THE CITY OF MISTS

by Charles R. Saunders & Kenneth Huff

"Captain Morg! I've found the..."

The Cybolian scout had only panted the first few words of his report when a Hiller arrow tore through his
throat. A storm of shafts followed, sending a withering blast through the column of horsemen.
The captain, black hair streaming beneath his spired helm, bellowed for his men to close ranks. To encounter
Hiller resistance this close to Valtrok was at once a shock and an outrage, but Morg stilled his rage long enough to
cast a practiced glance across the wild, rocky terrain. There couldn't be more than fifty of the hidden archers, he
estimated. The dead scout Eandos must have discovered something of vital importance to merit such a determined
crowd of pursuers....
"Dismount!" the burly captain roared to his cursing troops. "Seek shelter among the rocks and shrubs. We'll
meet the skulking dogs on their own terms."
Well-versed in counter-guerrilla tactics, Morg efficiently directed the men as they leaped from their saddles
and raced for the cover of boulder, shallow depression and bush. Two more Cybolians fell to Hiller shafts, joining the
six brought down in the initial attack. Morg barked a new command, and Cybolian bowmen loosed a lethal volley of
their own up the rock-strewn ravine. But the Hillers did not return their fire. Morg could hear the scuff of leather
sandals on stone. The Hillers were running away!
Though this behavior was unexpected, Morg did not waste time in useless contemplation. "After them!" he
ordered.
The Cybolians were thirsty for the blood of vengeance. Quickly they mounted, and within minutes they were
upon the fleeing Hillers. Armed only with daggers and shortswords to complement their bows, the rear rank of Hillers
nevertheless turned ferociously on their pursuers in an apparent attempt to cover the flight of the others. A brief and
bloody battle ensued, and the falchions of fine Cybolian steel reaped a red harvest as they scythed the fur-clad Hillers
down.
"Should we go after the rest of them, Captain?" inquired Harbas, Morg's second-in-command.
"No, We don't want to get caught up there on their own ground." Morg frowned. "Harbas, this does not bode
well for our efforts to rout these hill vermin. Never before have they been so bold as to attack an entire company a
few scant miles from the capitol."
"I don't think they meant to attack us," said Harbas as he wiped his blade on a dead Hiller's jerkin.
"Remember, they were pursuing Eandos. He must have learned something about the City of Mists."
"Damned if he can tell us anything now. This City of Mists is only a legend anyway. Hillers hate cities. That's
why they split off from the main Cybolian stock centuries ago when Valtrok was first built. They prefer to stay in
these hills, leaving the rest of Cybolia strictly alone... until now. It's ridiculous to think they'd build a city of their own."
Harbas stared sidelong at his captain. The setting sun flushed his saturnine features a sinister shade of
crimson. "Perhaps. There is evidence that such a city exists, though. Remember the Hiller I had the pleasure of
torturing a few weeks ago?"
Morg frowned again. Harbas was not a native Cybolian. He was an adventurer, perhaps a renegade, from the
far-off land of Kova. Torture was an advanced art in Kova, if Harbas's cruel versatility with a knife was any indication.
"Aye. I remember the poor wretch's dying words: "There is a City of Mists among the eastern peaks. There
you will find the one who leads us, and your doom..."
"Grim words," said Harbas, "but I've never doubted them."
Speculatively stroking his black beard, Morg said, "It doesn't make sense, but I'm beginning to accept the
idea. Eandos said he'd found something before that arrow silenced him. He might've meant that he found the City of
Mists. So if we can pick up the trail of the Hillers who attacked us, they could lead us straight to their headquarters."
"Right!" said Harbas. "If we can take the city, I'd wager it would break the back of Hiller resistance."
Morg glanced quickly about at his troopers. Most of them were dismounted and tending to weapons, steeds
and minor wounds. The ambush had cost him less than a dozen casualties, so the company still numbered well over
two hundred seasoned fighters. A small force, to be sure, but enough to overcome a city in a lightening raid. To take
the enemy headquarters and destroy the Hiller's mysterious leader... already visions of personal glory filled his head.
If he failed, though, he would have a great deal to explain to his superiors back at the garrison, provided he
could get back out of the hills alive to face them....
He made his decision. "Mount up, men I" he cried. "We've got a snake's nest to clean out up there. Scouts
ride forward; stay on the Hiller's trail. The rest of you canter single file behind me. Harbas, you take the rear."
The troopers cheered Morg's boldness as they swung into their saddles. Harbas grinned at his captain and
spurred his horse toward the tail-end of the column. Out of Morg's sight, Harbas's grin changed to another,
unreadable expression.

***

An eerie phosphorescence lit the gloomy, cavernous chamber. A rough-hewn stone table and a throne-like
chair were its only furnishings. In the chair sat a huge, brooding figure in leather and mail. Its eyes burned emerald
green in a scowling face, and the fur-clad warrior on the other side of the table trembled visibly as he attempted to
maintain a semblance of unconcern. White mist swirled ankle-deep across the floor. Occasional tendrils of the foggy
substance seemed to creep up the warrior's leg, before dissipating in the shadowy murk of the great room.
The green-eyed giant laid one hand on the hilt of the huge curved sword that lay naked on the stone table. At
that gesture, the warrior's composure suffered a further set-back.
"Why do you disturb me here, Ubek Arden?" the giant growled.
"A c-company of Cybolians is headed this way," Ubek Arden stammered.
"So. You failed to capture the spy, and now now you lead the enemy here?"
The Hiller gulped. "We killed the spy, Mighty One, before he could say anything to the Cybolians," he
protested. "I shot the fatal arrow myself. But then we had to run. There were too many of them to fight so close to the
city."
"Then why didn't your band fight until all of you were dead, instead of running like dogs to lead them here to
your master?" The giant's voice held a deceptive calmness.
"We thought we could lose them in the hill! But their scouts are quicker than we thought. We couldn't shake
them off our trail. It was all we could do to stay far enough ahead of them to warn you in time!"
The giant rose, looming mountainously over the frightened Hiller. The sword hung lightly as a willow-wand
in his huge hand.
"You have failed us, Ubek Arden," he rumbled. "By valuing your worthless hide more than you value our
cause, you have exposed the location of this city to our enemies. Defend yourself!"
The startled Hiller barely had time to clear his sword from its scabbard before the giant's glittering blade
smashed into his chest. Through fur, flesh and bone the keen edge crunched, while the force of the blow hurled the
unfortunate Ubek Arden a dozen feet away. His sword slipped from nerveless fingers; he was dead before he hit the
floor. A crimson fountain of gore jetted from his shattered chest where his arteries had been sundered.
Idly the giant shook the blood from his blade. Then he called a name: "Sarlok!" Echoes from his deep voice
reverberated through the chamber as another Hiller crept fearfully through the entrance-way.
"Take as many warriors as you can gather, and see that the Cybolians do not get beyond the Khy-lur Pass.
There cannot be that many of them; you should be able to crush them easily. Let no Cybolian escape the hills. You
know the price of failure."
Nervously Sarlok glanced at the still form of Ubek Arden, and the widening drench of blood that faded into
the white mists on the floor.
"I hear and obey, Mighty One," the Hiller acknowledged before hastily exiting the room.
The giant laid his sword back on the table and resumed his seat. Immobile as a statue he sat, green eyes
burning ferally in the gloom.
The Cybolians rested warily beneath the sullen disk of the setting sun. A red glare glinted from the walls of a
wide, twisted gorge from which many ravines and dry washes branched off. Morg surveyed the rugged terrain and
shook his head. "Where are they, Harbas?" he demanded in a frustrated tone.
Harbas shrugged. "Probably some of them are close enough to listen to this discussion. But they're not the
ones we need to worry about."
"Aye, I know what you mean. They've been harassing us, but I get the feeling that they're just toying with us.
This leader of theirs must be the devil himself!"
"You might not be far off the mark with that," murmured Harbas. "It's rumored that their leader is a sorcerer
of some kind."
Morg repressed a derisive smile. "Rumors only. What could a sorcerer gain from aiding the Hillers?"
"Power. After all, the primary goal of the Hillers is to conquer Valtrok... to subvert all of Cybolia."
Morg scowled in sudden suspicion. "How do you know that? The spy you tortured didn't tell you that
much...."
"I don't know. I'm only surmising. You say the Hillers hate cities. Well, suppose an outsider came in and
offered to help them destroy Valtrok, the city that caused the feud that drove them into the hills in the first place.
Who but a sorcerer could have the power to back up such a proposal?"
Morg ruminated silently on Harbas's contention. He had never fully trusted the smooth-talking outlander,
despite Harbas's usefulness in a fight. Harbas seemed to respect Morg's rank, yet there were times when Morg
thought he could detect a glimmer of mockery beneath a facade of deference. Still, Harbas's conjectures about the
Hiller uprising made sense....
Before Morg could frame a comment, an advance scout came galloping in perilous haste down the main
gorge.
"I just spotted a party of Hillers riding into a gully up ahead," the scout reported.
"Doubtless spies, sent out to report on our approach," said Harbas. We should kill them before they relay
their information to the main body of warriors."
"Take twenty men after them," ordered Morg, standing in his stirrups to reconnoiter the slopes ahead. "The
rest of us will go on ahead. Chances are those Hillers wanted to be seen, so that they could lure us into an ambush."
"They might also be headed for the City of Mists," said Harbas.
In that case, you can send somebody back to lead us there while you keep them busy. Now get going."
"Yes, Captain," Harbas acknowledged. Moments later, the drumming hoof-beats of the pursuers echoed off
the high, rocky walls.
Night fell like a black curtain while Morg led his troops up the main part of the gorge. Broken, twisted hulks
of stone stood like ghostly sentinels in the moonlight. A few rags of cloud scudded across the stars.
Where was Harbas, Morg asked silently. Whether he and his skirmishers had killed the Hillers they'd chased,
or had actually found the elusive City of Mists, he should have heard from him by now....
Suddenly one of Harbas's men appeared from behind a beetling jut of rock. "Hillers!" the soldier blurted. "The
slopes are infested with them. Go back...."
The he fell forward, revealing the arrow that protruded from his back. There came an abrupt whistling noise;
Morg jumped aside as an arrow splintered on the ground beside him.
"Take cover in the shadows and return their fire!" Morg shouted. Arrows whizzed and hissed like airborne
serpents, only to shatter uselessly against unyielding stone. Soon the archers on both sides ceased to waste their
shafts, for the darkness and the rocks provided effective cover for Hiller and Cybolian alike.
"Damn!" cursed Morg. "They can keep us pinned down here until enough reinforcements come to wipe us
out."
"Not necessarily!"
Morg whirled, sword ready, only to see Harbas standing beside him. Blood oozed from the broken stump of
an arrow embedded in his shoulder.
"I'm all right," Harbas said. "Their damn arrows are barbed. Can't pull them out. That's not important, though.
I've learned the way to the City of Mists!"
"What?" ejaculated Morg. "Well don't just stand there bleeding. Lead us to it."
"That won't be so simple, Captain. In a way, you were right. There was an ambush, but my men and I fought
our way out of it, and I took a prisoner. I learned the way to the city from him."
"I don't need to ask how you got it from him, do I?"
Harbas smiled and held up a dagger coated scarlet to the hilt. "No."
"How do you know your captive wasn't lying?"
"The only way. I left enough blood in him to allow him to lead me within sight of the city. It's there, all right. I
can take us right to it."
Morg made several quick decisions. He divided his force in half. Those who were to remain behind were to
concentrate on the dim battlements of stone that hid the Hillers. The rest would follow Harbas and Morg to the City
of Mists. A runner would be sent back to lead the survivors of the rearguard on to the city... if there were any
survivors left to lead. There was no way to estimate the number of Hillers lurking along the slopes....
"We'll deal with them," promised Garr, the hard-bitten veteran Morg designated to command the rearguard.
Within minutes the men who were to follow Morg were mounted and proceeding down the gorge. Behind
them they could hear the clang of blades and the shrieks of the dying as Garr's men stormed up the stone walls to
engage the Hillers hand-to-hand. Morg did not look back. Whether or not he would again see any of the soldiers left
behind rested in the lap of the Goddess of Fate.

***

The narrow, mist-cloaked valley might have been carved from the rugged peaks by a knife held in the hand
of a giant. As the soldiers paused on a wide escarpment, Morg said, "I don't see how you could have spotted the city
from here, Harbas. That valley's so veiled in mist I can't see a damned thing."
"I must have come at a time when the mist lifted," Harbas replied. "It's down there."
"Fine. I'm going down to reconnoiter its defenses. We have about four hours of darkness left. That and the
fog will work to our advantage. Give me two hours. If I'm not back by then, attack in force. Leave a marker for Garr's
men to follow. Harbas, you're in charge until I return, or the two hours are up, whichever comes first."
"Not to dispute your command, Captain," Harbas said, "but it would seem that if two men infiltrated the city,
there would be a better chance for one to escape and warn the men, should anything happen. I'd like to go down
there with you, by your leave."
Morg considered. Harbas had served him well thus far. Despite a lingering trace of mistrust, the Cybolian
recognized the wisdom of Harbas's suggestion.
"All right," he assented. "Ulm, you're in charge. My other orders remain the same."

***

The way downward was treacherous, as the clinging mist concealed all manner of perils. It was not until
Morg and Harbas were almost upon the city that they gained even a vague idea of its proportions. Unwalled, its
structures were obviously of great antiquity, their time-softened stones coated with lichen. With a growing sense of
unease, Morg realized that this city must have been built centuries before the raising of the first stone of Valtrok. Why
would the city-hating Hillers choose this as their encampment, he wondered.
If there were Hillers about, they were not visible. But then anything more than a dozen paces away was only
a tenuous shadow in the filtered moonlight. The white mist eddied and swirled at the intruder's feet as they advanced
without hindrance, keeping to the shadows as much as possible.
"If this is where the Hillers gather, they must avoid the place at night," Morg whispered.
"There's a building bigger than anything I've seen yet up ahead," said Harbas. "Maybe that's their main
meeting place."
Indeed a vast edifice did bulk in the mists ahead of them. It seemed to be a fane of some sort, judging from
the hideous sculpted gargoyles that leered down from its megalithic outworks.
Silent as ghosts, the intruders stole up to the massive bronze doors of the structure. They responded easily to
Morg's touch when he pushed tentatively against them.
"Do we go in?" Morg asked, though he already knew what the answer would be.
"Likely as not we'll find their leader inside," Harbas replied.
Morg nodded. Cautiously they proceeded inside the beckoning gap between the doors. Inside, they found
their way lit by flickering torches set in the high-flung ceiling. The torches were fresh, clearly at odds with the general
decrepitude that prevailed outside. Padding silently forward, Morg tightened his grip on his swordhilt. Every instinct
told him that this ancient fane was a place of death and creeping peril. A quick glance over at Harbas was not
reassuring; the outlander's face remained as inscrutable as his motives.
It was the scrape of a sword being withdrawn from its scabbard that spun the Cybolian about. Harbas looked
startled?; then he, too, turned and beheld the three Hillers slipping up behind them, hoping to finish the intruders with
a silent, treacherous attack.
Morg did the unexpected. Instead of waiting for the Hillers to charge in, the Cybolian carried the fight to
them. One of the stalkers went down immediately, his chest pierced by the point of Morg's falchion. While he
withdrew his blade, his booted foot caught the knee of a second attacker, driving him backward with a howl of pain.
In a shower of blood, the falchion came free from impaled flesh. When the second attacker rushed in again,
Morg's blade met the Hiller's in a shriek of steel against steel. Morg's greater strength swiftly prevailed as he battered
ruthlessly at the Hiller's guard. Sparks spat into the dimness as the Hiller backed involuntarily into a comer. Morg had
no time for fancy displays of swordplay. He feinted; then as the Hiller over-reached, Morg lopped off the other's
sword-hand just above the wrist.
Bellowing in pain, the Hiller sank to his knees, blood spurting between the fingers he had clutched over the
stump. With a dispassionate thrust, Morg ended the Hiller's life.
A high-pitched shriek of unendurable agony brought Morg whirling to where Harbas had engaged the
remaining Hiller. With cat-like quickness, the outlander had disarmed his foe. Now, straddling the hapless wretch,
Harbas was casually using his dagger to sever the other's fingers, one by one.
"Are you mad, Harbas?" Morg shouted. "This is no time for your sick games. Do you want to bring the whole
lot of Hillers down on us?"
"I was only trying to persuade him to tell us where we might find his leader," shrugged Harbas. "But if you'd
rather I dispatch him..."
"Hold it, then." Morg bent down and peered into the Hiller's dilated blue eyes. The man was moaning
incoherently; three of the fingers of his right hand were already gone.
"Listen, Hiller, if you want a clean death, show us the way to the one who leads you," Morg said.
With his good hand, the Hiller pointed in the direction of a stairway leading downward at the end of the hall.
"There, damn you, there! And may the gods curse you and this monster!" He spat a pinkish froth in Harbas's
direction.
Smiling, Harbas bent down and drew his point in a delicate line across his victim's throat. The Hiller's cries
ended with a gurgling gasp.
Morg had already gone to the stairway. "You can go back and ready the men to attack," he told Harbas. "I'm
going down there."
"I've come this far, Captain," Harbas said. "You may need my help again. Had I not been here, the third Hiller
might have gotten you."
Morg could find no fault in Harbas's reasoning. Nodding his assent, he turned and began his descent of the
stair that lay half-shrouded in mist. He heard Harbas's muffled footsteps behind him; somehow the sound did not
inspire confidence.
The stair suddenly debouched into a spacious chamber lit by a strange luminescence. Morg stepped in,
Harbas immediately behind him. He had time only to take in the sword on the great stone table and the gigantic
figure seated behind it before a massive iron grate dropped with a resounding crash in the doorway behind him,
cutting off retreat.
The emerald-eyed giant rose from his chair. Unearthly light played across strong, craggy features... features
that, to his utter shock, Morg recognized.
"Kassick Omar!" he breathed between clenched teeth. He could scarcely credit the evidence of his eyes.
Kassick Omar, the notorious bandit chieftain whose reavers Morg had helped to exterminate years ago... Omar's body
had never been found after the final massacre. And now the giant outlaw had become leader of the Hiller clans...
"Welcome, traitor," Kassick Omar rumbled.
"What?" choked Morg.
"Not you...."
A soft rustle of leather behind him warned Morg. Battle-honed reflexes carried him in a swift lunge to one
side. Even so, Harbas's sword-edge tore a slice through the side of Morg's leather cuirass.
Following through on his thrust, Harbas stumbled off-balance. Morg pivoted and shot his foot savagely into
the outlander's groin. Harbas groaned and doubled over, clutching at his maimed manhood. Without hesitation, the
Cybolian drove the point of his falchion through Harbas's back. Yanking his blade free from the crumpling body,
Morg wheeled in a fighting crouch, expecting Kassick Omar's heavy blade to come crashing down on his skull at any
moment.
But the huge outlaw still stood behind his table, though his sword now hung in his hand.
"Quick as ever, eh, Morg?" he laughed. "Your quickness will do you no good now. Even as I speak, my
warriors have surrounded yours and are cutting them down on the escarpment like this!"
With frightening speed the giant leaped across the table and flung a tremendous stroke at Morg's head. This
time, though, he was not facing a cowed Hiller. Morg sidestepped the glittering crescent of steel and hacked at his
opponent's side. Crimson stained the links of Kassick Omar's mail-shirt, but the wound was not serious.
Though he was nearly a head shorter than his opponent, Morg was still an agile, powerful man. Yet one
sweep of Kassick Omar's mighty arm flung the Cybolian aside as if he were but a stripling child. Desperately Morg
struggled to maintain his balance as Omar charged like a juggernaut. Blow after numbing blow hammered down on
Morg's out-thrust blade. A lesser man would have staggered and fallen, but Morg parried cooly, waiting for a chance
to launch a counteroffensive.
He raised his falchion to block a cut that would surely have decapitated him. Incredibly, Omar shifted the
direction of his blade and thrust it forward. The point punched through Morg's cuirass, puncturing the flesh beneath.
The force of the strike jolted the wind out of Morg1s lungs.
The Cybolian reeled backward. Only a desperate defensive maneuver prevented the giant's next thrust from
skewering his abdomen. Then Morg nearly tripped over the body of Harbas. The traitor's blade lay near his hand,
half-hidden by the mist. Swiftly Morg snatched up the fallen sword. Now he faced Kassick Omar with two weapons;
the advantage had shifted in his favor. No longer could Omar count on winning out through sheer strength.
Kassick Omar circled Morg like a hunting tiger, green eyes blazing demonically. Gone were the mad, bull-like
rushes. He knew he faced an opponent as skilled as he, if not as strong. Suddenly Morg leaped to the offensive. He
slashed a looping strike at Omar's head. The big man blocked the blow, but before he could recover, Morg's other
blade jumped forward, grinding through the mail protecting Omar's massive torso. This time the wound was serious.
Omar grunted in pain and staggered toward the table. Gripping his great blade in both hands, the giant
snarled a sulfurous oath and brought the weapon down like the chop of a headsman's axe. Had Morg tried to parry
the stroke, its irresistible force would have smashed through his defense and cut him open like a melon.
But Morg did not parry. Instead, he dove away from the arc of the huge curved blade. Driven with all the
force of a giant's thews, the sword's tremendous impact shattered it into fragments of steel.
Roaring like a bear, Kassick Omar sprang at Morg. The Cybolian barely had time to shove his point into the
onrushing body before Omar's hands closed on his throat. As it was, the huge weight of Omar's hurtling body crashed
full into Morg's, knocking the Cybolian to the floor. He rolled out of the way just in time to avoid being crushed by
Kassick Omar's bulk. The giant's frame shuddered once, then lay still as its lifeblood leaked out onto the smooth
stones of the floor.

***

Stiffly Morg lurched to his feet and gazed at the two corpses lapped by waves of mist. Sweat sheated down
his face; he panted heavily. Short as the duel with Kassick Omar had been, it had left him near exhaustion.
His gaze roamed across the immense chamber and widened upon detecting the source of the weird
illumination. In a far corner of the chamber lay a great circular pit filled with a bluish radiant substance that burned
away the surrounding mists.
"Demonfire," he muttered. Despite his victory over Kassick Omar, there remained a nagging doubt in Morg's
mind. He knew that only an accomplished necromancer could harness the deadly blue coals, and Omar was a
warrior, not a wizard. Who else, though, Morg wondered.
He turned back to the corpses... and what he saw made him blanch in sudden fear. For the body of Harbas
had risen! More than that, it was altering, changing in substance and shape. The leather armor and helmet had fallen
away, leaving a pale, diaphanous form that seemed at one with the shifting mists. The Hiller arrow that had pierced
Harbas's shoulder fell to the floor, as if rejected by the transient flesh. The wound made by Morg's blade faded out of
existence; the very contours of the body were altering, from male to androgynous to female. Out of the substance of
the mists a cloak-like white garment formed and settled over swelling breasts and rounded thigh... hair the color of
fresh blood spilled in unruly tangles down the back of the cloak and obsidian eyes set in wondrous face held Morg
immobile, as if entranced....
Although the figure before him was undeniably female, Morg could still see traces of Harbas in the cruel glint
of the eyes and the sadistic smile on the lips. Morg tried to move, to speak, but could not. It was as if some huge
invisible hand had clenched about him.
"An impressive kill," the woman in white said. "You shall serve my purposes even better than Kassick Omar
did. With your knowledge of the Cybolian defenses, it will be that much easier for the Hillers to vanquish Valtrok and
raze it to the ground!"
Morg struggled to voice his protest. The constricting spell tightened its grip on his throat. He couldn't even
shake his head in negation of her words.
"I have ample reason to see that cursed city destroyed!" the sorceress continued. "Years ago they sold me
into slavery for practicing witchcraft. The fools! I ended in Kova, where I mastered sorcerous arts beside which
western witchcraft is mere mummery!"
"It was easy to spell Kassick Omar into uniting the Hillers. I needed him; these ignorant clansmen would
never follow a woman. Easier still it was to change my shape to that of 'Harbas', the traitor, and thus infiltrate
Cybolian ranks. The Hillers knew me not, as I killed and tortured them to aid my deception. Even Kassick Omar knew
me only as 'Harbas'. Your soldiers walked willingly into my trap, under your own orders, influenced by my advice as
second-in-command...."
She laughed with wicked mirth that sparked fury in the breast of Morg. Duped like a jackass by this red-
haired strumpet! But this "strumpet" held him fully in her power now, and was toying with him as a cat toys with a
hapless rodent.
Suddenly a desperate ploy crossed his mind. Imperceptibly he began to shift his body back and forth within
his unseen bonds. By straining to the utmost, he was able to sway slightly. If only the witch would keep talking....
"I thought Kassick Omar would slay you, but there is more to you than I realized. No matter, though. You will
take Kassick Omar's place. I can change your shape, even as I can change mine. You will become Kassick Omar, and
you will lead the Hillers in their final assault on Valtrok!"
The irony of Morg leading the destruction of his own city was vastly amusing to the sorceress. She laughed
again. Morg, still swaying, finally overbalanced himself and abruptly toppled backward. He hit the floor with a jarring
crash. More importantly, his eyes were no longer held by those of the sorceress, and his muscles were free again!
Desperately he scrambled for a weapon, carefully keeping his eyes averted from the woman's.
"Damn you! I don't have to look at you to transform you," the sorceress screeched before beginning to mouth
weird, inhuman syllables. Morg felt strange incomprehensible forces pressing upon him, forces that sent clammy
fingers clawing down his spine.
His hand found a swordhilt! With the speed of a leopard he leaped at the sorceress and drove his blade deep
into her midsection. Though he kept his eyes from hers, cold horror gripped him as he watched an ice-pale hand
clutch the swordhilt and pluck the blade from a bloodless wound....
"Fool! Steel cannot harm an Adept of the Crimson Ring!" she screamed. Then the invocation began again and
the loathsome alien forces again invaded Morg's soul.
Blind rage exploded in Morg's brain, an instinctive reaction against this vile usurpation of his very being.
From the darkest recesses of his subconscious came a soundless voice reminding him of the one thing that had
served Man well against demon and beast alike. Morg hurled himself forward and caught the sorceress around the
waist. Lifting her in his arms, he rushed in the direction of the glowing pit of blue demonfire.
The sorceress, realizing her peril, squirmed and struggled like a snake in Morg's grasp. She rushed over the
final syllables of her spell... too late! With a cracking strain of sorely-tested muscles, the Cybolian hurled the nameless
sorceress into the fiery radiance.
The white cloak caught first, flaring up in searing incandescence. Reeling with fatigue, Morg held up his
hands to protect his eyes. Then a high, piercing shriek rocked the chamber as demonfire licked at demonflesh. Morg
risked a glance at the pit, which now held a writhing pillar of blazing blue flame through which glimpses of charred
and blackened flesh flashed into view. The death-scream increased in intensity; the chamber shuddered. Behind him
Morg heard the sound of the iron grate rising in the doorway, its mechanism tripped by the disturbance in the stone.
Hands clamped over his ears to ward off those awful cries, Morg raced from the quaking chamber. He
struggled to keep his tired, leaden legs pumping as he hurried up the cracking stairs and down the hall where the
three dead Hillers still sprawled in the disturbed mist. Heavy shards of masonry crashed down from the walls; a torch
falling from the ceiling brushed painfully against his leg as he stumbled toward the still-open bronze doors. With the
last of his strength, Morg flung himself through the gaping portal. Consciousness fled to the accompaniment of a
damned soul, in its final throes of torment....

***

Morg opened his eyes, then closed them against the light that stabbed blindly into them.
"Thank the gods he is awake at last," a voice somewhere above him grunted.
Morg opened his eyes again, and the scarred visage of Ulm, the man he'd left in charge of the force on the
escarpment swam into focus. The morning sun had dissipated the mist to a near-transparent veneer, and the broken
ruins of the city no longer seemed sinister, only old. The fane from which he had fled was now nothing more than a
heap of crumbled masonry.
Suddenly remembering Kassick Omar's taunt, Morg demanded, "The Hillers did they attack?"
"Did they ever!" said Ulm. "Must have been every devil in these hills. We thought we were goners, even when
Garr brought his men back from the gorge. Then there came a sound I hope I never have to hear again; some kind of
hellish screech. It scared the Hillers more than it did us. They took off like scared rabbits. We took stock, then came
down to the city and found you lying out here with that building falling down behind you."
Morg leaned back and sighed heavily. His muscles were aching as they never had since the day he took his
first weapon-practice.
"What happened in there, Captain?" Ulm asked quietly.
"I killed their leader," Morg replied laconically. "It was Kassick Omar, the bandit chieftain of old."
"Damn!" exploded Ulm. "No wonder the Hillers were so skittish; Omar would put the fear of hell in 'em, all
right."
Morg didn't elaborate.
"What happened to Harbas," Ulm pressed.
Morg hesitated before replying. There were some things left better forgotten; some tales best left untold.
"He died," Morg said. "Now help me up and let's get the hell out of these cursed hills!"

THE END