For the first time in days Laromendis felt like returning his brother’s smile. He clapped him on the shoulder and said, “As it should be. You may consort with the foulest of beings, but I shall be at your side to the end.”

“Let us go.”

As they walked to the south, Laromendis said, “A question I’ve been meaning to ask for some time now…”

“Yes?”

“Remember when that human girl, Sandreena, was saying all those things about Amirantha?”

Gulamendis laughed. “How could I forget?”

“Remember that part about a summoned creature named Dalthea? A female of extraordinary beauty, as I recall.”

“A demon who looked like a beautiful human woman. Yes, I remember. He conjured a succubus and modified her to look beyond compare.”

“Imagine a totally obedient beautiful female elf? Do you know that trick?”

Gulamendis, for the first time in almost a century, hit his brother in the arm.

Midday and the two brothers were getting closer to the volcanoes. The air was rich with the stench of burning ash and their eyes stung from low-hanging smoke—there was almost no wind today. That helped mask them from casual observation, but it also made their lungs and eyes hurt.

The landscape was now exclusively a rugged sea of basalt rock—large, relatively smooth patches of light grey to black sheets, interrupted by jagged outcroppings of up-thrust stone. At times their weight would crack the rock below as they stepped on the relatively thin top of a bubble, occasionally releasing a cloud of noxious, sulfurous gas. Once Gulamendis dropped partway into a gas dome and his brother had to help pull out his right leg. The edges of the rock were sharp and they had to move slowly to avoid injury at almost every step.

“Who would want this miserable place?” asked the Demon Master.

“We did, for a while,” said Laromendis. “Besides the crystals that come out of these volcanoes, there are huge deposits of metals on this world.” He glanced around, as if gaining his bearings. “I spent a little time here, early on when I was exploring for the Regent’s Meet, and the mines to the south of here, on the other side of our abandoned fortress…impressive is all I can say. There was copper, silver, iron, gold.” He took a deep breath, then coughed. “How far?”

Gulamendis paused to read out of the journal just to ensure he was not making any mistakes. “If I understand this correctly, we climb that ridge there”—he pointed to the south, and Laromendis could see there was a high ridge about a mile away. He saw a notch that looked as if it might be navigable, as a long flow of basalt created a relatively smooth ramp leading up to it. “On the other side.”