"We must be careful," Horazon had muttered, standing. "At all times we must be careful… come… there is much to do…"

Her thoughts more on escape than his constant warnings, Kara had also risen-only to see a sight so startling that it had made her knock her chair over.

From the table itself had emerged a hand completelyformed of the wood. The hand had seized her empty plate and had dragged it down into the table. At the same time, other hands had materialized, each seizing an object and dragging it, too, into the table. Still stunned, Kara had stepped back, only then discovering that the reason she had not heard her chair strike the floor had been because two more appendages formed from the marble at her feet had caught the piece of furniture before it could hit.

"Come!" Horazon had called, his expression now somewhat peevish. He seemed not at all disturbed by the unsettling appendages. "No time to waste, no time to waste!"

While the dining hall had worked to clear itself, he had led her up a flight of stairs, then through a polished, oak door. Behind the door lay another stairway, this one going back down. Despite having wanted to question the trustfulness of their path, the young dark mage had quietly followed even when that set of steps had ended at yet another doorway which seemed to lead back to the vast hall again. Only when Horazon had opened the door and instead of the great hall she had been confronted with a wizard's laboratory had Kara finally blurted out something.

"This is impossible! This room shouldn't be here!"

He had looked at her as if she had been the mad one. "Of course, it should be! I was looking for it, after all! What a silly thing to say! If you look for a room, it should be where you want it, you know!"

"But…" Kara had ceased her protest, unable to argue with the facts before her very eyes. Here should have stood the grand room in which she and Horazon had eaten, but instead this imposing if disorderly chamber had greeted her. Thinking back to the impossible journeys she had already made in the sanctuary, the darkhaired spellcaster had finally come to the conclusion thatthe ancient mage's home could not possibly completely exist on the mortal plane. Even though no architect could have ever solved the physical problems she had encountered, it had been said of the most powerful Vizjerei that some had learned to actually manipulate the very fabric of reality itself, to create for their use what some called "pocket universes" where the laws of nature were what their masters decided it should be.

Could that have been what Horazon had accomplished with the Arcane Sanctuary? Kara could find no other explanation for everything she had experienced. If so, he had created a marvel such as not ever seen before in all the world!

Despite his ragged robe and otherwise unkempt appearance, in this chamber Horazon had taken on a more formidable look. When he had stepped to the center of the room, raising his arms and beckoning to the ceiling, Kara had expected fire and lightning to play from his fingers. She had expected winds to rise from nowhere and perhaps even the Vizjerei's body to glow bright.

Instead, he had simply turned back to her and said, "I brought you here… but I don't know why."

After taking a moment to register this odd statement, the necromancer had replied, "Is it because of the armor? Your-brother's-armor?"

He had stared up at the ceiling again. "Is it?"

The ceiling, of course, had not answered.

"Horazon… you must remember what they did with your brother's body, your people and mine."

Again, the ceiling. "What was done with it? Ah, yes, no wonder I don't remember."

Feeling as if she might as well have been talking to the ceiling herself, Kara had pressed, "Listen to me, Horazon! Someone managed to steal his enchanted armor from the tomb. I've followed them all the way here! He may even be in Lut Gholein at this moment! We need to find him, totake the armor back! There's no telling what evil still lurks within it!"

"Evil?" His eyes had taken on a wide, animalistic look. "Evil? Here?"

Kara had bitten back a curse. She had stirred him up again.

"So much evil about! I must be careful!" Acondemning finger had pointed at her. "You must go!"

"Horazon, I—"

It had been at that moment that something had happened, something that passed between the wizard and his lair. Seconds later, she had felt the entire sanctum shiver, a shiver more that of a living thing, not simply a structure caught in some shockwave.

"No, no, no! I must hide! I must hide!" Horazon had looked completely panic stricken. He might have even fled from the chamber, but the room again transformed. The sorcerer's tables of equipment and chemicals receded from the two and from the floor a gigantic, crystalline sphere arose to eye level, a huge hand formed from the stone below keeping it there.

In the center of the sphere, a vision had coalesced, a vision of a man whom Kara Nightshadow had never truly seen but had still been able to identify immediately-thanks to the crimson armor he wore.

"It's him! Norrec Vizharan! He has the armor!"

"Bartuc!" her mad companion had snapped. "No! Bartuc's come for me!"

She had seized him by the arm, daring death in the hopes of finally bringing a conclusion to this dangerous quest. "Horazon! Where is he? Is that part of the sanctuary, too?"

In the sphere, Norrec Vizharan and a dark-skinned woman had rushed through a web-enshrouded corridor filled with ancient statues carved in the fashion of the Vizjerei. Norrec had carried a monstrous black sword andhad looked ready to use it. Kara had wondered then if Sadun Tryst had spoken too well of his former friend. Here had looked a man who had seemed very capable of the outrageous murders.

Regardless of the answer to that, Kara had known she could not come this close and fail. "Answer me! Is that part of the sanctuary? It must be!"

"Yes, it is! Now leave me be!" He had torn free from her, headed to the door-only to be stopped there by hands sprouting from the floor and walls, hands that had kept him from abandoning the necromancer.

"What-?" She had been able to say no more, startled by what seemed the vehemence in the hands' actions. Horazon's very stronghold had seemed in rebellion, forcing him to return to Kara.

"Let me go, let me go!" the mad sorcerer had cried out to the ceiling. "It's the evil! I mustn't let it get me!" As the raven-tressed woman had watched, a sullen expression had finally crossed Horazon's wrinkled face. "All right… all right…"

And so he had returned to the sphere, pointed at the image. By this time, Norrec had confronted one of the statues, shouted something in anger that the crystal did not relay, then raised the black blade as if prepared to strike.

At the same time, Horazon cried, "Greikos Dominius est Buar! Greiko Dominius Mortu!"

Chaos had erupted in the scene with walls, floors, and stairs shifting, materializing, or disappearing. In the midst of the madness, the two figures had struggled to survive. However, Norrec Vizharan had been unable to save himself, falling near an edge and then being unable to rise because of the constant motion all around him. The woman-a witch, in Kara's mind-had completely abandoned the helpless fighter, choosing instead to head toward what seemed a fairly stable set of stairs.

"Greiko Dominius Mortu!" her companion snapped.

Something in his tone had made Kara look at Horazon and in his eyes she had read nothing but death for the pair. So, this had been how it would end. Not by the hands of the revenants nor through her own sorcery, but by the fatal spells of Bartuc's own crazed brother. For the witch she had felt nothing, but because of Tryst's tales of the veteran fighter, a spark of sadness had still touched her. Perhaps there had been a good man there once.