Not a man or woman present wore armor, for despite the animosity between Guilds and Houses, none had anticipated bloodshed… and besides, that's what the soldiers out in the hall were for. Several did, however, carry swords or daggers, if only for show, and these took up a stance between their unarmed compatriots and the sudden violence outside. Halmon and Tovin retreated from the table and each drew a blade-the duke a short broadsword, the Guildmaster a wicked dirk-and stood side by side, mutual antagonism momentarily buried, though scarcely forgotten.

From beyond the door, battle cries melted into screams of agony, and a cacophony of many voices faded with terrifying swiftness into few. Like the chiming of old and broken bells, blades clattered as they rebounded from armor. A horrifying roar shook the walls until mortar sifted down from the ceiling. The smoke that poured through the cracks in the door grew horribly thick, redolent of roasting flesh.

"Dear gods," Duchess Anneth whispered, dagger clutched in one hand, the linked ivory squares that were the symbol of Panare Luck-Bringer in the other. "What's out there?"

And to her an answer came, though clearly sent by neither Panare nor any other of Imphallion's pantheon.

A sequence of lines etched themselves across the brittle door, as though it burned from the inside out. For the barest instant the portal split into eight neat sections, each peeling back from the center like a blossoming flower, before the wood gave up the ghost and disintegrated into a thousand glowing embers. Without the door to lean against, the table slumped forward, clattering into the hall to lie atop corpses-and bits of corpses.

More than two score soldiers had stood post in that hall, drawn from the various Guilds and Houses of those who met within this basement chamber. Only one figure stood there now, a hellish portrait framed in the smoldering doorway, a figure that owed fealty to none of the frightened men and women within.