Pug blinked as if he had never thought of the question. “I saw it so briefly—”

“Yet you described it to me when you told me of Macros’s death facing Maarg,” said Amirantha.

“I thought it was some world…” He shrugged.

“One the demons had already conquered?” said Magnus.

Amirantha said, “I’ll have to spend a few days studying this.” He looked at Pug. “May I take it to my quarters?”

“Of course,” said Pug.

Amirantha put his hands on the book, but instead of picking it up, he opened it to the very last page. That page was folded up, and as he unfolded it, the others could see that it had been tipped into the volume so that only a third of its length was attached to the spine, so that when it unfolded a four-foot-by-three-foot piece of heavy vellum was revealed.

“What is that?” asked Jim.

Almost grinning, the Warlock said, “Unless I’m mistaken, My Lord James Dasher Jamison, this is a map of hell!”

CHAPTER 11

ESCAPE

The brothers stood motionless.

Laromendis used all his arts to conceal their presence in the basement as a pair of demons escorted a handful of prisoners out of the cells. Only Gulamendis’s demon sensitivity had alerted them in time. The quip of moments before became reality as they stood flat against the wall and the Conjurer made it look as if they were part of the wall.

The moments that passed were torturously slow yet eventually the door to the cell block was closed and the prisoners marched away. They had been a mixed group: four dwarves, two humans, and two elves. All were silent, sullen, yet not looking particularly fearful.

When the room was empty, Laromendis let the illusion fade. “What was that?”

“I couldn’t understand the language,” said his brother. “The demons are not speaking anything I recognize.”

Since coming to this alien castle on this unknown world, they were confronted with one conundrum after another. The frustration that had gripped Gulamendis when he had first encountered the demon encampment on the previous world, raised to a maddening degree when he witnessed the assault by the rival demon faction, was now close to delivering him into near rage at not knowing what was occurring.

“We need information,” said Gulamendis.

“Where do you suppose we get it?”

“I think our only choice is to go in there and talk to some of the prisoners.”

“Are you mad?” asked Laromendis.

“Why? Do you think they might give us up to their masters?”

“If they think it will curry favor, perhaps!” argued the Conjurer.

“What do you suggest?”