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Marrec hefted his spear into throwing position and said, "Name yourself, creature."

The giggling eased, and the muck man eyed Marrec with muddy orbs. He seemed about to speak, but instead of answer, he spewed a gob of muddy liquid. With uncanny accuracy, the filth spattered across Marrec's face. It burned.

He could still see enough to cast his readied weapon. Justlance buried itself in the creature's stomach. The creature squealed and burbled, like a man yelling up from underwater. The spear had pinned it to the root. But in a feat that must have proved extremely painful, it pulled itself free, losing a significant portion of its oozing body. It screamed, and if possible, the stench worsened, but it wasn't dead.

Translucent wings of ooze unfurled from its back as it flowed like bead of water across the top of the root, then dripped off into the darkness. Gone… but Marrec could hear heavy wings flapping down in the darkness and a final giggle.

Justlance slapped back into his hand magically clean of all defilement. Marrec used his other hand to wipe away the stinging mud from his eyes.

He said, "Surprise is no longer our ally."

Gunggari, who was bringing up the rear, said, "A winged foe in this open space is trouble."

"Let's hope my spear in its belly will make it think twice about returning."

As they hurried up the root, the diameter of the path gradually widened. The glimmer of a greenish illumination grew steadily closer as they walked. "Be ready," warned Marrec. "Our path is leading us to that light."

The light's intensity grew as they approached. Their path revealed itself to be the long, slender shoot of an earthy mass of mud and ooze which hung in the void. Like a pustule, the mass had forced itself through a self-made breach in the dark void-brilliant light streamed through a small gap in space; it was the reflection off the mass itself that gave the light a greenish cast.

Ususi said, "It's another portal-but it is a breach, aided by the Keystone's power. I'll see Fallon's head in a pot for this defilement."

The mass was not static-it slowly heaved and bulged as if its surface were boiling in slow motion, and creatures inhabited the island. The muck man Marrec had earlier stabbed stood waist deep in a pool of ooze. The portion of his flesh lost in breaking loose from Marrec's spear was healed with seepage from the island mass. Two more muck men slouched near the light-limned portal. The stench had returned, with a vengeance. Marrec thought they looked like vicious dwarfs dipped in oil and sewage, with wings.

"What's all the gook those things are standing on?" wondered Marrec.

"A manifestation of the Talontyr's power over rot and decay," said Elowen.

"It doesn't take Talona's Consort for such a trifle," slobbered the creature lounging in the slime pool, refuting Elowen's statement. "It was Anammelech who plucked the Child of Light from this forgotten demiplane easily enough My siblings and I are but extensions of Anammelech's will. He wants you dead, so our task remains undone."

The three creatures took to the dark air, swooping toward Marrec.

"That's just great," muttered Marrec. He called behind him, "Anammelech, I recognize that name for a reason, right?"

The first creature was upon him before he got an answer. Two claws raked at his stomach, but his armor saved him. The force of the creature's attack might have pushed him over the side of the root, but the root's sticky nature held Marrec fast. He felt a tiny surge of satisfaction in realizing that "Anammelech" had miscalculated the utility of his root. Despite his excellent footing, he was still spattered in slime in the wake of the creature's passage, and the stink assailed his nostrils.

The second creature flew wide past him; he wasn't its target. The third, the one he had struck before, bore down on him with vengeance in its muddy heart.

" "Ware my reach, creature of dust, or I'll do more than stick you this time. Flee or perish," promised Marrec.

"Stick this," said the