“I grow weary,” says the disembodied voice of the lich, Ulxurix. “Let’s end this.”

At her command the man-things spring into action. They move suddenly, with a fluid grace not at all suggested by their knobby forms. Their grasping fingers tear at the team’s clothes while Berstuun struggles, helpless. Shyan barrels down the corridor to a single door, still shut. With one arm she pushes aside the moaning creatures, with the other she holds fast to Fassn, who ambles along as best he can under the weight of his passenger.

Cang ducks into one of the opened doors, slipping past one of the creatures. He finds himself in a music room, ornate and dilapidated, the once-grand piano now a mouldering wreck. He leaps through a broken window onto a balcony and sprints along it.

The man-things wrap their desiccated limbs in Abia’s colourful robes, tangle her up in their grasp. Their moaning intensifies as they seem to realize they’ve got her. At the end of the hall, Shyan looks back, their eyes meet, full of panic. “Fassn, go,” she says, wading back into the fray.

First, they ascend the stairs. Berstuun has ceased struggling — in fact, he may well have dozed off already, bouncing gently over Fassn’s shoulder.

Shyan, fists clenched, hears scuffling behind the door, sees shadows moving the rectangle of light. She deliberately kicks the ground, a harsh, sudden sound that attracts the attention of whatever’s beyond. She signals silently to the rest to wait.

The door creaks open, away from the cellar. As soon as a vertical strip of light appears, Shyan pushes her whole body against the door, knocking two of the lich’s moaning man-things off their tenuous balance, and they careen to the floor.

Suddenly, as though from the wainscotting in the walls, or from behind the brocaded wallpaper, comes the steady voice of Ulxurix — now the lich. “Now, now, be careful with my poor, elderly father,” she chides.

The sound instantly alerts Berstuun, who flails helplessly. “I’m not your father,” he sniffles.

Two more doors in the corridor slam open, then another two, then another. From each emerges a loping man-thing.

Shyan turns to Cang. “Find us a way out, would you?”

“Worse than this? We’re locked up in a dungeon right now, Abia,” Shyan says. “I mean, I can imagine worse I guess, but I can imagine a hell of a lot better.”

Already Berstuun has stopped kicking at Fassn. He slumps, only his soft, slow breathing moving his body at all.

“Witch has magic circle,” Abia says. “Put Berstuun in.”

“Perhaps you had not noticed,” Cang begins. “The tattooed witch, that cackling hag in the lighthouse, she is herself the lich now. We cannot walk into its abode and ask to destroy its sire.”

Berstuun moans weakly.

“Relax, old man,” Fassn says. “You’re going to visit Old Ajralan.”

“Can we make our own magic circle?” Shyan asks.

“Yes,” Abia says. “Not here. Not well.”

Shyan rolls her eyes. “Of course not.” She sucks air through her teeth. “All right, Cang, you’re with me. Abia, take point behind Fassn while he carries our friend.” She peers up the crooked stairway to a tiny rectangle of flickering light. “Let’s go.”

Abia stays by Berstuun’s side while her teammates recoil. “You called lich?” she says, but as a statement, not a question.

The old man whimpers, gripping Abia’s hand as though to keep from drifting off to sea. He’s racked with sobs.

“This good?” Shyan asks.

Abia shrugs. “Not for him.”

“All right lich-caller,” Fassn says, bending down. He hefts Berstuun’s light form up over his shoulder, the older man’s legs feedbly kicking at Fassn’s chest. “You’re coming along with Old Ajralan.”

“Whoa, Fassn, what are you doing?” Shyan says.

“Well he called the lich, didn’t he? We just throw him in a volcano and this is all over.”

At this Berstuun moans horribly and struggles pathetically.

“A volcano, very good,” says Cang. “I know just the place.”

“No volcanoes,” Shyan says firmly. Then, she adds to Abia, “Right?”

“No volcano,” Abia agrees. “This much worse.”