There was another strange thing, Malefactos realised.

     All six of the undead creatures were human, which was very strange considering that humans were very much in the minority in the Shadowarmies as a whole. Come to that, almost all the undead creatures he’d ever heard of had been human. He’d heard of a couple of shayen ghosts once, and he’d once met a nomish wight, but apart from that the only kinds of undead creatures that nonhumans ever seemed to become were zombies, skeletons and vampires. Was that a general rule? Was there some fundamental difference between humans and the other races that meant that they were much more likely to become undead? Or was it simply because he’d spent most of his life in human communities where of course all the undead would be humans? The fact that human undead were so prevalent in the Shadowarmies, a multi-racial army, seemed to argue in favour of the first hypothesis, but the reason for it was beyond him. It was one more thing he’d have to look into when his spying mission was over and his time was his own once more.

     While he’d been thinking these thoughts he’d stopped paying attention to the scene in the room, and now as he focused his attention back on the six undead he received a shock as he saw that the ghost was looking directly at him. The ghost knew he was there, without a doubt, and Malefactos checked his runes of concealment to make sure they were still working properly. They were. He should have been completely undetectable except to the very most powerful magics, and yet the ghost was still looking at him and now spoke to the room’s other occupants. “My friends, we have a visitor.”

     Five other pairs of undead eyes turned to the window, but none of the others could see him. “A visitor, honoured one?” asked one of the Fu Nangian spectres. “I see no-one.”

     “He’s invisible,” said the ghost. “You can’t really blame him for being cautious in a place like this. Come, my friend, show yourself to us. You have nothing to fear, we are all friends here.”

     Why not? thought Malefactos. I’ve got to make contact with them sooner or later. He allowed his concealment spells to fade, theredore, allowing his shrunken, mummified body to become visible. The effect on the spirits was dramatic. At their first sight of the rak all five of the insubstantial beings cowered back in terror, even the ghost. He held his hands in front of his face as he backed fearfully away, and eventually dropped to his knees, groveling pitifully, when he could retreat no further. “My Lord, forgive me!” he begged. “I meant no disrespect! I thought...”

     “You thought I was just a spirit, like yourself,” said Malefactos, allowing the cold, blazing pinpoints of light that served him as eyes to burn into the ghost. “You thought I was some pitiful wretch who owed his current condition to the circumstances of his death. Well, as you can see, that is not the case. Unlike you, I became undead of my own free will, and also unlike you I can end my present condition any time I choose and embrace the true death. I can do the same for any of you as well, should you wish it.”

     One of the wraiths, the one whose appearance had briefly given the suggestion of a young girl, began to drift forward, but the other held it back. The ghost ignored them both and carried on blubbering in terror on the bare floorboards while the two spectres tried to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible on the other side of the room. Only the cropazombie seemed unafraid of the rak, probably for the very good reason that nothing he could do to it could possibly be worse that it was already suffering. It simply stood there, seeming to radiate amusement at the predicament of its masters.

     Malefactos quickly grew tired of the ghost’s groveling and sharply ordered him back to his feet. “Who are you?” he demanded.

     “My name is Sharmos Attwin,” said the ghost, who’d somehow materialised a ghostly three pointed hat out of somewhere and was nervously wringing it between his fingers. “and I’m in charge of this town. We were just planning our trip eastwards, to reinforce the siege of Jong-Hai.”

     Malefactos nodded. This ghost would suit his purposes very nicely. Not only did he have enough authority to open doors for him but he’d be likely to know a lot and he showed all the proper deference and respect. He’d been lucky to find him. “How were you able to sense my presence?” he asked.

     “Ah well,” said Sharmos, beginning to regain something of his composure now that it seemed that the rak wasn’t angry with him. “You don’t get to be two hundred years old without learning a thing or two, you know.” Malefactos scowled at him and the ghost shrank back again. “It’s the Shadow!” he blurted out. “Everything creates a disturbance in the Shadow, and you can sense it if you know how. I’ve been in the service of the Shadowlord ever since the Shadow first appeared, so I know how to use it better than my colleagues here, none of whom have been dead longer than a decade or so.”

     Malefactos nodded thoughtfully. He’d stopped noticing the Shadow soon after entering it, but now that his attention was brought back to it he realised that the substance of it, which would have appeared as a soul destroying blanket of oppression, hopelessness and despair to a living man, was still visible to his rak vision. To him it appeared to be a cobweb of faintly shimmering, rainbow coloured sheets and streamers that filled the room, gently vibrating and rippling with every movement he made. He could easily believe that, with a few years experience, those ripples and vibrations could be interpreted so as to reveal the presence and exact position of an invisible person. He found himself filled with a grudging admiration for the awesome being who’d created the Shadow, which now seemed to serve not merely as a form of protection but also as a sensor locator system, in the same way that a spider can tell when it’s caught a fly by the vibrations in its web. He began to wonder whether he could design something similar to defend his castle on Sereena. Finding out how it was generated had just become one of the highest priorities of his mission here.

     In the meantime, though, he had more immediate business at hand and he turned his attention back to the ghost. “Send them away,” he said, waving his arm to indicate the others.

     Sharmos nodded, and the wraiths and the spectres vanished while the cropazombie shuffled slowly out through the door. Malefactos and the ghost were now alone.

     Malefactos spent a few minutes just looking at the ghost, pondering and considering, while the spirit grew more and more fearful and agitated. Eventually, he could bear it no longer. “What is it, master?” he cried out. “Have I done something to offend the Circle? Has the Shadowlord sent you to punish me?”

     “I haven’t come from Arnor,” replied the rak. “I’m going there.”

     “You’re going there?” exclaimed Sharmos. “You mean you’re a new arrival, only just come in answer to the Shadowlord’s call?” Malefactos nodded. “Then what are you doing here, if I may ask? Why don’t you go directly there and take your place in the Circle of Raks?”

     “I want to be certain exactly what I’m getting into first. The Shadowlord has spun his web expertly, set out some very attractive bait, and I want to make sure I don’t end up just another fly before I go further.”

     “What are you talking about?” demanded the ghost. “As a rak, you are one of the elite, one of the very highest! You will be a General in the Shadowarmies, your power and glory will be immense! How can you hesitate?”

     “I can, and will, hesitate as long as I choose,” replied Malefactos coldly. “I will journey on to Arnor when, and not before, I am happy to do so. In the meantime I want to have a look around, and I want you to act as my guide.”

     “I can’t, master,” pleaded the ghost desperately. “I’m in charge of this whole town. If I run out and abandon it and the Circle finds out...”

     “I suppose it comes down to who you’re scared of most,” said the rak. “Them or me. There may be more of them than there are of me, but they’re two hundred miles away, whereas I’m right here, close enough to freeze all the marrow in your ectoplasmic bones with one brush of my fingertips.”

     “Please, master, please!” begged the ghost, who knew full well what the rak could do to him. “They will find me and they will punish me! They will punish you, too! You know nothing of their power! Even if you care nothing for me, think of what will happen to you when they catch you.”

     “I am not afraid of them,” stated Malefactos. “They are only undead externums. What can they do against one who has been trained at Lexandria University?”

     The ghost’s fear temporarily gave way to astonishment. “The University? But that’s impossible! The University’s laws forbid rak transformation.”

     “I have never felt much of a need to adhere to rules and regulations I had no part in making,” said the rak. “And now, ghost, I will have my answer. Will you obey me, or would you rather be flung to the uttermost depths of the Pit, there to take your place among the shrieking spirits frozen forever within the icy walls of the Cavern of Endless Suffering, the eternal plaything of Ott-Hath, the Shredder of Souls?”

     Sharmos’s face was a picture of utter hopelessness and despair. “I’ll do whatever you say,” he said in defeated resignation. “Maybe the raks will understand that I was acting under duress when they catch us.”

     “Of course they will,” said Malefactos with a laugh that sounded like a dry rattle in his shrunken, undead throat. “Now summon your second in command and tell him he’s in charge until your return.”

     The ghost did so, and immediately one of the Fu Nangian spectres was standing in the room again, his unreadable, inscrutable face showing no sign of the fear that he must have been feeling at the rak’s presence. Once again Malefactos gave silent thanks for his stroke of luck in finding the ghost, since he had a gut feeling that the spectres would have proven much more stubborn to handle, much less malleable. The one standing before him now, for instance, had an air about him that suggested that, afraid though he was, he had an inner wisdom that would have made him almost immune to pressure tactics, not at all the kind of trait you’d have expected to find in a soldier of the Shadowarmies. But then, like most of the undead creatures serving the Shadowlord, he wasn’t there because he wanted to be but because he was unable to resist the will of the Prince of the Undead.

     “East Wind,” said Sharmos, putting on an act of authority and dignity, “I have to go away for a few days on a mission of the utmost importance, under orders from the Circle itself. You don’t need to know what it’s about. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone so I’m putting you in command until I return. Stick to the plan we agreed to, and if I’m not back when the time comes to move out, take the men to Goreham and report to the rak Rechell. I’ll catch up with you as soon as I can.”

     “Yes, honoured one,” replied East Wind, bowing low before him.

     Malefactos noticed the suspicious gleam in the spectre’s eye, though, and guessed that he had a fairly good idea what was really going on. As soon as we go, he’s going to report to Arnor and ask if any raks have been sent here on a special mission, he said to himself, and as soon as they find out there’s a strange rak wandering around, they’re going to go looking for me. And they'll find me too, if they can read disturbances in the Shadow. I have to stop this before it goes any further.

     He reached out a shrunken, bony hand, therefore, plunged it deep into the spectre’s transparent, incorporeal form and cast a spell that allowed him to grasp it as though it were still solid, living flesh. The spectre screamed, falling to his knees, and Malefactos tightened his grip, allowing the Fu Nangian to feel the full cold of the starless depths of space. “What your Commander forgot to tell you,” he said, yanking the spectre back to his feet and glaring straight into his wide, terrified eyes, “is that this mission is top secret, and that no-one else is to know that I’m here. Is that understood?”

     “Y-yes, most honoured one!” gasped the spectre. “I will tell no-one, I swear!”

     “Good,” said Malefactos. He released him, letting him collapse onto the floor where he vanished almost immediately. He might still report to Arnor, but trying to exert more pressure would almost certainly arouse his suspicions. He would just have to take his chances. He looked back at the ghost, therefore, who was quaking in fear again and backing slowly away. “Well, are you ready to leave?”

     “Yes, yes at once, master!” replied the ghost, shuffling forward and wringing his hat in his hands again. “We have some flying carpets in the stores, I’ll have one brought here...”

     “Not necessary,” replied the rak. “I have a Cloak of Flying that can go faster than any carpet, and I’ll carry you with me.”

     “Carry me?” said Sharmos in even greater fear, suspecting what the rak had in mind. “May I ask, er, how?”

     In answer, the rak reached into a fold of his robes and pulled out a large diamond. A perfect octahedron, the diamond's natural shape; almost never seen because jewelers preferred the dozens of tiny, sparkling facets typical of ornamental diamonds.

     “No, No!” screamed the ghost, groveling piteously at the rak’s feet. “No master, please, I beg of you!”

     “I am a young rak,” said Malefactos. “I do not yet have the power to force you into the diamond against your will. However, I hope that you will see it as a less unpleasant alternative to certain other things I could do to you.”

     Sharmos looked up into Malefactos’s face and saw absolutely no mercy there. No pity at all. Only a determination to get his own way no matter what he had to do. He could beg and plead until the red sun turned blue and it would make absolutely no difference. “Yes, master,” he said therefore in abject surrender. He lowered his spiritual defences and allowed the rak’s power to suck him in. A moment later, the diamond was lit from within by a soft, pearly light and the ghost’s face was looking out in misery and despair.

     His business there then completed, Malefactos tucked the diamond back into the pocket of his robes. He re-activated the runes of concealment, stepped over to the window and flew out across the desolate, dying landscape.