The weapon was suddenly forgotten as his attention was drawn to a nearby wall where the rock surface seemed suddenly to shift and sag. It was moving. There was no other way to describe it. The rock melted before him, turning to thick sludge, then flowed away like cream.

And the strangeness, the darkness, the forms of chaos that emerged from that gap, were more terrifying than any onslaught of Klar.

"What do you mean 'escaped'?"

Garimeth's voice was low, but the rumbling menace in her tone was enough to whiten Karc's already pallid features.

"J-just that, my lady. He's gone! The door was still locked, but somehow your son found a way out."

"How?"

"I don't know," the servant's voice was shrill and filled with panic. "By your order we put him in a room with no windows, and the door was securely bolted and locked. It was never opened, I swear!"

"Did he walk through the walls, then?" demanded the matriarch, her tone loaded with sarcasm.

"They're solid stone, lady! And the floor and ceiling as well!"

"You idiot!" screamed Garimeth. "They can't all be solid or he wouldn't have found a way out! I should have you killed right now for your carelessness!"

Karc cringed. This was not the first time he had heard this threat, but he knew from experience that it was no mere empty phrase.

"Go back and look, you miserable wretch! Search on your hands and knees! Use that pathetic brain that Reorx gave you, or I swear it will cost you your head! And know this: if you fail to find him, your death will not come quickly."

Before Garimeth could continue her threats, the house was rocked by an earthquake of violent and wrenching force. She screamed as she was thrown headlong on to the hard stones of her floor. Looking up, the dwarf-woman gaped in stunned silence as the rock that formed the ceiling of her house began to ooze downward. It dropped with heavy, liquid plops onto the floor, nearly crushing her before she scrambled out of the way.

Karc was not so lucky. He groaned in pain as a gelatinous mass of rock struck him on the shoulder and knocked him face first to the floor. He reached desperately toward Garimeth, his mouth working on a silent plea for help.

But the matriarch was busy scrambling away. Finally she felt a wall at her back and crouched in the corner of the large room, watching in silent horror as the hole in her ceiling expanded. In moments the liquid rock had solidified, leaving a series of drooping tendrils, like smooth stalactites, dangling down into the room. The blobs on the floor had hardened as well, and now as the servant struggled to move he was anchored by a collar of stone that had clasped his upper body in a granite embrace.

When Garimeth saw the creatures that dropped through the irregular opening, her breath caught in her throat and she shrank into the shadows. Realizing that she was pressed against a large trunk, she quickly scooted behind the obstacle. There she crouched in darkness, peering with one cautious eye around the side of her shelter. Despite her ragged breathing, she forced herself to grow calm, sensing that she could give herself away as easily by sound as by sight.

She saw a gaunt, utterly dark shape, crouching over the squirming Karc. The creature reached down to touch the servant with a cold, clawlike hand and immediately Karc's struggles ceased… and more. There was no body, nothing but a pathetic bundle of clothes beneath the shadowy attacker.

And then, as more of the creatures dropped from the hole and started to glide through her house, she was startled by the knowledge that she could not remember who had been in the middle of the floor.

But her thoughts immediately turned to more direct concerns as one of the shadows, oozing like liquid through the air, soundlessly advanced toward Garimeth. There was no substance, no real shape to the bizarre attacker. It seemed to be nothing but utter, consuming darkness. She was stunned as she chanced to look into the deep wells of its lightless eyes and felt a sense of utter, hopeless despair immediately drain the strength from her limbs.

All she could do was stumble backward, falling over the trunk in a nerveless, instinctive retreat. At least that tumble broke the spell of those horrid eyes, and her senses returned. Garimeth trembled in terror and pressed a hand to her mouth, trying unsuccessfully to stifle her fearful moans. Knowing that to look back at the shadow was to die, she scrambled around the barrier, then threw up the lid of the trunk to give her another moment's protection from soundless, lightless death.

And her eyes fell upon the Helm of Tongues.

The bronze artifact lay in the trunk where it had rested since her arrival. In desperation, she snatched it up and set it firmly on her head. She barely noticed the keen, sensory tingle of its magical presence. There was no weapon nearby, nothing she could use to fight, so she fell back another step. Then she was in the corner and saw the murky form of the shadow as it seemed to reach out with tendrils of darkness to enwrap the big trunk in a chilling, lethal cloak.

With nowhere else to look, Garimeth's vision again passed across the front of the thing, but this time she felt no menace in the bottomless eyes. Instead, she sensed that the shadow paused in its approach, hesitant… even confused.

The helm's power focused her thoughts and with those keen senses she reached out, tried to peer inside the mind of the shadow. She recoiled instantly, horrified by the mangled morass of its chaotic being. But at the same time she saw that the formless beast had moved back. Now it writhed in torment, and with sudden perception she saw that it feared her.

"Go away!" she declared, her tone surprising even herself with its firm quality. "Leave me!"

To her utter astonishment, the shadowy attacker slithered backward, then turned and wisped silently out the door.

Gullywasher

"Golly. That some hot water." Regal admired the blazing vista of the Urkhan Sea, which continued to toss and churn and spume. Periodically another cometlike gout of soaring flame shot forth from the black water. The Aghar shook his head in awe, though he sounded more impressed than frightened.

Tarn couldn't speak, could only stare, struck dumb by a much deeper sense of wrongness. He felt as though he was watching what must certainly be the end of Thorbardin. The feeling of impending doom had gripped him at the very first onslaught when tremors had shaken the ground and magical fire had burst into view from countless sources. Rockslides had rumbled down the slopes for several minutes. Although that initial violence had subsided somewhat, the lingering effects were everywhere, a frightening and bizarre assault against nature and reality.

Tarn had a vague notion about taking cover, but in his heart he knew there could be no shelter from this apocalyptic storm.

Great meteors of fire, finally recognizable as dragons of flame, roared through the sky over the lake. From over the miles of water the sounds of terror and pain and death shrieked of distant woe. Closer, the waters of the underground sea pitched and rose, surging onto the shore to spatter between the long fingers of Daerforge's solid stone docks. Dark dwarves teemed there in great numbers, some aboard boats, others scrambling to get to higher ground. Many of the watercraft were hurled ashore like matchsticks. The clutching tendrils of churning waves sucked hundreds of Daergar off the docks and into the bay, and then the tide rose to hammer once more against the unyielding terrain of the wharf.

Tarn watched in horror as other waves surged into the lower reaches of Agharhome, roaring through the tight streets and bowling helpless gully dwarves along, many of whom were carried back to certain death in the deep and churning maelstrom of the Urkhan Sea. More water spilled into the hollows, no doubt inundating countless Aghar who had sought the illusory shelter of the underground burrows.