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back. He gouged the stone and pulled. A moment later, he pulled himself through. The Beast rolled to his back and gasped for breath. The boy.
    His stomach somersaulted and he crawled to the ring of broken glass.
    The boy was back beside the brazier, knees to chest, finger leveled. The Beast blinked, checking against his disbelief. He shouted for the boy to hide. Still, the boy remained motionless.
    The sea of clicks drowned out his calls. And then it arrived. A rust tinged wave swept through the tunnel, rolling against the chamber’s walls. The Beast told himself that he had done all he could, but a foul pit in his stomach dissented.
    The reddish brown flow filled the room, climbing the walls, dousing the braziers. A writhing swarm of spiders and scorpions clicked and crawled, snapping at him as it continued to climb. The Beast backed away from the oculus and scanned for an escape route. A cover of grainy darkness stretched into forever. There was only one option.
    Run.
    He sprinted down the dome, looking back only once. He instantly regretted the decision. The swarm of stingers and fangs had crested the breach and spilled over, surging like a poisonous tide. The dome’s edge raced closer. The Beast leapt and sailed through the grayish murk of his forgotten memory. Crashing sounds of waterfalls and a piercing white light suddenly surrounded him. His head throbbed between his paws. He squeezed them into his ears, trying to silence the deafening roar. His vision cleared.
    And his heart sank.
    He sat surrounded by burning braziers in a round room with shimmering black walls. Overhead, an intricate stained glass oculus reflected the fire light. The Beast was quick to his feet. He lifted an arm to brush himself off, but was thwarted by the sight of a child-sized, human hand. His child-sized, human hand. He gasped at his reflection and traced the round features of a fleshy face. He ran his hands through grimy hair, stopping where his horns were supposed to be.
    It couldn’t be ...
    He fell back to the safety of a brazier’s warmth. A faint clicking squelched his astonishment. The swarm was coming and there was no chance of repeating the escape. His human legs lacked the strength. Thankfully, his wit remained intact. He tore off a greasy piece of tunic and wrapped it around a scrap of loose wood plucked from a brazier. The clicking built to a sinister roar. He ignited the torch and barreled into the passage.
    Dancing torch light cast an amber glow over the sea of carapaces as the Beast-child’s spindly arms swept the torch in wild circles. Arachnids sizzled and scorched into black dust. He skidded into the memory-scape’s first chamber, driving the swarm into full retreat. The clicking mass piled against the Troll’s Breath’s door. A shaft of silvery moon painted the latch. He need only put the swarm to the torch and be done with it.
    A ghostly light rose from the floor and drew the swarm’s burnt remnants to its luminous center. When the last scorched carcass was consumed, a flash ignited the room. The shock wave blasted the Beast-child into a jagged crack in the wall. His vision cleared in time for the memory to morph into a nightmare.
    For something horrible crawled out from the glob of pulsating light.
    The Beast-child’s chilled blood slogged through his quaking body. He bit down hard on his lip, desperate to silence his chattering teeth. He tried desperately to push deeper into the crack. The creature’s name eluded him in his fright, but he remembered well the terrifying visage. Its eyes numbered eight and glowered with pale fire. A mottled humanoid torso sprouted grotesquely from a giant spider’s body carried by skittish, bluish-black legs. A muscular left arm ended in a wicked serrated pincer.
    The Beast-child clamped his mouth. He was sure his heart would freeze any moment. And then the monster spoke with the chilling midnight wind of a cemetery.
    “Say it. Say my name.”
    Icy rails pierced the