From somewhere deep within the bowels of the Citadel, howls and screams slowly rose in volume until the cacophony momentarily drowned out all other sound within the chamber. Tazi pressed her hands against her ears.

But the noisЂi did relent and fade until the only sound in the room was a deep, rumbling laughter. Tazi looked to Naglatha, but it was not her. As Tazi realized the Red Wizard's hold over her was almost gone, she twisted at her torso to see where the sound came from. As soon as she turned to the table, Tazi could see that all the wizards faced Pyras, who was now rising to his feet.

Gone was his sickly pallor and demeanor. He continued to laugh deeply, and a smile formed on his full, fleshy lips. No one seemed more surprised by the turn of events than Naglatha herself. As he straightened himself, Tazi rubbed at her eyes, temporarily disorientated by the vestiges of Naglatha's spells, because she thought he appeared to be growing as he stood. But then Tazi realized that was exactly the case.

Pyras knocked back his cushioned chair and spread his arms forth. The muscles bulged and inflated along his arms, and at the same times, claws stabbed through the tharchion's former fingernails. With a tearing sound, his robes gave way as he reached a height of almost fifteen feet. Tazi could see his skin darken from its former pale flesh color to red and black. And his skin appeared to harden and split into a series of plates that more closely resembled armor than flesh. He dropped his head forward and screamed. Tazi watched, horror-struck and fascinated at the same time, as the skin on his face seemed to melt and run forward to accommodate the muzzle that sprouted out from the center of his skull. He threw back his head, and Tazi could hear flesh splitting and tearing. Great horns speared their way through his scalp and twisted above him, and a pair of giant, insectlike wings opened up from his back.

As the creature regarded the others in the room with his red-slitted yellow eyes, he flexed those monstrous wings behind him. Tazi saw some of the other wizards scramble backward, and one or two actually fled. Naglatha, however, was transfixed with wonder-but also surprise-as though this was not her doing.

Tazi turned to the lich and she saw something akin to recognition on his skeletal visage.

"Eltab!" he hissed.

The towering fiend laughed again and pulled back his lips in whatTazi supposed was a smile, though it looked more like a monstrous grimace.

"Yesss…" the demon hissed at Szass Tarn. "It is me once again."

Tazi turned to the lich and could see surprise play across his skeletal features, which was difficult to do.

"Did you think I was truly gone? " the tanar'ri lord mocked him.

"My spell of Twin Burning-" Szass Tarn began.

"It was incomplete, old man. You failed." And the creature flexed his great wings again, spanning the length of the table, reveling in his physical freedom.

Tazi, now completely free of Naglatha's power, drew her sword. She heard the dwarf snort. He was actually laughing at her and the sorry picture she presented. But he had freed his war axe as well. They stood ready though no one in the hall moved an inch. Somewhere deep in the corridors below, the screaming started up again, and the ground began to shake once more. Yet everyone was mesmerized by the tableau in front of them.

"You sought to bind me, that is true," the demon admitted. "But you made a crucial error in your ritual. You tried to close the gate on me, but you were sloppy, and left it open just a crack. And that was all I needed." He laughed again.

"Oh, it took time. But that was something I had. You understand that, don't you, dead man?" he looked at the lich, but Szass Tam remained silent. "I was weak after you tore me free from my prison under Eltabbar, and that was the only reason you were able to paralyze me with your Death Moon Orb and bind me to your Throne. But you weren't strong enough to make it last, though you thought you had.

"As I sat there, I reached out with my powers, knowing there existed a way to escape. Granted, I couldn't go far, but I didn't need to, did I? I found what I needed easily enough under your roof."

Tazi looked from the lich to the tanar'ri lord and wondered why neither struck the other. Or why no other wizard, including Naglatha, made a move to flee or fight. However, Tazi found she was just as spellbound as the others by the demon-king and wondered if that was somehow his doing.

"You kept your young puppet here, always under your wing, under your watchful eye," he explained in his ancient voice, referring to Pyras. "You needed him because of his weakness. So did I."

"Where is he?" demanded the lich, andTazi doubted the necromancer truly cared about the fate of his minion. The tanar'ri lord only smiled more.

"Over the years of my entrapment, I sent my energies over to him. Slowly, oh so slowly, so no one would know. And you helped me grow strong, Szass Tarn. You kept this vessel," he paused to tap his chest with a heavy claw, "so safe and so protected from harm. Even you must appreciate the irony in all of that. And all this time I have been waiting and watching and planning," the demon-king finished and the ground rumbled again.

"Now I am free," he cried amidst the howls from below and jumped onto the table in a low crouch. "And I shall have my revenge against you all," he warned them and swung an accusing claw at the gathered Red Wizards. "Just like your predecessors who called me forth on that windswept hill so long ago, here you all gather again-awaiting my return."

Tazi was briefly distracted from Eltab's monologue when she saw Naglatha sway and nearly fall. The woman looked truly frightened and calm at the same moment, like someone caught up in a dream or a nightmare.

"I was the instrument of Thay's birth, and I shall be the instrument of its death. From deep within the bowels of the Thaymount, my numbers have grown and are now released. With them at my side and with the power from the core of Thay itself under my control, I shall decimate this land and bury its people. From its very heart, I will strike you all down."

With that, the tanar'ri lord sprang from the table and took flight. His massive wings struck the chandelier suspended above the ceiling and ripped it free of its moorings. The massive circle of wood and metal fell with a crash, splitting the table down its length. Zulkirs Zaphyll and Lallara barely escaped being crushed by it though Zaphyll caught part of her robes under the broken remains of the chandelier. As she tore herself free, her amulet must have been wrenched off in the process, for Tazi watched as the young woman turned to a withered crone before her very eyes. She screamed and covered her face with her shriveled hands. Lallara wore a look of disgust and horror at her friend's transformation, but she pulled the old woman's arm around her shoulder and helped her hobble from the room nonetheless. They did not return.

Tazi turned back and saw the demon-king circle the room once, and she held her sword at the ready though she didn't believe it would do much good. She also noted that the dwarf stood at the ready as well, and she smiled grimly at him. The drafts of wind from Eltab's beating wings knocked several torches free, and they fell like rain. Tazi dodged to her left to avoid one that dropped with a thud to the stone floor. But others were not so lucky.

Tharchion Dmitra Flass, a woman that Naglatha had referred to as the First Princess of Thay, was too busy staring at the circling tanar'ri to notice the torch that fell near her. She was laden with jewelry and ostentatiously clothed with robe upon robe layered on her person. Because of that, she didn't immediately realize the torch had ignited one of her garments. When she did, she let loose with a high, piercing scream and began to run frantically around the chamber, unintentionally feeding the flames. Tazi tore her green eyes away from the beast at the sound of the woman's painful cries and saw no one moved to help her.