The bedroom door creaked open and Father Wilkud entered the room where the dying men were to die. The air in the room was stale and heavy with the stench of death.   The flame of the single candle sizzled in the sudden draft of air, casting monstrous ghostly shadows that fluttered across the walls.   At first Father Wilkud barely made out that someone was huddled under the covers of the small bed. It looked as if one of the brothers had removed his habit and carelessly tossed it on the bed.   It wasn't until the seemingly empty garment moved and the wrinkled cloth fell from a head that was little more than skin stretched over a skull, that the priest was certain that someone was there.   The figure was frail and looked old, very, very old… His head was completely bald and dotted with freckles, and the only visible hair was thick gray eyebrows. His bony hands had been deformed by some cruel degenerati

Viktor sat in his window seat, gaping at the wonders of Genbofen. The vehicle followed the main road into the city and rattled on the cobblestones that paved the streets. In the eighteen years of his life, Viktor had visited cities before, of course. Once or twice a year he had accompanied his father to the main market in Vengenholt to collect alms from the Church of Mortis and to purchase supplies for the Chipped Chapel. But Genbofen was something very different, five times the size of Vengenholt and with a population six times the size. For the young magic student it was a wonderful thing to behold. The houses rose to heights of three, four, and even five stories above the street, and many of the upper floors jutted out beyond the main wall of the buildings. That was not important in the case of the main avenues of the city, but in the secondary streets the floors stood out so much that they transformed the roads into dark tunnels in which

At the moment, I find it hard to believe that I was ever so impressed by old Professor Theodria. His mind was as closed to new thoughts as an Adamantite strongbox reinforced by enchantments. There was no way that he believed that there could be another way, another way of knowledge far greater and more powerful than his own. Because deep down he was a coward who was afraid of those who dared to question the primitive and antiquated understanding of the world that he considered an irrefutable truth, a way of thinking that he clung with all his might like a dog to a bone. .The school principal was a cowardly and dogmatic fool whose position of power and influence was based on a weak-minded attachment to the knowledge and practices received from others. But looking back, as much as I may despise my memories of Professor Theodria, that is nothing compared to the hatred and contempt I feel, even now, towards that shitty Inquisitor, sow sonic, rotten sewer rat

The heavy oak door of the library slammed open, breaking the quiet, musty silence of the place. The room was usually almost sacredly quiet, as if it were a shrine, but this had now been broken by the arrival of the Inquisitor. He had the attitude of a man used to having to get what he wanted by force and being satisfied with it. And, of course, no weak apprentice magician was going to stand in his way. The man was over six feet tall, wore leather riding boots, and although he appeared to have reached middle age, this made him look even stronger rather than detract from his vigor. Viktor saw thick, rope-like muscles taut on the man's neck as he laid eyes on him. Felix's profile was of noble lineage, with a prominent and distinguished jaw, short gray hair, and a neatly trimmed beard. His eyes were piercing sharp points of sapphire blue, and his teeth were bare as his lips parted in a fierce canine grin. He had the unmistak

What is madness? Do you think that I am crazy, I, someone who condemns his own soul through the practice of black magic? And for what purpose? For a few more decades of desperately decadent life? To become an outlaw from the world of the living when it is precisely the unbearable desire to live that has led me to study the forbidden rites of necromancy? I will tell you for what purpose I have done that. I have done everything for nothing, because it is the only thing I have now that I bare my soul before you: nothing. Nothing to show for two centuries of life; the lands that I once claimed as my own, the people who showed fidelity to me, all already forgotten. And the only thing I can hope for now is an ignominious end and an eternity in that twilight world of the realm of the dead, caught between the worlds of eternal rest and glorious life, unable to exist in either of them, both torturingly out of reach. . An eternity of torment. An etern