She awoke to the strangely pleasant feeling of claws kneading her back. “Oh, that’s nice,” she murmured sleepily. “A little bit higher. Yeah that’s—”

A familiar, rough-skinned form stirred on the bed in front of her. His body was caked in dried blood and sweat, as was her own. But if Rover Dog was there, who was…?

Rolling over, she found herself face to face with a very smug—and equally naked—Princess Vask.

“What the hell!?” She sat up abruptly.

On the other side of the bed, Zarie rubbed her eyes, muttering softly about a headache. Sprawled beside her, snoring softly, was a certain giant dwarf, sporting more chest hair than Tom Selleck.

“Just how big is this damn bed?” she muttered to no-one in particular.

“So generous of you to share him,” said Vask, stretching luxuriously beside her. “It was as good as I remember.”

“What are you…? I didn’t…you didn’t…did you?”

Vask’s smile widened.

“Oh frock. I’ve got to…” She crawled over a dozen naked Spartan pygmy trolls, struggling to extricate herself from this absurdly enormous bed. How much had she drank last night!?

Rover Dog blinked sleepily up at her. “Why such hurry, princess?” He looked between the two of them, and a grin spread from ear to ear. “Princesses…”

Standing at the foot of the bed, Ruhildi watched the drama unfold with dark, unblinking eyes, her emaciated body swathed in twitching spiders.

 

Saskia let out a soft groan. That dream really got away from me.

“Och aye, it did at that,” said Ruhildi.

“Huh?” She blinked up at her friend, who sat at the opposite end of the cabin. She’d decided to sleep inside the dragon last night, while Rover Dog and Princess Vask…

Well, she didn’t want to think about that. They were all consenting adults. Some consenting a lot more often—and more loudly—than others.

As the fog of sleep cleared from her brain, a thought occurred to her. Wait…did Ruhildi just…?

“Aye, Sashki, I’m hearing your thoughts,” said her friend. “And sharing your dreams.”

Saskia’s mouth dropped open. Her cheeks began to burn. “You saw…that? But…how?” Oh god, did she also see the one about…?

A smirk spread across Ruhildi’s face. “I did now.”

“I didn’t…I mean…oh no.” Saskia banged her head against the dragon’s ribcage, trying to clear the memory.

“’Tis alright, Sashki. I ken the difference between dreams and reality. If you’d seen some of my dreams…”

“I did, remember? And in none of them were you doing…that.”

“None of the ones you saw. Alas, I no longer feel those urges. There are things I miss about being…”

Alive.

“Aye.” Ruhildi looked down at the floor. “None of that matters now, though. All that matters is that you’re my friend.”

Saskia drew a shuddering breath. “Dogramit. How is this even possible?”

“I don’t ken. I’ve been waiting for the right time to tell you. Sometimes—not all the time, mind—after I…came back, I’ve been sensing what you think, what you feel. When it happens, ’tis…hard to separate your thoughts and feelings from my own. To be true, ’tis times like this I’m not completely sure I’m me any more.”

A shiver of unease ran through her. What had her father said when she first spoke to his ghost—his echo—all those months ago? “I am you, as much as I am him.” What if it was the same with Ruhildi?

“Aye, ’tis my fear also,” said Ruhildi. “I hope ’tis mine, leastwise. Now don’t mistake me. I like you. I just don’t want to be you.”

Saskia swallowed. Then, with an effort of will, she shoved her darker thoughts aside. “No. I’ve had trouble telling what’s real before. But I know you are real. You are Ruhildi, not just some kinda…outgrowth of me.”

Ruhildi looked less than convinced. That was fine too, because now Saskia was convinced. And if they had separate beliefs, that made them separate people.

Time to change the subject. “You’ve been doing nothing but working on repairs for days. It’s time for a break. We’re going to take another crack at the Night’s Dream today, and I want you to come along because…I want you to come along.”

Ruhildi tilted her head in the negative. “I need to stay and guard the dracken.”

“Bog that. The frostlings can do that. It’s not like they have anything better to do.”

Five sets of liquid brown eyes blinked down at her. One of them yawned, showing his tiny piranha teeth.

Ruhildi smiled. “Alright, Sashki. Though I do worry for the safety of the townsfolk if we leave these terrors alone with them.”

Arriving back at the guest palace, Saskia was treated to the sight of Rover Dog emerging from Princess Vask’s chamber, buck naked and covered in bloody scratches, with a shaz-eating grin plastered across his face.

She scowled at him. “Get dressed. We’re delving today.”

“Delving where?” asked Princess Vask, stepping out after him, her body glistening with blood and sweat. “I will come with you.”

“No! I mean…”

Another blood-soaked troll stepped out behind the princess. Was that…Princess Aele? Oh that dog.

“We delve into history lesson,” said Rover Dog.

“Oh, how boring,” said Vask, wrinkling her nose at him. “I will leave you to it, then. Come, Aele, Nuhu, back to the scouring pools we go!”

Princess Nuhu, who was peeking out of a different room further down the hallway, made a very un-troll-like mewling sound, and ducked back inside. A moment later, Vask and Aele were dragging the younger princess out the door. Saskia sighed inwardly at the sight of Nuhu’s desperate, pleading expression. Saskia felt bad for her, but at the same time, she was kinda relieved the two older princesses had found a new plaything. Those first few days had been…

She gave a little shudder. Ruhildi patted her on the leg, as if to say, “There, there.”

“I think I ken a way to get past the wards,” said Kveld, when the group had gathered in the basement. “I won’t ken for sure until…”

Kneeling in front of the sealed-off wall, he started scratching symbols into the stone around it.

“So?” asked Saskia. “Are you gonna explain what you’re doing?”

“A nullifying ward,” he said.

She raised an eyebrow. “An anti-ward ward? I didn’t think that was possible.”

Kveld chuckled. “’Tweren’t. But I found a way. With this ward in place…” He stood still for a long moment, drawing a huge flow of essence. Ruhildi, taking a cue from him, added her own prodigious magic to the mix.

The wall collapsed into a pile of sand.

Saskia whooped. “Great job!” Then her mouth dropped open. “What…the…?”

What awaited them on the other side of the wall wasn’t a cave or tunnel. It wasn’t even underground.

Before her lay a tussocky, snow-covered ridgetop, on the side of a high mountain. The sky was dark, and dotted with stars.

She knew that mountain; that ridge; those stars. This wasn’t Grongarg, or anywhere on Arbor Mundi. This was Mount Sesayung, in the Himalayas, on Earth.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” she asked.

“I see…a mountainside, though I don’t ken how that’s possible,” said Ruhildi.

“That’s a yes then,” said Saskia. “Careful. If we step through, I’m not sure we’ll be able to come back. Wait here. I’ll see if it’s safe first.”

She waved an arm through the opening. The air was chilly on the other side. Was this really real? A portal home? But she was already on Earth—her human counterpart was, at least. What would happen if there were two of her on the same world?

Her mind whirled with the possibilities. But the only way to find out for certain was to take the plunge.

She stepped forward. Her feet crunched onto soft snow. Her clawed feet.

Still a troll then. So far, so good…

Another step. Her minimap—and, in fact, all of her oracle interface—flickered and winked out.

Crap. She’d forgotten about that. When her human counterpart had re-awoken on Earth, she too had lost her interface, until the robot in the control chamber had injected her with a so-called anti-dampener.

She turned back to her friends. “Guys, I think it’s…” There was no sign of them. No sign of the tunnel she’d just left. “Guys?”

She took a step backward—and stumbled straight into Rover Dog with a startled, “Oof.”

“Dogramit, I told you to wait!” she said.

He grinned at her, without a hint of remorse. “Not like to wait. Explore strange mountain.” He peered up at the stars, his eyes wide with wonder. “Strange sky.”

“This is Earth, Rover Dog,” she said. “Earth! It makes no sense, but here we are!”

Ruhildi appeared a moment later, staring up the mountainside. “So this is where you hail from. ’Tis fair pretty.”

“Not you too!” groaned Saskia.

“Did you say Earth?” Kveld spun about, his mouth dropping open.

Saskia slapped her forehead. “Does no-one ever listen to me?”

“I listen to you, yes?” said Zarie. “What were you…oh! This air is so brisk! I like the feel of it on my skin.”

“Congratulations, guys,” said Saskia. “You’re all idiots.”

After several attempts to backtrack over their footprints, she was convinced. This was a one-way portal. There was no other way but forward. Just in case she’d missed something, she placed a stone cairn to mark their point of entry, before setting off down the ridge.

Something moved across the sky. There was no light or sound—only an absence of stars to mark its passage. She quickly lost track of it.

Large bird, perhaps? Some dumb pilot forgot to turn their lights on?

No matter. She gave a little shrug and kept walking. Soon, they made their way into a lightly wooded area. The location was definitely familiar, but at the same time, it all seemed somehow different from the way she remembered it. She just couldn’t put her finger on what had changed. If memory served, the temple should be right about…

Huh.

The building perched among the trees was not the same one her Earth counterpart had left behind several months earlier. Not by a long shot. That temple had been constructed out of clay bricks and wood. This one was stone and metal, and built like a fortress. Lights played across the temple grounds, shining from rooftop turrets. There were no colourful statues out front. But there was something. A pair of distortions in the air, like heat waves. She couldn’t quite make out their shapes, but whatever they were, they were big.

A branch snapped between Saskia’s feet, making her jump. Alerted by the sound, the blurry forms wheeled about and came stomping toward her, amidst a whir of gears and pistons. They left large, flat footprints in the snow.

Her suspicions were confirmed a moment later, when two giant robots materialised in front of her. The hulking monstrosities stood on six massive legs apiece, guns trained on her head.

There was no point in running. If those guns unleashed on her or her companions, they’d be dead before they even heard the bang. Probably best not to tell them that.

Ruhildi looked at her sharply. Oh yeah. Saskia didn’t need to speak aloud for her to overhear.

“What are those creatures?” asked Kveld, eyeing the approaching machines with obvious fascination.

The hexapods drew to a halt at the edge of the clearing containing the temple, and stood there silently, guns still levelled at each of their heads.

“We…uh, come in peace?” said Saskia, holding her hands in the air. She repeated the phrase in Lingya and the language the Earth keystone had spoken.

The hexapods stepped aside, turned their guns away, and went still. Though she knew they could still kill her faster than she could blink, they were clearly giving her permission to approach.

Drawing near, Saskia waved her hand up at one of the sensors, and asked, “Hello? Anyone in there?”

They made no response. If they were manned, their pilots weren’t willing to speak.

“Not creatures,” said Saskia to Kveld, as she led her companions carefully past the hexapods. “Machines. They’re like the stone guardians. No, wait, bad analogy. Think of them as more like the bone dracken, except they’re animated by technology, not magic. They can apparently go invisible; I had no idea they could do that. And they don’t fly—at least, I don’t think they do.” And they could kill us with a finger-twitch.

“They’re not of your world,” said Ruhildi.

“No,” said Saskia. “I think one of my ancestors brought them here, or made them after she got here. But they’re not something Earthlings know how to build yet. Maybe in another fifty years or so…”

“Your ancestor,” said Kveld. “You mean your pap, Calburn the Great.”

“Actually no. Someone who came before him. Probably. I’m a bit fuzzy about my ancestry.” Saskia frowned. “I think I know what this is—why this place seems so familiar and yet so wrong. This is my world. But it’s not my time.”

“I don’t ken…” said Kveld uncertainly.

“Don’t worry about that, for now.” How could she explain the concept of time travel to these people? It would be a really long conversation, and this wasn’t the time for it. She couldn’t even tell if this was the past or future.

Suddenly, a streak of bright light tore across the sky. Saskia’s hackles rose.

“Get down!” she screamed.

Saskia and Rover Dog knelt over their squishier companions, shielding them as best they could. There was a blinding flash, and a sound that was beyond sound.

The mountainside was on fire. The air was filled with smoke. All she could hear was the ringing in her ears.

And yet, miraculously, she felt no pain. A panicked inspection of her companions revealed they were all similarly unharmed, though clearly shaken.

The temple was badly battered, but still standing. One of the hexapods lay on its side; a twisted wreck; metal legs and twitching turrets strewn across the blackened earth. The other robot fired staccato bursts into the air.

Another bright flash painted the sky white, followed by an explosion on nearby ridge. Flames billowed skyward.

“We need to get inside!” she shouted. They probably couldn’t hear her. Saskia could barely hear herself. She picked up Kveld and Ruhildi and dashed toward the temple. Rover Dog was hot on her heels, carrying a protesting Zarie.

Stepping through the shattered doors, they found themselves in a long hall, filled with debris and blackened and bleeding bodies. Not even these thick walls had protected them all from the blast.

Further down the hall, she found a bearded man kneeling over a woman with a shredded leg, who lay slumped against the wall.

“We can help heal him,” said Saskia.

Neither the man nor the injured woman looked up at her approach.

“Can you hear me?” repeated Saskia in several other languages.

No response.

Zarie stepped up to the man, peering into his eyes. She reached out and booped him on the nose.

Still nothing.

“He is…tall, skinny dwarrow, yes?” Zarie’s voice was tinged with uncertainty.

“Human,” said Saskia, feeling her skin prickle. Either the man was under the influence of some kind of hypnosis, or… “Guys, I don’t think we’re on Earth, after all. I think this is some kind of shared dream, or tangible illusion.” Like a magical holodeck.

There were a bunch of other possible explanations, too, but the moment she said it, her words sounded…right.

“I don’t ken…” said Kveld.

“Sashki speaks true,” said Ruhildi. “Look up.”

They all glanced at the temple ceiling, and for several long seconds, Saskia wondered what she meant. It was built out of smooth stone blocks, just like the walls. Were those lights electric…?

Then the stone flickered, and for a fraction of a second, she was looking at an array of blue glass symbols inset into a rougher, rocky surface.

“Glitch in the matrix,” she muttered. The others looked at her, confused. “Never mind. We should be careful where we step. For all we know, we could be standing on the edge of a bottomless chasm.” She hadn’t seen anything of the sort on her map before she entered this illusion, but it was better to be safe than splattered.

From then on, she stepped gingerly, ensuring each foot was firmly planted before lifting the next. They made their way further into the temple, until they came upon a room where a crowd of people had gathered. Some were nursing grievous injuries. Others looking haggard but unharmed. All were gazing at a bright light in their midst.

No, not just a light. A figure standing in the air, arms and legs and hair splayed. A woman. Her skin shone like the sun, and as Saskia watched, it seemed to ripple and flex, and come apart. Coils of energy unfurled around her, licking out toward the walls. Some of the onlookers cried out in fear. Others bent in clear supplication.

And then they were gone. The woman and her followers both.

But Saskia was pretty sure she knew who that woman had been.

“What was that?” breathed Kveld. “She looked almost as you did, at Spindle…”

“That, I think, was Yona,” said Saskia. “My ancestor. Lets keep moving, and see what else we might find.”

Through the next door, she found herself looking down at a very familiar set of stone steps. Indeed, these exact same steps were present in the other temple on the real Earth, albeit more worn than these ones.

Following the steps down, her sense of deja vu intensified. The control chamber was exactly as she’d left it, minus a thick layer of dust and grime. The dark obelisk of the keystone loomed in the centre of the room. Standing beside it was a woman, tall and curvaceous, garbed in a gown of glittering gold and silver. Her figure was suspiciously similar to the glowing form they’d just witnessed in the previous room. But her face…

“It’s her!” she said. “Rover Dog, don’t you recognise her? This was the woman from my vision, who sealed the rift at Fireflower Isle. This is exactly who we’ve been searching for!”

“Welcome to the Night’s Dream, travellers,” said the woman, speaking the same unknown language as that the keystone had used, back on the real Earth. The voice was the same, too, come to think of it. She looked at Rover Dog. “Welcome, Dougan, beloved companion of Sarthea.”

Wait…what?

The woman turned to Saskia. “Welcome, blood of Sarthea.”

Sarthea—that was the name of one of the old gods, wasn’t it? And if Saskia was of her blood…

“Are you Sarthea?” she asked.

“I am but a dream,” said the woman. “No thoughts; only memory.”

“What, like a simulation?”

“A…simulation. Yes, that is one way to think of me.”

“But your simulation is based on a real person, isn’t it?” said Saskia. “The person who created you. Sarthea.”

“My creator goes by many names. The Night Maiden. Fire’s Bane. The Old One. And others besides. Sarthea is indeed one of those names.”

“I knew it!” shouted Saskia. “Sarthea and Yona are one and the same!”

The simulation—Simthea, she’d call her—nodded.

“That explains why we’re on Earth,” said Saskia, explaining to her friends. “Sarthea is like me—a demon. And this…dream, illusion, whatever, must have been constructed from her memories of the place.”

“Baldreg will be so disappointed to larn Sarthea lacks a third tit,” said Ruhildi.

“Is your creator truly dead then?” asked Saskia, turning back to Simthea. “On this world, I mean. She could be alive on any number of other worlds.”

“I do not know,” said Simthea. “She has been gone for so very long.”

Saskia looked at Rover Dog. “Does her appearance jog your memory at all? Or the name she gave you—Dougan, was it?”

The troll tilted his head uncertainly. “Remember face. Not name.”

“Nothing about being her beloved companion?”

Rover Dog gave a trollish shrug. “I not remember loving squishy before, but for demon squishy, maybe make exception.”

Simthea looked up at the ceiling, which had started flickering again. “It appears there is some…interference. This dream is growing unstable. I advise you to find your way out of here immediately.”

Saskia groaned inwardly. Would it be too much to ask for her to meet an exposition bot without a timer on it? “What will happen if we don’t?”

“Unknown,” said Simthea.

“Okay, then how much time do we have?”

“Unknown.”

“Crap,” said Saskia. “Then how do we get out?”

Simthea gestured at the keystone beside her.

They could try to leave right now, but Saskia didn’t know if she’d have another chance to get some answers out of this simulation. She had so many questions. Rover Dog’s history with this woman, for one. But there was one question that she needed answered above all others.

“Sarthea sealed an arlium eruption on Grongarg,” said Saskia. “It killed her, I think, but she managed it. We need someone who can do the same thing. Where can we find them?”

“I have no knowledge of this event. It must have happened after my creator departed.”

“What was she doing when you last saw her?” asked Saskia.

“Preparing for war.”

“Against who?” asked Saskia. “Abellion?”

“I do not know that name,” said Simthea. “The enemy was the Infernal One, Okael.”

Another one of the old gods. Fantasinating. She’d assumed they were allies. So where did the current reigning donkhole enter into this?

The walls began to waver around them, reminding her once more that there was no time to indulge her curiosity. She had to stick to the most important questions.

“Sarthea and her vassal wore some kind of heat-resistant armour and carried a mirror shield to protect themselves from the heat of the molten arlium. What were they and where can I get them?”

Granted, the items hadn’t saved Sarthea. They had at least allowed her to get close, though. She could have simply teleported to the mouth of the volcano, but maybe she’d been saving that little trick as her exit strategy. Maybe it had worked, and she’d survived, after all.

“Sarthea and her allies wore suits of lightforged argnum to guard against Okael’s fire,” said Simthea. “I do not know if it would offer sufficient protection against molten arlium as well. Murgle’s folk, the dwarrows of Ulugmir, are the only ones who can shape lightforged argnum. Perhaps they can craft some protective attire for you.”

Saskia bit back a laugh. It seemed this simulation’s information was a little out of date. But there might be someone who could duplicate the dwarves’ work. Could Ruhildi do it?

Saskia opened her mouth to ask another question, but at that moment, Simthea herself began to flicker and fade. The walls, the floor—even the keystone itself—were starting to come apart.

Crap crap crap! Out of time.

She ran to the keystone, shouting, “Guys, gather close!”

When they were all huddled up next to her, she pressed her hand to the black obelisk.

Simthea’s voice rang out across the control chamber, though her lips weren’t moving. “What is your command, mouthlet?”

“Take us back to reality!”

For a moment, the world became a flickering blur. When it solidified, she found herself standing in a room very much like the one they’d left. Her hand still rested against the dark obelisk of a keystone—shaped just like the one on Earth. Intricate patterns of blue arlium danced across the walls and floor.

Saskia looked at her friends, gathered at her side. “Well that was—”

Bright cracks threaded across the surface of the keystone, spreading outward from the palm of her hand. She released it with a yelp—and fell onto her butt.

It wasn’t just the surprise that bowled her over. She felt suddenly light-headed. The room wavered and shifted around her.

Then it was gone, and in its place was a rooftop garden overlooking a gleaming city. Elegant stone spires rose up among colourful trees and crystalline ponds and streams. Greenery hung from windows, cascading down over walls, painting the spires in green and gold.

The city stood in a valley amidst rolling hills, spilling out toward a distant sea. The sky was clear and blue, save for several dirty black plumes of smoke rising from the far shore.

There were no branches directly overhead—just a single immense column to the north, culminating in a ring of smaller branches that rose almost vertically into the sky. Either this scene was from a time when Arbor Mundi had been shaped very differently than it was today, or this was higher up the tree than she had ever been before. Lumium, perhaps, or one of the branches on the other side whose names she didn’t know.

Her friends were nowhere in sight, but Simthea stood at the edge of the roof, dressed in colourful finery, gazing out over the city.

“Why did you bring me here?” asked Saskia.

Simthea didn’t answer, or turn to acknowledge her presence. Saskia drew closer, waving her hand in front of the woman’s face.

Nothing. Not Simthea, then, but a non-interactive memory of her creator, Sarthea.

This didn’t feel quite like the previous illusion spun by the Night’s Dream. Was it an oracle vision? Or maybe a little of both? Could she have been the source of the interference Simthea had mentioned?

No. Her gut was telling her something else. It was telling her that a certain someone did not want her to learn the secrets of the Night’s Dream. She was pretty sure she knew who that someone was, and the thought that he might be interfering yet again sent twin stabs of fear and anger spiking into her chest.

Heavy footsteps sounded behind her. She spun, and found herself looking into a pair of scarlet eyes.

“Rover Dog, I—”

Wait, this wasn’t the Rover Dog she knew. His skin looked as hers had looked when she first came to this world. Grey with green moles, lumpy and soft, not smooth stone, nor even the rough, hard texture of his skin before he’d taken a dunk in the scouring pools.

The troll half-carried, half-dragged someone behind him: a lanky, bald, albino man with milk-white eyes.

A shiver ran through her. She had seen those eyes before, on the faces of the Chosen, and on their puppet master, Abellion. Could this be…?

Sarthea turned slowly to face the pair.

“Thank you for bringing him to me, Dougan,” she said, looking at Rover Dog. “You had best leave. This will be…unpleasant.”

Rover Dog—or Dougan, apparently—nodded to her, deposited his limp cargo face first onto the stone, and strode away, descending a wide stone staircase into the depths of the tower.

The man stood slowly, regarding Sarthea with those eerie pale eyes, shining with inner light. “Mistress, if you would just allow me to explain…”

“No,” said Sarthea. “The time for explanations is over, Anduis. The oracles have assured me of your guilt. What you did to young Torve is unforgivable. And now I learn she wasn’t even the first. How many others have you left drooling in their beds, their minds seared from their skulls?”

“It was necessary,” said Anduis. “Think how many I could save, when I perfect the Dreaming! The oracles themselves stand to gain the most out of this. The ones whose minds are cast adrift: they can be brought back, if I can just—”

“You will never Dream again. I let this go on for far too long already. I refused to believe that you, of all people, would…” Sarthea closed her eyes, chest heaving. And when she opened them again, her expression was ice. “Anduis of House Blazen, I strip you of your magic…”

“No, mistress!” said Anduis. “Please, I—oh gods.” The light faded from his eyes, and he sagged to the ground as if his strings had been cut.

“…and banish you from this world. Let’s see if a few greatspans in the between will change your perspective.”

Sarthea’s flesh began to glow—and shift. Tendrils of light uncoiled behind her, whipping to and fro, without seeming to cover the intervening space. Anduis screamed in undiluted terror. One of the impossible tentacles wrapped around his ankle, yanking him into the air. His scream became a wail.

And then, abruptly, there was silence. The light was gone. The man was gone. The rooftop was gone. Sarthea stood naked in a darkened room, breathing heavily.

A young woman blinked up at her from silken sheets. The tips of the woman’s ears were pointed, and there were gold flecks on her skin, but she looked more human than elf. Beside her lay another woman, staring blankly up at the ceiling, flecks of spittle marring the corner of her perfectly-formed mouth.

“It is done,” said Sarthea, wiping tears from her cheeks. “He will do no more harm. I am so sorry…”

The scene began to shimmer and shift again. A few moments later, Saskia was standing alone in a sea of golden sand, extending as far as the eye could see in every direction, while the white sun beat down on her from a merciless sky.

There was a thump and a roar and an explosion of uncoiling light and movement. A pale form tumbled out onto the sand, coughing and retching.

The maelstrom of light and whipping tentacles coalesced into a naked reptilian man with a stumpy tail, fiery red skin and gold-flecked eyes.

“So the bitch has severed your magic, and cast you aside,” said the demon. “I can see you hunger for revenge. That is good. I can work with that.”

“Who are you?” asked Anduis.

“I have many names,” said the demon. “But you may call me ‘Master.’”