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From: stiltman@teleport.com (Stilt Man)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [Tor][AD] Trekking through Bedlam
Date: 26 Apr 1995 16:26:13 -0700
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[ADMIN:  Well, I'm back in the saddle, and for once I'm in a state of complete
cranial meltdown, such that I can't think of a single depraved thing to put
here.  The general gyst of this is simple to start with, and gets wierd as
time goes on.  It also takes a bit out of shared space once again, only it
goes to that . . . well, I won't spoil it.  Emrikol is the property of Corey
"Big Hairy Dog" Venour, while Arcania is my own.  There is also a mirror
character of one of my prominent people here, and I probably should claim that
one, too, but I won't say who it is, since the appearance of this creature is
something of a surprise for you.  Mirrors of already published characters
of other authors/artists I do not lay a claim to, and can be used by anyone
who wants to.  Roll tape . . . ]

Arcania reappeared before Emrikol, seemingly more pleased with herself than
she had been when she left, he noted.  He had been trying to exercise his
runes, frustrated that he could not get them to function against whatever
magic was stamping their force.  Before when he had been imprisoned, Arcania's
hold on him was more subtle:  she had simply removed all possibilities save
the one that he was imprisoned.  This time, it was far more direct:  he could
not even reach into the possibilities in the first place.  Somehow her spell
of imprisonment was preventing the very function of his runes.

It made him feel invaded, which only increased his anger.  His runes, ever
since he had adopted them, been accepted into the circle of that ancient
people that had been cruelly imprisoned in the Labyrinth, were a part of his
very being.  That they were prevented from functioning was an assault upon
his person, not a mere barricade.

Something of his anger must have shown on his face, for Arcania was wearing
an expression of mock pity.  "Poor, little man," she cooed.  "All stuck with
nowhere to go."

The patronizing tone did little to improve his spirits.  "Okay, you've had your
fun downstairs.  Was he at least exciting enough to make up for my refusal?"

Arcania's left eye narrowed while the adjacent corner of her lips turned
upward.  The contemptuous smirk that resulted had Emrikol shivering for a
moment.  "You look so cute when you are angered," she drawled.  Part of him
wanted to let his skin crawl, another was reacting to the honey sound of her
voice once more.

"Be done with your toying and with me!" said Emrikol.  "If you want vengeance
for sending you to the Labyrinth, for thwarting your schemes on Nexus, do it!
Get it over with!"  Some part of him was even more enraged at the realization
that he was likely reacting precisely as she wanted him to.

"Oh, I enjoy your company too much," she cooed.  She raised a finger, and the
ring of light described around him on the ground glowed for a moment.  His
runes flashed as they were called to serve their demand, and Emrikol was
forced to his knees.  At that, the light flared out, and Arcania strode up
to him and came to her own knees before him, her hands cupping his face.  "I
have not had so much fun . . ."

Emrikol had difficulty putting down the urge to give in to the fire running
through his veins at her touch, give himself to her.  He succeeded.  "What
is it you intend to do?" he managed to grate between clenched teeth.  Speaking
under her ministrations was an effort to get out every word.  "If you aren't
going to kill me, you're obviously going to use me.  What world have you not
conquered yet, that you want me to help on?  Tor'el is not in good enough shape
for you to want, and Nexus is likely to be more wary of your presence now."

Arcania dropped one hand from his face, sighing.  "Is that truly all the
respect you hold for me?"  She shook her head.  "Had you seen half the horrors
I did whilst I languished in that world you intended to serve as my prison for
all time . . ."

"I have.  I was there far longer than you," he retorted.

"Ah, but you were not there at all," Arcania smiled, eyes suddenly lighting
up.

The world around him swirled, striking his senses hard as though he had been
clubbed over the head.  His runes abruptly lit back up again once he had left
her sanctum.

"Feel free to attempt to escape me, if you will," said Arcania.  "We could
fight here, in this barren world," she indicated the lifeless desert with its
grey sky overhead, "and even if you won, you would be stranded here, with not
the slightest inkling for how to return to anything you know."  She gave that
sardonic smirk again.  "If you won."

Emrikol's runes lit up, and for a moment Arcania set her stance, one hand
glowing with a green light as she raised it to point at him.  Emrikol sighed,
and his runes went dim once more.

"Why have you brought me here?" was all he said.

She turned her back upon him, looking out at the world she had left only a
short time ago.  "This is the world of Yathulas," she said.  "It has been
ravaged by the sorceries of men without scruples, seeking power at any cost."

"Not unlike yourself," he mused.

Arcania laughed, a mocking sound that made Emrikol feel foolish.  "You must
learn more of what you deal with ere you criticize it," she chided him.
"Indeed, of late this world has gained a new hope to live, to grow beyond
the greed of those few who sought to rule it, to gain power from it at all
costs."

Now Emrikol's curiosity was raised.  "How did that come about?"

She turned on him, the sardonic smile returning to his face.  "A man with
bandaged hands sent a nymph into exile here."

Emrikol's head snapped about, looking around at the wasteland he was surrounded
with.  "I sent you here?"

"Indeed," said Arcania.  "You unwittingly did this world its greatest favor."

He realized that they were standing on an invisible platform, flying over
the desert.  Over the horizon, he could make out a grove of trees, a small
woods of sorts.  Emrikol squinted into the red sun, trying to make out this
small island of life in the ocean of desolation more clearly.  His eyes widened
as he realized that Arcania might not stop in time to avoid running them into
a tree trunk.  When they slowed to enter the forest proper, his runes suddenly
lit up as a presence made itself known, attempting to examine and possibly
expel these intruders.

"I don't believe you," Emrikol said.

A new voice, female and melodic, seemed to speak directly into his mind.
"You have returned, Arcania Dorval.  This is a most unexpected pleasure."
He sensed the presence turning its mystical scrutiny upon him directly.
"You have brought a friend, it seems."

"I am no friend of this witch!" Emrikol shouted into the woods angrily.
Arcania stifled laughter.  Emrikol rounded on her.  "What do you seek to
prove by bringing me here?" he demanded of her angrily, liking her enjoyment
of his discomfort less and less.

His attention was distracted by a huge form, framed in gossamer, that revealed
itself suddenly to them.  The thing seemed to be a gigantic flying wing, with
a skeletal frame supporting it.  Its legs seemed far too weak to stand, and
its seeming propensity to just float there in midair suggested that this was
its permanent mode of "standing around."

"Arcania Dorval is an honored friend of those who abide in these woods," the
voice told him sternly.  "She has done this entire world a greater service
than you can ever know, outworlder, and we will not see that service repaid
with your petty squabbles with her, no matter what they may be."

Emrikol was flabbergasted.  He looked at Arcania in astonishment, who was
still smirking at him with that infernal look of sly enjoyment.  She had not
taken her eyes off him, he realized.  His runes were not brightening any
longer, no sign of any coercion on her part of this floating creature was
being shown.  "Okay, so you've done a good deed at some time in your life,"
he grudgingly granted.

"What means this, outworld nymph?" the Woodskeeper asked of Arcania.  "You
clearly have some quarrel with this man.  I do not wish to be a mediator
between disputing parties, whatever our debt to you."

"I apologize for disturbing you, Aubrilee," Arcania said, still not taking
her eyes off Emrikol, though they were at a more respectful width, at least.
She turned to the Woodskeeper now, speaking frankly.  "This man and I have
had a quarrel in the past, though now I simply show him something of the
results of his actions."

"Torturing the prisoners," Emrikol added in a mutter under his breath.

"What actions mean you?" asked Aubrilee.

"You recall my inability to leave here?" Arcania asked.  The thin head of
the Woodskeeper inclined slightly in acknowledgement.  "This was the being
responsible for my exile."

"And so you throw his actions in his face, for your own enjoyment," Aubrilee
observed, with some amusement.

"Something to that effect, yes," Arcania smiled.

Aubrilee turned back to Emrikol.  "I know that under these circumstances you
can never appreciate anything fully that happens to you, but you must know
that, whatever your intent, you have our sincerest gratitude for giving us
the aid of this woman.  It seems we have you to thank as well as she, though
your intent was not benevolent to her or us, it seems."

"Y-you're welcome," Emrikol stammered, stunned almost beyond powers of speech.
"W-what did she do?"

"Arcania Dorval came to me with an offer of aid in exchange for the same,"
said Aubrilee.  At that point, she saw the impatient look on the other woman's
face, and continued, "It seems that your host would rather tell the tale
herself."  She bowed her head to the smaller woman.  "Will you be staying long,
or have you other things to show your charge?"  Aubrilee clearly knew Arcania
well enough to know something of her spiteful nature, Emrikol reflected.  He
heard a steel of strength behind the soft kindness of the Woodskeeper's voice
in his mind, and knew that these two were birds of a flock.

"I will tell him the tale by demonstration," explained Arcania.  "I fear that
the next step will take us to where your ancient enemy is imprisoned."  Emrikol
widened his eyes at that.

"I pray that you will not find yourself sharing his fate . . . or worse," said
Aubrilee.  "Farewell, then, Arcania Dorval."  At that, the Woodskeeper
shimmered and faded from view.

"She seems to have expected more from your reunion.  Such bad manners from
a guest to drop in like this and just leave," Emrikol laughed.  His senses
again took a strong jolt as the world twisted and changed around him once
more.  Her ways of shifting from world to world were different from his, and
the strain of adjusting his mind to a new, alien plane of existence was not
something he was accustomed to.

When he regained enough of his senses to look around, he saw a world painted
in hues of glowing orange and brown.  Volcanism ripped the earth asunder all
about him, several volcanoes being within only a few miles of where they had
appeared.  The sky was a sickly red, with clouds of brown and black dropping
rain that smelled of sulfur to the earth.  His runes lit brightly, and he
could see from the coating of sweat that Arcania exerted herself to survive
here as well.  The very air was poisonous to breathe, and the heat would kill
a mortal man in seconds.

These two were no normal mortals, however.

"Where are we now?" Emrikol said, somewhat distressed.

"We are in one of the many assorted planes that are grouped together as the
Inferno by the people of our world," said Arcania.  "Other worlds might call
it Hell, the Abyss, Acheron, Tartarus, or any number of other names depending
on the prevailing mythology of the plane.  There are so different smaller
worlds that are grouped together as such that it is very likely that even I
will never live to have visited or learn of all of them."  She shrugged.
"The general definition of the Inferno in scholarly terms is simply any of
a large number of small planes created in times forgotten by this pantheon
of gods or that, upon which they disposed of the spiritual refuse of their
respective worlds and then were enmeshed in a planar seal of some form to
prevent the refuse in question from leaving under its own power.  The seals on
these planes are relatively easy to break for a brief time from the outside,
but virtually impossible to break from the inside.  In the meantime, the demons
imprisoned in these places fight amongst themselves, in unending warfare to
vent their violent passions upon one another, out of a lack of more innocent
folk to do so upon."  Arcania half chuckled.  "It seems the gods of old figured
their evil was permissible so long as they only visited it upon each other."

"Perhaps they hoped that this would teach them of the error of their ways if
they themselves were on the receiving end of it.  However, it has only hardened
them and made them even more evil than they were in their origins," Emrikol
remarked.

"That is a distinct possibility," said Arcania.  "The gods, however, keep their
own counsel on the matter."

"This is a dangerous place to be," Emrikol observed.

"Indeed," said Arcania.  "Such cosmic dumping grounds commonly are."  The
invisible platform beneath them began to move, and they rose up above the
clouds, her eyes scanning their surroundings carefully.  "Indeed, breaking
the planar seal that keeps creatures from leaving this place will be most
taxing on the both of us."

The voice boomed across the land, announcing that their arrival had not gone
unnoticed.  "Who dares?!"  One of the volcanoes nearest them burst into flames,
and Emrikol stifled fear in his breast as a great creature of orange-red
skin, towering miles over the land, ripped his way clear of the mountain's
searing crater.  His very form was difficult to look at, and Emrikol had the
feeling that all he could truly see was a thing more fearful than any that
he had known.

A pair of glowing yellow eyes opened in the abstract shape of orange and black,
now shifting to green even as he looked.  He could feel the horror of this
being wash over him, and then suddenly it rose up and left him.  He felt
Arcania's hand upon him, and regretted for a moment that he had to feel
gratitude towards her.

The eyes bore down upon them, observing them only for now.  Emrikol had no
knowledge of who this being might be, or what purpose of its own that it
served in accosting them.  He knew only that this creature towered over
them, awesome in its power in a way he had never encountered from any creature
of evil, not even the one standing beside him.

It seemed to draw its mass wider, and he realized that the silhouette was
quite consistent with that of a large being opening a cloak.  Flames seemed
to pour out of its very body at them, smothering them in a vast tidal wave
of fury.  The titanic force shattered the platform upon which they stood,
hurling them loose over the world.

He felt Arcania's hand grasping his shoulder tightly, and suddenly he could
see clearly again through the flames which threatened to inundate him were
it not for the protection of his runes.  A sphere of force seemed to surround
them, and he realized that without consciously willing it he was lending his
runes to the spells of Arcania, that those spells were accepting his
unconscious hand of help eagerly in forming this shell around themselves.
The feeling of literally being used as a source of power by another was eerie,
uncomfortable to him, but it seemed that in this unfamiliar element he had
little choice but to concede this to her, knowing that to fight her in this
environs would almost certainly kill him even if it did not kill her.

Arcania's magic probed through his mind, causing a great ache to come forth
in his skull, as her mystical power groped and dug for something he might
have to buy them time, perhaps even defeat this power.  He could feel a
possibility forming in his mind, again without his conscious will directing
it, and he felt the command enter his skull to invoke it.  Anger at being
manipulated thus rose, but survival instinct did as she directed.  The
reality was that they were surrounded by flames, the essence of this gigantic
demon bathing them in fire.  The possibility existed that the flames would
become smoke, that the acceleration of their extinguishing and reduction to
the smoke that came of all fires would take place.  Arcania seized the
runes in her power, magnified them a dozen fold with spells of her own
devising, turning them against the demon as her green rune had once done
against the Guardians, and the flame did as the new reality bid it.

Smoke surrounded them, blotting out their vision outside their protective
sphere entirely.  Emrikol looked about in amazement, hoping he had gotten a
good enough glimpse of how Arcania had magnified his runes to be able to figure
out how to duplicate the feat.  He then became aware of a terrible screaming
that shook the world around them, and then the smoke cleared from their sight,
rising up into whatever sky this hellish landscape knew.  He looked about, saw
the volcano from which the being had sprang dying down for the time being.  No
sign of their assailant was in evidence.

"Did we slay the demon?" Emrikol asked.

"No," said Arcania.  "That was only a fragment of its being, sent to observe
and count our strength."  Her own eyes scanned the horizon for a sign of
further attack.

"Will it come back?" he pressed further.

"It waits, to watch us from all about," she answered.  She gestured around
at the land below.  "It literally is one with the plane we dwell within.  If
it wished to make life difficult for us, our combined powers would be hard
pressed to stop it.  So long as we do not threaten its dominion here, it will
simply watch us and take note of our actions."

Emrikol gasped, somewhat awestruck as his eyes took in the rocks below as
though they might jump up at him at any moment.  Elsewhere, it might seem
a silly fear; here, it was a very real possibility.  "Was that the enemy
of Aubrilee you spoke of?"

"No," said Arcania.  "Merely one who even now must fear that being, for the
power that I sent here was nothing that could be simply ignored, even by
this creature."

"Will this thing know you when we find it?" asked Emrikol.

"If it could see us," said Arcania.  "We are only partially within this
reality.  Another part is anchored in my sanctum, the spells therein prepared
to recover us from here should I desire it.  Our souls and magicks are here,
of a sort, while our bodies still embrace one another in my chambers."

Emrikol shook his head, not fully comprehending what she said.  His people,
both of Tor'el and of the Labyrinth, were physical in their magic; to lose grip
on the physical reality was to court insanity, in the wisdom of his forebears.
"Do you journey here often?" he could only ask.

"I have come here four times ere now, to make certain that he who was sent
here remains where he was put," she answered.

He looked at her oddly.  "You are not concerned that I might aid this being
in its escape, that it might find vengeance upon you?"

She looked back at him even more oddly.  "You saw what he and his kind did
to the world of Yathulas.  Would you wish that on the world of Arghan, to
doom all on to that mockery of life, just to strike at me?"  She shook her
head.  "You would emulate he whom you battle on Tor'el."

Emrikol bobbed his head in thought.  "Perhaps."  He did not expel the idea
from his mind, however.  "Does the ruler of this plane not begrudge you the
visits, seeing as it didn't seem happy about our showing up here this time?"

Arcania smiled.  "It tried resisting more strongly the first time I manifested
myself here.  It has not the fervor for such spirited defense any longer."

They hurtled over another rise, and as the cliff side came away from before
them, they beheld the huge ebon shape below.

He was much as Arcania had remembered him.  His glossy ebon scales had not
dulled with the fires of the Inferno, his great and terrible strength
undiminished with hellish life.  He made no attempts to disguise himself
here as he had on Yathulas, for the denizens here respected no subtlety.
Only brute strength impressed them.

The former Emperor Saiblos was in his element.

Emrikol looked at him, his mind perforce returning to the huge dragon that
had swallowed Syrelle long ago.  If anything, this one was more terrible
in its power, for this thing served no force but itself, drawing upon the
decaying life of the plane for its power instead of serving its maniacal
purposes.  Indeed, some of the feverish light that bespoke of the madness
was in his eyes of scarlet, as he lay there with his claws digging into the
ground.  Emrikol could see the power coming up through the land, pulsing
into his claws like blood over the fangs of a vampire of legend.

"Does he see us?" asked Emrikol.

"No," said Arcania.  "He sees nothing but the day when he may strike at me
anew, gain vengeance for the humiliation I heaped upon him.  The life of that
demon that assaulted us slowly pulses into him, filling him with a madness
that comes of millenia of imprisonment here ere it is his time to succumb.
The demon cannot attack him here, for it fears that to pull the claws out
would be to open the gash in its being even wider.  And so, Saiblos simply
lies here and feeds upon the wasteland as he did upon Yathulas, plotting in
some dark corner of his mind, hardly aware of what occurs about him.  Did I
not have the concealment over us, he like as not would yet fail to see us."

"What if he ever got loose?" Emrikol asked further.

"Pray for whatever world he should find himself upon," said Arcania.  "I hope
greatly that it is not mine."

			=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Voices played about the ears of Saiblos, and vaguely he was aware that someone
again watched him.  He ignored it as always, knowing that only One was capable
of attacking him here, that this One feared to do so for harming itself greater
than he harmed that One now.

Briefly, he thought he might be hearing the voice of That Bitch that had sent
him here.  He shook it from his thoughts, concern rising that the madness was
overcoming him at last.

He felt the portal opening.  At that, his eyes opened.  He could sense the
door being drawn.  He had seen it before, but had dismissed it.  So many
gates were opened and shut here, most of them by wizards blindly groping about
in search of minions stupid enough not to recognize a spell trap.  Or, perhaps,
minions desperate enough to see the world that they had been banished from
that they were willing to hurl themselves into one.

But this time he was of the idea that he had actually seen this particular
one before.  He had paid so little heed to his surroundings in recent months
that it had mattered little before, but he knew in the back of his fevered
mind that the likelihood of any single wizard randomly picking this same place
in such a huge series of planes was miniscule.

The thought that someone might be leaving after spying upon him occured to
him.

He knew that That Bitch had the power to hide herself from him.  The two
thoughts met, as stone and flint, in his mind, and a spark of rage, need,
burning desire for revenge, flew from it.  He turned his trained eye, praying
that the madness of dragonkind he had fought for so long, the madness of a
demon already crazed from uncounted centuries of imprisonment that he had
purloined with its ichors, would not fog his brain as he concentrated on this
task.  The gate had gone . . . he tried to make out the direction . . .

			=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Arcania knelt a moment, and Emrikol was surprised to see real fatigue run
over her features as they appeared in the midst of a world little less
bleak than the one they had just left.  He remembered her mention of a
planar seal, and realized that it was taxing to break from within even long
enough for just the two of them to leave, even on her powers.  If he had
any idea where he was in the multiverse and how to find his way to more
familiar surroundings, he would count this a glorious opportunity for escape.
Even as lost as he was, it was tempting.

But as worn as she appeared, he still did not feel up to the daunting task
of striking against her or attempting to evade her.  The movement between
worlds had taken its toll on him as well, and though she had borne the brunt
of the planar seal on the Inferno, the simple act of movement between
unfamiliar worlds was hard on an unprotected mind.  His moment of indecision
ended when she ostensibly caught her breath and gestured to the dim world
they found themselves on now.

"Do you recognize this place?" Arcania asked.

Emrikol looked around.  "It looks like Generica . . . but is different.  It
is dank, without the joy I knew in that city."

Arcania gestured to a building they had materialized not far from.  "Do you
know this place?"

"Were this Generica," he said, looking at the sign on the door that resembled
the creature they had left one mind-numbing instant before, "I would say that
this was the Dragon's Inn."  The building looked almost bleak, nothing like
the inviting business he had become familiar with.  He followed as she entered,
hoping that if it was the Dragon's Inn, that the peacekeeping spells on that
building would free him from her influence.

He looked about, and immediately his hopes of freedom were dashed.  A dour,
stout man that was a mockery of Rowan LittleFair stood behind the counter,
regarding him.  The dark corners that abounded in the Dragon's Inn were even
darker here.  He saw what he thought was a familiar cloaked figure in one,
and smiled as he ran for it.

"Kryalla!" he called, hoping to see the familiar, glacial face look up at
him and aid him against her enemy.

The face that looked up to meet his eyes stopped him cold.

It almost looked like her, but was frigid in appearance even when compared
with Kryalla.  Emrikol stopped a moment in wierd humor and thought, [Now
*that's* saying something . . .]  But the rest of her visage was horrid to
look upon.  Her eyes were bloodshot, their ebon orbs a cruel mockery of
the woman he knew.  The familiar folds of the Shroud that he knew on Kryalla
were here on this being, but instead were decayed, seeming to be half-covered
with some sort of mold.  Her eyes were sunken in her face, which was wrinkled
in its entirety.  She was even paler than the Shrouded One, her entire
appearance looking like Kryalla might if she had died and festered for a few
days ere returning to haunt the corner she had occupied since the very
opening of the Dragon's Inn.

That this was not Kryalla did not have to be explained to Emrikol explicitly.

The creature that mocked Kryalla looked down at the disgusting green slop she
had been served, and a keening hiss addressed the waiter.  "This stuff is
rotten!  Whose dog did you kill off to make the burgers this time?!"

A brutish face with a few days of beard poked up over the counter.  "Daaahh,
I heard that!"

Arcania stepped up to say in his ear, "Meet Kruelle Sumwell, the Shrivelled
One."

Emrikol immediately recognized the similarity in the name, and stood
dumbfounded as a zombieish creature came out with a mop, took it from a bucket
of some putrid liquid that might have been water some time before it gave
birth to all forms of algaeid life, and slopped it all over the "Shrivelled
One's" table, plate, and her.

"That does it!" the crone in the corner rose to her feet, waving her hands
in various chaotic contortions.  Meanwhile, a couple of scrawny youths whose
eyes spoke of being merely having seen perhaps fifteen summers but whose
scarred, pockmarked faces made them look deceptive older in a repugnant way,
looked at Arcania, their eyes widening.

"Whoa!  Check it out, Deavis!" said one, with brown hair and crooked teeth.
He punctuated the statement with a heavy-breathing laugh.

The other laughed in response, his cackle sounding like rocks scraping
together.  "That chick is mine, Dumbhead!"  He jumped off his stool and began
to run towards Arcania.

"No way, dude, I saw her first!"  He pounced upon his companion, and they
struggled to keep one another's hands away from the rusty daggers each wore
at their belts as they exchanged punches and profanities.

"Where . . . are . . . we?" Emrikol asked of Arcania.

"We are in the Drag On Inn, of course," she replied.  "The Lords of Terror that
rule this misbegotten sphere created it as a trap for those who bring violence
into the Dragon's Inn we know, and prove to be beyond the control of its
owners."  She smiled at the irony.  "The Terror Masters here chose to lend
aid to them, and as such those who prove beyond reason find their way here
to vent their violent passions."

Emrikol watched as Kruelle Sumwell conjured a myriad of shrieking wraiths
to act as her proxies in shredding the zombie that had offended her.  Several
rough-looking men at the bar drew scimitars and rounded on each other,
seemingly not needing a great deal of excuse for a fight.  The two excuses
for youths had slit one another in various parts of their body, though their
wounds seemed to be closing swiftly after they were opened.  Indeed, the
zombie that had angered the Shrivelled One, or rather the shreds thereof,
began to shuffle on the floor and come together in a strange bond, reshaping
themselves into the creature it had been moments before.  The man behind
the bar seemed to relish the carnage, pouting in the fact that Arcania and
Emrikol did not join in.

"We must leave now," said Arcania.

Emrikol had difficulty taking his eyes from the mockery of the woman he had
come to love that had been placed here, quite possibly for his benefit.
Finally, he submitted to the guiding hand of Arcania drawing him from this
place, feeling as though something had died deep within him.

More planes of existence did Arcania bring Emrikol of the Bandaged Hands to.
Each time, he was left with no concept of where he was being taken, and each
time his mind reeled as more insane realities were shown to him.  He saw
demigods clashing with one another, dragons and demons warring, twisted souls
wandering the planes with no true destination ever ending their suffering,
and many other things that had him cringing with the effort to comprehend.
He saw worlds so alien to his thinking that he had to strain merely to keep
his eyes open.  He saw creatures that were so strange that he had to rack
his mind to find a frame of reference to compare them to.  It was as though
some mad god had toyed with the primal clay of life, been dissatisfied, and
discarded his failed creations on different planes of existence.  All the
while, Arcania explained something of each, protected him when necessary,
and enlisted his aid on occasion when some threat seemed beyond her easily
overcoming it.

Emrikol was overpowered with a profound sense of smallness, of being a mere
infinitesmal speck packed away somewhere in a pile of rocks when compared
to the massive panorama that was the multiverse.  All of his power, even the
ability to manipulate probabilities, even that of the woman who led him on
this tour of the realities, seemed as nothing to the vast reaches that could
be found.

At last, the surreality of it all subsided, and he found himself on the floor
of her sanctum once more, sweating profusely.  His mind fixed upon the spectral
mockery of Kryalla, and upon the chaos that was outside the "normal" planes
of existence, and part of his psyche was apprehended in the process of
considering that Arcania had been merciful when she had merely moved him
between just two worlds at random.

When some semblance of greater awareness of his surroundings returned, he
found that he was clinging to her, both of them still on their knees.

"Now, do you see?" said Arcania, barely a whisper.  "The conquest of a world,
even several of them, is petty when one is aware of all of this."

The words registered somewhere in his wracked brain, in the sultry voice
of the woman in his arms.  His mind was disjointed, fragmented, and gave way
to more basic urges of a sudden.  He was kissing her on the lips, on her
face, reaching out to some form of support while his mind attempted to sort
itself out.  That this woman was his enemy seemed not to even occur to him,
so far gone were his faculties.

Arcania wobbled, surprised at his sudden expression of primal passion, but
then her hand came down on the floor and she stabilized herself.  Herself
reeling from the strain of moving through so many worlds in so short a time,
she allowed her mind to give up conscious thought for now, and simpler desires
took control of her actions as well.


+=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+
+	Arcania Dorval, returned from exile		  +
+=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+
+       . . . scribed by the Stilt Man,			  +
+		stiltman@teleport.com			  +
+=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+