Within the ruins were dank and musty halls of stone which had stood since time immemorial. Iarius lit a torch, and the orange glow of the flames danced over ancient stonework, weathered by the passage of years and covered in the grime of centuries.

  And yet, certain patches of wall were pristine, painted over with gold and silver and polished to a near mirror-finish. These patches stood out all the more against the black dirt and sludge which encompassed the rest of the walls, and when the light of the torch touched them, they shone like bonfires on a Dark Moon night.

  "How strange that some sections of wall remain clean and untouched!" Iarius exclaimed. "But how could such a thing be possible?"

  "Untouched?" Nessalir asked. "No. Look there."

  She pointed to one of the pristine sections of wall, and before her and Iarius' astonished eyes, grime creeped out to cover it even as the paints chipped off the stones and crumbled to dust. This was not the only movement upon these walls, for in another space the grime was receding, and paint was reapplying itself chip by chip, brightening into a new coat as it settled upon the stonework.

  Before either could express their astonishment, they were interrupted by the arrival of two men dressed in strangely-cut robes of violet and gold. The men acknowledged the intruders not, and spoke to each other in an alien tongue as they walked past. Just as they turned the corner up ahead, they crumbled into dust and bones, and the bones vanished from sight.

  "What is this place?" asked Iarius. "It is as though the flow of time itself has been altered, or even broken. But what sorcery could possibly cause such a thing?"

  Nessalir shook her head and did not reply, for she had no answer.

  Instead, the mercenary and the scholar advanced deeper into the ruins, guided to whatever destination lay ahead by the distant echoes of strange and inhuman howls. They soon came upon a staircase leading down into the depths, half the stones crumbled away and the remaining steps slick with a fungal slime.

  "Wait," Nessalir said, for she imagined that, given the state of the rest of the fort, this staircase would not remain in disrepair for long.

  In this, her assumption proved correct. Not a minute later, the crumbled stones replaced themselves and the slime faded away, revealing stone steps that could have been carved only a day ago. "Now," said Nessalir, and she made to hurry down the stairs before they could rapidly age to ruin once more.

  Yet as soon as her foot alighted upon the first step, she heard a terrible scream. Suddenly, mere inches from her head, there was a mass of flesh. It was pale and bulbous, with blue and red veins visible just below the skin. Hands that were only vaguely shaped as a humans sprouted all about the organic tube, each one grasping forward, fingers flexing, clenching and unclenching in a steady rhythm. Some had six fingers, others four or eight or three. Some fingers were short and stubbed, while others were long and twig-like.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  The fleshy appendage, whatever it was, had extended itself from the hallway below and was now pulling something back into the depths of the ruin. As Nessalir watched, stunned, she saw the end of the thing come into view: a mass of hands grasping the form of a screaming young man. As he was pulled past her and dragged deeper into the ruin, Nessalir realized that the man was none other than Froki Horikson, the draugr she had faced outside, now alive, though not, it would seem, for long.

  That horrible tendril of hands and flesh pulled the shrieking Froki out of sight, and his screams echoed throughout the ruin, mixing with the unearthly howls that otherwise filled these ancient halls. Abruptly, the ruins went still.

  "What…?" Iarius sputtered. "By the stars above, what was that?"

  "The draugr I slew before," Nessalir told him. "I believe we just saw his final moments."

  "How?"

  "As you said," said Nessalir, continuing her descent down the stairs, "it is as though this ruin is unmoored from time. History, both recent and ancient, is folded and layered upon itself within these halls." She reached the bottom of the steps, and her golden eyes scrutinized the shadows ahead. "Whatever creature calls itself master of this place, its presence, by intention or not, must be disruptive to time itself."

  Again, she felt that unfamiliar fear. Though Nessalir spoke matter-of-factly and with courage, her chest tightened with a terror that she could not name and was unwilling to acknowledge. For if she accepted the reality of her fear, she knew, it would soon grow to consume her.

  So the drakkowar pushed it away, hid herself in a persona of fearlessness, and took comfort in the calm and the confidence that she forced upon herself.

  "Nessalir…" Iarius began, his voice quivering.

  "Come," said Nessalir. "The sooner we find this beast, the sooner I can slay it." She did not look back at him, for she worried that if she saw the fear on his face, it would draw her own terror out into the world.

  The growing light of an approaching torch and the sounds of a man hurrying down stone steps signaled to Nessalir that her companion was catching up to her. Thus, she continued down the halls, following the path she'd seen that fleshy thing take as it pulled poor Froki to his doom.

  In silence, they continued, the half-dragon warrior from the Northern Lands and the scholar from Remura. They traveled through howling halls, surrounded by stones which shifted from new to ancient, dirt which grew and shrank away with the passage and reversal of centuries. Neither mercenary nor scholar spoke, for there was nothing to say, and neither which to reveal to the other their fear.

  At last, they came upon a pair of iron doors, untouched, for now, by the years since the building of this fortress. Upon these doors were inscribed words in a language that Nessalir did not recognize, yet when he saw it, Iarius let out an astonished hiss.

  "This is Astrian, the language of priests," Iarius said, his voice filled with wonder. "I knew it was an ancient tongue, but I never imagined…" His voice trailed off as he stepped forward and ran his hands over the strange glyphs. His eyes widened as he read the message imprinted on the doors.

  "Nessalir," he said softly. "We must leave."

  She frowned. "Why?"

  "I know what the master of this ruin is," Iarius told her. "And if we do not flee, right now, then we will surely die!"