The pale-skinned northern barabarian Morg ran with the ebon-skinned slave girl, Lali, at his side. They raced through the dark, subterranean tunnels, frost clinging to the walls, a carpet of snow upon the ground. The girl was naked save for a flimsy skirt, and her bare feet burned as they skidded across the icy ground. Morg, accustomed to the bite of winter, was more at home, but he was tired and battered, his chest smeared with blood that did not exclusively belong to his enemies.

At their back, howling incoherently, shaggy beast-men, the denizens of this unsuspected world, chased after them, brandishing swords and axes and clubs.

"Go on, girl," Morg rasped hoarsely, delivering a slap to her pert bottom. "I'll push them back." He wheeled about almost drunkenly and hefted his broadsword above his shoulders. Roaring, he charged their pursuers.

The shaggy, white-haired beast-men barked and snarled, but instinctively fell back a few steps. They had learned a healthy respect for this blonde-maned, but otherwise hairless, man. Metal sparked off metal as Morg slammed his sword downward, the blow barely deflected by a clumsily raised axe. He kicked out savagely, catching the creature in the shin, and sending it tumbling to the ground, howling. Grinning wolfishly, an almost mad glint in his feral eyes, Morg hacked and slashed about him. He was confident he was about to die...but he was determined to make a good accounting of himself before he did.

Through the screams of the creatures and the roar of his own blood pounding in his ears, he thought he heard a plaintive cry. "Morg!" came a girl's voice. "This way! Hurry!"

His blonde mane of hair swirling about his features, Morg glanced over his shoulder to see Lali gesticulating from down the corridor. He grunted unsurely. Could it be she had found escape? If so, he would rather live than die, however valiantly. Swinging his sword with two hands in a frightening arc, scattering the creatures momentarily, Morg turned, stumbled on the icy footing, then righted himself and hurried after the girl.

Panting hard, he reached her side. She stood shivering at the mouth of a short hall, at the end of which was a weirdly engraved door, the sister of the door through which he had first entered to find himself in this nightmare labryinth. She had wedged it open a little, but it had resisted her feminine muscles. Grunting, Morg wedged his sword between door and door frame, and yanked, prying it open a fingers width or two more. Then sheathing his sword, he clutched at it with steel hard fingers and heaved.

Muscles rippled along his shoulders. Veins stood out upon his forearms. He heaved, spit flying from between gritted teeth. The door groaned and yawned open a little wider.

He grabbed Lali roughly by the bicep and thrust her through, then he stumbled after her. He grabbed a weirdly carved handle on the other side and, bracing one leg against the frame, pulled. The door groaned belligerently, but gave more easily, as if more amenable to being closed than to being opened. The door hissed shut.

He looked wildly about, seeking something he could block it with, or a bar he could drop across it. There was nothing. On the other side issued frustrated roars and howls and Morg, resignedly, drew his bloodied sword, ready to face them again. Strangely, though, the door did not budge. The creatures seemed not even to be making the effort to open it. Slowly, he looked around and realized it was warmer here, there was no frost upon the walls. After a time, the sounds stilled.

There was sorcerey at work here, he thought, that kept the creatures in their own land.

"Storim's Bones!" he cursed, then spat upon the ground. "Next time, I'll take my chances with the dungeon master." He staggered back, exhausted. Suddenly he felt a soft, warm body press against him. Lali was at his side, trying to keep him upright, though he weighed considerably more than her. He grinned. "Let's put some distance between us and those things, eh, girl?"

She nodded, smiling weakly.

Arm in arm, the two staggered a little way down this new corridor, moving through almost total darkness. "You're shivering," Morg said.

"I'm cold," Lali agreed.

The excitement of the battle still firing his blood, and his second wind just coming to him, Morg turned and pressed her soft, warm body against one stone wall. "I know how we can warm each other." He reached down and caught the filmy fabric of her skirt between his fingers. With a quick wrench, he sent her sole garment tumbling from her hips. He cupped her face in his hand, and hungrily kissed her lips while his other hand snaked down her bare back, grabbing a buttock and pulling her close.

Without resistance, she melted into his embrace...

Prince Shayanaq stared at the bent old woman, wrapped from head to toe in a dirty robe. She seemed almost to cower from the sword brandishing palace guard who stood at her side. Shayanaq grinned. He enjoyed seeing her afraid, without confidence. Then he frowned. Though that might well be but an act. He had begun to trust the old seer less and less.

"My sister's necklace has been stolen," he growled. "Can you tell me who took it?"

Her cowled head looked this way and that. Coyly, she said, "Perhaps. But be wary, milord. There are plans afoot where even the players are unaware they are the pawns...and the pawns the players."

"Spare me your riddles, old woman," he growled. Then he leaned close and grabbing the collar of her ratty robe, pulled her shadowed face close to his. "Tell me where that necklace is!"

Morg lay contentedly in the darkness, feeling Lali's warm body at his side, her deep and easy breathing as sleep was brought on from the ordeal of the last few hours. He could almost make her out, as the faintest of glows limned her ebon skin. He frowned and sat up, disturbing the girl who moaned quietly, half asleep. There was a light source issuing from somewhere in the darkness. He rose and drew on his loin cloth. "Get up, girl," he said. "Time to be moving."

"What?" she asked, her voice still husky with sleep. He reached out into the shadows and, finding an arm, drew her to her feet. "Come, let's find our way to daylight."

Holding on to the girl's hand, Morg started forward, stepping carefully in the darkness. He had assumed the light was sunlight, stabbing down from some opening above their heads. As they approached closer, he realized the light issued from a place on a level with them. He frowned. Was this more sorcery? It seemed almost as though there was more life beneath the streets of the city than there was above it.

Nestling his lips against Lali's sweet-smelling hair, he said, "Quiet, girl. We don't know what's ahead of us." He felt her hair brush against him as she nodded her understanding.

Pressing on, they eventually came to the source of the illumination -- an old door, draped in cobwebs as though it had not been used in years. Light spilled from a rusted grill at its top. It was too high for him, so he grabbed Lali and hoisted her onto his shoulders. He grunted as he realized she was still nude. In the darkness, she had forgotten to retrieve her skirt. "What do you see?" he asked.