Into the Fox’s Den

  Deeper dug the gray mouse. Her foolishness was without end. Unknowingly, she burrowed straight into the fox’s den.

  — The Fox and the Mouse, oral tradition told around elven campfires to teach children to think before taking action

  “Are you certain you wish to proceed?” Jorden asked the aged diviner as he settled back beside him. “I can lead you to the spirit of the creature you seek, but I do not recommend the journey.”

  “We had a deal, Jorden,” Kessel replied meaningfully. “My duty is to the empire. If we cannot ascertain the threat we face, how can we stand against it?”

  “Our deal stands, commander-of-the-dead,” Jorden answered evenly. “But remember, I have cautioned you. It is one thing to enter this plane, where his creations find rest before moving on; it is entirely another to enter the realms of those he has cast from his kingdom.”

  Nodding, Kessel steeled his resolve. “Let us continue, then,” he whispered.

  Drawing heavily upon the power of his amulet, he fought the fatigue gnawing at him from the ritual’s drain. His apprentices continued to stimulate the Demon’s Eye, and soon the plane of the dead vanished.

  One hand rested on Jorden’s shoulder as part of Kessel’s consciousness tapped into the prophet’s. Tedious though the task was, he sifted through Jorden’s memories.

  Interestingly, Kessel found it difficult to distinguish between the two sets of memories. Though the creature was vastly different from Jorden physically, both shared many of the same emotions.

  The memories spoke of ambition and hope—loyalty, bravery, and honor were virtues held in high regard even by these strange reptiles. Yet, Kessel soon realized he could separate the memories by a singular, strangling emotion.

  Some greater power had bound the creature to its will, just as the beast’s spirit had been bound to Jorden’s body.

  “These beasts are held thrall to a greater power,” Kessel exclaimed, excitement and dread mingling in his voice. The revelation hit him like a physical blow. He had not considered that they might not be acting of their own volition.

  Suddenly, the diviner discovered what he sought. It was an ancient memory, though the specific timeline remained unclear.

  Like a fly on the wall, Kessel watched Jorden’s final earthly moments in horror.

  A proud warrior stood defiantly before an unnaturally tall, hooded priest.

  With an extravagant flourish, the priest produced a gleaming ceremonial dagger from the folds of his robe. The two hooded guards on either side of Jorden roughly seized his elbows, which were chained together by heavy, cutting wrist shackles that bit deeply into his corded forearms.

  The guards’ hands were grotesque and disfigured. They possessed unnatural strength and appeared as if they were caught mid-transformation into something hideous.

  The hood dropped from the priest’s gruesome head as he raised his devil’s-flame eyes to the sky.

  He too looked as if he were in the middle of a painful transformation. Mottled patches of green and black-flecked skin mingled with the pock-marked, tanned complexion of a young man who could be no more than twenty winters.

  The fell clergyman still had sparse tufts of his once-thick, dark hair intact on his scalp while much of it was covered by a bare, bottle-green, leathery hide.

  His devil eyes bore straight into Jorden, considering the man as if he were stock to be butchered.

  Tusk-like canines jutted upward from his lower jaw, reaching almost to his cheekbones.

  Without warning, the dagger plunged forward, burying hilt-deep into Jorden’s chest.

  With an elated grunt, the priest twisted the blade, the gold-inlaid hilt flashing murderously as Jorden’s chest was deftly opened and his heart pierced. As the blade withdrew, Jorden’s body convulsed. The dark priest drove his hand into the gaping wound, grasping the warrior’s heart.

  Chanting in a sinister language, the heart began to mend—but now it took on an inky black sheen, corrupted as another spirit took possession of Jorden’s body.

  Like weeds choking a field, his skin turned ashen and a scaly rash spread like a cancer across his body.

  Tearing his mind from the disturbing memory, Kessel focused once more on the spirit signature of the creature that still possessed Jorden.

  Attuning himself, Kessel felt his eyes become radiant vessels of light. He drew deeply upon his amulet, aware that he was far beyond his limit—and would pay dearly for it.

  But the risk was necessary. If the spirit trace was lost, the cost could fall not just on him, but on the entire empire.

  After what seemed like an eternity, the trace emerged. Relief flooded through him. He had found it. He had not failed his country.

  Determination set in, and the diviner ignored the fire of magic burning behind his eyes. The dimensions began to shift around him—and through them flitted creatures from planes too terrible to describe.

  And then he saw it:

  The anchor.

  A hellish plane of fire, brimstone, soot, and ash. The tainted air stank of noxious gases, and unlike the plane of the dead from which they came, this landscape teemed with menace.

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  Jagged rocks jutted from the ground like broken teeth. Rivers of molten fire gurgled and hissed. The air itself trembled with distant screams, and every gust of wind carried a trace of madness.

  The bone podium inside Kessel’s protective ward sprang to life. The skeletal mouths gaped wide, inhaling the deadly air and exhaling it back into the pentagram, purified into a breathable atmosphere.

  The large central pentagram pulsed violently as its powerful enchantments battled the hostile planar elements to keep Kessel and Jorden safe. Meanwhile, the smaller pentagrams appeared more stable, flashing only occasionally as they fought off a similar assault.

  Working quickly, Kessel sent out a mental summons to the spirit they so desperately sought. The temperature within his ward was rising fast, quickly becoming unbearable.

  He knew he had only moments before they would need to flee.

  To buy extra time, he channeled power through his amulet into the wards, and was rewarded with a surge of stability.

  Abruptly, a ghostly apparition approached.

  “You and your apprentices should not have come to this place, necromancer,” the spirit hissed, its gaze sweeping toward the two slight figures flanking the Demon’s Eye.

  “I answer your summons only to warn you. You have no power here. Leave now, and your souls may yet be saved.”

  The apparition did not appear to know that any of the others were present. Kessel did not understand why Jorden, who was not inside an individual ward, escaped the spirit’s attention, but he had no time to ponder it.

  “I have more power over you than you understand, spirit,” Kessel returned confidently. “You will answer my questions or risk the wrath of one who can unravel the very fabric of your being.”

  A mirthless chuckle echoed in reply. “For ages I have been bound to a lord I did not wish to serve. In that time I have broken every law of honor, wisdom, and glory my people once held dear. If you truly hold the power to end my servitude, necromancer, I request you use it—in exchange for the information you seek.”

  “Diviner,” Kessel hissed. “I am no necromancer.”

  “And if I did such a thing, you would be utterly destroyed,” he added grimly.

  The spirit shrugged, unconcerned, unmoved by the distinction the mage insisted upon.

  “Your reluctance is admirable, but unnecessary. Oblivion is preferable to continued existence in this place.”

  Sweat poured from Kessel’s brow, soaking his robes. Still, he nodded. “Let it be as we have bargained, then. Who do you serve, spirit?”

  The spirit fidgeted, visibly uncomfortable. “I cannot answer that question.”

  “Is your master known to us on our world?” Kessel pressed.

  “I have heard your people use his name to curse their enemies,” the wraith said dryly.

  Kessel’s expression darkened. “Is he a father or a son?”

  “He is both,” the spirit rasped. “You are wasting time. Circling the same bush will not yield clearer answers. I have said that I cannot tell you.”

  Its shadowed head snapped up, eyes fixed on something beyond the veil.

  “Hurry your interrogation, necromancer. I sense the presence of a warden nearby. You do not want to incur his displeasure.”

  “Why destroy the Mother-Tree?” Kessel fired back quickly, ignoring the spirit’s newfound sense of urgency. The temperature was unbearable, and the diviner was certain he had the strength for only a few more questions. Still, he listened intently—though his eyes wandered, tracking Jorden as the prophet suddenly stepped beyond the protection of the large pentagram.

  To Kessel’s astonishment, the prophet seemed unaffected by the poisonous air and blistering heat. Jorden strolled a short distance away from the group, disappearing behind a series of jagged boulders a few dozen paces off.

  “She was the strongest barrier preventing the release of one of four generals with which my lord will rule your world,” the spirit answered, less cryptically.

  “Can you name the four?” Kessel pressed.

  The spirit opened its mouth, but the words died before they could be spoken. Dejectedly, it shook its shadowed head. It had still not noticed the prophet.

  Ignoring the unanswered question—and the distraction of the wandering Jorden—Kessel pushed on. He knew this next question would be his last; the hot, borrowed energy spasmed violently within his body.

  “Our scouts have seen your kind’s tracks. We were even attacked by your forces in our own fortress. Yet we do not know your numbers. How many are you upon our lands, wraith?”

  “We are legions,” the figure intoned ominously. The approaching firestorm now seemed to affect it directly, its once-servile demeanor shifting into hostility.

  “Our tide will wash over your shores, wiping your civilization from memory.” Then, pleading—as if wrestling with the last scraps of its own will—it added, “Quickly… give me peace, necromancer.”

  Nodding, Kessel extended his hands toward the spirit. His radiant eyes dimmed, and the amulet at his chest lost much of its luster as he released the borrowed power in a focused burst. The energy struck the spirit squarely in the chest, and in an instant, the wraith was gone—annihilated utterly.

  The approaching firestorm surged in response, as if awakened by the release. Kessel screamed as his wards collapsed under the crushing force of the infernal pressure. The guildmaster didn’t flinch at the pain—his flesh had already begun to split and peel from the unbearable heat.

  But the storm… the storm was not a storm at all.

  It was a presence.

  A monstrous, elemental thing, forged of fire and wrath. Its malevolent form twisted within the stormfront, and Kessel found himself locked in its gaze. The terror it evoked paralyzed him. He forgot the word of power. Forgot escape. Forgot everything but fear.

  The others could only watch in horror from the shelter of their protective wards. Helpless, they saw the two apprentice necromancers shriek in agony as their bodies exploded—flesh igniting in violent bursts of fire and ash.

  The survivors longed to intervene, to pull Kessel back, but none dared cross their pentagrams. To do so would be death.

  Within the storm, Kessel’s body convulsed violently. The infernal wind coiled around him, drawing tighter and tighter, spiraling inward. It consumed him. Swallowed him.

  And then, impossibly, it entered him.

  Kessel’s frame seized. His spine arched. His eyes rolled back. And when he opened his mouth, it wasn’t to speak—but to scream.

  He screamed as if the fire of a hundred hells had found home in his soul.

  A shrill moan escaped his cracked lips, rising steadily into a piercing wail that drove the others to their knees, hands clamped over their ears. The sound echoed through the burning plane, and a violent tremble seized Kessel’s body. It intensified—his limbs twitching madly—until, with a sickening crack, his spine snapped.

  His torso twisted grotesquely. Wicked spikes erupted from his scorched flesh. Sagging, ruined muscles pulsed and spasmed, reshaping themselves into something vile and new.

  Kessel’s head exploded in a shower of bone and blood. From the ruin, a revolting crimson hide stretched over newly forming sinew, the face of a devil born anew.

  The group stared, paralyzed with horror. Kessel had insisted their pentagrams were their only salvation, but inaction now felt like doom.

  The creature turned, its terrible serpent-flame eyes burning into them.

  Through a jagged maw lined with inward-curving barbs, it laughed. “What fools dare enter my father’s domain?”

  Its glowing eyes flickered with cruel amusement, toying with them like a predator with prey. Its voice, dark and husky, purred:

  “Oh, what horrors shall I visit upon thee?”

  Then its expression changed. The amusement drained as it studied Talose and Biaun.

  Recognition.

  Rage twisted its gore-soaked face.

  “You are agents of the Creator,” it growled. “Yes… I see you.”

  It threw its head back and roared, a deafening howl that cracked the air.

  The beast surged forward, intent on Biaun’s ward—but before it could reach him, two muscular arms wrapped around its chest. Glowing with white-hot light, they crushed inward with divine force. The monster’s hardened carapace cracked.

  The devil howled in pain.

  “You will find that Aric’s plans are not so easily dismissed, devil!” Jorden spat, hurling the creature back.

  They collided again in a blur of fury and fire, fanatic strength lending Jorden impossible force.

  Spikes gouged deep into his side, but Jorden did not falter. With a savage twist, he turned and drove a heel into the humming Demon’s Eye at the creature’s side.

  The artifact exploded.

  A thousand shards of white-hot crystal erupted outward. The magical blast hit with the force of a mortar shell, ripping through flesh, carapace, and bone. Arcs of ravenous energy leapt from the ruined Eye, consuming both combatants.

  The last thing the others saw was fire.

  And then, darkness.