Tiuren's attention was meanwhile drawn to the presence within the bedchamber.
The skeletal figure of a man, still dripping with the remains of his flesh and blood, stood. His jaw mouthed horrible but unintelligible words.
Kohath?
Who else could it be? But how could Kohath, or whatever Kohath had so quickly become, stand here in the room where his corpse had lain just moments before? Could a man's passions allow him to defy even death? Could hate be so powerful a force?
With terror-filled eyes, Darius and Diccona looked at the risen Kohath.
"Kohath? Is that you?" Diccona asked, her voice cracking with fear.
The monstrous thing turned his head toward his traitorous wife. With a hideous creaking, a bony arm rose from his side. The fingers of the hand curled as if clutching some unseen object. A high-pitched whine began.
Darius turned to flee.
"Kohath?" Diccona said again, frozen in place.
The whine had become very loud now, as though its source drew ever closer. Darius dispelled his magical seal and dived out the door.
"Ko-"
The horrible whine drowned out Diccona's words. A dark object entered the room from the open door, hovering four or five feet from the floor-riding on the whine itself. Tiuren had only to look upon its oval shape and dark green color for a moment before he recognized it.
"The Dark Eye of Gavinaas!" he shouted, struggling to his feet.
He and Kohath had slain Gavinaas long ago, when the evil Anaurian wizard had threatened tiny Vantir's northern reaches with a conjured army of misshapen monsters. They had locked the wizard's talisman away in a deep vault below the palace. Now it was here.
The object flew into Kohath's outstretched hand, which grasped it so tightly Tiuren could hear a crushing sound. Only then did his mind register that the piercing whine had stopped. Kohath's skull turned its black, empty sockets toward him for the first time.
"No," Kohath rasped in a voice that seemed to originate from somewhere far, far away, "the Dark Eye of Kohath."
Realization washed over Tiuren, causing him to step backward with a gasp. "The Dark Eye caused this?"
"No," Kohath said again in his grinding mockery of articulation. "The Dark Eye only permitted me to do what I must." Kohath turned back toward Diccona, his skeletal body moving with a disturbing fluidity. His free hand pointed a single bony finger at her. "She caused this."
Diccona screamed.
"The Dark Eye has given me power," Kohath said, "but my reasons-my motives-are my own. Look upon me and remember this. After the wrongs wrought upon me this day, I do what I do willingly."
Diccona began the frantic gestures of a spell.
"So, my dear," Kohath said, his hideous skull glaring at the queen. "You wanted magical power. You wanted a wizard as a king and as a lover. Let me now show you power." With that, he released his grip upon the Dark Eye, which floated slowly up to his brow, attaching itself as a ghastly third eye.
Skeletal arms upraised, Kohath cast a spell of his own.
Tiuren had no knowledge of sorcery, but Kohath's spell seemed to him a thundering avalanche of boulders crashing down a mountainside in comparison to Dic-cona's meager stone flung without skill. The spell she cast was lost in the rising magical might summoned by Kohath and his Dark Eye.
The floor beneath the three figures began to quiver. A rumbling rose all around, and the temperature began to climb. Tiuren could remain no longer. Terror, more from seeing what had become of his friend than for his own well-being, forced him out the door and down the hall. Diccona's screams rang long in his ears.
The entire palace shook. On the stair, Tiuren met a handful of guards who raced upward, their faces filled with dread.
"No," Tiuren told them, shaking his head. 'There's nothing you can do. Flee."
"But the king. The queen. We must-" a guard said, pushing past. He referred to Kohath, not Darius, Tiuren could tell.
"Do as you wish. Your life is your own-but you no longer have a king, and quite possibly no longer a queen."
"Gods!" another guard cried. "What has happened?"
"There is no time." Tiuren did what he could to keep his voice level and calm. "Flee." Without looking to see what decision these good, loyal men made, he raced down the stairs.
As he reached the bottom, the shaking intensified. The temperature continued to rise as he made his way toward the foyer, the doors, and the way out.
Something grabbed his arm and wrenched him backward. It was Darius, knife still clutched in his hand, breathing erratically.
'Tell me," he rasped, "what is going on?" The knife rose toward Tiuren's throat.
Tiuren had endured enough of this wretch's threats and demands. He shifted his weight toward the wizard, knocking him off balance, and grabbed at the arm holding the blade, turning it away.
Darius reacted quickly. Fear-strengthened muscles twisted the knife back toward the bard.
Tiuren threw his body into Darius. The two tumbled to the floor as some of the ceiling supports gave way from the shuddering quake and bits of plaster and wood crashed near them. As the two struck the floor, Tiuren made sure the knife found a home-in Darius's chest.
Tiuren rolled and gained his feet. The floor cracked open near him, steam and sulfurous air belching out of the ever-widening opening. Rumbles and crashes as loud as he had ever heard told him the upper levels of the palace had collapsed.
By the time he had reached the doors, steam and smoke clogged the air, choking him. He slipped out into the courtyard. Bodies lay everywhere, covered by rubble, crushed by what looked like-as near as Tiuren could tell-most of the south watchtower. A gaping hole in the curtain wall was all that marked where it had stood. Tiuren was dismayed to see so many friends among the fallen. Even noble Beanth lay under the ruined tower.
Kohath's slaying wrath was indiscriminate. The dead king's quest for vengeance knew no bounds.
The shaking of the earth continued, and fire burst forth from the numerous fissures opening all around Tiuren. He could do nothing-he couldn't even see anyone for him to help escape. Realizing that there was no time to reach the stables (if indeed they still stood), he ran for the opening in the wall, thunderous crashes and the roar of spurting molten rock behind him. Fire from within Faerun itself was consuming the fortress.
Across the rolling hills, Tiuren ran until he could no longer hear the rumbling or feel the vibration of the ground and the unnatural scorching heat on his back. In the distance, only a reddish, hellish glow marked the palace. He collapsed from exhaustion.
Weeks later, Tiuren stood at the edge of what was once-beautiful Vantir.
Nothing in his experience could have prepared him for the sight of his homeland smoldering like a charnel pit. The stench of death pervaded the air. Smoke filled the sky, dragging the whole realm into an unending night.
After he had destroyed the palace and surrounding city, Kohath had systematically razed the nearby towns and villages. The smoke that choked the sun rose from burning homes, trees, crops, livestock, and even people. All that had been Vantir now burned. Of the inhabitants of the dead land, precious few had escaped. Kohath had, intentionally and methodically, slain his own kingdom.
Yet Tiuren lived. He could not help wondering if somehow, deep within the creature that was once Kohath, his friend had let him escape. Perhaps he owed his life to that undead monster. Buried within it, his friend possibly lived on. Yet if Kohath could lay waste to the land he loved, the man Tiuren knew was so utterly lost in the cavernous pit of his soul that he had no chance of ever escaping. He wondered if somewhere, immersed in that darkness, Kohath-the real Kohath- despaired.