“ATTENTION IN THE HALL!” the cry rang out. “HIS EMINENCE, KANZAKI HARUO, DREAD LORD OF TARR, MASTER OF HROLLHEIM, OVERLORD OF THE GREYFEYLIAN ISLES, MAESTRO OF THE MOLATHEON CLIFF SINGERS, SUPREME RULER OF ALL THAT IS, HAS ENTERED OUR HUMBLE PRESENCE! WE SHINE IN HIS MAGNIFICENCE! WE REVEL IN HIS—”

“That’s enough, Major,” the soft voice struck the speaker dumb.

All around the dimly lit Great Hall of Otherworldly Investigations, deep within the heart of the Directorate of Science, Cognitionatory Studies, and Prognostication, functionaries, officers, and scientists stood rigidly at attention, each of them facing the Dread Lord of Tarr, each of them saluting in the manner demanded by edict.

This salute was accomplished by bowing the head and holding both arms rigidly out to the fore, perpendicular to the body, palms up, bent down at the wrists. As though offering oneself up for handcuffing.

The return was slow in coming, as it always was. The Dread Lord appreciated discomfort in his minions. When it came, the return took the form of a leisurely wave that passed within several inches of his cap of office. One had to watch it closely, though, that wave. Misjudging an ordinary wave, mistaking it for a salute’s return.... Well, that error generally ended with real handcuffs.

“As you were,” the soft-voiced order eventually came, and everyone scurried back to their duties, carefully ignoring the Dread Lord and what he was dragging behind him now that they’d been dismissed.

He strode along between the banks of giant prognosticationators and cognitionatory engines, their grainy, tessellated screens flickering uncomfortably. Between the stark electric lamps hanging from overhead that barely lit their immediate surroundings. The nervous sweat stench of the fearful. As always, he remained mildly amused, but otherwise unconcerned.

The room was sweltering, the air acidic, filled with the pungence of overheated batteries and the rumble of the diesel fueled steam boilers powering huge generators along with the dynamos they powered in the sublevels below. The Directorate consumed a considerable amount of electricity, and it was more economical to produce it on site.

The rumble of the clockworks and primitive electronics was a subdued and uncomfortable roar, although the Dread Lord was not discomfited in the least.

As though drawn to the coruscating light, near blinding in the general dimness, the Dread Lord of Tarr arrived at his destination, giving the unfortunate creature in his wake one final yank of the chain, hauling her in and bringing her to her knees.

“Ernst,” he nodded cordially, the ever present wry smile on his lips.

Ernst Jungmann, Chief Secretary of Scientific Discovery and Cognition, and the leader of the Interworld ortal subornation project, bowed deeply. He did not salute. As a cabinet minister highly placed in the government, he was spared that particular indignity. “Ah, Dread Lord,” he effused. “How good of you to grace us with your—”

“You may remove your lips from my behind, Ernst,” the dread lord smiled coldly. “It has been sufficiently kissed for the day. Am I on time?”

Jungmann cleared his throat nervously, and nodded. “The countdown is nearly complete, Dread Lord,” he smiled, staring directly at the top button of the Kanzaki’s Nuverian High Marshall’s tunic, studiously avoiding either the eyes of the Dread Lord or the unfortunate creature weeping on the floor behind him.

“Five minutes,” he added. “No more. And I’ve made sure,” he waved to the cluster of silent figures standing to one side, “that I’ve loaded the maximum number of flits onto the teufeljaegers. Even a fresh batch of collators. I haven’t even bothered to give them weapons this time. Why waste them?”

The Dread Lord frowned. “Find them weapons, Ernst,” he spat. “Quickly. Send that one,” he indicated a lesser, level fifteen jaeger, the smallest of those gathered. “Distribute the flits he’s carrying to the others.”

Jungmann paused for a fraction of a second, his mouth open.

“Now!” the Dread Lord shouted, blood suffusing his face.

The jaeger in question quickly plucked flits from its coat, passing them to its brethren, before pelting off into the bowels of the building at its best speed.

“At least three crossbows!” the Dread Lord called after it.

Addressing the confused director, he yanked the chain he was holding in his left, demonic hand. “Ernst,” he hissed, with more than a hint of the demon in his voice. “Have I introduced you to my friend?”

“Er...”

“Allow me to introduce,” the Dread Lord gave another yank, “the lovely and talented Iktchi-Cha, level forty-five blue mage.”

Jungmann forced himself, finally to look. Nearly naked, her only covering was what seemed to be a large canvas backpack, its straps pulling cruelly at her shoulders, its body effectively pinioning her wings.

Her flesh was covered in deep rents. Even against her red skin, it was easy to spot them. Easy to see that they were serious for the oozing of the dark blood that only came from deep within the body. Her wings were torn where he could see them, and seemingly every square visible inch of her body bore bruises, some of them overlain, some discolored to the point he was sure they covered broken bones. He had no idea what he was supposed to say.

“Oh, don’t worry about her, Ernst,” the Dread Lord smiled. “She’ll be fine.” He paused, his eyes going veiled. “Or as fine as can be expected for as long as she lasts.”

He gazed down at the pitiful creature and reached out a finely polished boot to draw the chin up, forcing her to look up at him as he spoke. “She disappointed me, Ernst,” he chuckled. “She was supposed to perform a task, you see. She was given unprecedented freedom, and mountains of time. And yet, she failed.” he released her chin with a flip of the boot that connected against her jaw with an audible crack, thrusting her head askew.

Jungmann knew of the task the Dread Lord was speaking to, of course. He’d sent the three devils through the Earthian gate two years previous. Perhaps it was because of her sorry state that he’d failed to recognize this one.

“Not only did she fail in her mission,” the Dread Lord was once again looking at him. “But she managed to not only misplace the target, but her sister as well! Can you imagine that, Ernst? Losing an entire level fifty red mage? Like she was a sock or glove? How does that even happen, Ernst? And all of that against a target who was not only unarmed, but unaware he was in danger until they were physically crashing through his wall at scarcely greater than arm’s reach!

“In any case,” he sighed, “it’s my policy to ensure that no one is completely useless.”

“D-Dread Lord?”

“Ah,” the Dread Lord chuckled. “I see. I sometimes expect too much of people. It’s a weakness, I suppose.” he favored Jungmann with a patently false frown.

“You say that every party we send through the portal to this Mund place is immediately destroyed, yes?”

“The timing of the portal’s reset indicates this, Dread Lord,” Jungmann nodded. “Yes.”

“So, obviously, something or somebody is waiting for them, yes?”

Another nod.

“And so we have here,” the Dread Lord swept his right hand in the devil’s direction, “the answer.”

When Jungmann did not immediately reply, he frowned. “I’ve had enough explosives packed into that haversack to bring this entire building down, Ernst,” he growled. “The instant that portal opens, we chuck this bitch through, set off the charges, and before the portal closes again, send these four fine lads,” he gestured to the jaegers, “over to sift through the rubble. That should work, yes?”

Jungmann thought about it for a minute, his eyes slowly brightening. “Why... Why, yes, I believe it would! Dread Lord, you’re a genius!”

“Are you hinting I might need to be told that?” the Dread Lord’s eyes narrowed.

Jungmann was saved from having to answer by the clatter of the returning jaeger. Glancing quickly at his pocket watch, he sucked in a deep breath. Less than a minute.

The countdown reached five seconds. “Throw the levers!” Jungmann shouted.

All along the circumference of the portal’s inner frame, the coruscating lights flared, their rhythm intensifying. A series of seven incandescent lights arrayed along the top of the device began flashing, edge to center and back again, the speed of their flickering increasing.

“Three seconds!”

The flashing of the seven lights was growing difficult to follow, now appearing as an oscillating line, flashing from a seven bulb array to a single, central bulb.

The undulation of the line of lights froze with the single bulb in the center lit. a gong sounded, loud even in the noisy room. A shimmer began to manifest within the vacant center of the portal frame.

“NOW!” Jungmann shouted.

The Dread Lord hoisted the sobbing devil girl up by her neck with his demonic left arm and hurled her through the rapidly manifesting portal and into Mund.

* * *

A circular patch of air began to shimmer, waves of translucent energy lapping about the plane of its surface. A second or so later, a small white boot emerged, followed by the lady Rosaluna Galbradia. She looked around, finding the three-quarter score of her watchers waiting.

This had been a tricky journey. She’d never been here before, and so had used the eyes of one of her constructs to ‘visit’, only once, to get the measure of the place. Something she hadn't done in decades. She was mildly surprised it had worked.

And where is it? She asked of no particular construct.

A large centauroid —not the one who’d visited her cottage earlier— pointed to a row of stones lined up in the center of the clearing in which they all stood. She examined that patch of ground thoroughly, and the air above it, and around it. She closed her eyes and probed with the faerie sight deep into the ground. There was no sign the area was anything but a point in a clearing, utterly unmagical beyond the normal background of mana that blanketed Mund.

Stolen novel; please report.

It had been three days since the portal’s last opening. Three days since her last failure to preserve a living specimen to prevent the cycling of the passage to the realm of Tarr. She had decided to take a direct hand. The golems might not be able to act with the required finesse to preserve at least one invader with some spark of life within it, but she certainly could.

There was some time left. Holding a hand out, she summoned a bit of the earth to rise, forming a crude bench. She sat, bringing one booted foot up over her knee, and removing the boot to massage her aching foot. She was doing a lot of walking lately, and her feet were unused to it.

“Lady,” the centauroid warned.

Unnecessary. She could see the shimmer. Completely unlike the sheen of a wandering way portal, it was a deep, ugly, purple-blue. Shot through with lightning, its surface roiling. Even as it manifested, a cry erupted seemingly from within. A red-skinned figure with a familiar voice hurtled through the turbulent plane of its surface, tumbling several feet clear of the ground and wailing in terror.

PROTECT! The sending was so fierce it vibrated the air.

Rosaluna was up, her cane, wrought more than a century before from the canine of an elder dragon, flared bright, and a beam of blue-white energy four inches thick flashed between her and the portal, seeming to manifest within the entirety of the connecting space simultaneously.

The centauroid caught the flying devil girl and turned its back to the portal, interposing itself between the roiling darkness and her, its shoulders curled to provide greater shelter.

The portal flared, its entire surface taking on the blinding sheen of the energy beam before fracturing and exploding outwards into shards of abyssal energy. Finesse? Of course. In a ‘lay it on with a trowel’ sort of fashion.

* * *

A fraction of an instant after the body of the demon girl had passed through the portal, and before the Dread Lord could trigger the explosives, a brilliant beam of pure energy slashed through the great hall, obliterating a prognosticationator against the far wall, shorting its circuits, starting fires all throughout the hall, and creating a cascade failure strong enough to threaten the dynamos below. Explosions could be heard in all directions, even extending to other rooms within the building. The very walls shook.

The portal frame buzzed with the release of energy in quantities that far exceeded its maximum parameters, its seven bulbs bursting. The coruscating lights glowed more fiercely, morphing effectively into filaments and flashing near-irreplaceable circuitry to ash.

Jungmann tried to hit the floor before the explosion, but something was wrong with his arm, and he face planted instead, just as the portal frame burst into glowing fragments, peppering anyone and anything within half a hundred meters with flying debris.

Ernst Jungmann opened his eyes, he thought. After a moment, he was no longer sure. The world around him was vague and grey, sounds muffled, visible objects flat, as though he were watching the scene through a cognitionatory engine’s flickering screen. What he thought was the Dread Lord stood before him, double his normal size, most of his tunic torn away, and fully half of his exposed and heavily muscled skin the dark red of the beast. A deep, ugly gouge along his rib cage leaked a strange sort of liquid that was neither blood nor ichor, but something of both. His torso and face bore hundreds of smaller wounds, many of them with bits of the portal frame still protruding through the skin.

He could see that the Dread Lord was shouting, but the sound seemed far off.

“WHAT IN THE HELL WAS THAT?” the Dread Lord demanded, his head cocked to the right. His voice, though faint, bore the gravel of the beast within it.

“That,” the Dread Lord’s head canted left and his voice descended fully to the beast's rumbling basso replied, its tone mocking, “was why you don’t allow magic users to wander around loose!”

“Well, obviously it was magic!” the Dread Lord shouted to himself. “But what kind? I’ve never seen anything like that!”

“Because you always hurry,” he argued back. “Such an attack would be unthinkable for anyone below level one-fifty. And you were only, what...?”

“I’m more now,” he assured himself. “So watch yourself!”

“Sleep now, little lordling,” the beast ordered, taking advantage of the shock of injury to assert complete control, if only for a time.

The Dread Lord’s bodyexpanded still further, the last of his tunic tearing away, his uniform pants splitting down their seams, and his boots bursting to reveal thick, cloven hooves. His face warped into a short muzzle. Long, curling horns sprouted from his forehead, and a ragged pelt sprouted from all exposed flesh. Thick, dark smoke poured from the ugly wound, and it began to close. This was the beast that lived within Kanzaki Haruo.

“You!” Jungmann saw the clawed finger pointing his way. Heard the command more clearly now that his hearing was returning. “You are broken. Come here.”

Jungmann couldn’t, at first, understand. Broken?

Snarling, smoke and a trace of dirty orange flame trickling from its mouth, the beast trudged forward and reached down for the prostrate scientist, pulling him up by his right arm. Jungmann was horrified to see that the cuff of his jacket was aflame. Even more horrified to realize that the cuff now ended short of his elbow. Along with his arm.

The beast examined the injury clinically, twisting it about with no concern for any pain the movement might inflict on its owner. Turning away, it spied the jaegers. “You!” it pointed to the smallest. “Here!”

The jaeger responded immediately, running to the beast’s side. Standing Jungmann upright, the beast caught at the top of his head and that of the jaeger, smacking them together back to back, measuring them. “Yes,” it muttered. “This will do.”

And with that, it unceremoniously ripped the jaeger’s right arm off at the shoulder. The construct’s eyes rolled back into its head and it dropped to its knees, a weak, keening cry of pain escaping its lips.

The beast ignored it, turning, instead to the quivering scientist. “Hold out your arm,” it ordered.

Jungmann didn’t immediately move, too terrified to command his muscles to obey.

“I said hold out your arm,” the voice vibrated through his body, moving his arm seemingly by force of will.

“B-But,” Jungmann pleaded, looking around on the floor for the rest of his arm. “The mechanoctors....”

“The joint is gone,” the beast replied. “Along with a significant length of bone. Mechanical repair would require too much time. You are necessary for the reconstruction of this project.”

It held the disembodied jaeger arm out beside the stump of Jungmann’s and snipped it just above the elbow with the talons of its right thumb and forefinger. It then pressed the two stumps together, surrounding the join with that same hand. It began chanting, deep in its throat, an unnerving sound that curdled Jungmann’s blood and caused every hair on his body to stand.

After a few minutes of this, and of scalding heat washing through his body, the beast released Jungmann, who fell to the floor, on the verge of delirium as his body began to adjust to the venomous blood now coursing through his veins.

“Now,” it ordered him, “salvage as much of this equipment as you can and rebuild it. You have one month.” with that, it turned and walked away, ignoring the fires and damage along its path.

* * *

It took a few moments for Rosaluna to return to herself. She felt drained. The attack on the portal hadn’t been part of any plan. She hadn’t been aware until after the fact that it might even be possible. It had been an instinctual response, taken before she’d analyzed the situation. As a result, she’d used considerably more power than she might have otherwise, channeling more mana into that one instant of attack than she might in creating a hundred higher golems.

The demon was still wailing, and it was only now that Rosaluna realized on a conscious level that it wasn’t Iktchi-Chi.

Come, she ordered one of her watchers. Help me up.

The devil girl recoiled at her approach, pressing back against the chest of the construct, as though recognizing it as an ally. She was pleading in some guttural tongue that Rosaluna could not understand. Can you speak Tandrian? She asked, her sending as kindly as possible. She was over treating all such creatures as though they were one. Even such as she could still learn lessons were they forceful enough.

“Y-Yes,” the girl gasped in a peculiar accent. “P-Please no k-kill me!”

Not as articulate as Iktchi-Chi, but Rosaluna could at least understand what she was saying now. What is your name, child? She asked.

The girl looked back and forth, as though searching for the hidden danger. Back to Rosaluna, she replied haltingly. “I... I I-Iktchi-Cha.”

Rosaluna’s eyes went round, and she gulped in a great breath of air. You’re Lady Chi’s sister?

Now it was the devil girl’s turn to gape. “Ch-Chi? You know Chi? Sister here?”

Nearby, Rosaluna sent. We’re friends, Chi and I.

The devil girl gasped, and hissed, “run! Run away!”

What’s wrong? Rosaluna leaned closer, squinting to understand the words.

“Bomb!” the girl warned her. “Boom! Big boom! Kill all! Run!”

Rosaluna shook her head. They cannot reach you here, child, she said. I have severed the connection.

“No! The girl insisted. Big boom! I have!”

Rosaluna drew back, seeing the backpack and understanding. She didn’t understand the compound, but Appraisal could certainly see the alchemical nature of the threat. Now what? Was there some sort of timer? Or had it been meant to be set off from the other side of the portal?

She ordered the centauroid construct to shift the girl in its arms so she could lean in very close. She couldn’t hear anything beyond the soft weeping of the girl. There was no ticking, no scent of anything burning.

But wait. There. A strange sort of braided metal wire, vanishing beneath the edge of the pack’s flap and laced through the links of the chain depending from the girl’s metal collar. She carefully examined the trailing chain, following the wire. It had been severed along with the chain where they’d interfaced with the portal as it had been disrupted.

She would act under the assumption that it was meant to be detonated by some external action and hope she wasn’t missing something.

Rest easy, child, she sent to the girl. I will protect you.

You, she addressed the mass of her watchers gathered around. Observe. If the portal opens in three days, report what comes out, but do not engage it. If it does not, report that.

You, she addressed the centauroid. She is your responsibility.

The construct nodded.

Hobbling, for she was ruinously weary, she moved a few yards away from the gathered constructs, feeling along the strap of her bag for a particular jewel, black as the pits of the deepest dungeon, the purity of its deep, reflectionless depths near perfect, save for a single glistening speck of bluish turbulence which seemed to pulse slowly with the cadence of a resting heartbeat.

She examined the jewel for a long moment. It was a black diamond. Of almost unheard of rarity, she’d seen perhaps three in her entire life, with this being the most perfect. She tossed it onto the ground a few feet before her.

Awaken, old friend, she sent, waving a hand in a complex pattern.

The diamond shivered, then bulged, then spun and grew, pulsing and morphing, until a jet black stallion stood before her, stretching kinked, long unused muscles. After a few moments, it turned to regard her. Lady Luna, it thought. You have... grown so old. How long was I in the jewel this time? It wasn’t sending as she did, merely thinking in a directed fashion. She was receiving its thoughts in the same way she did Tiarraluna’s when the two were separated by a great distance.

Did you have a nice nap? She inquired.

Nap? The spirit horse thought back. I think I must have been asleep for longer than that. I feel the stars have moved far in the sky.

It has been eighty years, old friend, she sent. I’m sorry. I should have awakened you sooner.

What is your wish, My Lady? It thought.

I must return to my cottage, old friend, she lamented. but I am weary to the bone, And have not enough mana for the wandering way. Will you carry me?

Of course, the spirit replied.

The creature folded its forelegs, followed by its hind, until its belly was resting on the ground. Rosaluna hobbled up to it and put a foot in the near stirrup, which itself was laying on the ground. Hiking her robes up and leaning far over, she strained to swing aboard the spirit’s back, settling herself into the jet black saddle which seemed to be a part of the creature itself.

Resting her cane across her thighs, she leaned first to the left and then to the right, tying herself down with straps that had long since been placed for the purpose. This wouldn’t be the first time in her long life she’d tied herself to this saddle.

I’m ready, she braced herself.

The spirit stallion lunged to its feet, rocking her violently back and forth as it lurched to a stand.

Which way? The spirit thought.

Follow the centaur, she ordered, sensing its disappointment. It wanted to run, and understood the pace it would be throttled to, following a construct.

Very well, it thought desultorily. But we will run soon, yes?

She reached down to pat its wither, smiling. Yes, old friend, she sent. We will run soon.

To the centauroid, she commanded, my cottage, as quickly as you can while maintaining a smooth gait.

“As you wish, Lady Luna,” the construct replied as it began to run.