“Rana... He’s toying with you...” In spite of the noise of the dead girl’s screams and the chaos of the fight, Greta’s raspy, sick-sounding voice rang clear in Rana’s ears. She couldn’t see very well, with her eyes teared up from the pain and shock of the blow to her face, but from her voice Rana was sure Greta was barely clinging to life.

Corana lashed out again with her magic, and another minor demon ceased to be. The spell was not difficult, but casting it repeatedly for hours was steadily weakening her reserves. And she’d managed to lose the dragon girl and her lover.

The demons were being surprisingly cagey, keeping just out of reach of the spell she’d been using, and anything with a greater reach would be much more taxing on her energy. Arron was doing a superb job of keeping them off of her when they did attack, but he had taken cuts for his trouble. Cuts that she knew from experience would fester. None of them were likely to leave this place alive, the best they could hope for was to take Xabriar down with them.

Just then a demon stepped forward from the ranks. A great brute of a beast, with bulging muscles and huge black horns. Not only was it a greater demon, one of those things of nightmare that no mortal could safely face, but it was a familiar beast. Around its neck hung a grisly trophy on a black iron chain: a burned, severed arm. The demon grinned savagely at her.

“So this time you come to me, to my lands to fight? I will take your other arm, and your legs, and leave your remains for the weaklings to play with. Do not fear, you *will* live to enjoy it for a very long time.”

Corana tried not to show any sign of the horror in her heart. This thing could and likely would do exactly as it threatened. She stared it down desperately, her wand wavering in the air before her, when from behind a heavy knife flashed and struck the thing’s chest. The tip of the blade snapped off harmlessly against its skin, but the beast looked down to see what thing would dare.

She struck, summoning all the power at her command. She would *not* allow that thing to focus on Arron for even a moment, and perhaps his thrown boot knife would be enough of a distraction for the spell to catch him by surprise.

The demon casually swatted aside the blast of power, its own power deflecting the energies easily.

“Pitiful. Where is the ingenuity that cost you your arm?” It’s voice rumbled in a dark chuckle. “Ah, your protector. He is brave, but will he still fight for you as his skin is peeled off, layer by layer? Perhaps I will animate his bones to flay your dismembered body.”

Corana weaved magical energies through her wand into spell after spell. Ice. Acid. Shards of stone. Banishing spells. Each unraveled in the demonic aura of the creature with no effect.

She could feel Arron behind her, and despaired, knowing that the great demon before her would torment them terribly, and Arron would likely lose his mind seeing the things they would do to her. She struggled to summon more strength, to fight on, but she could feel her reserves failing. It was too much, too fast. Then she heard Arron cry out in rage behind her.

“Shut your filthy mouth!” Her back went cold as he summoned that power he’d used before. She looked over her shoulder to see ice grow on his body, jagged and bone-crackingly cold. A great blade of ice formed in his hand, growing up from the short sword he held.

Corana shivered involuntarily as she felt the ambient temperature drop rapidly below freezing. Hesitantly she shifted her sight into the higher planes purposely avoiding looking directly at the demon. She knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that she did *not* want to see that thing’s true form.

Watching awestruck, she saw a bubbling, steaming spring bursting forth from a crack in the ground and flowing directly to Arron. Water elemental energies filled his mortal body to beyond human limits. For a moment she felt relief, this was a power that could possibly overcome the arch demon.

To the west, black and white energies warred across the sky. A great ball of black flame dropped to the earth below, and the forces involved rocked the three in spite of the distance. Arron and the demon never looked away from each other, but Corana risked a glance, and thus missed the end of the standoff.

---

Arron charged forward into the demon, swiping down hard with his sword. The beast raised its arm to block, arrogantly grinning at its ice-coated attacker. And then it roared in pain as the icy blade bit deep, flash freezing the flesh around its edge.

Thrusting forward its left arm, the demon wrapped a long claw-tipped finger around the ice-encased sword and pried its arm free of the edge. “It seems there may be something worth killing here after all!”

Stepping backward, the demon quickly pulled back its guarding arm then turn rapidly throwing the blade back. The motion twisted Arron around painfully as he desperately held the grip on his sword and was thrown backward. Spinning around dizzily he struggled to regain his footing, and found it only to see the demon waiting patiently for his recovery.

“Such a nice toy you have there, mortal.” it snickered in a mocking tone. Raising its damaged arm into the air, the demon began to chant loudly and drew a symbol that twisted painfully in Arron’s vision. The air filled with a suffocating sense of dread as the demon’s magics spread out all around them. Arron noted from the corner of his eye, Corana gripping her wand worriedly and looking puzzled, as if trying to guess the nature of the demon’s spell.

“Ne’sterna’des’on!” The archdemon’s deep, thunderous voice called out at the zenith of its spell work. All around them, loose shards of volcanic glass began to writhe and dance wildly on the ground, until finally the magic reached a tipping point and countless pieces of black obsidian exploded into the air. For a brief moment they hung suspended, then shot toward the demon at deadly speeds. Arron and Corana both ducked desperately to avoid being impaled, as black glass forged in the heat of its volcanic home whipped swirling through the air into the palm of the demon’s waiting hand. Slowly the the ancient glass melted and compressed into a liquid ball of blackness. Gripping the molten material the creature swung its arm downward, forming a long, jagged, thick black blade that Arron judged was nearly the length of his own body.

Arron watched warily as the demon lifted its newly forged weapon with ease for close inspection. “This will do nicely.” Runic symbols of fire and death etched into the blade’s surface where they glowed fitfully, hungrily.

Arron dashed madly into the kill zone of the distracted demon, his own blade thrust forward. Arron felt as if time slowed down in the moment of the strike, his blade slowly closing the distance between itself and the torso of the vile demon only inches away.

Just before the thrust could strike home, the demon’s knotted, malformed face twisted into a smirk. It heaved the great blade and swung in at a diagonal. Arron could hardly imagine even the great monster before him could move something so large and heavy so horrifically fast. In what seemed like a blink of an eye, the demon’s obsidian construct smashed into the side of Arron’s ice-coated armor. Corana’s voice cried out from the side as Arron dully felt the ice cracking open on his side, but the armor did not give completely to the blow. Arron sailed into the air, the ground spinning dizzyingly beneath him.

As Arron fell rapidly toward the jagged, rough ground he began to panic. A hard landing now would likely mean more than a broken bone or two. In the moment of necessity insight came to him like flash of lightning. Willing the ice that surround his sword and armour to melt he formed a tight sphere around his body like a giant rain drop.

As his encased body slammed into the ground he willed the water to hold its form, spreading the impact over the widest surface area possible. As planned, the force of the impact spread across the whole of his body, minimizing much of the potential damage. The landing did manage to knock the wind out of him and likely would leave a large welt across his back, but it was nothing life threatening.

In an instant the ice reformed into armor and sword, and Arron rolled aside as the great black blade sliced into the stone where he had landed. He kept rolling and came to his feet with a twist to face the demon.

“Clever human, but you can not last against my might!” The archdemon swept that great blade at him again, and Arron turned it upward to sail over his head, parrying with the ice blade. He struck again, this time expecting to be blocked, and as the blades met he spat in the demon’s face. It was a common soldier’s trick, to disgust the enemy and obstruct his vision, and it came almost as a reflex after months of drilling at fighting dirty.

He did not expect a geyser of water to erupt from his mouth, or to freeze in a block around the demon’s head. Raising over his sword over his head he rushed forward, not daring to let this advantage slip by. He chopped down hard, his blade parting the flesh and bone of the demon’s shoulder, flash freezing as it drove through, nearly severing its arm completely.

The archdemon flailed about, striking at its head weakly with the limp arm, which slowly began to heal. Seeing how effective the ice spit had been, Arron decided to try more of it. He spit again, and the torrent sprayed and sprayed, coating the thing completely with layer upon layer of heavy ice. In a few moments, it was completely encased, though Arron felt as if he might pass out. Something about using that power left him weak. And the poison the lesser demons left in his cuts burned at him, held at bay only by the power flowing into him. If he fell, he would not rise again.

---

As Arron and the archfiend traded blows more seriously, dancing around each other in a complicated back-and-forth of strikes, parries and feints she didn’t really understand, she focused, summoning power from the ley lines that gathered in this place.

As she concentrated on her own magic, Corana noticed something that made her heart freeze. There was a gaping hole in Arron’s aura; with each exchange of blows the magic he wielded consumed his vital energies at an alarming rate.

Frantically her eyes darted back and forth between the demon and Arron. He had the upper hand for the moment, trapping the demon in a wave of blue ice. But it would not hold for long. The creature was thrashing against its binding, the pulse of its muscles threatening to shatter the icy tomb.

They didn’t have much time left; Arron couldn’t hold out much longer. Her panic ridden mind ran though a thousand different spells. Half of them she didn’t have the reserve to perform. The other half required days of work and rare reagents. “There must me something!” she shouted in frustration. The demon thrust forward shattering part of Arron’s icy hold, laughing darkly. It seemed amused that a mere mortal could offer it so much entertainment. In her anger and frustration, she remembered her missing arm, which swung for the demon neck like a lucky rabbit’s foot. It had taken her arm, now it would take her lover, and leave her a broken woman to be played with by its kind.

She screeched in wild frustration, and for one lunatic moment, the only thought on her mind was a hysterical need to grab back her mangled arm and bludgeon the demon to death with it. It was in this moment of insanity that the answer came to her. It was such a simple yet perfect solution.

She focused on her magic again, knowing she had precious little time to gather the power she would need. She just needed enough to make a link, and cast. The unmaking, it was a simple spell of destruction of no practical combat utility. It was a paradox: unimaginably powerful, able to rip apart matter down to it fundamental components, but so very easily unraveled by the most trivial of magics. It did have one use though, the disposal of thing of no value like trash and sewage. To which purpose Gaerbron constructed large spell circles in the cities dumps as a quick way to remove the unsightly rubbish once it pile to high.

After recovering from her battle with the demon in their first encounter, she had raided the Academy library, pulling out every dusty tome she could find on destroying archdemons. Much of the knowledge though was unless, requiring weeks worth alchemy work to distill a potion of banishment that would likely still fail. Others required the containment and slow sealing of the demon over the course of months. It was all completely and utterly useless in actual combat, but she did run across one obscure entry in old dusty journal. Nearly half a century ago a it was discovered that demon flesh was not truly alive, but merely a mockery of life. As such it was shown through experimentation on lesser demons that the unmaking could easily devour the creature’s flesh if one could make and hold direct contact with one. It was a long shot, but it was all she had left to try.

She watched them fight, tracking the arm hanging from the demon’s neck. The twisted and charred thing bore little resemblance to the limb she lost, but she imagined it whole and healthy, still connected to her, and slowly she felt the link form. The pain of the burned dead flesh was excruciating. But she forced it aside to focus on the unmaking spell. Thankfully it required little concentration or power, for she had almost none of either to offer. Delicately, she wove the strands of the spell, saving the word of command for the very last moment, hoping to finish before the demon could notice that she was doing anything at all.

Through it all, Arron danced with the beast, trading blow for blow, dying in stages, before her eyes. Already she could see the first signs of pallor as the magic of life ebbed from his body. She hurried her work as much as she could. Finally, the spell was ready.

“Nihil.” she whispered to her hand, hanging from the archdemon’s neck. For a moment it seemed not to notice, and she despaired that her spell had failed. Then the thing roared, clutching at the arm.

“What have you done?” It flung the arm from itself, the iron chain snapping under its powerful muscles, but even as it did so a yawning hole of blackness grew in its chest. It shed sparks like a fire as it expanded, slowly. The archdemon screeched and thrashed, grasping at the wound trying to smother the magic. But it was already to late, like a spark in a parched dry forest the fire had began. The magic of the unmaking had already coiled its way through the demon’s body like a thousand snakes. The creature crashed to the volcanic crater’s surface with an earth-shaking thud, then convulsed violently as the spell hastened until nothing remained.

Arron collapsed himself soon after, the icy armour melting from his body. Corana knelt next to him, lifting his head into her lap. He was burning with fever, but still conscious. After the titanic battle and her defeat of the archfiend, no demon seemed willing to approach at all. That suited Corana just fine, because she couldn’t have lifted a finger to save them, and Arron was so close to death himself it seemed all it would take was a whisper to carry him over.

---

Painfully turning onto his back Cale stared vacantly into the blue sky. “Damn it.” he hissed. His chest felt like knives were poking into him with every breath, likely caused by fractured ribs, he imagined. The last use of his talisman to avoid that freakish ball of fire had really drained him, it was a wonder that he was alive at all.

Laying back his head he rested his eyes, hoping a few hour rest to give him the strength he needed to crawl back down the mountain. Assuming the elves didn’t get to him first and take him prisoner.

“You’ve done yourself such harm, child.” The voice was breathy, a lover’s whisper in his ear. Bemused, he answered the wind goddess.

“So what? It’s mine, I’ll treat it how I want. Besides, it’s none of your business. Unless you’re gonna heal me.” He smirked, already knowing her answer to that.

“You shed blood in my home. Why do you do these things that you have done?”

“What, you don’t know? The Mistress of Secrets herself?” a chuckle slipped his lips, bringing fresh spasms of agony.

“I do. But do you? Do you truly understand why you you fight?” A vision of loveliness floated above his body, ethereal and achingly beautiful, clothed only in air.

“My reasons are my own. That sorcerer is a fool, but he pays well, and I’ve worked for worse.”

“You do not wish for that you seek. Your sister is moving on, drawing her back will not grant her life, it would be suffering unending. You must let her remain.”

Wrenching all his aching muscles, Cale forced himself to a sitting position with an agonized gasp. “Her life was stolen! It will be returned!” he growled at the air goddess.

“Now enough of your worthless talk! If you will not help then leave me be.” he grunted as he struggled to his feet, listing weakly side to side.

Just then a shadow appeared over him, silent as death. The elf girl he’d stabbed. Her dress was covered with blood and she looked weak as a kitten, but she was whole.

“See? Proof that you lie, the dead can be brought back!” He stumbled back away from the two.

“All this... was for your sister?” The elf girl looked sad. He hated her all the more for even thinking she could understand. He hated her for the pity in her eyes.

“Fuck you, elf bitch! I’ll kill you again!” He reached for his knife but it was gone, lost in the fight that almost killed him. Likely it was melted to slag in the small crater nearby.

“I’ll kill you... With my bare hands!” He staggered forward, arms raised menacingly, but she nimbly sidestepped his advance. He swore as his strength gave out again, landing him on elbows and knees.

“Why not save the killing for later. You keep at it and you’ll only kill yourself.” She stood next to him, unafraid, and he was too weary to even reach for her leg.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not killing anyone today, I’m too tired.” he admitted, and the truth of his own words struck home as he realized that he had failed his mission. Looking up at the elf with a half smirk, he added, “Count yourself luc....” The last syllable caught in his throat as a searing fire radiated from around his neck.

The air goddess turned to him quickly, reaching out to him, she seemed to be saying something but the words never reached him. Black flames raced around his body like a serpent coiling tightly, and he could feel himself being pulling backwards without actually moving at all. Then everything became a confusing blur, the world spun and twisted then flipped inside out all in the blink of an eye.

---

Rana knelt next to Greta among the debris of her cataclysmic spell, the ground torn asunder as patches of white dragon fire still roared with life, holding the remains demon spawn at a safe distance. She kept pressure on the gash in Greta’s side, and with some guidance from Granth she had manged to help stop the bleeding with fire magics. Fortunately it wasn’t as deep as either of them initially thought, but the redness around it was still spreading, slowly.

“Come on. I’ll be fine for now, and we have bigger things to worry about, Rana.” Greta’s determined words told Rana she wasn’t having any more mothering.

“Okay. Just be careful, let me do any fighting for now.” She led the way, letting the fuming Greta watch the rear, as they picked their way over the freshly blasted landscape. They were getting close, she could feel it. The power pulsing in the air felt as if it would shake her bones apart.

“I don’t like this...” Greta mentioned worriedly. “The demons aren’t coming near anymore, and that’s good, but I don’t think it’s because of your spell. Whatever we’re getting close to, I can feel it, and it makes me want to run away and hide.” Rana knew she wasn’t one to admit such feelings, it was a testament to how terrifying the situation was.

“We’re almost there, I think maybe just past the lip of this crater...” She trailed off as she crested the crater’s edge, peering past to see Xabriar. But he was not the same Xabriar she remembered.

His skin was black, cracking, like the surface of the molten stone nearby. Tongues of dark reddish flames leaked through the fissures in his broken body, which was not at all hidden by the tattered, burned remnants of his robes. Behind him, a glowing reddish ritual written in fire on the stone at the bank of the lake of lava roared with power, deafening and physically jarring with the force of the noise.

When he turned in her direction, his eyes were stained a sickly yellowed and for a moment she thought she had been caught. If he did notice her, he didn’t seem to care though. He opened his charred hand in a complex gesture, and she winced at the sound of burned flesh cracking and flaking from his fingers as it moved through the motions of spellcasting.

Black flames leaped from his fingers like chain lighting, until it disappeared into an invisible boundary just feet in front of Xabriar. She watch as Xabriar cackled, wrenching back his twisted arms and the black flames attached to them like a fisherman's line.

Rana stood there, mouth open wide, Greta echoing her silent gasp as they watch Xabriar reel in the assassin that had attacked them both less then an hour ago. “Cale, so good of you to join me. I can’t imagine what made me think you would be an effective tool. ” Xabriar pronounced in dissatisfaction, looking at the near-dead murderer scornfully.

The man look dazedly towards the sorcerer. “Xabriar, you’ve looked better yourself. You should put some ointment on that.” he sniffed in disgust. “I would also suggest a bath, the smell of burned corpse just doesn’t suit you.”

“You mock me!” Xabriar shook with rage, his flesh cracking open as flame forced its way through. “If you had done your job, none of this would have been necessary!” he waved toward himself. “It soon won’t matter, I will have the power to leave this wretched form behind. In the meantime you will pay the price for failing me.” He pointed shaking towards Cale.

Cale simply laughed. “Do your worst, I don’t care. Pain is my best friend, and death my lover.”

“A challenge, is it?” Xabriar said with a smile that chilled Rana to the bone. “Oh yes, you wanted your dear baby sister back, yes?”

“How about we all have a little chat then. Did you know the dead can feel pain? I find it very remarkable really, but it’s true. See, I’ve toyed with the idea of bringing back my dead allies to fight with me, an army of unkillable sorcerers. But I found that the mere act of drawing their spirits back to the mortal realm caused them to scream most distressingly. It seems the spirit becomes part of the beyond after a time, and stretches when drawn back here. I experimented quite thoroughly, but found no way to break that bond to the beyond. Would you like to see dear Bekah now?”

The assassin, Cale, had gone pale over the course of Xabriar’s explanation, and was reaching for him desperately, but Xabriar simply kicked off his grasping hand. Rana felt sick at the emotionless description of the horror Xabriar committed, horrified beyond movement. Had he been conducting those experiments while she was there, arranging books and being beaten?

“Now let us begin.” As Xabriar raised his arms into the air both Rana and Greta watched on in horror, neither willing to make her presence known to the mad sorcerer. “Phasmatis of silenti exorior!“ The air crackled with power as a wisp of black flame rose from the earth, coalescing into a pitch black hole in the air directly in front of Xabriar.

Thrusting his arm into the hole with a splash Xabriar shouted the words of power, “Accipiet coronam vitae!“ Rana watched as the hole bubbled and foamed, the unnatural liquid spilling out until the ground shuddered, apparently in reaction to the unnatural rending of the barrier to the beyond.

“Here we are.” Xabriar grunted as he slowly pulled a pale translucent arm through the hole. Stretching like taffy, her ghostly body pulled partway through. “I don’t have time to make her a proper body, but she wouldn’t be staying long anyway.” he laughed as the spirit of Bekah, Cale’s sister, shrieked in a horrific agonized wail. Her face, twisted and stretched, would haunt Rana’s nightmares for the rest of her life, she was certain.

“I’ll... kill you...” Cale struggled visibly to move, and Xabriar didn’t even bother to knock him away. The weak pawing of Cale’s hands seemed to amuse the sorcerer!

“Let her go you *bastard!*” Rana was startled out of her horrified paralysis when Greta leaped past her, knife forward, driving at Xabriar like a thrown spear. The sorcerer looked back just as she reached striking range, and casually backhanded her to the ground. The blue dagger skittered away from her hand, and she did not get up.

“Oh dear, it seems another little girl has decided to join the suffering.” a bemused Xabriar commented with a cruel smile. “But I must confess I’m curious, where did you come from?”

Rana vaulted over the lip of the crater, only seconds after Greta, her sword drawn. “She came with me, and it’s time to die, you old ghoul.” She didn’t stop to talk further as she lashed out for his head with the sword. It rang piercingly, glancing off of a barrier Xabriar waved into existence as casually as he had hit Greta. The spirit of the assassin’s sister continued to wail in tortured tones, but Rana tried to ignore it and focus on Xabriar. She would free the spirit with his death.

Leaning into the edge of the sword mockingly, Xabriar smirked. “That sword you have there, I’m quite certain it belongs to me.” With a snap of his charred fingers, a wooden staff flew into his hands from nowhere Rana could see. “I suppose you were the one going about destroying all of my hard work, but may I ask who are you?”

Rana kept silent as she stared down her former master. Pressing against the barrier she pushed the sorcerer back to the surprise of both.

“Ah, the silent heroic type, then? Very well. Let us see whose power is greater... Rall.” he laughed hysterically. Rana tried not to show her surprise, but he must have seen it in her face.

“What, are you surprised?” He took a half step forward. “You don’t honestly believe I wouldn’t notice your rather unique flavor of magic when you flash it right in my face! But it is quite impressive what you have done to yourself, physical transformation is complicated magic. Have you been reading my books, my prodigal apprentice? And you seem to have integrated some of that captured dragon fire into yourself as well. Pity you didn’t burn yourself away.”

Bekah’s ghost gave a particularly ear-wrenching noise, and Xabriar focused on her again for a moment, distracted. “Stop your whining you dead little bitch!” Rana struck again, and felt the magic of his barrier buckle inwards somewhat. Xabriar quickly refocused his attention back onto her, forcing back the blade as the spell that protected him became more rigid.

Turning his back to Rana, he began to walk towards the ritual drawn in fire. “Such talent you waste. Perhaps you could even be a threat to me, had you a hundred years of training. But your clumsy workings are childish at best.”

Keeping pace with him, she savagely attacked the barrier trying in vain to destroy it and get at the sorcerer. Frustrated, Rana shouted out, “What are you doing?”

“What am I doing?” Xabriar laughed. “What do you think I have been doing, having a barbecue down here?“ Shaking his head in disappointment he continued to ignore her attacks. “I have a schedule to keep, and no more time to waste playing with you or your little friends!”

“Stop... ignoring... me!” She drove the point of the sword into the barrier and the blade burst into white-hot blinding fire where her mage sight suddenly showed the threads that held his protection together. The shield popped like a soap bubble and Xabriar gasped, using his staff to knock that deadly point away moments before he could be skewered.

“You dare!” He cast the spell Rana recognized, she could see the weaves now, bands of force that would grab her by the ankles and lift her high up then savagely lash at exposed skin. Diving forward she swung her sword down into the weaving of magics. It felt like cutting through cobwebs, the flaming of the sword burning away the delicate strands of the spell with little effort. Splashed of white fire sprayed with every pass of her sword, and Xabriar countered them with black flames that stank of sulfur. The still-screeching ghost hit a crescendo of pitiful wailing, causing both of them to wince.

“Die you old bastard! Just die!” She struck again and again, then cocking her sword back for a powerful overhand swing she dove in head first hoping to bisect the man. The feeling of blood running down through her nose registered first, slowly followed by pain as her face struck against an invisible wall of magics into a bloody mess.

Xabriar’s disfigured, burned face grinned childishly. “Oh my, that looks quite painful.” he said with mock concern.

“Rana... He’s toying with you...” In spite of the noise of the dead girl’s screams and the chaos of the fight, Greta’s raspy, sick-sounding voice rang clear in Rana’s ears. She couldn’t see very well, with her eyes teared up from the pain and shock of the blow to her face, but from her voice Rana was sure Greta was barely clinging to life.

“Why do you play with him?” A puzzled voice boomed in her mind. “You are a dragon, child! Let yourself fight as a dragon does!”

“How!?” she begged, not understanding Granth’s words.

A sense of pure confidence radiated from Granth’s voice. “Give in to the power, our power... your power! Look around you child, this is our domain not his!”

The sword hummed in her hands, she felt the heat and power of volcano around her, the churning unimaginable energies that resided beneath her feet. Staring deeply into the disfigured face of her former master, she let her fears slip away. She felt the ancient power of the sleeping volcano gather to her, and she felt the crystal hot flame that burned in the core of her soul latch on, drinking it in eagerly.

She squinted painfully as her sword burst into a blinding white bar of liquid fire, growing even hotter in her hands. She could make out individual runes in its surface as the liquid metal held its razor edge shape, and understanding of their meaning crept into her thoughts. She could combine them, bend them to her will, use them to shape the raw power of her magic.

“Frangere scutum!” she cried out, weaving runes by force of will. The blade parted the barrier as if it did not exist, and bit deeply into Xabriar’s arm. Blackened flesh sloughed off to show liquid fire coursing through his veins, spilling out like blood to burn fitfully on the stone at their feet. The spirit wailed with renewed fervor as the jerking motion of Xabriar’s pained flinch seemed to stretch her form even more hideously.

Stepping back in retreat, Xabriar hastily drew a line in black earth. With a shout he called upon his power for another spell, “Murus ignis!“. The earth shock as mixture of red and black flame cracked then jetted through the ground like a hot knife, separating the two for the moment with a wall of utter destruction. Winching he lifted his damage arm towards his staff, slowly tendrils of black flame lanced into his forearm, drawing out the still-burning remnants of Rana’s own power. “You... You are not Rall!” he spat,

Rana didn’t bother arguing, she had to finish this quickly for Greta’s sake. She focused again and called out the words to summon forth her power. “Sanctus ignis lumine!” She pointed with the sword and a bar of fire lashed out.

But as Rana casted Xabriar had already begun to counter. Thrusting his staff into his wall of flame, Xabriar shouted, “Unda ignis!“ The wall reached high into the air then crested like a wave breaking the shore.

Rana dove backward desperately as the wave of terrible black flame fell on her with all the force of a tsunami. Tongues of the unholy fire licked against her feet and calves, and the pain was excruciating. She cried out in agony, nearly matching the spirit in her continuing screams. Her armor protected her legs from much of the physical damage, but she could tell her scaled leggings and boots would not hold up in there crisped and cracked condition, and the continuing pain was intense.

“Feel the torture of hellfire, girl, it is but the first taste of the suffering you will endure!”

“You... call that... fire?” She growled through gritted teeth. “I’ll show you... fire... Spiritus draconis!” She turned to face him, sword held in both hands now, and opened her mouth as wide as it would go. White-hot liquid fire spewed from her throat, in an enormous spray that snuffed out the black flames wherever they touched. The white fire splashed and splattered, seeming to catch on the cracked stone ground, melting it to liquid, consuming all in its path.

Gripping his staff, Xabriar shot up into the air. He bellowed in rage, “I have had enough of this you little twat!” Rana felt suddenly nauseous as the magics of Xabriar’s ritual twisted and reshaped all around her. The hair on the back of her neck prickled as the air became charge with power. In moments a black sun grew from a speck of flame at the tip of his outstretched staff. Clutching his chest in pain, red flames leaking from his body like blood, he raspily roared “This is the end of you!”

Rana gaped for a moment at the sheer power of the spell. It was going to be big, and it was going to be bad. Greta! She was lying exposed not twenty feet away, she would be caught in it and killed! She ran to Greta’s side, holding the sword before her as if to block the ball of unholy fire. She willed the runes into a defensive configuration just before the fire hit.

“Scutum ignis!” A white bubble of fire sprang up around her and Greta, transparent but visible. The black ball descended on them like the fall of night. As it struck, the white shield buckled immediately, black flames leaking through tiny fissures as the chaos over them both blacked out everything around them. Greta’s eyes widened in horror as the earth under them sank into the ground. Red liquid rock outlined the edges of the barrier, contrasting with the pitch blackness beyond.

---

Watching in terrified awe, it was the first time Cale had ever felt truly out of his league. He had seen and participated in fights between rival sorcerers before, but nothing had ever come close to the utter destruction that the girl Rana and Xabriar unleashed upon each other. Both Xabriar’s black flames and the little chit’s liquid white flames had come dangerously close to ending his life as they shattered the already desolate landscape.

But none of that truly mattered. Xabriar had his sister, that was the only thing that would ever matter again. Her screams tore him into shreds, over and over. They wormed their way into the depths of what remained of his heart, and reminded him that she was worth more than he could ever hope to be. And that the one innocent in all of this was the one suffering the most. He ignored the agony moving brought to him, the crippling weakness of the talisman’s ravages in his body, and moved.

Cale ran to the side of his sister’s disembodied spirit when the fighting slowed for a moment. He tried to grab hold of her arm, but his fingers passed through her translucent flesh with only the slightest resistance. For the briefest of moments his sister stopped crying, and it felt like a last moment reprieve from execution. For a shining few seconds, he brought her comfort. ”I’m so sorry...” he whispered to her, through the noise and chaos.

“I… love...you... This time... I will save you.” She looked at him with eyes full of hope and love, even in the face of all that she had been through, and he knew in that moment he could be more than he was. Then the black ball of death landed and everything was lost to the chaos.

He clung to her ethereal touch as if to a bit of driftwood in a storm at sea, and somehow, among the fire and fury, she kept him safe. The blackness burning around him was drawn to her as iron to a lodestone, and her ghostly visage twisted into a whole new agony of torment. The black fire flowed into her, leaving a clear space around him that grew slowly. He wept in the eye of that storm, watching his sister suffer yet more, for his sake. For whole minutes the black fire raged, melting stone like wax in a candle.

The nightmare slowly began to quiet, slipping away to leave only shattered landscape and destruction in its wake. Among the dark fires still ravaging the ground in the aftermath a single spot of blue amongst the black caught his eye, a curved dagger that somehow escaped the destruction unharmed. He ignored it at first, clinging to his sister’s ghost, but she slipped slowly away, fading into a whisper.

“Forgive yourself, brother...” When he could no longer hear even the echoes of her words in his mind, he stood again. That glinting blue dagger stood out against the black, shining almost as if demanding he take it. So he did.

“Not yet, Bekah. I have one last man to kill.” he whispered in the sea of darkness. Clutching the knife uncomfortably tight, he looked up at the floating exhausted form of Xabriar then back out into the sea of flame. His agile mind focused on the problem at hand: how to get to Xabriar.

A deafeningly loud rumble grew in the air, the sound of rock crushing rock. It was matched by a dissonant high pitched squeal that drilled through his ears like a needle, shaking the earth beneath his feet. The sea of black flame bulged upward, rays of brilliant while light escaping at the seams, burning Cale’s eyes with the change in ambient lighting. The bubble grew rapidly until white flames broke completely free of their bonds. Xabriar’s floating body scrambled away from the growing power.

Then as if finally the dome had reach its limit, the dome of light exploded in a gushing fountain of radiant white fire that pierced into the blackened heavens. The white flames crashed back downward in apparent slow motion, driving into the earth then exploding outwards in a rolling wave of power. Its vile counterpart, the black flames, were washed away as if they had never been.

Cale remained utterly blind for long moments after the minutes of explosion of chaos, and when his eyes finally did clear, the view very nearly unmanned him. There in the sky, facing the power-mad sorcerer, a shimmering, ruby-scaled dragon beat powerful wings as it slowly circled Xabriar.

---

Rana’s mind slowly cleared as she came back to her senses; in front of her Xabriar slowly floated as her vision lazily circled him. She felt different, more alive, in some way she could not describe. There was a sense of... movement? from her back, but it paled beneath the sensation of swimming, or floating, through... the... air...?

In front of her she saw Xabriar from a distance as she traveled around him, the sound of wings beating in the wind rang through her ears. The last clear memory she could recall before everything went white was Granth’s voice, “The barrier will not protect us, Rana, I must manifest or we and our lover will be doomed!”

Her eyes caught sight of the distant ground, her fear of heights all but forgotten as she watched the vast black shadow that followed along with her movements. Great wings moved in time with the beating of the ones blackening out the ground below.

Then the height hit her. She opened great jaws to scream and the sound that came forth was... intense. She nearly scared herself to death, falling from the sky like a stone, until her wings spread again entirely out of instinct, pulling her out of a terrifying dive and back up to those terrifying heights.

“Granth... are we... flying? Am I a full dragon now? Ashes of the First, what happened?!” her mental voice babbled incoherently .

A mental sigh echoed through her mind as she felt her sense of self being gently pushed a side. Her body quickly relaxed and moved, her pounding heart slowed as her body slowly rolled into a perfect slow turn. “I think it best that I take control from here... We do not wish to let go of the girl in your panic.”

“Greta!” she yelled in another fit of terror. A mental nudge from Granth moved her mind’s eye to her left foot where she felt like she was gripping something soft between her toes.

“She is alive. Weak but alive. This was the only way to protect her, but we must be very cautious now. Human bodies are quite frail, and we are much stronger now than you can realise.” Further contemplation of the matter was halted when a spray of black liquid splashed on her wing, hissing furiously. The pain was intense, but the damage minor. She felt Granth’s roar rattle their bones, then she blew fire over the wound. The acid burned away, leaving her flesh tender but not seriously harmed.

“I am going to eat that sorcerer.” Granth’s angry thought echoed in Rana’s mind. She couldn’t help but be disgusted at the thought, even as her stomach growled. “Unless you want to, Rana? He is your enemy, right?” She inquired curiously.

A wave of dizziness hit Rana hard as Granth casually looked downwards at the charred ground. Images of splattering across the charred crater flashed through her mind in agonizingly vivid detail. If she could have shut Grant's eyes she would have in flash. “No I’m fine, he’s all yours... Just don’t eat him.” The idea of having anything of Xabriar inside her was revolting.

“Fair enough. Demonkind tastes awful anyway really. Sulfurous and bitter.” Granth swooped to avoid another spray of acid, then roared again, the sound startling Rana. Xabriar, flying ahead of them, grimaced as he was startled out of the middle of a spell.

Granth beat her wings powerfully, lifting higher into the sky above Xabriar, then dove on him savagely. The sorcerer tried to escape, but the move was so sudden he was still buffeted by a great wing.

“Fight me, sorcerer!” Granth bellowed in a gravelly, grating voice. “Or are you unmanned when your opponent is not sealed in a tomb for you to leech from like a vampire?” She slipped through the air below him, then with a wingbeat and a twist she was behind him, her horns tearing into his leg with a spray of dark red burning blood.

“So there was more than just dragon fire in that piece of scrap metal...” Xabriar spat back, the injuries on his legs slowly sealing up. Rana watched as he bolted up into the sky. “You foolish lizard, you think you are more powerful than I? In my domain? I’ll destroy you!“

Rana shivered as she felt the magic locked in the glowing red stone far below her release, the ritual shattering into pieces. The dark magic shot up into the air in a torrent of black and red flame. Xabriar opened his mouth in deranged, waiting glee as the vile sickening magics crawled their way down his throat like a living creature. His throat expanded and distorted hideously as he swallowed the corruption.

‘This can’t be good...’ Rana thought to herself and Granth. Then Xabriar turned to face them with black fire pouring out of every crack in his bulging, shattered body, and pointed. His staff dissolved into ash as black drops sprayed from his hands, each drop warping and twisting into hideous monstrous shapes, clawed, fanged, horned things that defied rational thought.

They swam, flew, and even crawled through the air at maddening speed, and Granth twisted and flew to avoid them. The sheer numbers of summoned demons were staggering, and one managed to reach Granth. It caught a clawhold in her wing and tried to climb up it, and she sprayed white fiery breath all over it. The thing exploded, buffeting her with the concussion of its violent demise. Several others managed to get close, and they also exploded.

Twisting violently to take the force of the blast herself, Granth kept her body between them and Greta, flying ever harder, ever faster, to escape the torrent. But the summoned shadow demons were tenacious, and followed her every movement. More clawed, bit, and tore at her before exploding with bone-shattering force, and some even sprayed acid with their deaths.

Turning to face the torrent, Granth flew back at Xabriar, mouth wide and blowing a steady stream of white-hot destruction on them. It was a risk, but she knew she could not fight the things much longer and still protect Greta. She pulled up at the last moment, hoping the light of her fire and the destruction of the demons would blind Xabriar to her motions, and dove on him from above. Just before she crashed into him, she let loose another deep breath of flame.

Xabriar looked up as the shining liquid fire poured on him, too late to do more than throw the hastiest shield into place to block the fire, before the mass of an enormous dragon struck the shield, bearing him to the ground with enough force to shatter a thirty foot crater in the volcanic glass.

Both Rana and granth waited slowly as the cloud of dust and glass slowly settled. A part of Rana truly didn’t wish to see the bloody mess of her former master, but she had to know for certain of his death. She gasped in fascinated horror as she watched the silhouette of Xabriar standing walk out of the dust. As he came into view, his limbs twisted and shattered bones poking through his flesh. Yet somehow the monstrosity moved, as if the damage was nothing but an inconvenience.

Raising both his manged arms into the air, Xabriar began to chant words that slithered and wriggled into Rana’s mind like snakes. “Don’t listen.” Granth chided. “He speaks in the tongue of demon kind.”

The horrible, disgusting words that came from Xabriar’s mouth gnawed at her defenses, crept into the cracks of her thoughts, bringing with them images of herself shattered, tormented, corrupted and befouled at his hands. It spoke of a certain future of being bred with demon seed to produce new things too horrible to imagine, of her whole being savaged by scores of the most foul things extant. She felt her will slipping, and knew this time his attack would succeed.

“Rana, hold on! Don’t let him control you!” Granth’s voice was a stone, an anchor in the sea of chaos filling her mind, and she clung to it. “That’s right, I’m here, I’ll always be here with you...”

The spell slipped away as Xabriar’s tone changed, and he chanted something new. Black power built in him yet again, and Rana despaired. She could feel the pain and exhaustion of their body as well as Granth could, and they could not fight off another swarm of exploding demons, or any other such horror. Granth drew breath to flame, but it was too late, the last word of the spell was on Xabriar’s lips.

But he never spoke it. Instead, a startled expression crossed his face, as a pointed blue tip of steel slipped out the front of his chest. A fountain of burning dark red blood followed it, and instead of words only a gurgle passed his lips, more thick flaming filth spraying from his mouth.

Behind him stood the assassin looking as pale as death, his hand on the knife hilt. Slowly Xabriar’s body slid off of the blade, face first onto the waiting obsidian ground. The assassin watched, then with a snarl spit a thick glob of phlegm onto the body.

“Good riddance, you piece of shit. I should have done that years ago.”

Granth released the breath gently, but did not lower her guard.

“You, human.” she rumbled, staring down the assassin. “Did you not attempt to kill our lovers? I should char you where you stand.” The assassin swayed and nearly fell over.

“Do it. I’m sick of this!” he cried out, “Just do it... ”

Granth stared at the man, taken aback. “Why are humans so willing to throw their lives away?”

Tossing his acquired blade to Granth’s feet he looked up, his eyes dead with exhaustion both physical and emotional. “Because most of us are pretty worthless, on the whole. Are you gonna talk me to death or eat me?”

“Neither. You saved my life, I will spare yours. Do not make me regret it.” The assassin shrugged as Granth picked up the knife with a claw and delicately inserted it into the sheath at Greta’s side. She lay Greta on the ground with a warning glance at Cale.

‘Is she going to make it?’ Rana asked Granth mentally.

‘She is not well, and may not survive the return trip.” Granth said sadly, and Rana was reminded how much they shared now. Granth clearly shared her love for Greta somehow.

“I think I may be able to help with that.” Corana mentioned. Granth turned to see her and Arron picking their way back over the blasted landscape. The pair of them looked even worse than Granth and Rana felt, and were leaning on each other for support. The cuts in Arron’s leather armor showed inflamed red flesh much like Greta’s.

“Do you have some spell to cleanse the body of demonic poisons?” Granth asked, and Rana could feel the desperate hope than did not come across in the gravelly dragon voice.

Looking about the surroundings nervously, Corana quickly judged her remaining reserves of strength. “Yes, but I will likely be unable to move for hours after, and this is not a safe place to sleep. Will you carry me to safety once it is cast?”

Granth nodded, “I give you my word I will transport you safely, if you will do this for me. Please...”

Corana lowered her head in a bow then knelt next to Greta’s almost motionless body, beckoning Arron to join her. ”There is no need to request, I would have done my best to save her no matter your decision.“ She placied her hand on the wound from which red streaks ran through Greta’s body, tendrils poking up from the neckline of her shirt.

“Purgare.” White light, soft and warm, shone from her hand, and the red streaks slowly dissolved. As the poison left Greta’s body, she turned and held the purifying light on a startled Arron. It took over a minute, but as the last remnants of poison faded away, Corana dropped in exhaustion. Granth caught her gently with a claw as Cale and Arron looked on. Greta moaned and sat up slowly, still pale but looking much more alive. And then she screamed.

“Greta! Wait, calm down!” Granth’s voice did little to calm her, but when Granth met her eyes she trailed off, staring into them.

“R... Rana... Is that you?” she reached out a hand and touched Granth’s scaly leg.

“Yes and no. She’s here, but I am Granth. We are one, remember? This is our dragon form.” Greta looked up and up at her.

“You’re... big. I didn’t think you would be so big.” She looked a little confused still, but struggled to her feet. Granth offered a claw to help, and she took it.

“Dragons are not big. We are majestic.” She smiled, and Greta winced at the expression.

“Fine. Is it over? This place looks like hell and I don’t want to be here anymore. I had such awful nightmares...”

“Demon poison attacks body and mind. You should rest, but I agree, this is not a restful place. And I have a promise to keep. Please, climb onto my neck. You too, Arron, I will carry Corana and...” She looked at the assassin.

“Cale.”

“...Cale, in my claws. Unless you’d prefer to stay here?” The assassin looked sick for a moment, and shook his head.

“I’ll take my chances with you. This place stinks.”

“Very well.” She lowered her head and Greta climbed up, using the sharp ridges on the back as handholds. They were spaced just far enough that a person could sit in the space between one ridge and the next, and Greta and Arron found sturdy if not comfortable seats. Greta put her arms around Arron as Granth picked Cale up in one claw and Corana in the other.

“Don’t get any ideas, I just don’t want to fall off.” Greta mentioned to Arron.

Laughing himself into a fit of coughs, he looked over his shoulder to Greta. “Don’t worry, I don’t poach my best friend’s lovers. Besides, I rather think I’d like to marry Corana, and she might kill me if I did anything untoward.”

That moment, Granth heard a stirring from Xabriar’s body. “I will not DIE!” he cried out in a raspy, choking voice, then coughed a fountain of thick black ichor all over himself. Flailing his arms wildly, he writhed on his back gasping for breath.

Struggling in Granth’s grip Cale screamed, “By the First, what must I do to kill him?”

“I will not die!” he choked out again, his charred black hands shakily gripping his chest as reddish flames leaked through the cracks in his flesh.

The earth slowly trembled and split into thousands of fissures. Rana watched transfixed as fault lines rippled and the earth itself seemed to breathe, rising and falling rhythmically. Vile choking gasses escaped into the air causing both Arron and Greta to become increasing disoriented. Slowly magma began to fill in the cracks like blood. It became increasing apparent to all that the volcano would soon erupt. “We must leave!” Granth’s voice commanded, yet even the dragon stood stunned, watching the horrific spectacle.

In the increasing chaos a dark, insidious voice called out above the noise. “It is time for you to fulfill your contract. Come to us, our dear Xabriar.”

Xabriar clutch his chest. “No, you can’t! This wasn’t our deal!” he screamed in utter terror as the blood red flames burst from his body again. Rana watched through Greta’s keen eyes as Xabriar’s chest heaved upwards. The remains of his robes dissolved into ash, leaving his utterly broken body exposed and helpless.

“I won’t... I won’t come!” he screamed out in defiance. His mangled hands clutched his chest desperately, as if trying to hold something in.

“Come and take your place next to us!”

His body convulsed on the ground as he let loose a bloodcurdling screech. Rana would have thrown up if she could have, watching Xabriar’s body lift of the around and arch backwards with a crunching sound that clearly signaled the shattering of his spine. His head scraped against the hard rock and arms flung wide open. His tortured wail continued unabated until a loud pop echoed through the air, followed closely by another crunch as his chest literally split open.

For a moment both Granth and Rana wondered if somehow their eyes were deceiving them, as two clawed hands slowly inched their way through the fissure. Another sound of cracking bones exploded into the stunned silence as the two hands pried open Xabriar’s now silent corpse. Charred skin and muscle slowly parted and snapped like cord stretched too far.

Xabriar’s body shook with a soft gurgle, and a horned head peeked out of the chest, covered in gore and filth. She, for it appeared to be female, climbed up to a sitting position with a creepily erotic moan, shedding the two halves of his head from which her own had broken free. Xabriar’s dead leg kicked violently as the woman slowly pressed her hands against the corpse’s hips, pulling downwards. Slowly his flesh began to deflate into loose sacks of skin. Once completely free, she slowly stood up rubbing her hands across her body caressing her breasts as she removing the remnants of Xabriar’s internal organs. “Feels so good...” she moaned, stepping free from the dead body.

Her eyes darted between Cale and Arron, and she stretched from her clawed toes to her fingertips to give both a good view of her smoky gray-skinned body. Taking a deep breath, she spread out her leathery black wings and flapped them curiously.

“Who or what are you?” Rana called out with Granth’s voice, taking direct control for the first time since waking up.

Her mouth slowly took on a wicked smile as she sauntered toward Granth, then stopped and pointed a thumb over her shoulder at Xabriar’s corpse. “I’m everything he wanted: power, immortality, perfection.” she laughed.

Grinning darkly at Rana, she gave a slight curtsy. “I am his dream given form.”

“You are Xabriar then?” Granth inquired. Rana noted the confusion in Granth’s mind matched her own, but she seemed to be forming a theory as to what was transpiring.

She moaned as she slowly began to explore her own body. “If you are asking if I have his memories, his soul... Then yes. But I do not have his ego, his sense of self. That is dead. Even so, perhaps I should dispose of you, before you can become a threat.” She slowly advanced, clawed fingers clenching and unclenching as if she already had throats in her hands to crush.

“Come now! Do not make us wait.” She stopped mid-step as that powerful voice once again called out from the fissure in the earth.

“Yes my lord!” she moaned in delight. Turning her back on the group she slowly drew a clawed nail through the air. “It seems I have no time to play” she sighed sadly as she sauntered toward the burning crack in the ground. She mentioned casually, over her shoulder, “My master awaits. I would suggest you also leave this place soon. My former self's magics have disrupted the ley line that runs through this volcano, it will erupt soon. I would hate to lose such wonderful playthings before I can properly... enjoy them.” she remarked with a giggle before stepping forward and disappearing with into air, leaving nothing but the stench of sulfur.

“What in the nine hells was that?” Cale finally spoke once the woman had gone, seeming shaken by the whole event. Rana could relate to that.

“It does not matter, the creature has crossed over. And we must leave!” Granth said as her wings beat against the increasingly polluted air. As they left the shattered ground, it began to bulge and ripple, as far as any of them could see.

---

As the earth erupted in fire and smoke, a mountain disintegrating itself in a blast of monumental proportion, a single speck flew outward, at a low, flat angle that did not match that of the stones being thrown every direction from the erupting volcano. Buffeted by winds and barely dodging flaming rocks that flew every direction from the blast, the speck flew east above the rest of the mountains, quickly outpacing the spreading black cloud.

Peasants in several villages would tell stories for decades of how dragons had returned to the world, birthed from the chaos of the explosion in what would be dubbed the Dragonbirth Range.