What just happened? Chasthana stepped back, afraid, stepping on the lantern. Suddenly, an unspeakable pain burned between his lungs. He managed to move his head to look down, and saw something glinting there. But only for a moment. The dagger slipped out of him as fast as it had slipped in. ‘Oh, c’mon! We had just won,’ he wheezed. But the words barely came out. It had all happened so fast.

KRISHNA saw Muchuk Und kill three men in the span of a thought. Kalyavan set down his torch. He neither grunted nor roared as he unsheathed his sword and darted forward, feinting left, then swinging to the right. Muchuk Und parried with his dagger, but Kalyavan was fast too. And a sword had a longer reach than a dagger. He turned at blinding speed and scratched Muchuk Und’s exposed arm. A strange coloured blood dripped from the wound.

Before Kalyavan could deliver another blow, Muchuk Und’s hand dropped the dagger and darted out to seize Kalyavan’s neck, fingers sinking into it, driving the blood out. Muchuk Und gripped Kalyavan’s throat and lifted him up, bringing him up to his face. The Greek’s body spasmed as a convulsion wracked him, his feet thrashing a foot above the ground. Leaves rained down from his olive crown. Muchuk Und looked at his arm. His thin, bloodless lips curved into a cruel smile. ‘Thank you for this gift… It feels good to be human again.’ He spoke in the First Tongue even as he tossed Kalyavan away. Kalyavan flew through the air. With a dull thud, he struck the stairs.

‘What did you do to me?’ Kalyavan gasped, groaning in pain. ‘How….did you do that?’

‘So much darkness here…’ Muchuk Und sighed in pleasure. ‘Darkness is my ally, Mortal. Witness.’

What little Krishna could see was from the swirling blue light coming from the open sarcophagus. Muchuk Und lifted his dagger and scratched on its blade, then began moving his hand as if he was painting on air. Krishna almost gasped loudly when he saw a white circle emerge in the air. Muchuk Und then drew a few glyphs in it.

‘Those things don’t work, friend,’ Kalyavan said, echoing Krishna’s own thoughts.

Muchuk Und was old, probably a thousand years old. He wouldn’t know that Mortals could not conjure Mandalas anymore. Fuck. Krishna took out the bellower. Best be done with it.

And then, the air about Muchuk Und twisted and danced, as though his reflection had suddenly been disturbed in the waters of a lake. Darkness swirled around Kalyavan in jade-rimmed outlines, like a tornado, ever expanding with the sounds of the storm. The air behind Muchuk Und began to warp, shimmering with a light darker than night.

‘What the…’ Kalyavan grunted in Greek, rising slowly to his feet. ‘That’s impossible! Mandalas don’t work!’

‘Ah...the release. Witness, Mortal!’