The moredhel drew back to slash at Arutha’s head, and as his hand came forward, it was brought crashing against an invisible barrier. The moredhel’s eyes widened as Arutha staggered upright and thrust, skewering Murmandamus through the stomach. The moredhel howled in a dull ululation, staggered, then fell backward, pulling Arutha’s sword from weakened fingers.
Arutha slumped to the floor as two black-garbed men ran forward to grip him. They hovered over the Prince. Arutha’s vision clouded and cleared, focused and unfocused, until the room was stable again. He saw Murmandamus smile, as the moredhel spoke in a menacing whisper. “I am a thing of death, Lord of the West. I am ever the servant of Darkness.” He laughed weakly and blood flowed down his chin, to drip upon the dragon birthmark. “I am not what I seem. In my death you accomplish your destruction.” He closed his eyes and fell back, his death rattle filling the room. The two men in black looked on as from Murmandamus’s body a strange keening sound came. The figure on the stones puffed up, seeming to swell as if suddenly inflated. Like an overripe pod, from forehead to crotch, Murmandamus’s body ripped, revealing an inner body of green scales. Thick black liquid and red blood, with clots of meat and gouts of white pus, were spewn about the room as the green-scaled body seemed to burst from within the husk that was Murmandamus, flopping on the floor like a freshly landed fish. In this terrible convulsion a leaping flame of bright red appeared, evil and filling the hall with a stench of ages of decay. Then the flame vanished and the universe opened around them.
Macros and Pug staggered where they stood, each somehow aware of a change in the fighting nearby. All their attentions were focused upon the place between the universes where the aborning rift was beginning. Each time a thrust came from the other universe, they answered with a patch of energy. The battle had reached its peak a moment before, and now the thrusts were weakening. But still there was danger, for Pug and Macros were also exhausted. It would require the utmost concentration to keep the rift between universes from opening. Then pain exploded in their minds as a silver note, a shrieking whistle, sounded a signal. From another quarter a different, unexpected attack came, and Pug could not answer. A thing of captured lives, taken in terrible death and held against this moment came flowing toward the rift, dancing like a mad and stinking red flame. It struck the barriers Pug had erected and shattered them. It tore open the rift and somehow moved between Pug’s perceptions and the place where the battle raged, obscuring his sense of what occurred there. Pug felt slightly dazed. Then a warning cry from Macros re-focused his attention on the rift, which now stood open. Pug worked frantically, and from some deep hidden reservoir of strength he drew forth the energy to grip the shredding fabric that held the universes apart. The rift closed violently. Again came the thrust, and again Pug barely held, but he held. Then from Macros came the warning, Something got through.
Something has come through, came the warning from Ryath.
Tomas leaped down from the dragon’s back and waited behind the Lifestone. A darkness grew within the hall, vast and powerful, a thing of nightmare taking form. Then it stood forth. It was ebon, without feature and definition, a being of hopelessness, and it was aware. Its outline hinted at a man shape, but it bulked nearly as large as Ryath. Its shadow wings spread, casting gloom about the hall like a palpable black light, and about its head, like a crown, burned a circle of flames, angry red-orange and seeming to cast no illumination.
Tomas yelled to Ryath, “It is a Dreadlord! Beware! It is a stealer of souls, an eater of minds!”
But the dragon bellowed in rage and attacked the monstrous thing of nightmare, bringing its magic to play as well as talons and flame. Tomas started forward, but a presence, another being entered this phase of time.
Tomas moved back into the shadow while a figure he had never seen before, but one as well known to him as Pug, emerged into the light of the gem. The newcomer dodged away from the towering battle that rocked the hall. With quick steps the figure moved toward the Lifestone.
Tomas appeared out of shadow, standing over the stone so that he was now visible. The figure halted, and a snarl of rage escaped.
Splendid in his orange-and-black armour, the Lord of Tigers, Draken-Korin,” confronted a vision beyond his understanding. The Valheru shouted, “No! It is impossible! You cannot still live!”
Tomas spoke and his voice was Ashen-Shugar’s. “So, you’ve come to see it finished.”
With the snarl of a tiger, lost in the shrieks and bellows of the larger battle in the hall, the returned Dragon Lord drew his black sword and leaped forward, and for the first time in his existence Tomas faced an enemy with the power to truly destroy him.