"You are not here to bargain or threaten, Doomwalker," Kravon said. "Your mission remains before you. You have not completed it."

"Jegojah, he does not carry out the impossible, no. Be your maid, Jegojah would, before taking on the Weavespinner again, yes."

"This time, you don't have to worry about his power," Kravon said smoothly. "He has lost his magical powers for a time, and it is imperative you reach him and destroy him before he regains them."

"More to that one, there is, than magic," Jegojah grated. "A fine warrior, he is, a warrior of honor. Jegojah can fight, but the outcome, it is not certain, no."

"You are a Doomwalker," Kravon said coldly. "No mortal can defeat you."

"The Weavespinner, he is not mortal, no," Jegojah spat back. "The winds of luck favor one such as him, they do, yes."

"True. I will accede that much to you. That is why, this time, you will have help."

"Help?" Jegojah spat, then he cackled in laughter. "What help could ye grant Jegojah?"

Kravon looked to the door. The silent guard there opened it, and two mailed sentries escorted a third form through the door. It was a form in black, burned armor, carrying a large sword in a withered hand. The head of the figure was withered, decayed, with bone and gray flesh showing through the cracked skin, flesh infested with maggots, deteriorated long past the point of being recognizable. The eyes were long gone, replaced by twin points of red light.

It was another Doomwalker.

Jegojah looked closely at this new Doomwalker, looked very closely. The armor was familiar to it, it was a pattern and design it had seen before. There was a rent in the breastplate, running from the shoulder to the waist, crossing the chest and abdomen.

And beneath a wide burgonet helmet, there sprouted stray locks of curly black hair.

"No right!" Jegojah exploded. "No right, ye have, to disturb the rest of the fallen! Return him, ye will, return him to his rest right now!"

"You have no say in this," Kravon said in a dead voice. "Complete your mission, and both of you will be freed to rest for eternity. Refuse to obey me, and you will spend that eternity in the possession of my lovely associate here," he said, motioning towards the six-armed Demon. "I'm sure you know what her kind do with the souls of mortals. Is that fate what you desire?"

If there was anything that the inhuman Wizard could have said to intimidate a Doomwalker, that was it. There were some fates worse than death, worse that utter destruction. "That fate, no, Jegojah does not want it," it said in sudden supplication. "Jegojah will do as ye command. But when this is done, freedom, it will be granted, yes. One way or another."

"Then begone, and carry out your assigned tasks," Kravon said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"As ye command," Jegojah said sullenly. "Come, companion. A long way, we must go, yes. Let us get this overwith."

With that, both undead forms simply sank into the floor, merging into the stone, and were gone.

The whole thing was pleasing to Kravon. Jegojah should be able to carry it out alone, but with the other Doomwalker to aid it, this time victory was guaranteed.

It was worth the effort to find and retrieve that body. Months of searching paid off. When the Were-cat recognized the identity of the Doomwalker, the shock would be enough to give one of them the chance to finish it off.

You interest me, human, the Marilith, who called herself Shaz'beka, remarked. She did not speak, exclusively using the telepathic gifts common to her kind to communicate. You would give me the soul of the Doomwalker if he fails?

"My dear, consider his soul yours, whether he succeeds or not," Kravon said absently. "Given his failures and poor attitude, I feel your tender ministration is suitable punishment for his disobedient nature."

And the other?

"Also yours, to do with what you will," he said, holding out a new soul-trap, a crystal that glowed with a golden radiance. "But I can't give them to you until their mission is accomplished. I do hope you understand."

You are most generous, human. I find my service here to be less tedious.

"Anything for a fellow follower of the Master, my dear," he said magnaminously.

Indeed.

"We are finished here," Kravon announced. "Let us return to our other duties. Those two will not fail us."

And with that, the braziers were extinguished, and the room was evacuated. The doors were closed, and the room fell into darkness.

To: Title EoF

Chapter 10

"So. How did it go?"

Tarrin's response to that innocuous question was to smash his fist into the side of a boulder. The manacle on his wrist struck the rock, causing the rather large stone to crack visibly from the impact.

"Well, that's better than I expected," Sarraya chuckled, just before she wisely rose into the air and out of the Were-cat's reach.

The sandstorm that kept them pinned blew itself out by morning, and they had moved on. They had left the area of stony-floored barrens, and moved into what could only be called a sandy rock garden. There were some plants in the sandy region, but only where they were sheltered from the wind by larger rocks. But the plants meant they had returned to the living desert, where there were small mice and lizards to subsist off those sparse plants, and a few small predators like snakes that subsisted off the mice and lizards. The place was rather pretty, in a way, but the rocks strewn on the ground slowed him down. Sometimes it was no problem, but sometimes they were so thick he had to travel on top of them, and he couldn't do that at a full run. They had stopped for the evening in a sandy meadow of sorts, surrounded by several boulder-sized stones that formed an irregular circle around the patch of sand. There were some very stunted little shrubs growing on one side of the clearing, and the scents and signs were there that some mice and lizards lived in the rocks surrounding the little clearing.

True to his word, he had left Sarraya around sunset and found himself a quiet place to sit and try to regain his power. And it was a disaster. He couldn't concentrate for very long, because every time he did feel himself beginning to come into a meditative state, the eyeless face would assert itself in his mind and disrupt his concentration. He had been afraid of it when it first began to haunt him, but now it was more of an irritation than anything else. It still incited guilt and remorse in him, but now it was keeping him from finding his center again, and that was life-threatening. Without his Sorcery to protect himself from some of the desert's most formidable dangers, he was vulnerable. And he knew it. That knowledge only made his irritation worse, and it was frustrating to have his attempts to calm down and concentrate destroyed by nothing more than a shadow of a dream, something with no substance, something he should not fear in any way. After all, it was simply a face, and nothing more. It could do nothing to him, and yet he still feared it. And that made him even angrier. His pride was injured by that, the Were-cat pride that told him that the strong should not fear the weak.

The outer distractions were one thing, but the single-most overwhelming source of aggravation for him was the Weave itself. It was right there. He could sense it. He could feel it. He could even see it. But no matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find it. It was like fog, or smoke, looking solid from a distance but nothing more than ethereal vapors once it was within reach. The power melted away from him time after time, leaving him grasping nothing but empty air. It reminded him of his initial training, when he struggled under Dolanna's watchful eye to touch the Weave consciously. Before, the thing that had done it for him was to open his eyes, to satisfy his Were need to sense what he was trying to contact. But this time, he could sense it all. In much more detail and clarity than ever before. Yet despite knowing exactly where it was and where to reach, it simply wasn't there.