twisted him from the inside. He wrenched himself around so he lay on his back, his body rigid with pain.
Diccona stood over him, dark eyes smoldering, an evil grimace contorting her face. She had cast a spell upon him. Gods! She was a wizard too.
By this time, Darius had righted himself and retrieved the knife. His forehead bore a red welt from hitting the floor, not enough of a wound to disable him. Besides, Tiuren could not even move, his body so cramped with agony.
It was all over.
The Dark Eye marveled at the incredible ease with which love could be manipulated, twisted into hate. And such hate. As it watched the events unfolding in the palace above, it realized that no mortal it had ever known had burned with such passionate malice. The Eye suddenly concluded that a mortal's emotions had much greater power than it had ever dreamt.
The intensity of the feeling was perfect for its purposes. This Kohath was perfect. The fact that he was dead made him even better. After observing Kohath's emotional transformation, the Eye began magically working upon his physical transformation. Soon, the Dark Eye would have a new tool.
From his position on the floor, Tiuren glanced over to his fallen friend. He wanted to look upon him one last time before Darius buried the knife in his own chest.
How could it be? He had never seen anything like it…
Kohath's flesh-the skin, muscles, and organs-had almost completely liquified. Most of his friend's bones and skull were already visible, glistening wet in the fading light from the window. Even worse, the bones were shaking in some sort of death palsy. Tiuren had seen death before, but never like this.
Rather than focus on this disturbing sight-it had to be a delusion, the bard told himself-Tiuren turned back to his attackers. Diccona still reveled in the success of her dark spell. Darius muttered something unintelligible while gently stroking his head wound and summoning his strength for the deathblow.
Suddenly, the wizard's face curled into a visage of utter pain, his mouth forming a silent scream. The upraised dagger glowed white-hot. Wisps of smoke issued from between his fingers. He unclenched his hand to drop the weapon, but it was already seared to his flesh. He dropped to his knees, stuttering out a high-pitched sob, his unhurt hand squeezing his wrist to force the knife from him.
Diccona saw this and screamed in terror. She had enough intuition to turn around, though the sight was probably one she would rather have missed.
Tiuren's attention was meanwhile drawn to the presence within the bedchamber.
The skeletal figure of a man, still dripping with the remains of his flesh and blood, stood. His jaw mouthed horrible but unintelligible words.
Kohath?
Who else could it be? But how could Kohath, or whatever Kohath had so quickly become, stand here in the room where his corpse had lain just moments before? Could a man's passions allow him to defy even death? Could hate be so powerful a force?
With terror-filled eyes, Darius and Diccona looked at the risen Kohath.
'Kohath? Is that you?' Diccona asked, her voice cracking with fear.
The monstrous thing turned his head toward his traitorous wife. With a hideous creaking, a bony arm rose from his side. The fingers of the hand curled as if clutching some unseen object. A high-pitched whine began.
Darius turned to flee.
'Kohath?' Diccona said again, frozen in place.
The whine had become very loud now, as though its source drew ever closer. Darius dispelled his magical seal and dived out the door.
'Ko-'
The horrible whine drowned out Diccona's words. A dark object entered the room from the open door, hovering four or five feet from the floor-riding on the whine itself. Tiuren had only to look upon its oval shape and dark green color for a moment before he recognized it.
'The Dark Eye of Gavinaas!' he shouted, struggling to his feet.
He and Kohath had slain Gavinaas long ago, when the evil Anaurian wizard had threatened tiny Vantir's northern reaches with a conjured army of misshapen monsters. They had locked the wizard's talisman away in a deep vault below the palace. Now it was here.
The object flew into Kohath's outstretched hand, which grasped it so tightly Tiuren could hear a crushing sound. Only then did his mind register that the piercing whine had stopped. Kohath's skull turned its black, empty sockets toward him for the first time.
'No,' Kohath rasped in a voice that seemed to originate from somewhere far, far away, 'the Dark Eye of Kohath.'
Realization washed over Tiuren, causing him to step backward with a gasp. 'The Dark Eye caused this?'
'No,' Kohath said again in his grinding mockery of articulation. 'The Dark Eye only permitted me to do what I must.' Kohath turned back toward Diccona, his skeletal body moving with a disturbing fluidity. His free hand pointed a single bony finger at her. 'She caused this.'
Diccona screamed.
'The Dark Eye has given me power,' Kohath said, 'but my reasons-my motives-are my own. Look upon me and remember this. After the wrongs wrought upon me this day, I do what I do willingly.'
Diccona began the frantic gestures of a spell.
'So, my dear,' Kohath said, his hideous skull glaring at the queen. 'You wanted magical power. You wanted a wizard as a king and as a lover. Let me now show you power.' With that, he released his grip upon the Dark Eye, which floated slowly up to his brow, attaching itself as a ghastly third eye.
Skeletal arms upraised, Kohath cast a spell of his own.
Tiuren had no knowledge of sorcery, but Kohath's spell seemed to him a thundering avalanche of boulders crashing down a mountainside in comparison to Dic-cona's meager stone flung without skill. The spell she cast was lost in the rising magical might summoned by Kohath and his Dark Eye.
The floor beneath the three figures began to quiver. A rumbling rose all around, and the temperature began to climb. Tiuren could remain no longer. Terror, more from seeing what had become of his friend than for his own well-being, forced him out the door and down the hall. Diccona's screams rang long in his ears.
The entire palace shook. On the stair, Tiuren met a handful of guards who raced upward, their faces filled with dread.
'No,' Tiuren told them, shaking his head. 'There's nothing you can do. Flee.'
'But the king. The queen. We must-' a guard said, pushing past. He referred to Kohath, not Darius, Tiuren could tell.
'Do as you wish. Your life is your own-but you no longer have a king, and quite possibly no longer a queen.'
'Gods!' another guard cried. 'What has happened?'
'There is no time.' Tiuren did what he could to keep his voice level and calm. 'Flee.' Without looking to see what decision these good, loyal men made, he raced down the stairs.
As he reached the bottom, the shaking intensified. The temperature continued to rise as he made his way toward the foyer, the doors, and the way out.
Something grabbed his arm and wrenched him backward. It was Darius, knife still clutched in his hand, breathing erratically.
'Tell me,' he rasped, 'what is going on?' The knife rose toward Tiuren's throat.
Tiuren had endured enough of this wretch's threats and demands. He shifted his weight toward the wizard, knocking him off balance, and grabbed at the arm holding the blade, turning it away.
Darius reacted quickly. Fear-strengthened muscles twisted the knife back toward the bard.
Tiuren threw his body into Darius. The two tumbled to the floor as some of the ceiling supports gave way from the shuddering quake and bits of plaster and wood crashed near them. As the two struck the floor, Tiuren made sure the knife found a home-in Darius's chest.
