As if in response, the wall Jig had been leaning against vanished. It didn’t slide or fall away, as Jig would have expected. One moment it was there, and the next Jig was falling back into a small alcove. He looked up. A pale, dead face looked down at him. Nothing but an old corpse, Jig thought at first.

The corpse raised a spiked mace to strike.

Jig squealed and rolled aside as the mace cracked into the floor beside him. The thing’s decayed arm was little more than bone and a thin layer of dried flesh, but the strength behind that blow was a match for Darnak.

Smudge sprang free and hid behind the creature, out of sight. Lucky spider. Before the thing could attack again, Jig scrambled out of the alcove and collided with Riana.

The panel had disappeared from the opposite wall as well. Unlike the first creature, however, the inhabitant of this alcove was truly dead. The skin had decayed and flaked away, and one skeletal arm lay on the floor. Dust mingled with the smell of preservatives, and Jig had to grab his nose to keep from sneezing.

“There’s another behind me,” Jig yelled.

Whatever it was, it had begun life as a human, to judge from the rounded ears. Like the rest of its flesh, those ears were white and shrunken, but still recognizable. Rusted chain mail hung loosely from its shoulders, reinforced with metal plates at the knees and elbows. The hair was gone, making the head look like a skull covered in white mud except for the slight bulge of a nose and the clouded eyes that moved to track Jig’s movements.

The mace came up again. Riana fled farther up the corridor, and Jig started to follow, only to slip on the smooth marble. He rolled out of the way of another attack, but this moved him into the thing’s legs. It kicked Jig in the stomach, knocking him to the other side of the hall.

Jig gasped for breath. Doubled over, he could still see from the corner of his eye as the creature closed in.

But it stopped a few paces away. The skull-head turned to the right, then the left. Jig swore he saw the skin of the forehead wrinkle, as if in confusion. As the creature turned around, he saw why.

Beneath its armor, the creature wore tattered rags that had no doubt been magnificent finery, back when it was alive. Over time, decay had turned them to dry scraps. No color remained, and bits of thread hung down like the roots of a plant. Somehow those scraps had begun to burn, and nothing made better tinder than dry rags. Orange tendrils of flame danced beneath the armor, slowly climbing up the creature’s body while the threads blackened and shriveled.