From her seclusion on Char, Kerrigan watched through the eyes of first one of her creatures, then another. The beauty of what she beheld in the labyrinth did not escape her, but the zergling whose brain she was temporarily hijacking cared nothing for it. This was obviously xel'naga technology, this blend of artifice and nature that yawned deep into the bowels of Aiur. It was not the first time she had seen this; she had been here before. Not in this particular section, to be sure, as the place was staggeringly vast, but beneath the surface of this world, and there was at least a little familiarity mixed in with her admiration.

The zergling hurried along with its fellows, pressed tightly together, filling the stairwell, then exploding into a cavern. Kerrigan noted jeweled control systems and panels and desiccated bodies, with slight interest. It looked as though they had been drained— sucked utterly dry of fluids and life force both. Did Ulrezaj feed on his little sycophants? That might explain how he continued to exist, rather than dissolving after a brief time as was customary with ordinary dark archons. And if he did drain the protoss, and he was as badly wounded as she had hoped, then he might have gotten rid of any resistance her zerg might encounter for her.

Five oval doorways opened onto five different corridors and the zerg stopped in their tracks, awaiting orders. Kerrigan's first thought was to tell them to simply follow the protoss scent, but if Ulrezaj was clever, he could have dispersed his followers in anticipation of just such an assault. Kerrigan shrugged and her wings flexed, the sharp bits of bones clawing momentarily at the air.

"Split into five groups. Investigate all passageways. Kill all protoss you encounter."

They obeyed immediately, gracefully forming five branching streams of the flooding river, moving implacably forward. Kerrigan flitted from mind to mind, seeing everything simultaneously and filtering it all as it was necessary. She sat, clawed hands grasping the arms of the towering thronelike chair, chitinous and organic and honeycombed, which she had had wrought for herself. Her glowing eyes stared into a gloomy, sullen red darkness and saw something else light-years away.

In two of the corridors, protoss rushed forward, some with the remnants of templar armor on their bodies, some clad in tattered robes. Another time, Kerrigan would have been amused at how swiftly they fell, but now their deaths held little pleasure for her, only irritation. Where was the dark archon?

In two other corridors, her creatures surged on unopposed. The technology they passed was startling. In some places there were glowing inscriptions on the walls. Her creatures rushed past too quickly for her to even attempt to read the language. So much here to plunder, to learn, to absorb that would enhance the zerg. Another time, Kerrigan promised herself, she would explore it at leisure, for she was certain that all kinds of useful tidbits of information were hidden here. But for now, there was one single goal.

She knew she was close when she came upon desiccated husks littering the floors. No neatly organized bodies on slabs here, no. Although they looked almost mummified, as if centuries of aridity had taken their toll, the carelessness with which they had been tossed aside told her that they had died recently, their essences drained to serve their master. Her clawed hands tightened in excitement and she smiled.

"This way," she said, rerouting her mindless minions to follow the trail.

They came upon him then in a vast cavern glittering with crystals, and she told her army to halt. They did so with an abruptness that caused several of them to barrel into one another, unable to halt their forward momentum so quickly. Kerrigan hungrily drank her fill, waiting, watching, ready to react to the dark archon's next move.

Here in a place where the only illumination was the eerie, otherworldly glow of the khaydarin crystals, Ulrezaj's presence was more like an absence of light, an absence of.. .being.. .than an actual physical thing as he had been on the planet's surface. All light seemed to be absorbed by him, save for a shimmering green glow that provided the unnatural thing's outline. It pulsed, as if he was breathing, although Kerrigan was willing to bet that it did nothing so mundane.

For a long time, Ulrezaj did not move. Kerrigan's servants stood still as well, although waving antennae and the occasional snap of mandibles betrayed that the zerg were closer to living things than the entity they confronted.

"Do something," Ethan muttered, fidgeting aboard the mutalisk.

"Do something," growled Kerrigan, light-years away, staring straight at Ulrezaj.

He did.

It was almost like a nuclear blast of darkness. Absence of light poured off the dark archon, and every zerg within its radius collapsed without a sound. It took Kerrigan by surprise as the zergling whose eyes she used died so abruptly the Queen of Blades almost didn't realize what had happened. She recovered quickly, selecting another one, and then that one died too, and the next one.

It was happening so fast she couldn't even monitor it. She brushed the mind of her general, whispering, "Tell them to withdraw. It is all up to you now, my consort. He is coming."

Except he wasn't.

To Kerrigan's astonishment and outrage, the dark archon simply winked out of existence. He was gone, leaving only carcasses to mark that he had ever been there.

"No!" she shrieked, leaping up from her throne. She'd been a fool. Ulrezaj was powerful and intelligent, an entity that was unprecedented in the history of the universe as far as she could tell. She could not have anticipated that he would teleport.. .but she should have anticipated that he might have unusual abilities. Faster almost than the speed of thought, her awareness flitted from zerg to zerg, searching each of the four other branching paths. Ulrezaj was nowhere to be seen.

"Ethan! He has escaped me! Find him! Find him now!"

Find him now!

Ethan bit back horror at the words and instructed his zerg to scatter. What the hell had Ulrezaj done? Kerrigan shared with him what she had witnessed through the eyes of the now-dead zerg. It looked as though somehow the dark archon had managed to teleport himself to safety.

Both anger and admiration filled him. The kind of power that it took to do that—he'd never heard of anything that could. Ships, yes, even the warp gate used such technology—but a single being?

And then he uttered a short, harsh laugh. "My queen, he may have eluded us for the moment, but such a feat takes more energy than I think even Ulrezaj possesses at this moment. I don't think he's left Aiur.... He may not even have left the chambers. It was a trick to unsettle and deceive us, but we will be victorious in the end."

Her admiration and pleasure was like wine to him. "Yes—yes, I suspect you are right. Zerg will pour through every crevice, every chamber, every nook and cranny, and cover every exit we can find. He cannot possibly escape. Still—we will not make the novice's mistake of underestimating him again."

"Indeed, we will not." Somehow, Ethan knew, he was to anticipate what could not possibly be anticipated. And somehow, he would do so.

Flushed with relief and eagerness to hand over the prize to his queen, Ethan stared intently down as the mutalisk hovered. Many of the zerg were rushing back out as swiftly as they had rushed in just a few moments earlier, hastening to spread out and monitor all possible exits from Ulrezaj's hiding place. Others were scurrying deeper into the bowels of this labyrinth. They would find Ulrezaj.

It was one of the scattering zerglings whose eyes enabled Kerrigan to witness what happened not three minutes after Ulrezaj had disappeared. The very earth in front of the zergling was suddenly pierced with a precise line of white light emanating from beneath the surface. Quickly the line spread, forming a rectangle, and then the chunk of earth suddenly flew upward.