"I tried at first to make sense of his ramblings. I duly considered the notion of Darrow the Wizard that the evil was truly all around us; that the Burning Lands were alive, and watchful of us.

"`Can you not feel it?' the wizard would say, imploring me as though frustrated with what he must have deemed my obtuse blindness. `It sees everything we do. It hears our thoughts. Worms its way into our very hearts, our souls. It is a hunger . . . a black abyss which naught can sate!'

"I decided then to assume command, and chose straightaway to distance ourselves by moving in the only direction available to us: straight towards the ocean.

"We journeyed east for five days along that road, and learned that the Burning Lands are filled with the rubble of ancient ruins. And presently we came upon the ruin of yet another gate that marked the entrance to what had once been a great and terrible city, and upon the coign of that tall archway was inscribed the name `Kolibos.'"

"Kolibos!" Celedhan breathed, darkly. "Dread city of the Demon king! So, old tales speak true!"

Akaru nodded. "Aye. And the dark things that assail us come somewhere from deep beneath that place."

"But that would mean that Kolibos was never truly destroyed!" Garnak said. "That the cataclysm that laid the city waste and made the Burning Lands was but a respite. What says Belloc on this matter?"




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