The screams were lessening as the sacrifices finally, mercifully began to lose consciousness and die. Another score were impaled on wooden stakes, blood and feces filling the air with the unforgettable stench of death. Some quivered and twitched as their own weight drove the stakes deeper into their bodies, until finally succumbing to their wounds. Others gave out a death spasm then hung on the stakes, motionless.

Jim saw nothing here that could be called anything but insane. He turned his attention to the man standing atop the tumbled-down masonry of an ancient wall, holding his hands up in a welcoming gesture. His expression and bearing made Jim wish to turn tail and run as fast as he could, as far as he could. He had never seen this man before, but his description fit with what he had learned from Pug of Sorcerer’s Isle and a Demon Master named Amirantha. The man on the stones above was named Belasco, and if what he had been told about him was true, Jim knew him to be one of the most dangerous men alive today, and certainly one of the maddest.

With a sweep of his hand, the magic user conjured an image, a shimmering likeness that hung in the air above his head, and which had the robed mob at his feet cry out in supplication and awe.

The image was of Dahun, and from what Jim had been able to learn over the last six months, the appearance of his likeness, as if he stood here in the flesh, meant his servants were closer to opening a portal for him. Dahun was twenty feet tall and roughly man-shaped, but with what could only be called a scaled black lizard’s tail descending from his spine to drag on the ground behind him. His chest was massive and his stomach rippled with muscles under skin that started black at his feet, blended to red at his stomach, and turned crimson at his chest. His face was human, save for a massive, jutting lower jaw and large bat-like ears. His eyes were solid black orbs. Long tendrils of hair braided with human skulls hung to his shoulders. His brow was adorned with a massive golden circlet, set with a dark stone pulsing with purple light. The fingers of his left hand ended in black talons and flexed slowly, restlessly, as if in anticipation of rending apart his enemies. In his right hand he held a flaming sword. His hips were girded with a metal-studded kilt of scintillating red material, and two large leather bands crossed his chest with a massive golden emblem at the center, a flaming fist.

Jim spent a moment fixing the design in his memory. Then he glanced around and saw the slack-jawed, empty-eyed expression on those around him. It was clear they had eaten or drunk something in preparation for this ritual, so he attempted to mimic their shambling walk.