trembling, but shock hadn’t taken his senses yet. As Doranei watched Cetarn flexed his fingers and a red glow surrounded the wound, followed by a sizzling sound and a smell that made Doranei gag. The mage screamed, a sound that ended with a gasping sob. The King’s Man rose and retrieved Aracnan’s discarded sword.
‘Will this help?’ he asked, offering the weapon and pointing at the Crystal Skull fused to the hilt.
Cetarn gave Doranei a broken smile. He stroked his fingers over the Skull’s glassy surface before slipping it off the black metal as smoothly as ice over stone. A brief pulse of light was enough to give Cetarn the strength to sit up.
‘The pain is gone, we can continue,’ he whispered.
Doranei stared at the mage then down at the massive sword in his own hands. ‘No, you’ve gone far enough. Time for you to get out. We don’t have much more time before the Menin garrison works out what’s happening and our escape route’s closed.’
Cetarn got unsteadily to his feet. ‘I’ve still got some fight in me,’ he said in a strained voice, sounding as weak as his long-time colleague Endine, who’d been left back at the warehouse to prepare their retreat.
‘You’re out,’ Doranei said firmly. ‘Shim, see he gets back down safely.’
‘As long as he can walk,’ Shim said sourly, ‘no good in me helping him there.’
‘I can walk,’ Cetarn confirmed, taking a few wobbly steps before finding his balance. ‘Doranei, go.’
The King’s Man nodded and sheathed his usual sword, unwilling to abandon it. He hefted Aracnan’s ugly black blade. It was as ancient as any he’d ever encountered, Eolis included — but where Eolis was a cool silver, this could have been made of obsidian, its matt surface dull, but for the faint pinpricks of light bursting on the surface. It took him only a moment to realise just how light and fast the sword was — it cut the air quicker than Doranei could have with a switch of willow, let alone a steel blade.
‘Daken will find Ilumene first,’ he muttered as Cetarn headed towards the door with Shim watching him warily, ‘but if he doesn’t, this will give the traitor a surprise.’
He headed for the door Daken had left through, pausing only to spit on Aracnan’s corpse.
‘Enjoy your time in the Dark Place,’ he whispered. ‘Your master will be following soon.’
Unseen by the men leaving, the shadows began to lengthen and deepen. One Land continued as normal while another, unseen, changed and grew heavy. The sharp lines of the stone walls faded behind a curtain of darkness, the texture of night becoming more tangible than stone or wood. A distant tremble ran through the floor and faded as silence reclaimed the room. All was still for a while, then the shadows grew thicker still. The one cast by the corpse became a pool of liquid black. It twitched like a maggot-ridden corpse. For a moment it seemed to strain against the deadweight of the corpse, then it tore free and arose.
The lamps guttered before extinguishing as one. The air grew frosty and for a moment the darkness was absolute. Slowly a pale, sourceless silver light appeared, so weak it barely reached the walls on either side, but making the slow swirl of ice in the air sparkle. The shadow stood up straight and stared at the crystallising cold until a tall figure winked into being, hooded by absolute dark.
‘You come to claim me now?’ said the spirit with contempt. ‘Never once acknowledged, never offered the place rightfully mine. Now you have the gall to summon me to the fold, when my life is over?’
‘You were too weak,’ Death replied, His voice heavy, emotionless. ‘You were not strong enough to join the Pantheon.’
‘Strong enough to kill one of your kind!’ the spirit spat, its hatred undiminished.
The room grew instantly darker and more oppressive. ‘What you did was a crime,’ the cowled figure boomed, the very air shaking with His anger. ‘To murder the divine is almost beyond forgiveness — and you did so with a weapon forged by the great heretic himself.’
‘To the Dark Place with you and this feud with your creations; I want none of it — only what was due to me! I was the first of the Demi-Gods, and the greatest. You spurned me out of cowardice, not the infallible judgment your priests so cravenly claim as yours.’
Death stood silent for a while, regarding the soul of His unclaimed child as though the