Then she saw the open door just a short distance to her left.

With great trepidation, the weary necromancer walked over to it. She peeked inside, hoping her guess to be wrong.

The same curved corridor Kara had just traversed greeted the weary woman.

"Trag'Oul, guide me out of the madness!" What point had there been to a corridor that returned to the same hall? Kara blinked as another realization hit her. This door and the one she had returned by had been located on opposite sides of the hall. How could she possibly have looped around like that? The corridor would have had to cut through the hallway, a complete impossibility!

Without hesitation Kara headed for the lone door left to her. If it did not lead somewhere other than this hallway, then Horazon's bizarre realm had finally defeated her.

To the necromancer's relief, though, the doorway opened into a vast chamber in which two sets of wide, bannistered staircases flanked a pair of high bronze doors decorated with intricate dragon motifs. A well-preserved marble floor covered the entire expanse of the room and more tapestries covered the stone walls.

Kara stepped into the massive room, debating whether to choose the doors or one of the staircases. The doors looked most tantalizing, being directly across from her, but the stairs, too, enticed the necromancer, either one possibly leading to an exit above ground.

A slight sound above her head made Kara look up- then gasp at what she saw.

Far, far up, Horazon sat in a chair, the white-haired sorcerer mumbling to himself while he ate at a long dining table. The noise Kara had heard had been the madman laying his knife on what looked to be an elaborate gold plate filled with rich meat. Even though so far below, Kara could still smell its succulent flavor. As she watched, Horazon reached for a goblet of wine, the elderly Vizjerei taking a long sip without spilling so much as a drop. That feat especially amazed her, not because she had not thought the insane mage capable of simple table manners-but because he did so while he sat upside down on the ceiling.

In fact, the entire tableau was upside down and yet nothing fell toward Kara. The chair, the table, the plates full of fresh food, even Horazon's lengthy beard-all defied basic nature. Gazing around the ceiling in astonishment, the dark mage even saw doors and other staircases that would have suited the mage well in his present position. If not for Horazon and his elaborate meal, it would have been as if she stared at a mirror image above her,

Still drinking, Horazon cocked his head up-or rather down — and at last caught sight of the startled young woman.

"Come! Come!" he called to her. "You're late! I don't like people late!"

Fearful that he might use his considerable power to drag her up to the ceiling, perhaps forever eliminating her hopes for escape, Kara rushed across the great hall, heading to the bronze doors. They had to lead somewhere out of his reach! They had to!

With one last look up at her captor, Kara flung open the nearest of the doors and darted through. If she could just keep ahead of him-

"Aaah! Good! Good! Sit there! Sit there!"

Horazon watched her from the other end of a long, eleganttable identical to the one at which she had just seen him sitting, only this time it stood not on the ceiling, but rather in the center of the room she had just now entered. The exact same meal, even down to the wine, lay spread before him. Beyond the mage, doorways and staircases just like the necromancer had seen atop the other chamber now served as backdrop to Horazon and his meal.

Unable to prevent herself from doing so, Kara looked up at the ceiling.

Staircases and doorways, all upside down, greeted her gaze.

One of the latter, a bronze giant, stood open-as if someone had flung it aside in haste.

"Rathma, protect me…" Kara murmured.

"Sit, girl, sit!" commanded Horazon, totally oblivious to her dismay. "Time to eat! Time to eat!"

And with nothing more she could do to save herself, the necromancer obeyed.

A storm covered the desert, a vast ocean of black, churning clouds that spread all the way from the east to as far west as Augustus Malevolyn could see. Dawn had risen, but it might as well have been just after sunset, so dark had the day begun. Some might have taken such a threatening sky for a bad omen, but the general saw it instead as a sign that his time had come, that his day of destiny was at hand. Lut Gholein lay just ahead and in it he knew cringed the fool who wore the glorious armor- his glorious armor.

Xazax had assured him of the last. Where else would the stranger have gone? The winds blew strong, ensuring that no ship would be heading out to sea this day. He had to still be in the city.

The general studied Lut Gholein from atop a massive dune. Behind him and entirely invisible to the eyes of theenemy, Malevolyn's demonic host patiently awaited his word. Because of the particular spell utilized, the sinister creatures still wore the shells of his men, although eventually they would be able to discard those. They had needed them to make the passage from Hell to the mortal plane and would yet require them for some time to come. That need, though, did not bother Malevolyn. For the moment, it served better that the enemy thought this tiny army simply mortal. It would make the commanders in Lut Gholein overconfident, arrogant. They would commit themselves to tactics which would expend their might early for a quick victory-but in doing so they would merely be setting themselves up for a slaughter that Malevolyn already much savored.

Xazax joined the human, the mantis finally creeping into sight after being gone far too long. Something about that struck the general as curious. Of all the demons now with him, Xazax clearly had to be the most dominating, yet the insidious insect moved about as if fearful that, even on such a dark day, someone might see him.

"Why do you lurk about? What are you afraid of?" Malevolyn asked, growing a bit suspicious. "Are you expecting something I should know about?"

"This one is afraid of nothing!" the mantis snapped, his mandibles working furiously. "Nothing!" However, in a slightly lower voice, he added, "This one is merely… cautious…"

"You act as if you fear something."

"No… nothing…"

General Malevolyn again recalled both Xazax's reaction to the name Baal and the fact that Lut Gholein had been said to house underneath it the demon lord's tomb. Could there then be some fact after all to that outlandish tale?

Deciding he could investigate the demon's anxieties later, General Malevolyn turned his gaze back to LutGholein. The city lay unsuspecting. Even now, a contingent of the sultan's forces rode out of the gate on early morning patrol, the riders' attitudes plain to see even from this distance. They did their rounds with the notion that no one would have the audacity to attack, especially by way of the desert. Lut Gholein more feared attacks by sea and on a day as fierce as this one looked to be, the odds of that appeared infinitesimal.

"We will let the patrol come as near as possible," he informed the mantis. "Then we shall take them. I want to see how your warriors act before we seek the city itself."

"Not this one's warriors," corrected Xazax. "Yours… "

The riders swept out, crisscrossing the land beyond the walls. Malevolyn watched and waited, knowing that their course would soon enough take the patrol to where he wanted them to be.

"Prepare the archers."

A rank of figures stepped forward, inhuman eyes eager. Although they wore but the husks of Malevolyn's men, the demons somehow retained the knowledge and skills of their victims. The faces Augustus Malevolyn glanced at had been the faces of his best archers. Now the demons would prove whether or not they could do as well-or, preferably, better.