Malefactos spent a week exploring the outer reaches of the Shadow, ranging, under the directions of the captive ghost Sharmos Attwin, all the way from the shores of lake Ua in the north to the shores of Great Lake Megra in the south, and from the impenetrable darkness of the Overgreen Forest in the west to the rocky pinnacles of the Loris Heights in the east. So vast was the area covered by the Shadow that the rak was able to see very little of it in the short time he’d been there, but with the ghost as his guide he believed he was seeing most of the interesting parts, and what he saw delighted him.

     The ranks of the Shadowarmies, both the living and the undead, were vaster than Tragius had feared in his worst nightmare, having swelled during the past year as new recruits flocked to the Shadowlord’s banner, to the point where the figure given by the Emerald Oracle was hopelessly out of date, and Malefactos was already savouring the expression on the wizard’s face as he described it to him in all its mind numbing immensity.

     He was just thinking that he’d seen enough of the Shadow’s outer reaches, and that the time had come to move to the denser, inner regions where only the undead could go, when he sensed a sudden quickening of interest in the ghost and pulled the diamond out of his pocket to look at it. “What is it?” he demanded. “What’s going on?”

     “There’s a disturbance in the Shadow,” replied Sharmos, staring nervously out of the softly glowing gemstone. “A big one. There’s fighting going on somewhere nearby.”

     “Fighting?” said Malefactos, puzzled. “Inside the Shadow? But how? The Beltharans couldn’t possibly have sent a force this far in, the Shadow would drive them insane with terror. It must be the Shadowsoldiers, fighting amongst themselves. Two rival tribes of humanoids, probably.”

     “Impossible,” replied the Ghost. “The Shadowlord would never allow it.”

     Malefactos was inclined to agree and nodded his shrunken, mummified head. “Well, let’s see what it is, then,” he said. “What direction is it in?”

     “North,” replied the ghost. “About half a mile, as far as I can tell.”

     Malefactos activated the Crown of Auros, amplifying his vision, and looked in that direction, but a low range of hills blocked his line of sight so he activated his Robes of Flying and flew closer.

     He landed on top of the tallest hill and activated his Runes of Concealment, hoping that no-one nearby had the ability to detect invisible people by watching disturbances in the Shadow, as Sharmos did. With the Crown of Auros, he was then able to scrutinise the scene in the wide stretch of stunted yellow grassland below as though he were ten times closer than he actually was, but even so he could make no sense out of what he was seeing and he stared in bafflement for several minutes.

     There seemed to have been some kind of battle and the survivors, mainly humans with yellow skins, oriental eyes and long, black hair, were collecting the dead and piling them on the backs of wooden carts drawn by draft lizards, probably to be butchered and added to the Shadowsoldiers’ food supply. That a battle had taken place inside the Shadow was unusual enough in itself, but the thing that really puzzled the rak, and had him scratching his dry, leathery head in confusion, was that many of the dead appeared to be fell men.

     “Gl-hugs,” he muttered, his voice rasping in his dry throat. “What are fell men doing in the Shadow? And were they fighting with the Shadowsoldiers or against them?” He pulled the diamond out again. “What do you know of this?” he demanded.

     “N-nothing, I swear it!” replied the ghost, terrified by the rak’s tone of voice. “We had a few scattered reports from scouts who claimed to have seen fell men snooping around, but the idea was so outrageous that we simply discounted them.”

     Fool, thought the rak. Now that he thought about it, the idea wasn’t as outrageous as he'd first thought. The gl-hugs worshipped Atlacha, the demon spider, who was a sworn enemy of the Shadowlord (everything in the Pit was the sworn enemy of everything else in the Pit), so some of them might have decided to raid the Shadowarmies as a way of finding favour with their Queen.

     “Yes, that must be it,” he said to himself. “That must be it. What other reason could there possibly be?”

     He looked out over the battlefield again, satisfied now that a plausible explanation had occurred to him, but then he saw something he hadn’t seen before. On one of the carts, near the bottom of the pile of corpses, an arm was sticking out. It wasn’t a fell man’s arm, since the gl-hugs all had very pale skins, almost white in fact. Nor was it the sallow yellow of the humans, earth brown and hairy like the shologs or the light olive green of the goblins who’d taken a small role in the battle. The arm that had attracted Malefactos’s attention was coloured a livid orange purple, hung bonelessly as though it consisted entirely of muscle, like an elephant’s trunk, and had three equally fleshy fingers on the end around which a cloud of flies buzzed busily, feeding on the orange blood that dripped slowly but steadily onto the shadowstunted grass.

     Malefactos stared in astonishment, not believing his eyes. He recognised the arm, he knew exactly what kind of creature it belonged to, but he had never in his wildest dreams expected to find one here, in the Shadow. If someone had asked him to list all the creatures in the world that he couldn’t possibly meet in the Shadow, then the owner of that arm would have been at the very top of the list.

     “It isn’t possible,” he muttered, the words emerging from his dead, dry throat in a hollow rattle.

     “What isn’t?” asked the ghost timidly.

     “Shut up,” said Malefactos absent mindedly, tucking the diamond back into an inside pocket. “I’ve got to get a closer look.” He activated his Robes of Flying again and swooped down towards the battlefield.

     He landed next to the cart, alongside a pair of humans still loading bodies and completely unseen by them. This close, he saw that he hadn’t been mistaken, and when he heaved aside the bodies piled on top to reveal its head, its proboscis limp and still and its octopus eyes growing cloudy with death, his conclusions were confirmed.

     Even more bizarre was the fact that none of the Shadowsoldiers seemed at all surprised by the slaver’s presence. This must have happened before, he reasoned, and he decided that the only way to find out more was to ask the Shadowsoldiers. He allowed the Runes of Concealment to fade into inactivity, therefore, becoming visible once more.

     The reaction of the Shadowsoldiers to the rak’s presence was the same as the ghost’s had been, and soon they were all groveling around him, clearly believing him to be one of the rak Generals who commanded the Shadowarmies.

     “Who is in charge here?” he demanded.

     One of the humans, wearing the insignia of a Captain, stepped timidly forward, glancing nervously over at where they’d all left their heavy skull helmets. “I am, honoured one,” he said, bowing low before him.

     “You are out of uniform,” observed Malefactos calmly.

     The Captain paled in terror. “Forgive us, Lordly one,” he begged, laying heavy stress on the ‘us’. He wasn’t going to go down alone. “Once the enemy was defeated, we didn’t think it mattered.”

     “It matters,” said the rak. He reached out a hand and the man fell dead. Malefactos turned to face the others. “What are we, an army or a rabble? Our enemy knows the importance of discipline. We must know it as well.” He looked around and saw that another soldier, who’d been working some distance away from the main group, had slipped his helmet back on and was now pretending he’d had it on all along. “You there,” said Malefactos. “Come here.”

     The soldier hurried over, trembling with fear, and bowed before him. “What is your name?” asked Malefactos.

     “Tassi Var Hashveen, Lordly one,” replied the soldier, taking off his helmet to reveal his face. He was younger than the others, no more than sixteen or so, and looked much too timid and innocent to be a Shadowsoldier.

     Malefactos’s rictus grin widened. “Well, Tassi Var Hashveen, I’m making you the new Captain, effective immediately. Take his insignia of rank and add them to your uniform.”

     “But, but, great one, Bombucius is the next in the chain of command...”

     “Are you questioning my judgement?” demanded the rak, the points of light that served him as eyes blazing in fury.

     The poor soldier’s yellow skin turned almost white as he swayed on his feet, almost fainting in terror, and then he snatched the Captain's horned helmet and his other insignia of rank, wearing what he could and dropping the rest into a saddlebag to be added later.

     Malefactos smiled internally at his little joke, wondering how the other Shadowsoldiers would react to their new Captain. “Good,” he said. “And now, your first task as Captain is to explain this to me.” He swept his arm to indicate the battlefield.

     “They appeared out of nowhere,” said the new Captain, trembling as if he expected to be held personally responsible. “The slavers killed eighty of us and knocked out fifty more with their mind blasts before we even knew they were here, and then they levitated above us out of reach of our swords, covering the fell men as they slaughtered us. Our arrows just bounced off their shield spells. By the time the rest of our unit got here, they’d killed over three hundred of us, but once we got properly organised we were able to drive them away with heavy losses.”

     “And what do you think was the purpose of their attack?” asked the rak.

     “They must have been after our regional command post again,” replied Hashveen. “They didn’t get it this time, though.” He lifted his head proudly, expecting to be praised.

     “They didn’t get it, this time,” mused Malefactos. A suspicion was beginning to form in his mind. “Tell me, Captain,” he said. “When the surface world is conquered and the Shadow covers the whole planet from pole to pole, what do you think we’ll do next?”

     “Invade the World Below, I suppose,” replied the new Captain. Realisation suddenly dawned on his face. “The slavers and the fell men know that, so they’re attacking us now, while our strength is divided fighting the World Above.”

     Malefactos nodded his shrunken, mummified head. “All the forces of life, both good and evil, are uniting in an attempt to resist the forces of undeath. Futile, of course, but it still should have been anticipated. From now on, all units will remain alert and on guard at all times, even when within the Shadow. The Shadow is no defence against the fell men and the cthillians, except in the very central regions.”

     The Captain acknowledged the order, and Malefactos left without another word, activating his Robes of Flying. So, the World Below has allied itself with the World Above, he thought as he flew. Would it make a difference? Who cares, he decided. I’m done with this world. Just find out enough to drive Tragius mad, take back my ark and then leave forever. There’s an entire cosmos out there to explore.

     For a moment, he considered going back straight away. He’d already found out enough to terrify Tragius, to turn the wizard into a gibbering wreck, and the desire to return to his new home on Sereena and prepare it for its translation into the astral plane was almost overpowering. But then he remembered the break in by a team of wizards and priests from the University. He remembered his fury at the invasion of his home and the sharp, biting fear when he realised they’d managed to steal his ark, the object upon which his entire existence depended.

     His rage flared up again, making him literally cry out as it burned in his mind like a raging forest fire. “Not enough!” he shouted at the devastated, almost lifeless landscape below. “Not enough by half! He’ll pay for what he did to me, I swear it! He’ll pay!” He would keep on searching until he'd uncovered all the Shadow's most terrifying, soul destroying secrets, and he'd present them to the wizard along with everything else. He would drive Tragius into screaming insanity! Nothing less would do! He altered his course towards the very heart of the Shadow, towards Arnor itself.

     Miles sped by below him, and as he went the Shadow grew steadily thicker and denser. It felt warm, soft and comfortable, like a protective cocoon, and he felt that it was welcoming him in, like a mother holding her arms out to her beloved child. He knew it was all a trick, the Shadowlord trying to ensnare him, and his anger towards the Demon Prince grew until it rivalled his hatred for Tragius.

     He knew that he could turn around and leave at any time, knew that the Shadowlord’s power wasn’t yet anything like powerful enough to trap him permanently, but still his sense of kinship with the other undead denizens of the Shadow grew greater with every passing mile. He recognised the danger, and knew that he was taking the terrible risk of losing his soul to the Prince of the Undead forever, but the risk would be worth it just to see Tragius collapsing into insane terror, his mind snapped like a piece of rotten elastic, and he increased his speed even further.

      After an hour or two, though, his fury at the Lexandrian wizard abated a little, allowing him to think rationally again, and he noticed that the landscape he was flying over had changed considerably. This deep inside the Shadow it was almost totally dark, with almost no sunlight able to penetrate the supernaturally generated blanket of horror and despair, but with his rak vision he was able to see as clearly as though it were full daylight and what he saw interested him considerably.

     No plant life at all could survive here. There was not a single blade of grass, no matter how yellow or stunted, to relieve the barren emptiness of the low, rolling hills. It could almost have been the surface of one of the moons, he thought as he dropped and landed beside the bare stone ruins of an old farmhouse, once the home of a prosperous Agglemonian ranching family. Only three hundred years ago, he thought as he looked around curiously. To see it now, it could have been a million years since the last living thing had set foot here.

     The ground was dry and powdery, kicking up in clouds of dust as he walked slowly around the ruins, and the dead, dry stalks of grass crunched under his feet like newly fallen snow. He entered what remained of the farmhouse through an empty doorframe and wandered from room to room. In what had been the main bedroom he found the charred and blackened skeleton of a woman on the rusty iron framework of a bed, partly warped and deformed by the heat of the fire that had purged this house of bloodeye fever.

     Lying next to her, cuddled up next to the crumbling bones, was the skeleton of a dog, still partly covered by its coat of fur. The dog, whose remains were untouched by fire, must have crawled in afterwards. It had probably also had the fever, since it affected all mammals, and had probably dragged itself inside looking for its owner. To dogs, humans are gods, and it had probably believed that the woman would be able to help it. Cure its fever and return the happiness and security it had known before the plague came. It had found only her corpse, though, and had settled down beside her to die.

     Malefactos hurried out of the woman’s bedroom. Averting his eyes, not wanting to look at the dog again. Even though he had seen, and indeed caused, more suffering and misery than most lucky people can even imagine, he didn’t want to think about the lonely, miserable way in which that poor, betrayed family pet had died. This is what they’re fighting for, he thought as he looked around the remains of the farmhouse. They want the whole world to be like this.

     He realised he was becoming morose and shook himself angrily out of the mood. Not my problem, he thought. Not my world, not any more. He flew away, not looking back. He was close to the centre now, well within the region that only the undead can enter, and as he continued westward he found himself flying over the ruins of what had once been the very heartland of the Agglemonian Empire.

     So great had been the power and might of the old Empire that they’d had no need to fear invasion. The very idea had been simply ludicrous, so none of the inner cities had been given a city wall and consequently they had spread out during the prosperous centuries until an area of over ten thousand square miles had become one giant urban sprawl. It had become virtually a single city. Greater Arnor, with Arnor proper, in the centre, becoming merely the seat of government and the place where the very highest levels of the aristocracy made their home, and so it had remained right up until the end, when everything had begun to fall apart.

     Reaching another low hill, he landed on it and looked ahead. Most of greater Arnor had now simply ceased to exist. Huge areas had been destroyed during the seemingly endless riots and gang wars of the fall, and most of the rest had been destroyed during the great fire that had followed the bloodeye fever. After that, the obliteration had been completed by mother nature as she moved in to reclaim her own. Only the occasional low wall remained now, exposed once more as the vegetation that has covered them had died under the newly formed Shadow but, further in, the city of Arnor itself had undergone a hideous rebirth.

     So great had been the terror and suffering during the fall that huge numbers of ghosts and other restless spirits had been created. Not only in Arnor itself but all across the Endless Plains, all of which had been part of the original Kingdom of Agglemon. These spirits had gradually drifted in towards Arnor, where their concentration was greatest, like a cloud of gas contracting to form a new star, until their concentration had become so great that it had attracted the attention of the Prince of the Undead, in the Pit. What had happened next was not precisely known, but two centuries after the fall of Agglemon a tiny crack had opened in the fabric of reality. A fracture in the wall of sanity and reason that separated Tharia from the seething nightmare that was the Pit. The crack had leaked Shadow, and a few years after that the first Shadowwar had broken out.

     Enough daydreaming, Malefactos scolded himself. Time to be on with my business. He activated his Robes of Flying again and took to the air once more, heading for the centre of the city.