She gave a little scream as something scampered across her hand. It squeaked angrily, scuttering down the tunnel to the exit.

She envied the rat. It chose the dark. No matter what she said, this path was not her idea. She would have rather risked walking into Arram in the open.

Time seemed drawn and tortured. Her mind conjured things crawling, hanging above her head, slimy creatures beneath her knees, no cloth to bar their poisonous blood to seep into her skin.

Perhaps sensing her fear, Roth began to speak again, and she was grateful for its voice.

“It cannot be much longer now,” it said, echoing her thoughts.

“Another minute would be too long. Can you see?”

“No, I cannot. Even smell is useless here. Any overpowering odour blinds my senses. I am just hopeful.”

She could hear Roth scraping along behind her. She imagined the rahkens massive shoulders bunched in the tight tunnel, and felt sorry for her friend. To be so cramped for a creature used to freedom, to have its senses blinded in the dark when even in pitch black it could all but see with its nose…she was lucky.

She uttered a low laugh.

“I wish I could find something to laugh about in here.”

“I’m just thankful I’m not you,” she laughed again. “I’m sorry, Roth, but it must be terrible for you.”

“I have no complaints. At the end of this tunnel waits enough Protocrats for me to take out my displeasure at the indignities of crawling through their soil.”

Typraille, crawling in front of her, whispered over their conversation.

“We’re at the end. Still yourself to silence.”

“Yes, master,” giggled Tirielle.

“Silence!” Typraille tried to whisper, but his voice came out harshly.

Tirielle moved her hand to stifle another laugh, and the thought of what she had nearly done repressed any nervous laughter she had been holding inside. Roth laid a calming hand on her calf, startling her for a moment, nearly into a scream, but she realised what it was before she could lose control.

“Easy, lady,” said the beast quietly. “We are at the end. I see the light.”

“Not nearly soon enough.”

Then she could see the light, too. She was coming out into a torch lit chamber, roughly fifteen feet in diameter. Even though it was a dim glow, she still had to close her eyes against the sudden light. When she opened them she was amazed to see that the Sard’s cloaks remained unsullied. She looked down at herself, and then around at Roth. They were both covered in grime and waste.

She wiped her hands as best she could on her ruined dress. Seeing moss growing on the walls, she decided to try and wipe her hands further on their spongy tendrils, but stopped herself with a gulp. It was eerily iridescent, a strange blue light running through its body along the walls and on the stone floor. She tried to ease her weight, so that she would not be standing on it, in case it should grow over her, eating her whole…she knew the thought was fanciful, but she could not shake it.

“I feel the darkness of their magic all around me. It is worse than the tunnel,” said Quintal with a grimace. “The sooner we are out of this place, the better. No matter where it leads.”

“Come, brother,” said Cenphalph, taking their leader’s shoulder. “Let’s do what we came for. Every moment wasted is a chance of discovery.”

They set off up the stairs and into the long corridor with heavy hearts, heavy for those left behind, the journey yet to come, and the overwhelming power of the Protectorate’s evil magic weighing down their shoulders.

Their footfalls were soft, and they met not a soul.

If the Protocrats had a soul to boast between them.

Klan chaffed to be gone. The machinations of the Speculate held little allure for him on this day. He longed to be on the hunt. Shorn would soon be at the fire mountain. He had proven resourceful beyond all reckoning. Klan could not count on the warrior killing himself, and could not find the red wizard.

He would have to take care of the problem in front of him. It would not matter if he never found the one, if only he could kill the other.

“The rahkens rise in the south. Our forces are hard pressed, Speculate. I humbles request a greater force to aid in suppressing the uprising.”

Jek growled at Hare Osina’tha, the leader of the Tenthers, and Klan smirked privately. His Anamnesors would be able to cut the heart out of the rahken nation and reduce them to wandering leaderless in the darkness of their underground caverns. But that, he thought with another quiet smile, was not in his remit.

“You will have it,” Jek told Hare in a cold voice. “There is too much at stake to show weakness now. The ascension comes faster than we had anticipated. Already I feel the return. The old ones are coming. It is foretold in the stars. There can be no mistakes, no rising, no dissention. Put them down, Hare. You have as many warriors as you can handle. Waste no more time. Move on them. The treaty has long been broken. Find out what they are planning. Capture one if you can. Torture it. It will speak.”

“It is not as easy as it should be. Their magic is powerful, and their warriors are a match for two of ours,” complained Hare.

“But their numbers are fewer. If we have to spare a greater force, then so be it….”

The voices droned, fading into the background. Klan sensed something at the edges of his perception. He found his concentration wavering. His eyes leaked subtle power, carefully, so as not to awaken the wards in the Speculatum.

Something was wrong. Klan did not have the power of Prognostication, but he felt something approaching, sneaking up on them. A creature of power…he allowed his senses to roam Arram.

The training halls — all was well. The gates, then the walls, the fences. Nothing amiss. And yet that sense that something was wrong.

He felt it below him. Directly below.

He longed to go and see what it was. He could not penetrate the magic below, where the portals were kept. The expenditure of power to allow a portal to remain open permanently was immense. It would be impossible to travel there directly.

Suddenly it dawned on him, and it was like eyes opening to the slow light of sunrise. They were here! Their magic didn’t work in the bowels of Arram. It was them he could sense!

“Brother! They are here! It is the Sard, in the portal rooms.”

Jek face betrayed no shock, but he wasted no time. He blinked out of existence. Klan followed him, much to the consternation of the other members of the Speculate. Together, they called the guard, and sent them racing to intercept the intruders.

Neither Klan nor Jek would be of any use. In the heart of Arram they would be powerless, and neither was a warrior. To them, it might as well have been a barren place, one where magic would not work, like the Kuh’taenium, or the blasted plains of the Naum, even the great city of Beheth, which had already seen them foiled.

Jek spat orders while Klan watched. The tenthers raced from their posts as though their backs were on fire. Klan caught Jek’s eye. Together, they paced the flagstones and clenched their fists, impotent to help despite their formidable power.

There was only one place the Sard could go. Could they know which portal to take? If they had come this far, they could only assume so.

“Brother, I believe they head to the wastes. Should they win through, I will meet them there.”

Jek nodded. “Go. Do not fail the Protectorate, Klan.”

“They will not escape me this time,” said Klan, his face grim, his anger held firmly in check.

With a perfunctory bow to Jek, his master and brother ascendant, he tore a hole in the fabric of reality, and stepped once more into the void.

Events spun through the universe, twisting galaxies, burning solar systems in a final flare of terrifying light as the Sun Destroyers travelled from one star to the next, endless destruction wrought, the wages of frenzied feeding on finite light.