Morg hurried through the dank corridors of the dungeon while at his back, the screams and sounds of conflict had ceased. Swelling to fill the empty silence was something more worrisome: a stealthy pad that was only audible to his barbarian-bred senses.

Ahead of him was the supple slave girl, Lali, who had freed him from chains. Even in the desperation of the moment he took a moment to appreciate the supple muscles and deep indentation of her spine. Her only garment was a filmy skirt that drapped her buttocks like a second skin. Her dark flesh flashed like starlit black oil under the light of the torch she carried.

She had promised him a passage out of the dungeon by moving deeper into unused corridors, but even she had not counted on whatever was pursuing them. And pursue them it did. Morg was aware that after the initial sounds of conflict, there had been no further screams or struggles. Yet many of the cells boasted prisoners that would have made easy victims. Whatever it was, it clearly was after them.

"How much further, girl?"

Lali glanced back him, her kinky mane of hair shuddering as if mirroring her fear. Her eyes told all. She was following instructions given to her by another. She would know how much further only moments before Morg did. Morg cursed under his breath. He could not actually fault the girl for freeing him, though. If the thing pursuing them was indeed after him, at least he would be able to meet it on two feet, rather than chained in a cage on his knees.

"This way," she whispered, turning to the left down a side corridor.

"No need to whisper -- it knows where we are," he said ruefully. As they passed old, unused cells, the stink of death and decay came powerfully to his sensitive nostrils. Light from Lali's torch cast flickering fingers of illumination into the open cells and Morg spied human bones left to rot and moulder. Long forgotten men punished for long forgotten crimes.

A whimper from the girl drew his attention back to her. She was looking around frantically, holding the torch about her as it revealed a dead-end.

"You made a wrong turn!" Morg growled.

"No," she said. "But the passage is hidden -- I just...just can't find it."

"Storim's Bones!" snarled Morg as he raced to one wall and clawed his fingers across the stones, seeking some evidence of the girl's claim; a crevice or hinge. But he did not know what he was looking for. "Find it, girl. Quickly."

He turned and paced back down the corridor a few steps, unwrapping the heavy chain from about his waist for a weapon. At his back he heard the girl scrambling about, and the light suddenly dropped to floor level as she put the torch down to free both hands for her search. The illumination now sputtered upward, twisting the shadows weirdly and throwing the ceiling into utter blackness.

Morg tensed as something padded closer, ever closer. He still had no idea whether his unseen adversary was a man, or something more...or less.

Then an unearthly howl, a triumphant scream of victory echoed from the darkness just ahead. No human throat issued such a sound...

The nobles were led around the eerie spectacle of the silently moving priests, the four now treading on simple flagstones, rather than the ritualistically carved floor upon which the priests moved. Girthsome Felsteff in particular edged as far away from the main floor as possible.

At last the unspeaking apostle stopped before a curtained dais and dropped to his knees, placing his chin upon the cold floor inelegantly. The four nobles looked at each other distastefully. Finally hawk-faced Dakhir lowered himself to his knees -- though that was as far as he was prepared to prostrate himself. Diminutive Elltharash and hollow-cheeked Muuba followed suit. Felsteff was last, struggling to bend his fat knees beneath him.

When all four were kneeling, the curtain was drawn aside.

"Holy Majarahbii," said Dakhir, with just the right note of reverence.

Seated in a chair too large for him, lounging with an insolent gaze in his fey eyes, was a boy of no more than eight or ten, with dusky brown skin that marked him as more descended from desert dwellers than from the ebon-skinned inhabitants of the city itself.

Around his neck was a gold necklace, at its centre, a magnificent ruby. Felsteff's eyes twinkled slightly as he gazed at the stone, and the way a cloudy darkness at its centre seemed almost to swirl imperceptibly.

The stone was called the Bloodstone of All Souls. The boy wore it as a symbol of power, almost as Prince Shayanaq, the ruler of the city, wore his own ivory necklace, the Band of Office, which designated him the hereditary ruler of Ravatheth. But the boy was no mere pretender. He was head of an arcane and secret order -- the Cult of Shalli. And through him, these four nobles sought to be kings!

Morg braced his mighty legs, and wrapped one end of the chain around his knuckles, leaving a healthy length free as a deadly whip. He waited, still tuned to the sounds of the slave girl seeking the catch that would open the door that was supposedly there. Assuming, of course, that she had not become confused in her directions -- and assuming that whomever had sent her had not lied to her.

Teeth gritted, hair wet with sweat against his brow, Morg waited.

Again there was the triumphant howl as the creature anticipated an easy victory. The padding footsteps became louder, and something shuddered in the shadows just beyond the torch's flickering glare.

"Hurry, girl!" hissed the barbarian, a nervous twitch to his lip.

Then the beast came lumbering into the weirdly askew light, and Morg's eyes strained wide even as he held his ground. The first rule of survival wasn't to not know fear -- everything knew fear. No, the true key was to control your fear, not the other way around.

The creature was almost manlike, except its long arms reached to the ground, so that it lopped forward almost like a four-legged beast. Its verdant, scaled flesh, pulled taught over bulging muscles, gleamed with what Morg realized was the blood of its recent victims.

With a scream of barbarian wrath, Morg did not wait for an attack, but whipped his heavy chain over his head again and again, then brought it down upon the thing's ill-lit face. Morg glimpsed crimson, piggy eyes, and a wide, gaping mouth bristling with sharp, crooked teeth, before the chain cut across it sending blood spattering across the walls.

The creature screamed in frenzy and launched itself forward. Startled by the suddenness of the leap, Morg barely ducked out of the way in time, but he kept his wits about him long enough to whip at the thing's flank with his chain, biting deep. A reptilian arm swung wildly, blindly, and struck Morg so heavily that he crashed against the wall and slumped to the cold floor, clutching at consciousness like a drowning man.

He lay there, like a child's rag doll, as the beast loomed over him, its fetid breath hot against his face. Morg stared into its hellish visage unflinchingly, glad he was to die fighting, rather than in chains. His only regret was that he would not know what all this was about.

Then a soft, feminine whimper interrupted the raspy breathing of the beast. Slowly, it craned its head around. Morg followed its gaze with his eyes. Lali cowered against the far wall, staring at them wide eyed, almost paralyzed with fear.

Clearly attracted to struggling prey more than Morg's limp form, the scaly abomination lurched about and started slowly toward the girl. Lali screamed. Plumbing the last vestiges of his strength, Morg lurched up-right and whipped out his chain, latching it about one of the beast's thick ankles. With a savage jerk, Morg yanked back the foot and sent the unsuspecting beast crashing down on its face.

Scrambling painfully to his feet, Morg threw himself on top of the beast and looped the chain under its knotted chin. The creature's flesh was coarse and oily against his skin, and its body smelled of death and decay. Swallowing his revulsion, Morg yanked back on the chain, snapping the thing's head back. Back...but not far enough to kill it. And so the two struggled in almost mute silence, struggled as the thing clawed over its shoulders, seeking to sink taloned fingers into human flesh, while Morg's muscles bulged along his arms, seeking to snap its loathsome neck.

He spied Lali still staring at them. "The...door...find...the...door!" he muttered between gritted teeth. Stirred from her shock, the girl once more began patting at the stone. Then suddenly her body stiffened and she seemed to fiddle with a loose shale of rock. Abruptly a small doorway, only big enough to crawl through, swung open before her. She glanced back him.

"Go!" he hissed. Without a weapon, there was little she could contribute to the struggle. Lali spared him one, last look, then crawled inside and vanished.

With escape so near, Morg found renewed vitality, and he pulled back even harder, cursing every god he knew as he did. The beast gurgled as its head was pulled back, and back further. Abruptly there was a sickening crunch of bone and Morg felt the vibration through his arms as the resistance went lax. The creature's head lolled to one side, its neck broken.

Morg threw himself from it, panting, his arms trembling from the exertion. He kicked disgustedly away from it till he was slumped against the wall. Then he stared at the dead beast, still sucking in hungry breaths, steadying his heart. Slowly, he looked to the little aperture through which the girl had disappeared. If he was to be free of this place, and mayhap learn why the thing had been sent to kill him, and who the girl worked for, he knew he had no choice but to follow.