The darkness went on for quite some time. It swirled and twisted as Malnai fell down and down. Then he stopped. He lost all impression of time, of place and of person and he rested. He dimly remembered the blow, the pain and the voices and then those memories also faded away. He was left with only a brief feeling of being surrounded in wool before even the darkness disappeared and he felt no more.

Thought came slowly. It started with pain and it was followed with more pain. This continued forever, then it eased off a little. Malnai had felt this before, usually when he had been near death and his body had done it's usual trick of putting him back together. He was reasonably content to lie back and let his skin and bones heal, but he felt something was wrong. Yes, his body was on fire and he could only think the lightest of thoughts, but he felt as if he was not alone in his private darkness. The young man searched around himself. He didn't know where his body was, it could have still been on the floor of the throne room but experience told him that it took him many, many days to regain this level of consciousness. He could only hope that he hadn't been buried. One of his oldest nightmares was of waking up in the dark, under a wooden lid. The moment he brought this thought to his shattered mind he felt the presence move closer. It seemed to be as disembodied as he, but it also seemed to be darker than the pervading murk. This uncomfortable closeness continued for time unknown until the disembodied presence was joined by a disembodied voice. "Malnai... you do realise that you are weaker here, weaker than you ever have been..." Malnai could not move, could not turn and could not strike out at the being. "What do you want," he cried, although his voice made no sound. "I want what I wanted before, I want your assistance, I want your oath and I want your soul."

The most chilling thing about the voice was not it's lack of origin or it's menace, it was the fact that it totally lacked inflection. It was a monotone, a voice which could have been used for ordering a meal or reciting numbers from a book. This very mundanity made it worse then any hissing sibilants or maniacal laughter. This was a being who wished to take what he wanted and he knew that he was not going to face any opposition. This knowledge coursed through Malnai and for one of the first times in his life he was afraid. However the voice continued, "You will become a valued ally to me, you will serve me and my masters as we take your city and assure the dominion of the darkness over the land. I said that I would return to you on Midwinter to hear your answer, so what is that answer?"

As the voice had spoken Malnai had felt his strength returning to him, he knew that he was not far from waking up, but he was still weak. A brief smile crossed his mind, "Tell me more?"

The voice seemed to sigh, "Do not think that you can trick me boy, you are still not out of the darkness, but yes, I will tell you more. Tonight an associate of mine is claiming the life of a child who could have harmed us greatly, you could also harm us greatly, but you could also help my cause. I wish you to join me and bring the darkness. This darkness will reward you greatly, but if you refuse the punishment will be endless. So, again I ask you for your answer."

The smile vanished from Malnai as he knew there was little way out. He could not break the surface of the dark and while he felt his body was whole there was still something keeping his mind closed to the outside. He suspected it was the dark force, but it mattered little as he couldn't break through. He didn't see any point in dying for no reason and he figured that it would be easier to break out once he had his body back. To this end he had decided to accept the offer, but then the situation changed.

A scream echoed through Malnai's mind and filled it to the brim. The pain returned tenfold as the loss and agony flowed through him. The scream sounded of torture, of lost love, of hard hearts and of the theft of the future. Malnai dipped back into the depths again and he lost the feeling of the presence, but then woke up. This time the waking was not into some bodiless void, rather it was into his own body, on a bed, wearing some different clothes. His scream of pain joined the last echoes of the other voice and he finally opened his eyes. The room was lit by torches and by luck the door was open. A quick scan around the room revealed Malnai's tools and his dagger and these were quickly grabbed. Looking out the door he saw a castle in chaos and was sure that no one would notice him if he just left. He offered a quick prayer to any gods that cared to notice him and ran out of the room.

There were people running everywhere and Malnai could only guess that something had gone very wrong with the Midwinter celebrations. The presence in the dark had told him the date and the young man had no reason to doubt him. The last few echoes of the Scream still moved through the building and the escapee wondered what events could have caused them, however he did not have time to wonder such things. After a minute or two's running he arrived in a quieter area of the castle and to a corridor with only one door and one window. He was about to smash open the window when he heard the sounds of quiet breathing from the room. For some unknown reason he left his escape route and laid a hand on the handle. He felt fear and loss in the room and he wondered if this could have been the source of the Scream which woke him up? If so he owed the person a favour, so he went in.

The sight which greeted him was not a pretty one. The room must have been owned by a rich man, perhaps even the man that lay dead on the floor but the room, like the man, was now ruined. Blood and other fluids marked the rugs and patches of them had burned, the fluids also covered the young, semi-naked woman that lay in the centre of the room. The breathing came from her and by the looks of things she was barely alive. Malnai tore some sheets off the bed and wrapped them around her. He then noticed that she was chained to the floor. He searched through the clothing of the dead man and quickly found a set of keys. Moments later he had finally freed her from whatever imprisonment she had been suffering. As he knelt beside her she reached up a hand and weakly slapped his neck. He paused for a moment and returned her hand to her lap, happy that she could at least move. Her breathing had improved slightly, but not by much and Malnai's first priority was to get her out of the castle. Thankfully the window beside the bedroom led on to another roof which eventually led down to the street. Carrying the girl down was a difficult job but the young man's body had been resting for a long time, all he needed now was a meal.

The city seemed to be in as much chaos as the castle. Some fireworks still lit the sky but people were running everywhere. Malnai heard some shouts, "The King is dead!", "The League is taking over the city!", "We're under attack!". He wasn't sure which of these to believe but he knew he had to get as far away from the city as possible. He ran through the Temple Ward quickly, carrying the young girl as carefully as he could but he was sure that she'd have a few bruises by morning. Thankfully nobody stopped him and nobody seemed to notice what he was doing. He passed a fairly large number of guards along the way but there was always a handy doorway or lane to duck into. He doubted if they would have bothered him anyway, they seemed preoccupied with their own affairs. The run across the city seemed to take hours and slowly his hunger and fatigue began to tell. He stumbled a couple of times but he eventually arrived in the Harbour Ward at the house of a friend of his, a friend that he knew to be away. Thankfully the friend was a sailor and her rooms were empty for long stretches of time. Malnai twisted open the lock and carried the girl inside.

The rooms were fairly bare, but there was a bed and a couple of chairs. They were dark, but this didn't worry the young man very much. He lay his unconscious damsel out on the bed, noticing for the first time that she was quite attractive but dismissing it from his mind. He also noticed the slave tattoo on her arm, but this too was dismissed as sleep threatened to drop him where he stood. He wrapped the girl up a little more and finally slumped into a chair. He worried for a moment that the dark voice might return, but filed that away under things to worry about when he woke up. For now he wanted to sleep and hopefully not to dream.