Reghar noticed the old master was quite pleased with himself, more so than usual. "Why are you so ecstatic?" the Fang demanded. "Terjal and his merry band just slew one of your creations quite easily and you're steeped in euphoria over it."

Grafter's rapt smile shortened slightly. "Do you think the mastodon is all I have in my arsenal?" the Ageless One hissed. "Once again you are slow to perceive the larger plan. Did you not sense the abundance of spell activity? A few more of my distractions placed in Rakmir's path should drain his spell energy entirely--as well as the energy of his spellcasting accomplices. They will have no time to recover and I--we--shall crush them easily after that."

"And what of the aquamancer traveling with them?" Reghar couldn't resist putting an untidy crease in the old master's smug speculations. "He is, after all, in his element: a swamp with moisture in abundance. Are you going to dry up every pool of water on his behalf?"

"Oh, we needn't do that," Grafter replied lightly, obviously ignoring Reghar's sarcasm. "I've something special planned for our water-manipulating friend. Something quite appropriate," the old master chuckled as he nodded to himself.

And once again, Reghar thought sourly, you're not going to give me even the slightest hint.

The old man had also done everything possible to postpone the Fang's summoning of his own direspawn. Reghar was beginning to lose interest in White Rage--the creature wasn't even his doing; he'd merely been the conduit to bring the beast from its own plane to theirs. Oh, Grafter had allowed Reghar to control the direspawn--but only because the Ageless One hadn't the strength to continuously direct the creature's roamings.

Now Reghar had all the components needed to entice a creature of his own--his Creeping Lust. He smiled as the name echoed in his mind. "Now," he spoke abruptly, "we must discuss my direspawn."

Grafter's feathery eyebrows arched in mock surprise. "Oh, must we now? You think that you are able enough to control two direspawn? That would be a very ambitious undertaking, indeed."

Reghar ground his jaw and glared at the Ageless One. "White Rage is not mine--in fact, both the beast and I seem to have become more pawn than ally."

"Such ire! Such self-pity!" Grafter said as he moved in a slow circle around Reghar, his thin berobed arms crossed upon his chest. "And such bravado mixed in with it: a dangerous recipe, my young friend. How many times have I warned that you must rein in those emotions? And how many times have I endured your biting remarks with nary a reaction such as you've displayed whenever I proffer my own?"

When Reghar turned his sullen glare upon the wooden floor, Grafter halted before the Fang, his hand grasping Reghar's chin and bringing that glare to face his own squarely. "Of course you may bring this new direspawn to us--it might prove useful later. But you have not the ability to direct two creatures at the same time."

Before Reghar could protest, Grafter held a hand up to silence him. "I did not say that I wouldn't allow it. There is a way, but it is dangerous." Then, his voice becoming grave, added, "It will require that you give up a part of your consciousness so that such can be placed in an empty vessel. This will allow White Rage to be controlled by proxy--even I will be able to intervene to guide the beast's course when necessary."

"I am not afraid," the Fang said soberly. "Tell me what I need to do."

###

Reghar stood in the middle of the summoning chamber gazing up at a metal statue of himself twice his size. He reached out a tentative hand at the solemn likeness, his fingers just brushing its smooth surface. Reghar felt warmth seep through his palm and he drew the hand away sharply as the warmth deepened to a blaze.

Reghar heard the thin rattle of Grafter's chuckle as the Fang massaged his singed palm. The Fang turned to the Ageless One, hissing through clenched teeth, "Why must you always find pleasure in tormenting me?"

Grafter shook his head slowly. "One need not obtain pleasure from simple amusement--amusement is, after all, entertainment." Then, shaking his head as if addressing a difficult child, added, "As for the temperature of the metal, you needn't have touched the simulacrum in order to know that it would burn you. The waves of warmth should have stopped your hand. Once again, you seek to blame another for your failings."

"If you deem me a failure, why do you not send me away?" Reghar laced his words with all the dripping acid he might muster from the deepest part of his soul.

"Obviously," Grafter said slowly, patiently, "I have not reached that conclusion for you are still with me. But if you persist in wallowing in a constant state of self-pity, I shall be forced to reconsider the continuation of your training."

No, Reghar thought wryly. You've reached the point of no return with me: now that you have Terjal Rakmir in your lair, you cannot continue your plans alone--nor can you summon another pupil in such short notice. Grafter was now as trapped as the Fang. Reghar stifled a smug smile of his own.

"So," Reghar said, straightening his back as he returned his gaze to the simulacrum, "what would you have me do with this thing?"

Grafter's smile crept slowly upward. "Oh, you should be wondering what it might do with you."

###

Reghar was on his back, writhing upon the chamber's floor, the heels of his palms pressed heavily against his temples. Through eyes narrowed with pain, he saw Grafter standing above him, the Ageless One's face large a large grey moon ready to swing down upon him.

The Fang loosed a low, guttural scream of pain, runnels of sweat leaking into the corners of his mouth. His whole consciousness was now given over to wrenching, tearing agony as he felt a portion of his mind being torn away, first in fragments, then in great gouts. He opened his moist eyes once more to see Grafter's hands directing a thin shimmering rope toward the simulacrum.

Through his pain Reghar knew that he himself was the source of the glinting cord.

Suddenly Reghar felt a perfunctory snap within his temples as if something had been neatly snipped. Soon the pain began to ebb and the Fang rolled upon his stomach and collapsed, his breath hissing from his gasping mouth like steam from a kettle. As he lay on the floor, his fingertips spasming weakly upon the tiles, Reghar felt something even more unsettling than the intense pain he'd just endured.

A cavity had been left in his mind.

###

Reghar began to awaken slowly.

His temples felt as if they were being pressed between two blocks of heavy wood. The Fang opened his eyes to find himself lying upon his own bed, Grafter the Ageless stationed at its foot. For a brief moment, as lucidity finally coalesced his jumbled thoughts, Reghar took some satisfaction at the look of concern--and worry--upon the old man's face.

"You've survived," the Ageless One said, his tone almost grateful. "In time you will learn to ignore the feelings of emptiness...of absence...in that portion of your mind. Soon you will sense the missing portion in its new location in the simulacrum--even as it works independently of your primary consciousness."

Reghar pushed himself up on his elbows and eased his back against the pillow. "And the simulacrum--is it still in the summoning chamber?"

Grafter shook his head. "No. It is now in a remote section of the keep--it is not necessary that you know of the location. I've placed several of my most tenacious guardians beside it."

"What? To guard it from me?" Half of Reghar's smile slanted downward in a bitter slash. "After what I've just been through, you do not trust me? You think that I wish to fetch back what was taken from me, I suppose?"

Grafter rolled his eyes heavenward for a moment. "No, no! We must bear in mind that there is a possibility that Rakmir and his band might compromise the guardians I have in the Grip. The simulacrum must not fall into Rakmir's hands. In the meantime, I have preordained the course White Rage must take against Terjal Rakmir. The beast should do well on its own now--so long as nothing happens to you."

"But how can the creature continue without me?"

Reghar's smile began to widen. Good. Now I will be able to attend to the creature of my own summoning. "And what course will you have White Rage take?"

"Why," Grafter's eyes widened in mock aghast, "to attack the Master of Cloudreach and all who accompany him--no matter the cost."

"Even," Reghar's smile was now a sneer, "at the cost of losing your precious White Rage? After all, Rakmir has driven the creature away once before--what's to stop him a second time?"

Grafter's expression seemed to sour slightly at the implication. "Not this time. Remember: I have an ally among Rakmir's band of questers. This one shall be my greatest weapon in the end."

"When can I summon my direspawn?" Reghar blurted abruptly, not caring that his tone implied his lack of faith in White Rage.

"Well," Grafter drawled sardonically, "the summoning chamber stands empty and waiting."

###

The pod containing Reghar's newly-summoned direspawn lay quivering and glittering wetly in the middle of the summoning chamber.

The Fang had insisted that Grafter not be present at the direspawn's summoning and the old master had relented reluctantly. But the summoning had gone smoothly--better than it had with White Rage. Reghar felt no fear this time.

Reghar had prepared for the arrival by arranging in a circle the components he'd gathered from the small garden near the keep. The Fang remembered with distaste his visit to that twisted, perverse garden with its flesh-eating plants sniffing the fetid air for prey. But he'd found what he was looking for: ordinary flowering plants.

With great care he'd pulled the plants from the earth, mindful that the flowers' stamen, pistils and ovules were still intact. If the plants' reproductive systems were damaged, the direspawn, Creeping Lust, would be unable to find its way to Reghar. Next, he'd searched the vines clinging to the walls of the keep for snails and slugs. As he found the slimy gastropods he tossed them into a canvas pouch.

After he'd returned to the summoning chamber, he'd drawn the circle with chalk made from bleached bone. Once the flowers were arranged meticulously upon the lines of the circle, Reghar drew each snail and slug from the sack, letting each creature slither smoothly upon its own flower. The snails and slugs he'd chosen were all hermaphroditic: a form he'd decided Creeping Lust should assume.

The summoning would take less resources this time. Instead of fire, the Fang would use a spout of water to wash the direspawn into this plane.

And now the pod, serving as the creature's vehicle, had been borne up from its home plane into this one like a delicacy served upon a silver platter. Cautiously, Reghar drew a finger along a pulsing seam that ran from one end to the other. The Fang slid the point of a small dagger into the widest part of the seam and cut carefully to the other end.

Slowly the opening began to part as a web of slime oozed along the sides of the pod, dripping to the tiled floor. A foul, cloying odor clogged Reghar's nostrils and he turned his head to cough the taste of it from his throat. As the stench grew stronger, the Fang scrabbled backward, watching as the creature, which would now be known as Creeping Lust, emerged from the pod.

A enormous muscular, gelatinous tentacle began to wave from one end of the pod as if probing the air. Soon the entire creature, a long grey snail, flowed from the pod and was feasting upon the wilting flowers along the circle.

Reghar noted the dun-colored shell as it swept neatly upward in an elegant coil upon the creature's back. Reghar knew the shell would act as a link to Creeping Lust's homeplane: within it was housed a constant swirl of energy drawn from the creature's home. Reghar realized, with some dismay, that this part of Creeping Lust would be its weakest point. Should the shell become damaged, the direspawn's link with its homeplane would be severed and its movement would cease, leaving the creature vulnerable to final destruction.

As Reghar watched the cannibalistic Creeping Lust devour its meal, he wondered briefly if the old man had been right after all. Would he really be able to control such a creature?

But the Fang's moment of self-doubt was short-lived.

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