As Malefactos flew over the blasted wasteland that had once been greater Arnor, he sensed a concentration of power ahead of him and activated the Crown of Auros again. Ahead of him, the Shadow reached an intensity far greater than anything he’d encountered so far, and he imagined that he could almost see the lines of force rising from a spot on the horizon about twenty miles ahead, a spot that could only be the Imperial Palace itself. He wasn’t quite ready to go to the very centre itself, though, and so after flying a few more miles he landed on the very edge of the new city of Arnor, the capital of the Shadowhosts. The Necropolis.

      A hundred years before, Arnor had been as ruined as every other city in what had been Agglemon, although a large number of public buildings had survived as overgrown, empty shells due to the strength and solidity with which they’d been built. Now, though, most of it had been rebuilt by order of the Shadowlord, in preparation for the day when a permanent portal would stand open between Tharia with the Pit. Ready for the day when the demons and their servants who would come through would need a city to dwell in, from which they would ‘govern’ the rest of the planet. It was even possible that the Shadowlord himself might come through to inspect his new possession, once the portal was wide enough, and everyone knew what would happen if he found the accommodation not to his liking.

     Most of the city’s most powerful inhabitants were incorporeal. Ghosts, spectres, wraiths and the like. Most of the reconstruction work had to be performed by the lesser forms of undead, therefore. Skeletons, zombies and other mindless corpse-forms. The corporeal remains of all those who’d died in the Shadowwars and whose bodies the Shadowsoldiers had been able to carry away, whether Shadowsoldiers themselves, Beltharans, Fu Nangians or whoever. Those taken alive were turned into mindless slaves and put to work in the fields, growing food for the living component of the Shadowarmies until they dropped dead, whereupon they were turned into zombies and took their place alongside those who’d died in battle. The zombies worked in the city until all their flesh had rotted away, whereupon they carried on as skeletons, continuing to work until they literally fell apart into their component bones. Even then, though, their usefulness was not at an end, and Malefactos felt a wry sense of amusement when he saw the use to which those bones had been put.

     Once brave and noble soldiers who’d died defending their homelands from the horror of the Shadowhosts had been reduced to mere decorative ornamentation as their bones were pressed into wet cement on the walls of the new buildings. In places, entire skeletons had been reconstructed and arranged in various poses of dancing or fighting, but with their skulls replaced by the skulls of beasts and monsters. For the most part, though, all the bones that were roughly the same size and shape had been taken from many skeletons and used for abstract decoration. Rows of several hundred thigh bones, pitted and worn from years of exposure, ran in straight lines along the roof and walls of what had once been a school, for instance, and thousands of finger bones, some still wearing rings, some still with cracked and broken fingernails, were arranged in swirling spiral patterns on the walls of a blacksmith’s shop. There were human, humanoid and demihuman bones everywhere Malefactos looked, and the rak was astonished by the sheer number of people who must have died to supply them. Considering that all fifty square miles of Arnor was, presumably, the same, Malefactos simply couldn’t believe that enough people had died in the whole world in the hundred years of the Shadow’s existence to provide that many bones.

     As he looked around, though, walking slowly along the deserted streets, another curious thing struck him. Although there were bones from every part of the skeleton all around him, thigh bones, collar bones, ribs, vertebrae, pelvices, sternums, arm and finger bones from every conceivable humanoid and demihuman race, nowhere he looked could he see a single human skull.

     Malefactos stopped in confusion, staring around at the empty bone city. Where were all the skulls? All of a sudden he felt a shiver running down his spine, even colder than the bloodfreezing aura that normally surrounded him, and he began to wonder whether, after all, he’d been wise to come here. The warmth and protectiveness of the Shadow suddenly began to feel thick and cloying, as if he were trying to walk through thick treacle. A sentient syrup that was aware of his presence. He found that the sense of being welcomed was gradually being replaced by a growing sense of menace and an image came to him; an image from an old story told to him by a wandering minstrel when he’d still been a young child living with his parents in Kenestra. The story had been about the legendary sirens, evil spirits living on small islands in the middle of the Great Lake who took the form of beautiful, scantily clad women and who lured unsuspecting ships onto the rocks with their songs of enchantment. For the first time since becoming a rak, Malefactos began to feel real fear.

     He got a hold on himself angrily and shook off the irrational fear. “I am Malefactos!” he shouted out loud, not caring that there was nothing and no-one around to hear him. “I fear nothing! I am the one who causes fear, not experience it!”

     He fingered the reassuring solidity of his wands and called up the words of attack spells in his mind, spells that could reduce several square miles of this city to blasted ruin. Nothing in the world could stand against him, he reminded himself. Not even anything that lurked in the city of the dead, and as he continued to walk arrogantly and confidently down the street, he imagined the bone covered buildings and their unseen inhabitants cowering in terror all around him.

     He was walking north, keeping the centre of Arnor to his left so as to remain a constant distance from it for the time being, when he came across the first inhabitants of the Necropolis. A team of about a hundred skeletons, some of them still with a few scraps of leathery flesh clinging to their bones, were rebuilding the remains of a row of middle class houses under the direction of a cropazombie dressed in the tattered remnants of a Callinnian architect’s leather apron from which hung a selection of measuring and surveying tools. One team of skeletons was clearing away all the dead brown vegetation that covered the ruins and piling it up on a large cart pulled by an undead, almost skeletal horse. Another team was gathering up all the broken lumps of rock and stone littering the ground and piling it up on one side for the cropazombie to inspect later and see what could be re-used, while the rest were engaged in the actual rebuilding of those plots where the first two teams had already finished. Malefactos watched patiently from some distance away using the Crown of Auros, then walked in to introduce himself.

     The mindless skeletons continued working as normal as the rak approached, completely oblivious to his presence, although one of them turned a skull towards him as he passed. At first he thought that it had seen him, that it was aware of him, and that it must, therefore, be some higher form of undead, but it was merely turning to place a handful of small stones on the pile of possibly reusable rocks and it turned away again as soon as it had completed the operation, no more aware of the rak than were the stones themselves. The cropazombie, however, stopped what it was doing and turned to face him.

     "A rak!" it rasped, and there was no fear in its sunken eye sockets, or in the defiant stance of its mummified body. "This is an honour! What have I done to deserve a visit from such a high and noble being?”

     Malefactos thought he detected more than a touch of irony in the cropazombie’s voice, however, and was reminded that it was not a willing follower of the Shadowlord, that it had been reduced to its present condition and bound into obedience by the spells of the Shadowwizards. He toyed with the idea of punishing it for its attitude, but knew he'd be hard pressed to find anything worse than it had already suffered, what it was still suffering.

     “Just looking around,” he said therefore. “I like to keep in touch with what’s going on in the rest of the city.”

     “We are exactly on schedule,” said the cropazombie. “We will have finished this street by the end of the month and this whole district by the end of the year, so you can return to the palace and tell the Circle that everything here is progressing as it should.” It met his gaze steadily, as if defying him to comment on its attitude.

     Malefactos felt an almost uncontrollable rage flare up in him at the creature’s outright defiance and lack of respect and came close to casting a spell that would blast it to oblivion. He just managed to restrain himself when he realised that that was exactly what the cropazombie wanted. A quick end to its miserable existence. No way, he thought. If that’s what you want, then you won’t get it. You’ll suffer, though. Oh yes, you’ll pay for your insolence. He forced himself to remain calm, therefore, and looked around at the bone city.

     “It certainly appears that way," he said in his most pleasant and conversational voice. "There can’t be many parts of this city left to rebuild by now. Another few years and you’ll be finished, won’t you?”

     “If everything goes to schedule, yes,” agreed the cropazombie warily.

     “What do you think will happen to you then?” asked Malefactos. “I suppose that, as soon as they have no further use for you, they’ll simply end your existence and send your soul to the judgement of the Gods. What do you think?”

     “Yes, I suppose so,” replied the cropazombie, his dry, shrunken eyes coming alive with sudden hope. “Maybe even sooner, if we finish ahead of schedule.”

     “It might be as soon as ten or twenty years,” said the rak, trying very hard to keep the wicked glee out of his voice.

     “Ten or twenty years!” hissed the cropazombie, his hope and longing growing to soulrending dimensions. “A mere instant compared to the eternity it seems I’ve suffered here. And then an end, an end to all this! By all the Gods, how I’ve prayed for an end to this...”

     “Ah, but no,” said Malefactos regretfully. “I had forgotten. As soon as Arnor is finished, the Circle will want all the other cities in the Shadow rebuilt in a similar manner.”

     “What?” cried the cropazombie, that single word seeming to contain the sound of all the hope in the world crashing in ruins all at once.

     “And when the rest of the world has been conquered, it will all have to be rebuilt in Arnor’s image as well. I imagine there’s enough work to keep you going for thousands of years to come, don’t you think?”

     The cropazombie didn’t respond for a while, but then it looked up at the rak with its shrunken, glassy eyes, and the look of hopeless terror, of soulkilling desperation in its dried out, deformed face was everything that Malefactos could have wished for. “No,” it whispered, barely audibly at first, but growing louder as he went on. “No, I beg of you, not that much more, not that long! Please, I beg of you! Have mercy in the name of the Gods! Have mercy, I beg of you! I beg you! You don’t know what it’s like! YOU DON’T KNOW! I BEG YOU, IN THE NAME OF ALL THE GODS!”

     “How dare you speak of the Gods here!” cried Malefactos furiously. “Here, there is only one God. The Shadowlord. The Prince of the Undead.”

     “Then I beg in his name!” begged the cropazombie, falling to its knees and clawing at his feet. “I beg you, in the name of the Shadowlord...”

     “Well, I’ve held you up long enough,” said Malefactos stepping back away from the shrunken corpse. “Back to your work now, there’s a good chap.” He walked away, leaving the cropazombie crying piteously in the dust behind him, and he laughed internally. He’ll show more respect in the future, he thought.

     Malefactos hadn’t gone more than a few yards, though, before he noticed that he was no longer alone. About twenty feet away, the transparent, incorporeal figure of a young man was watching him curiously. He was dressed as a coach driver from the brief republican era, with gold braid around his collar and buttonholes and a three pointed hat tipped over one eye.

     “You handled him well,” he said, coming closer, and Malefactos noticed that he walked an inch or two above the ground, as if on some invisible surface. “Cropazombies can be difficult and insolent, and it’s sometimes difficult to know how to put them in their place.”

     “Who are you?” demanded Malefactos, turning to face him.

     “My name is Jowen Thorpe,” said the apparition, “and I’ve been sent by the Circle to collect you. I’m a sort of messenger, you see. I carry messages to and from the palace. I've been sent to tell you that you’ve had long enough to look around. The time has come for you to present yourself to the Circle.”

     The Circle, thought Malefactos. The Circle of Raks. The Generals who command the Shadowarmies and who answer only to the Shadowlord himself and his deputy. “Well, Jowen Thorpe,” he replied, “you can inform your masters that I'll come to the Circle when I'm ready to do so, and not before. I haven't even decided yet whether I will do so at all.”

     “You will,” replied the apparition. “You won't be able to resist the prizes the Shadowlord has to offer, and even if you can, you'll come to us when you realise what the alternative is. Imagine what it'll be like when the Shadowlord is victorious, the Shadow covers everything and you're the only rak in the world who's not kneeling down before him. I won’t envy your position then.”

     Malefactos bristled at that, but forced himself to remember that he was undercover. He had to at least pretend that he would eventually join the Shadowlord, and so instead of punishing the insolent spirit he simply said “You should be careful how you speak to me, Jowen Thorpe. Remember what I am, and what I could do to you with a single word.”

     “I am the personal messenger of Algol himself,” replied the spectre, not in the least bit impressed by the threat, “and may not be harmed. Whatever you do to me will be as nothing compared to what he'll do to you if you abuse me in any way.”

     Is that so? thought Malefactos, still restraining himself. He made himself appear a little uncertain, as if he didn’t know that there was nothing in the Shadow that could touch him. “And who, exactly, is this Algol chap?” he asked.

     “Ah, you’ve never heard of Algol,” said the spectre with a smile as if that explained everything. “You’ll change your tune when you’ve met him, my friend. He’ll teach you how to reply to his messenger when he issues a summons. Come with me now. Explain that you didn’t know who he is and he’ll probably let you off lightly for not reporting to him immediately you entered the Shadow.”

     Malefactos’s cold eyes blazed with fury, but he still held himself back. “Go back to your master,” he hissed, “and tell him that I will seek him out when it pleases me to do so. I am Malefactos. I go where I will, when I will. I am at nobody’s beck and call, especially not that of a mere spectre with ideas above his station."

     “You won’t need to seek him out,” said the spectre. “If you don't come of your own free will, he will seek you out, and you will be punished. You're not a follower of the Shadowlord yet. You're an invader, a trespasser, and Algol will teach you what it means to..."

     Suddenly it was too much. A mere spectre dared to speak of punishment to a rak! Malefactos pointed a withered, bony finger, spoke a word and the spirit was destroyed, his ephemeral form blasted to oblivion and his soul hurled to the bottommost depths of the Pit where he would become the plaything of the terrible entities that resided there. Let this Algol rescue his messenger if he could, but with all the spirits that inhabited the Shadow, Malefactos thought it more likely that he would simply recruit a replacement. Jowen Thorpe would have an eternity to regret his disrespectful manner.

     This Algol interested him, though. The spectre had genuinely thought him capable of humbling Malefactos the Great. He must be an old rak, he thought. A thousand years old perhaps, who'd lived in the glory days of the Agglemonian Empire. A rak who might even have met one or more of the immortal wizards themselves. Even an externum might gain considerable power over such an immense span of time. Was it conceivable that even Malefactos the Great ought to be wary of him? Approach him with caution? Maybe even avoid meeting him altogether and leave now while he still could...

     He laughed in derision. Was he actually thinking of running? Was he actually giving serious consideration to fleeing from this Algol like a rabbit from a fox? I am Malefactos! he reminded himself. Let Algol quiver and shake at the thought that Malefactos himself is in the Shadow. So he'll seek me out will he? Very well, let him come, if he dares.

     He walked on, therefore, strutting insolently through the rebuilt city, secure in the knowledge that, of all the mighty and terrible creatures that inhabited this awful place, he was by far the mightiest and most terrible. He was nevertheless careful to keep his every sense alert, though. Watching for the first sign that Algol was coming to challenge him.