“Please-” The magus’ pitiable mewling was cut off by the fractional tightening of Lilia’s grip. Had she wanted, she could have crushed his throat so thoroughly as to disconnect the head from his shoulders. But she still needed information. For now.

  His face pale, eyes bulging, Lilia let his fear grow for a moment, watched it erode his mental defences. Then she assailed his mind.

  It was a surprisingly durable thing, which Lilia took to be the touch of magic upon his cognition. As little as she thought of the magi, she had to say there was a notable level of will and mental potence needed to direct the tides of magic with nothing but one’s own intent.

  But it was still the mind of a man. It was human, male, and forty or fifty times younger than Lilia’s own. Her will crushed the magus’ like a grape underfoot, and he went lax in her grip.

  “Who sent you?” She murmured, coaxing the answer from him gently, soothingly, warmly. It was like seeing a fly dropped into honey. The poor creature never had a chance.

  “The Archmagus.” He smiled, tongue practically lolling out as he pitiably volunteered the information. The poor thing wanted nothing more than to please Lilia now, even at the cost of giving her information he knew was all that kept him alive. She didn’t see a scrap of hesitation in him either.

  “Kelta?” She frowned. Lilia had kept track of Magira’s luminaries, and knew full well that the pyromaniacal lunatic was their new leader. As far as threats went…He wasn’t one.

  The magus’ head whipped around as if he were trying to drive a carriage with neck strength alone.

  “No, the new Archmage.” Lilia sighed. She was getting tired of new contenders emerging to suborn a powerful caster’s title.

  “And who is that?” She prodded. Once more, the pathetic creature vomited out his answer.

  “Mafari himself.” The magus announced, eyes practically aglow. “He is returned from his journey, ascended and carrying the secrets of the world.”

  Lilia stiffened, scrutinised the man for any hint of deception. Then crushed his skull like an empty eggshell. She stepped back, not bothering to wipe the gore from her hand, glancing around at the mangled bodies of those arrogant fools who’d somehow thought they could ambush her.

  Mafari the Archmagus. Lilia knew the name well, of course. She’d met the man it belonged to. One hundred years and change, it had been, but she remembered every detail of their encountered as if it were mere minutes ago. Her skin throbbed where the burns had run along them. She’d spent months healing from the damage he inflicted.

  Lilia’s heart did not beat, but if it did it would already be racing to rival a hummingbird’s. This was one enemy she could not do battle with. This was one disaster she could not send her aid.

  In the absence of Silenos Shaiagrazni and the original Dark Lord, Archmagus Mafari may well find the world his for the taking.

  ***

  The construction was nearing its completion, and Silenos had to confess a feeling of…Relief. Not at approaching the final stages, but rather at finally having been freed from the crippling mundanity of this New World.

  For a century, he had taken for granted that he would have the inexhaustible resources of House Shaiagrazni at his disposal. Their materials and wealth, of course, but more than that, the ability to consult fellow masters of the arcane. His equals, and in some cases even his superiors. Silenos had grown accustomed to working alone- something that was never truly unfamiliar to a proper caster- but being cut off from so great a resource had…Stifled him.

  Adonis was a reminder of what he had before, and it was thrilling to use him.

  Their labour had been well directed and concentrated upon what now occupied much of Adonis’ throne room, the only chamber in his fortress he would trust to house such a valuable artefact. Taking the form of a great, circular structure, it was composed largely of Silenos’ Fleshcrafted materials prioritising resilience and structural stability. Runic, humming with power and practically quivering as the air around it threatened to fold inwards at its touch.

  It was a Tempered Schism, among the more advanced inventions any in House Shaiagrazni had ever coined. By himself, with his own skills and knowledges only, the creation of such a masterwork was well beyond Silenos. And this one would, if Adonis spoke true, exceed all others of its kind.

  How exactly it differed, Silenos could not have said. There was a level of complexity to the Esoterica involved that defied even his knowledge of the art. Adonis was vastly superior in the utilisation of Entities, Silenos would admit that without having his ego pricked, and the innovations at play here were beyond him.

  Adonis had not shared them either, choosing to keep it secret. Silenos had humoured his efforts. He had, after all this time, enjoyed the sensation of unknown magics being worked around him, and had savoured it as the breath of Shaiagraznian air that it was.

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  “I think the time for your secrets is over.” Silenos pointedly declared, stepping back from the device and studying it once more. It really was an impressive construction. The air seemed to retreat from its edges, as if matter itself feared the touch of it.

  An oddly appropriate reaction for inanimate material, if that were the case. The magics coursing through it were deadly in the way shadestuff was, or even moreso. Drawn from depths of the Depths lower than even Silenos’ own Necromantic powers. He recognised them well enough. The currents in which Entities swam.

  But he did not know what for, nor what was different.

  Adonis paused a moment before replying, weighing Silenos.

  “I suppose you are right.” He conceded at last. “I admit, I enjoyed keeping you in the dark for its own sake.”

  Silenos had guessed as much, having enjoyed it just as much from the other end himself.

  “And your explanation?” He prompted.

  Adonis provided.

  “An ordinary Tempered Schism is used to breach the space between physical reality and the Depths, you, I trust, are aware of this. But it does so only in a limited capacity. Allowing magical energies to permeate the gap, perhaps even fragmented electromagnetic waves. Other worlds might be seen, felt, but not truly touched. It is of more use for creating sources of power than anything.”

  Silenos nodded in understanding, biting back his impatience.

  “I am half your age,” He reminded Adonis, “Not a tenth.”

  His former apprentice seemed to understand his meaning.

  “Apologies. This device should allow passage into the higher layers of the Depths, and from there we will seek the means needed for a Ritual of Encroachment.”

  Silenos took a moment to process the words.

  “You are suggesting we physically enter the Depths.”

  It was not unheard of for a Shaiagraznian caster. It was, as far as he knew, unheard of to survive for ones under the age of one thousand. Silenos was perhaps the greatest prodigy in his House’s history, but even he did not wish to test himself against a task known for killing casters over six times his age. Adonis himself was not nearly so old as the seniors who succeeded.

  But he was undaunted by the idea.

  “We will be able to bolster one another’s strength.” He noted. “And either of us is already potent beyond our years, you far moreso than me.”

  Both valid points, and yet…

  “The risk is still extraordinary.” Silenos pressed. “What would you hope to gain?”

  Adonis tilted his head. “Passage back to our own lands, Silenos. Within the High Depths there is a creature of particular note-”

  “-A creature?” Silenos pressed, voice sharper than he intended. “You misspeak, surely?”

  “No.” Adonis confirmed. “A creature. In a realm of intangibles, Entities and mere cognitive imprints, I have found a creature. A being with an Entity in its ancestry, and of relatively stable existence.”

  Silenos had known they sought a stable hybrid, he had not considered that it would be potent enough to live among Entities and survive. Such a thing was close to unprecedented.

  “And this is the key to returning us to House Shaiagrazni.” He guessed. “Or…No, you wish to use a sympathetic link. Us, who have dealt with the Entity responsible for displacing us here, combined with the blood of a being tied to its kind, you intend to call the Entity and truly bind it under our power.”

  Adonis grinned. “Your pathetic mind has not been enfeebled as much as I would have feared, Silenos. Yes.”

  Silenos allowed the worm to have his jibe, being far above retaliating to such things. He simply pondered their situation.

  The Depths was not a physical space, and within it only true magic held any real sway. Casters, or those of extraordinary will, could ground it to some extent, bringing pockets of causality around themselves as they entered. Such things, unconscious though they were, always exhausted the one responsible though. A physical being in the Depths of any level would hemorrhage mana simply by sustaining their own existence. Their ability to defend themselves, also, would rely on magical consumption to inflict enough semblance of physical law upon any enemies that they could be harmed by physical offence.

  Just as an Entity was shackled by the alien laws of physical existence, so too would Silenos and Adonis be within the Depths. They were, however powerful, still living, baryonic things. And Entities of even a middling power would already threaten them individually.

  Yet what choice did they have?

  “Master,” Came a voice at their backs, drawing Silenos’ eye to the twisted wretch speaking, “I have returned with the item you requested.” Prostrated before Adonis was Number Eight. A loathsome being, Silenos found himself shimmering with jealousy at the sight of it.

  Number Eight was a lycanthrope- the magical kind, not the psychotic. According to Adonis, he had been produced when a village wise-woman was raped by an Entity of some power, and after several failed attempts to abort the developing product she birthed the creature now serving House Shaiagrazni. Number Eight was so-named as the eighth of seven attempts Adonis had made to find a being of sufficient Entity-related heritage for what he had only just now let Silenos know was the sympathetic binding ritual.

  The reason for their Tempered Schism was that he had proven too thinly related to the Depths for even that much, and yet there were invariably advantages to being tied by blood to such beings.

  Lycanthropy was among the more common results of such a coupling- not including boring ones such as city-obliterating explosions caused by atomic instability, cancers, insanity, singularities expanding rapidly across the globes or ordinary, non-magical beings with an ontological compulsion to commit immoral acts.

  House Shaiagrazni enjoyed using lycanthropes, and Silenos had always yearned to obtain one for himself. He was not surprised to find they existed in this world- anything related to Entities tended to be ubiquitous across the cosmos- but it was a stroke of annoying fortune on Adonis’ part that he’d obtained one. Silenos almost considered killing his former apprentice to steal it, but of course he was far too valuable a Shaiagraznian asset for that.

  Adonis snatched the trinket being offered to him by Number Eight, then punched the creature for good measure. It hit the far wall hard, rebound harder, groaned as it fell down.

  “Imbecile.” The Shaiagrazni growled. “I ordered you here twenty nine seconds prior.”

  Silenos studied the lycnathrope, first with mundane and then arcane senses. It would live, he knew. Adonis had restrained some measure of his strength, and further this being had been enhanced on a magical level- doubtless by its masters supreme knowledge of Esoterica. He wondered if he might have done better with Fleshcrafting.

  Yes, obviously, he was Silenos. And soon he’d have a being of even purer Depth-blood than Number Eight to prove it.