two halls right here,” he countered.

  He wasn’t about to let anyone, even an extradimensional summoned entity, impress him.

  This world ends slowly but surely…

  Blame entropy.

  … and even the dead need life to provide time. Did you fight death to a draw only to lose the prize, or will you fight again where you have a chance?

  “And why should I follow you into fate unknown?”

  The figure’s three pairs of arms folded as the blindfolded head focused on him.

  With strange aeons, even death may die.

  It was hard for a lich to find humor, but that one would have drawn a smile if the desiccated flesh had been able to.