“I am Dion of the Light!” she cried, purging her uncertainty through the fires of shouting at someone as loud as she could. “Stand forth and face me, monster, and pay the price for all you’ve done.”

“What took you?” Darvezian asked idly. “I’ve been waiting here since all that racket in the kitchen. Did you take the scenic route?”

Dion was left wordless, finding herself not apparently meeting the rigorous standards a Dark Lord expected in his enemies.

Unexpectedly, it was Harathes who came to her aid. “We have disposed of your servants, Dark One. Eight of your Doomsayers lie dead, that might have aided you.”

“Consider me inconvenienced,” Darvezian growled, with a great shrugging sigh—trackable in the dark only because of that single pauldron. He stood abruptly, no obvious human motion, just a serpent-smooth transition. “Well, then, Champions of the Light, I salute you for getting this far, but you have no idea of my power and my provenance. I will have to make you die in agony over a long period of time now, but don’t take it personally. You really have done very well indeed.”

And he laughed, a great, full peal of genuine amusement, and stepped down from the throne with his hands held out to his sides. Dion thrust the disc of Armes forward, calling up her strongest wards, and Penthos’s hands blazed bright and fierce.

And Lief leapt up, actually getting a foot on the seat of the Dark Throne and kicking off from it to give his blow more force, and buried the Tooth of the Mother in the small of Darvezian’s back.

11: Putting out the Lights

“HAVE IT, YOU TURD!” the thief yelled as he struck. It was, Cyrene considered, a battle cry unlikely to make the sagas. The bravado of the shout was also belied by the fact that Lief got as far away from Darvezian as possible the moment after, leaving the fang embedded in the Dark Lord’s back.

Darvezian dropped to his knees with a gurgling choke, and the seething silvery power that had wreathed his fingers a moment before was abruptly dissipating into the gloomy air.

Cyrene loosed, sending her shaft thudding into the Dark Lord’s shadowy chest, rocking him back and eliciting a hollow gasp.

“What have you done?” Darvezian choked. “What is this sorcery? My wards, my protections—! How have you done this to me?” He clutched at his throat, choking and gurgling horribly.

“This fate you brought down on yourself… ,” Dion started, but uncertainly, because the character of the Dark Lord’s garglings was changing even as she spoke. From rasping and gasping, Darvezian veered inexorably into laughter. In context, it was the least pleasant and welcome sound Cyrene had ever heard.