If any of the doomed defenders of Fort Battleaxe had been able to spare the time to look up into the sky, they might have seen, in between the clouds of smoke rising from the burning city, a tiny point of golden light. It was the planet Sereena, the next planet out from the yellow sun. So close, at this point in the elliptical orbits of the two planets, that it was clearly visible in the daytime. The shae folk claimed to be able to see, with their unaided eyes, the golden rings that encircled it, but humans could only see them without a telescope when they came their very closest together, every twenty three years, and even then only the sharpest eyed could make them out.

The planet currently had two occupants, and one of them was standing on one of the parapets of his newly built fortress, protected from the hurricanes that regularly blasted this hell planet by a barrier of magical energy that admitted only a light breeze to ruffle the folds of his robes. Although the air was almost pure carbon dioxide and far below the freezing point of water, this didn't bother him in the slightest because he was an ark rak, an undead creature who no longer had any need for either oxygen or warmth. Indeed, he liked the cold, and the nightmarishly harsh conditions brought a new glow to the burning pinpoints of light that occupied the sockets of his shrunken, mummified head and served him as eyes.

Malefactos had chosen this world as his temporary base of operations precisely because of its inhospitability, thinking he'd be safe here, that he'd be left in peace to continue his preparations for his eventual move to a permanent new home, much further away from Tharia. The troubles of his former homeworld had ensnared him again, though, and he had one final task to perform before he could turn his back on it forever. The rak had no doubts about his ability to carry out the task. It was a trifling thing, easily within his capabilities, but it was likely to take some considerable time to complete and he still had many problems to solve before he could set up home in another plane of existence, or a far distant part of this one. Not that time meant anything to him any more, he reminded himself. He was eternal now. He had centuries ahead of him. This impatience was a relic of his human origins, and so he forced himself to relax and face this minor digression with the equanimity that his new status deserved.

For a moment he remembered the violent emotions he'd liked to indulge in back in his youth. His passions, his jealousies and frustrations, his rages. His rages above all. The violence with which he would destroy those who stood against him, the overkill he would bring to bear against any obstacle he found in his way. He had enjoyed those rages. Nothing had made him feel more alive than crushing some annoyingly incompetent underling with overwhelming force. Now and again since his transformation he'd tried to kindle a fury at something in an attempt to recapture that youthful fire and energy, but every emotion seemed to die quickly these days. Even the theft of his ark had caused him only a momentary anger that had soon faded, although his desire for revenge remained, and he knew that this process would continue over the next few months and years as the last shreds of his humanity slipped away. It worried him a little, but if that was the price he had to pay to escape death then it was a price worth paying. Any kind of life was better than the damnation that awaited him in the afterlife, and if he eventually came to lose everything that had made him human, his emotions, his passions, his loves, that was alright so long as he retained his liberty and his power. His power above all.

He looked over to the east before leaving the balcony, to where the yellow sun was just creeping into sight above the horizon, a sight that would have been hidden from the sight of a living observer by the roiling banks of thunderclouds and twisting tornadoes that prowled there, lighting up the frozen landscape with continuous discharges of sheet lightning in a spectacle that would have awed even the Gods Themselves. Although the red sun appeared almost the same size from Sereena as it did from Tharia, Tharsol (or perhaps it should be called Sereenasol from here, thought the rak whimsically) was visibly smaller, due to the greater distance of the sixth planet from its primary. Oh well, he thought with what would have been a sigh if he'd still needed to breathe. If it's got to be done then it's got to be done, and the sooner I get started the sooner I'll finish.

Returning to his workroom, he looked over the small collection of equipment he'd decided to take with him, arranged neatly on a worktable. A travelling spellbook, about the size of a pocket diary (being undead didn't free him from the need to re-memorise a spell every time it changed). A selection of his favourite wands which, together with his own native power, gave him as much destructive power as a small army. An amulet of protection which, having created it himself, gave him a far superior degree of protection than those worn by other wizards. The Crown of Auros, rumoured to have been created by the immortal wizard Auros himself and which increased enormously the range and power of its wearer's senses. A robe of flying and, finally, a powerful magical dagger whose razor sharp blade had had a single layer of silver atoms electroplated onto it by a trog alchemist. Despite his power, many of his most basic human instincts remained and he still found the possession of a sharp blade reassuring. You never knew when he might find himself in a situation in which all his magical and supernatural powers would be useless.

For a few moments, he toyed with another magical item, pondering whether to take it with him as well. It was a ring of undead repulsion which, when worn and a word of command spoken, would create a sphere of energy around its wearer within which no undead creature could bear to remain. It had saved his life more than once in his youth, and since he was going to a place that was ruled by the undead, it was possible that it would come in handy again. The trouble was, of course, that he himself was undead now, and he had no idea what effect it would have on him if he activated it now. He could do some research to uncover the answer, but that would take time and the task he was about to undertake was pressing. After a moment's thought, therefore, he decided that he would take it with him but only use it in the direst emergency. After all, it was better to have it and not want it than want it and not have it.

He tucked his spellbook into one of his pockets, already bulging with spell components and various non-magical items of equipment, and dressed himself in all the other magical items, each on the appropriate part of his body. Crown on his head, amulet around his neck, ring on his finger and robe of flying around his shoulders. He then slipped the dagger into the sheath that hung around his waist and carefully placed each of the wands into its own individual pocket of the holder strapped tightly to his left thigh, so that any one of them could be drawn and used in an instant. Then, all preparations made and finally ready to leave, he summoned Arok, the only other sapient being on the planet and the head of his new 'staff'.

The servant arrived dressed as a butler, since that was the role it played in the rak's household, for the most part. It consisted of the soul of one of his first real enemies imprisoned in a body of cold, hard but living stone. The soul of the man whose betrayal had ended forever his chances of a normal, happy life and started him down the path of cruelty and lust for power that he'd been following ever since. Giving it orders and watching it going off to obey, hating him but unable to disobey, had been one of the great joys of his early life, but his hatred had faded even before his transformation and the revenge he was taking on it had now become as cold as the rak's touch.

In the early years of Arok's captivity, his hatred for Malefactos had been just as great as the hatred the rak felt for him. His original betrayal hadn't been motivated by hatred. The other wizard had been nothing but a rival. A man who needed to be removed in order for him to achieve his ambitions. The death of Malefactos's wife had been unintended, and Arok had been almost as grief stricken as the husband himself. The hatred had come after his captivity as Malefactos took his revenge, with tortures that only a mind as creative as his could devise, interspersed with mind numbing tasks intended to give him plenty of time to contemplate his situation. In the decades since then, though, the fire and passion had gradually faded from the eyes of the living statue, and Malefactos wondered now and again whether there was any sanity left in his one time enemy. Before his transformation this had seemed important to him, but now he no longer cared. Arok was nothing more than the servant who would keep his castle in good order while he was away. Whether there was anything still going on in the creature's head was of no importance.

"I'm going now, Arok," he said. "I trust everything will be alright while I'm away."

"Yes, master," replied the servant with flat indifference. "Any intruders will be dealt with, and your ongoing experiments will be watched carefully."

"And keep an eye on the staff. Make sure they all know their duties."

"Yes, master." The 'staff' were mindless magical creations. Automatons of pure energy that swept, cleaned and repaired as necessary. They didn't really need any supervision so long as they worked correctly but, like all spells, they could be corrupted by wisps of stray, randomised magic that left them either behaving erratically or completely nonfunctional. They then had to be shut down before they corrupted more of the castle's magics and a chain reaction began that could, in a worst case scenario, leave the castle with no functional magics at all. Malefactos had never heard of that happening in the entire history of magic, but he wasn't going to take any chances.

Malefactos nodded with satisfaction, then moved closer to examined his servant closely. Was there still anyone in there? Was there still a mind and consciousness behind that stony, expressionless face, or had Arok long since retreated into the catatonia of utter despair? He decided to find out. Not out of any malice, he had long since lost interest in tormenting his one time enemy. He was motivated only by curiosity.

"I don't want you getting bored while I'm away," he said therefore. "So whenever you get any free time I want you to go down into the valley, search for stones exactly one inch across and arrange them in straight lines running directly away from the castle. If you run out of stones that size, break up rocks to make them. Understand?"

"Yes, master," replied Arok dispassionately. Malefactos watched him carefully and saw no trace of either hatred or fear in the unchanging expression on its face. The winds outside the castle were fierce and carried abrasive dust from the plains that would wear away at Arok's stone body every minute it was outside. Every bit of erosion it suffered reduced its strength and mobility a little, and if Malefactos left it out there, then one day, centuries from now, it would be reduced to a vaguely man shaped lump of rock as immobile as any other lump of stone but with whatever mind and intelligence it still possessed intact, incapable of anything except suffering and cursing its fate. If there was still a person inside the stone body it should have been terrified, but the rak saw no trace if it. He would leave the servant to it, he decided, and see what kind of state it was in when he returned. Maybe Arok's demeanor then would give him a clue.

Giving Arok a final pat of mock affection on the shoulder, therefore, Malefactos left the room and climbed the long spiral staircase to the tower at the very top of his fortress. The castle was surrounded by a bubble of magical energy that shielded the castle from the violent weather and served as a barrier to teleportation, but the tower rose through it and widened out at the top to form a wide platform with no wall or fence around it to protect visitors from the hundred foot drop all around. It was occupied by four of his magical creations, terrible creatures carved from stone with teeth, claws and batlike wings that would come to life and tear to pieces any intruder attempting to enter the fortress that way. Malefactos gave them only a passing glance, though, as he walked to the very edge of the platform, spoke a word and vanished.