Within the safety of his demiplane, Grafter waited patiently.

As he sat upon his throne of carved onyx, Grafter the Ageless looked upon his sanctuary: a vast blackened desert with a starless, henna-colored sky overhead. He drew its protective power about him like a cloak as he waited for Terjal and Aiya to come. He knew the two conjurers would discover Reghar's simulacrum and destroy it, thus triggering the spell he'd placed within it just before his own escape.

He would be ready for them.

Grafter smiled despite the various pains he felt. Even immortals, he thought dourly, eventually succumb to injuries of a sort. And he had been wounded during the spell battle, some courtesy of Reghar's own foolishness. But as he sat upon his onyx throne he felt the tiny healing showers of energy soothe his battered form.

His beloved demiplane!

In the time before his eventual defeat and exile from the Court of Tahlahnn of Ryndorhn, he'd garnered much power--both political and magical--to further the art of Conjuration. As time allowed, he'd spend long hours in the Imperium's laboratory reproducing the famous experiments of his predecessors--though he was cautious to approach Kamyarg's work.

Grafter smiled fondly at the memory of working on projects of his own design. Even though they were of his own design, he did manage to intertwine both the known works of the past with experiments of his own devising. As he did so, he'd noticed a very curious relation and revelation...

Necromancy, a magic which had developed completely divorced from Conjuration, was believed to have been totally lost to Kamyarg's foolishness.

Not quite, Grafter had discovered.

He'd encountered an extremely narrow margin in which Necromancy and Conjuration overlapped. In effect, there existed a handful of magics which belonged to both patterns. Grafter had made this astounding discovery only due to the odd synergy of combining known theories of the past with hypotheses he himself had developed. Within the overlap lay the secret of immortality: magic to extend his life endlessly.

Such magic involved dispersing an extremely tiny portion of his life-force to a remote part of the universe to remain untouched by magic, and more importantly, completely unaffected by time. But achieving immortality demanded much more from the Ageless One. Once he'd made the transition, Grafter discovered, with some horror, that the world of dreams would be forever denied him. He no longer needed sleep, nor could he even achieve it--yet he still required rest each night in order to recuperate physically and mentally.

So, when his coup against the Court of Tahlahnn collapsed around him, Grafter realized that immortality does not protect one from eternal torture. His enemies were bound to follow him forever, first themselves, then their progeny and their progeny after that. A tedious, endless, circular pattern of pursuit that must endure till the end of all Time.

He also realized another side effect of an unlimited lifespan: he must spend a certain amount of time out of the world of his birth. Until the coup, this requirement had posed no problem for a conjurer of his power. But on the run from those who would punish him...well, it was a close matter.

Grafter's thick eyebrows drew down in a dark scowl. He'd almost lost his immortality at that point, all of his work nearly dashed to oblivion in the face of advancing enemies. So, once he'd found sanctuary within the Grip, enchanting its swamps so that no enemy of his dared enter, he created his beloved demiplane.

Now he sat waiting in the demiplane for his newest foes to come for him.

Grafter reached out to pat the curved head of a chinurra. He'd managed to bring a few of the creatures along, having adapted these few to the waterless environment of the demiplane. He'd always been especially fond of his chinurra, so devoted to him as they were. Now that Rakmir and his fellows had obliterated the chinurra so thoroughly, he was fortunate to have retained these few at his keep.

The chinurra, sensing the coming of their master's enemies, clustered about Grafter's throne: a reptilian shield of slashing tails, scaly armor, razor-sharp teeth and claws.

My chinurra will have their revenge, Grafter swore to himself. And so shall I.

###

Terjal felt himself tumbling end over end in a corridor which seemed lined in cloud. He couldn't see Aiya, though he sensed her presence somewhere beside him. His stomach felt as if it were about to bounce loose from its mooring in his gut. Terjal's mouth opened in a toneless groan as he continued to somersault through the billowy passageway. Terjal knew with absolute certainty whom he was about to meet, though he had no idea where he and Aiya were headed.

Suddenly, just ahead of him, a ring of orange light began to widen like the mouth of a large fish. Terjal craned his head to see the portal better, his arms outstretched in hopes of stabilizing his motion. He saw only black through the portal's maw, nothing more.

Until he suddenly flew through it.

Terjal landed hard upon blackened earth, the force of the landing jarring his jaw until it scraped upon its hinges. Quickly, he looked from side to side, hoping to see Aiya. In a flash of orange and gold Aiya landed beside him. As he reached for her, a voice came from just above them.

"Terjal Rakmir and his accomplice, Aiya Lindsmund--so finally are you both awarded an audience with the one causing you so much...discomfort and turmoil."

The man who'd spoken stood up from a large stone chair, ten chinurra surrounding him, closing ranks tightly. Terjal recognized the man's likeness as that of the statue they'd encountered in the chinurra village in the Grip. The man seemed old, yet his face was unlined--he had an air about him that bespoke of a life span far longer than the gods had intended any human to have.

Terjal and Aiya both scrambled to their feet. Terjal spoke first, "Would you do me the courtesy of introducing yourself?" Perhaps pleasantries might stall the glib old man, whose intent was clear: destroy his adversaries. Terjal needed the time to marshal his spell energy.

The ancient man smiled luxuriantly, as if he enjoyed being so indulged. "I call myself Grafter the Ageless, although many years ago it was merely Grafter. But the acquisition of immortality demanded a more telling extension to my name: hence, the 'Ageless.'"

Terjal began to feel an uneasiness sear into his gut. He recognized the face, connecting it to the chinurras' statue. But the name, Grafter! He'd heard the name whispered from his great-grandfather's lips as the ancient conjurer writhed in delirium upon his deathbed. Terjal had been a tiny child, but he remembered the careful looks exchanged between his father and grandfather above Jrrnyn's bed at the mention of the name. Later, he had prodded his father to tell him of this "Grafter" fellow, but Hurvin Rakmir, once willing to tell his son of the nature of his birth--even though cautioned not to--now refused to tell him the meaning behind that name. Better you never know, his father had admonished in a voice which told the boy he'd brook no further questions on the subject.

"I've heard of your name," Terjal answered, "yet I am unfamiliar with your history--and I do apologize." A sidelong glance at Aiya was met with a quick shrug and a rise of eyebrows. She didn't know of him either.

If Grafter was nonplused by Terjal's ignorance of his identity, the old man didn't show it. "I wouldn't expect you to have heard of me, really. But your great-grandfather, Jrrnyn Rakmir would know--although I'm certain he's long been set into the earth by now. I was Sorcerer in the Court of Tahlahnn at one time, but after I'd discovered the secret of immortality, I was replaced by Jrrnyn. When I protested in my own way, I was banished into exile by fools who would not listen to the truth."

Or the ravings of a meglogmaniac. "And you've come to seek your revenge upon me because of my family name," Terjal replied as he moved closer to Aiya. He knew her silence meant that she was preparing herself for a spell battle to come. But he knew he couldn't humor the ancient man for long...

Grafter the Ageless loosed a hard, ratcheting laugh that startled even his chinurra. "Oh, how self-important you find yourself, Terjal Rakmir. Whether you lived or died meant nothing to me then, nor any other Rakmirs left in all of Ryndorhn, for that matter! Oh, if you hadn't involved yourself in this fray--at the behest of Vaukmond, no doubt, coward of magic that he is--I would not have bothered you at all. My motives are more simple and clear than plain revenge upon a family--oh how you flatter yourself! No, wreaking havoc upon the lands between Windemere and Quitonne with my direspawn--yes, White Rage is mine--should cause sufficient chaos, enough to allow me to step in and disarm the direspawn for a price: the ousting of the current Imperium of Ryndorhn, firstly. A simple request, really." Grafter leaned forward, pointing a slender finger at Terjal. "Your involvement and lineage is merely an extra treat, a delicious appetizer to be consumed before my main entrée. So, savor your last breath, Rakmir!"

Suddenly the chinurra rushed Terjal and Aiya, but the conjurers had already struck spell poses, sending strips of crackling energy from their fingertips. The advancing chinurra never reached the conjurers, the spell energy slicing the creatures to pieces.

But the chinurra had only been a diversion, Terjal surmised too late as waves of spark coruscated the air before them. Terjal felt the sparks tingle his flesh, stirring up an irresistible itch within his skin. He began to feel his own power ebb, yet he strained every ounce of it out of his being, sending it straight toward the old conjurer. Grafter's smug smile was now replaced by a determined grimace as he continued to hurl more swells of energy toward his younger opponents.

Terjal looked at Aiya from the corner of his eye. As she flung slender bolts of energy at Grafter, Terjal saw that she seemed in a trance. Suddenly, a translucent glow began to surround her--he'd seen it before, but had paid it no mind--causing Aiya's power to surge in bursts. His fingers began to crawl with new vigor, as if the power within him had amplified.

Terjal watched as Grafter, a look of surprised dismay upon his face, bent backward with the force of the new attack. The old man's arms began to tremble and dance at his side like a puppet whose strings have been abruptly plucked from all sides. His feet began to lift from the blackened ground, legs pumping the air. Terjal watched as Grafter's eyes slid like bobbins in their sockets and his head lolled to the side. With a resounding thwack, the old conjurer fell upon the ground, quite dead.

At the precise moment Grafter's body struck the earth, his corpse, along with a very alive Terjal and Aiya, were catapulted back through the billowy, cloud-filled corridor. Terjal kept his arms stretched outward, his legs fighting to keep balance, until he, Aiya and the corpse that had been Grafter the Ageless, were deposited upon the tiled floor of the chamber they'd left only moments before.

Terjal shook his head vigorously, his eyes blinking rapidly to steady his vision. Aiya sat beside him, rubbing her own eyes and swaying dizzily. Grafter's lifeless body lay beside the remains of the simulacrum like a forgotten piece of dross. Terjal looked up to see Darman, Strandholt and Shankal staring down at him. Arjas stood just apart from the others, a look of grateful relief upon his swarthy face.

"We heard an explosion," Darman said, helping both Terjal and Aiya to their feet. "And we came running--we didn't know which chamber you had been in so we searched them all. When we found that," pointing at the broken simulacrum, "we knew that this one was the right chamber."

"Well," Terjal sighed, "we found the rogue spellcaster," inclining his gaze toward the corpse. "He told us his name was Grafter and that he'd made himself immortal. Though, it would seem, his immortality ended on this day."

Darman's brow furrowed. "That name seems familiar to me..."

"He's the one," Aiya joined in, "who was most likely controlling Arjas."

When everyone turned to look at Arjas, the Blade gazed down at his feet. "I think I know that name, too. Some distant relative of mine may have been involved with this...Grafter...somehow. Maybe that's why he chose me to do his bidding."

Terjal nodded then strode over to Arjas; he placed a hand upon the young Blade's shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly. "No one here blames you for Thrasher's death. His true murderer lies dead in a corner of this chamber."

Strandholt moved to Arjas's side, his hand patting his fellow Blade's back. "Terjal is right. As an Outsider, I offer forgiveness--surely, if he's watching from the heavens, Thrasher would agree."

Arjas looked down at his feet again, unable to speak.

Terjal, wishing to break the tension, turned his attention to Darman. "Did you locate the other spellcaster?"

Darman shook his head. "Nay--he's either escaped or perished."

Aiya added, "If he's still alive, he'll be quite drained. He can't have gone far."

Terjal looked at the smashed simulacrum.

Perhaps he was still in the keep.

Waiting.