The cavern was filled with the sound of a tremendous crash, of the tumble of stones falling, all followed by a shout of triumph. It came not from, as Anubarak feared, the snake-beast, but instead from Ishkinil.

He looked back, to see that the beast had collided with the wall where Ishkinil had been standing. It had brought down a large section of it upon itself, stones and crystals both, a pile that now trapped its head. More, in the process, it had opened up a new section of caverns, one long hidden.

Ishkinil leapt lightly up onto the back of the beast, trapped as it was by the stones, and, taking a two-handed gripped on the hilt of Dirgesinger, began to hew with the crooning blade, time and again, striking the beast over and over. The great coiled length of the beast lashed out at the strikes, shattering yet more rock formations, yet it could not escape.

Then Ishkinil leapt down once more, as the body of the beast separated from the head, lashing still for a moment more. Black smoke flowed freely from the two parts. Ishkinil ran aside, to avoid the smoke, as the beast withered up, dissipating into nothing more than smoke which then too faded, leaving nothing behind to have marked it ever having been.

Anubarak headed across to where Ishkinil stood, taking care to avoid the places where the pools of shadows ha touched the ground, for there it had become scared and abraded by the touch of it.

Ishkinil was already peering through the broken wall when he arrived, using the white-blue flames of Dirgesinger for a pale light. She took the torch from him and started to use that instead, thrusting the flaming brand into the dark beyond.

“I thought you were done for there,” he told her, yet she looked to have already put it behind her, concentrating on the newest discovery.

“It was not time for Enkurgil to visit me yet,” she responded.

“Why did you stop? You couldn't have known this would happen.”

She looked back to him, a wry smile showing. “I had noticed that the wall here was different than elsewhere, that it looked weaker. Even so, it was too strong for any of us to bring it down so I thought it best to have our foe do it for us, while also helping to defeat it. It worked and here we are.”

“That seems rather a risky choice.”

“Everything is a risk, Anubarak,” she explained. “You cannot avoid risks; the best you can hope for is that you take the necessary ones while avoiding the unnecessary.”

“The trick is being able to tell the one from the other.”

Ishkinil's smile was faint. “Yes.” She turned back to look through the shattered opening, into the natural cavern beyond. Closer up, Anubarak could see that it had been sealed up by a flow of frozen stone in ages past. Unlike in the cavern they were in, this new one had no crystals to catch and amplify the light.

Three large slabs of rough-cut stone lay on the floor of the cavern, vast and grey, dust covered and web shrouded. They were massive chunks of stone, larger than a person and standing waist high. Along their sides were carved runic symbols and icons. What most caught the attention was what lay on the top of the slabs, of large figures of people that at first looked like carvings as well. Yet, as they looked, they could see that they were not of stone, but mummified bodies, ones that had lain hidden for so long that they had calcified. Slowly the pair approached the slabs, and the figures came into starker relief. Too tall were they to have been men, and despite their emaciated appearance, having been reduced by the ravages of time to little more than skin and bones, they could see that they had overly long and misshapen limbs, and heads too bestial. They were the bodies of Shahadi.

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“Balshazu’s Teeth!” Anubarak exclaimed, shrinking back from the bodies. “How long have they lain here?”

“An age, and an age,” Ishkinil replied. “The count of years is beyond recalling. Much has changed in the world since last they walked it.”

“How is it that the bodies have survived this long then?”

Ishkinil tapped one of the bodies with Dirgesinger, and the ringing of stone echoed through the cavern as she did. “They were not as you and I, so prone to decay. It was said iron was in their bones, and in their flesh, resilient to the touch of time. And so, they have lain here, in hiding, to be wreathed in stone by the passage of time that further protected them.”

She walked around the slabs, inspecting them as she went. “The markings were added long after they were put to rest, by the hands of men, and not by the Shahadi. Those that erected the statues, who sacrificed to them, sought to bring them back, to imbue life in them once more.”

“How is that possible?” Anubarak asked. “They are dead, and there is no returning from that.”

For a time Ishkinil stood silent, no answer coming from her, with brow furrowed. Never before had Anubarak seen her concerned, and nor was it a look he had ever expected to see. “There are ways,” she said finally, her words almost reluctant. “The Shahadi are not beholden to Enkurgil as men are, nor are any of the ancients or creatures of void and the darkness. They are apart, separate.”

Anubarak did not quite understand fully what she was saying, only that the implications seemed troubling. “Could they have succeeded in doing so?”

“Yes.”

“It is well that they did not.”

Ishkinil nodded. “Aye, that it is.”

Anubarak considered it. “Could others yet succeed where they failed?”

“If they were to discover this place? Yes.”

“So how do we prevent it?”

The corner of Ishkinil’s mouth turned up in half of a smile. “We must destroy the mortal form, for it is by that they are anchored to this world. Sunder that bond and they are cast adrift, unbale to return.”

“Then let us be about it,” said Anubrak, full of youthful determination and passion.

“If it were but that easy, it would have been done long ago,” Ishkinil told him. “Strike the bodies,” she instructed.

With a puzzled look, Anubarak took his sword, strode across to the neatest of the slabs and struck at the body with all of his strength. The blade struck and bounced, and a jarring sensation ran through his arms. As he looked at the mummified remains on the slab, he could see that it remained unharmed by his blow. “What manner of sorcery is this?” he asked.

“Sorcery of the darkest sort,” Ishkinil told him, “For it was the Shahadi who were the first to practice it, and could accomplish deeds that not even the most powerful today could duplicate. Many are the secrets they took with them to the grave.”

“How, then, shall we do it?”

“First we must break the bindings upon them, a deed that requires a stout heart and great courage, if you are up for it.”

“I am,” Anubarak replied with a confidence that he did not feel, yet he did not wish to let down the tall, oft grim-faced woman he accompanied, and nor did he wish to see fresh horrors unleashed upon a world already under the heel of far too many of them.

“Good,” Ishkinil replied with grim satisfaction. “Let us commence.”