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quick with demonic cunning. A greasy tangle of hair flowed out from an over-sized beret the same color of green as his leathers.
    His hands were thick, and each fat finger bore multiple rings of gaudy, improbable size. The stones flashed and glittered faintly even though any ambient light in this place was hidden by the wide silhouette of the manikin itself.
    The splay-bodied thing stood there, hands folded patiently before him, seemingly content to let Khat make the next move or overture. Behind Khat the female shifted its massive bulk impatiently and heaved a sigh very much like a horse snorting. Khat felt like a man trying to climb to his feet on a sheet of ice.
    He could not find his purchase. Too much had happened too quickly for him to even begin to comprehend. He was locked firmly in their terror glamour. Still, even though he remained confused and disoriented in this strange and terrible place, the place itself did not go away. The monsters did not dissolve. The nightmare did not end. Finally, because there was nothing else to do, he spoke.
    “Who are you? What is this place? Where am I?” Khat swallowed a thick lump in his throat. “Am I dead?”
    “So you do have a tongue!” The manikin mocked. He cocked his shaggy head with low, protruding brow and grotesque slash of a mouth to one side, pensive. “Those are good questions, corsair. Very good ones, indeed. Let me see. . .”
    The thick-bodied dwarf trailed off, eyes cast into black space. He placed his hands behind him after the fashion of an indulgent professor. He looked back down at the cowering, naked Khat and laughed at him.
    “In order, then,” the thing began. “I am Delacroix, and this beauty behind you is Sheára. We are of the cohort of Ptah, the Opener of Ways.”
    Khat nodded, somewhat dully. The idea of names seemed rather pedestrian to him in the midst of such outrageous trappings. Smirking at his befuddled silence, the manikin continued.
    “This place is a sort of way station. It is at once neither here nor there, but it is for now. No, you are not dead, at least not yet.” The dwarf’s grin was wide and sharp. “What say you, Khat? Would you like to escape the fires of hell?”
    Khat forced himself to look up. His terror gripped him like manacles. Slowly he compelled himself against his fear. His hand traced the rune sigil in the hot, desiccated air, and his lips formed the command of release. In that instant the manikin no longer grinned and the female shifted backwards, shaking her head in confusion.
    The fear glamour was broken, and Khat rose up. He towered over the dwarfish beast, and his gaze almost reached the level of the female’s eyes. He stood before them a warrior, huge and powerful, unabashed in his nudity. He made a fist, and his knuckles popped like thunder in the echoing silence.
    “Oh, there ain’t none of us escaping hell.” Khat grinned.
     

Chapter Ten
Ritual Night
     
     
    Alyssa felt blood splatter her naked body like monsoon rain. The screams of the dying reached her delicate, shell-like ears with all the joyous harmony of a symphony. She witnessed Abraxsis wielding his glaive with devastating effect.
    The long, curved edge of the heavy blade bit through cuirass and helm to chop into flesh and bone. Guts strung across the silks of her bed, and brains splashed against the flagstone of her chamber. Still the guardsmen charged forward, driven to frenzy by the enchantments of the Caliph behind them. As mindless automatons they faced the Herald of Anubis.
    Abraxsis towered above their heads. He swept his pole arm out and slashed throats or lopped limbs. Heads rolled, and the blood flowed thick as an abattoir so that the stench of it was like incense. The death angel roared with laughter, and his fangs were white against the onyx of his skin.
    One guard dove over the broken corpse of his compatriot with blade held high. Abraxsis snatched him by his throat with one huge hand. He jerked his arm and snapped the