"You waste your time attempting to get answers from me," Durn growled from behind his mask. His head and arm had both been returned to his body and in grotesque fashion they had reattached themselves via tendrils of flesh and muscle appearing like dozens of eager, reaching and writhing fingers awaiting the embrace of a loved one. He was soon reanimated and alive once more. His body was heavily shackled and Elmar and Luthar stood at either side of him. Elmar's sword pressed at the back of Durn's neck, its holy energy sizzling the masked man's flesh and causing him pain, a sensation he normally did not feel.

The companions stood in a cell designed to hold the most dangerous of criminals. Durn's arms, wrists, waist, ankles, and legs were shackled to the walls and floor of the small cell. Runes glowed upon the shackles, infusing them with holy magic that burned the man like fire. At the entrance of the cell stood Aragol, Boog, Victoria, Ivory, Karmen, Celestia, Casandra, Ophelia and Sol. Luthar had brought them to the cell in hopes of gathering intelligence from the enemy but their efforts were proving fruitless.

Aragol had been in this situation many times during the war against Ister, back in his own world. Men had often been tortured and mutilated for the scraps of any bit of helpful information. Sometimes they never surrendered anything and sometimes the only information they delivered was something Tiranor's generals already knew. It did not matter, though, for they were the enemy and the fewer men the enemy had the better it was for Tiranor. Ister had started the war with more than twice the men Tiranor had and they still lost. Fighting against impossible odds was something Aragol was keenly accustomed to. He had done it all his life. Seeing Durn in pain did nothing to him. Standing with his hand on the hilt of Dragon's End, he almost relished the sound of Durn's skin burning like venison over a fire.

"We already discerned that you came from a Fernenish military camp," Luthar said, his huge warhammer held facedown ahead of him. "Tell us their numbers and their plans and we shall release you."

Durn laughed. "You speak to me as if this is the first time I have been tortured and interrogated. I have felt the burn of holy energy before, fool. I will tell you nothing for war is what I thrive on. All the corpses war generates can then be resurrected as my servants and this war will bring me many. Why would I tell you anything to make it stop?"

Elmar pressed his blade deeper into the back Durn's neck, the sizzle of burning skin making Celestia, Victoria, Ophelia and Casandra wince and grimace. Ivory was stone-faced and Karmen only looked away. Aragol noticed this and admired Ivory's strength. Karmen didn't appear disgusted but she was bothered nonetheless. She did not know that in times of war, certain measures of mercy had to be ignored for the good of the nation.

Durn growled and bowed his head as Elmar's blade kept digging in.

"Tell us what you know!" Elmar cried, angrier than he normally was. "Where are the rest of your group? Where is the boy with the flames, that swordswoman, or the enchantress? Where are they?!"

Durn, despite the smoke emanating from the burned flesh at the back of his neck, chuckled. "The boy with the flames. How amusing. As for that swordswoman, she is dead. Seth, the boy with the flames as you call him, burned her alive and my axe removed her head from her shoulders. You should thank me for avenging the death of one of your own. Although I am pleased that she at least did one thing right before she died."

Elmar viciously plunged his sword into the captive's back, his face red with fury, and Durn cried out in agony. "His name was Graham, you bastard! There is nothing I could ever thank you for, you unholy, fiendish monster! NOW TALK!"

Durn hissed with pain as Elmar slowly pulled his sword out from his back and then laughed. "I admire your anger, Elmar was it? I honestly never thought of you as a torturer. Perhaps in another life we could have been allies."

"Never!"

"Elmar," Luthar said sternly, his red brows furrowed. "Rein in your emotions. You are letting him get into your head. That will accomplish nothing but rage."

Elmar took a deep breath and nodded. "I am sorry... I just...dislike him speaking of my friend that way."

Luthar fixed his gaze on Durn again. "You have only one option left before you, Durn. Tell us what we need to know. If you deny us these answers you shall be thrown into the Holy Flame and be incinerated. We Paladins here are trained in destroying unholy entities and we pride ourselves at our efficiency in doing so. You will not heal, you will not recover, and you will not be born again. You will cease to be. This unlife of yours is barely a life at all but it is more of one than a pile of ashes will ever hope to gain. Is that what you wish to become? Tell us or you will be wiped from existence forever."

"I know nothing."

"Do not insult me, Durn! You know what I say to be true. You can feel the Holy Flame even from here, can't you? The prospect of being completely destroyed upsets you, perhaps even frightens you. Believe me when I say that despite always coming back to life after normally fatal wounds, there is no coming back from the Holy Flame. It is the Flame or imprisonment."

Durn chuckled sardonically. "Such tempting offers."

"Which shall it be?"

"The Flame."

Luthar seemed slightly taken aback by the answer. "You wish to truly be dead?"

"I wish you would just shut up already."

The paladin frowned. "Very well then, if that is your choice then I have nothing left to do."

"Good. Don't let your pompous pride hit you on the way out."

Luthar ignored the comment and turned to Sol. The young man nearly withered under the gaze of the tall, imposing figure. "I have one last option left before me and that is you, Sol. I need you to make him talk for me. If you prove unable to then he will be thrown into the flames and our army will be no better off than it is now."

"Chief Paladin Luthar, Fingers on the Hand and all of that tripe," Sol started nervously, "I haven't used my...taint, as you call it, in years. I don't rightly know if I can still use it, savvy?"

"It is the absolute last option left before us, Sol Stewart," Luthar said, placing a gauntleted hand on the other man's shoulder. "Enara is counting on you to do this. We are on the brink of defeat and we need any information we can harness. I brought you here for this. It is the only reason, and I repeat the only reason, that you have been allowed inside here. Show me that I did right in doing so."

"I never asked to be brought in here!"

"Stewart! You must uphold your duty to your country! Please, I ask this of you now. Can you help Enara?"

Sol stared at the red-headed paladin for a minute before taking a deep breath. "Bloody bullocks, I'll do what I can..." Sol then stepped forward and looked down at Durn, the fingers on both hands, flesh and mechanical, twitching nervously. "I heard he goes limp if his mask is removed..."

"He does," Aragol said with a nod. "Do you want it removed?"

"I'd rather not have him stare at me like that. I know I can't see his eyes but...it doesn't make me feel too peachy."

Without a word, Elmar jammed his sword between the edge of the mask and Durn's face and pried it off, the white oval of porcelain clattering to the ground noisily. Durn's body immediately went limp, supported only by the shackles secured to it.

Sol nodded to Elmar. "Um, thanks for that, mate. Now...uh...let's see if I can do this again..." Sol breathed in deeply, closed his eyes, and raised his hands, putting them level with Durn's body. There was then silence for many minutes, the only indication that time wasn't frozen being the sweat dripping down Sol's head and face. Everyone else in the cell waited patiently. Ophelia chewed on her tongue nervously, clearly worried for her brother, while Luthar watched on with narrowed eyes and almost a slight bit of wonder, as if he was eager to see what would happen.

Long minutes continued to tick away before the air suddenly cooled and the light of the large candles in the hall outside the cell dimmed. Their flames nearly disappeared completely and darkness spread into the cell like a creature, crawling on the floor and walls and heading toward Durn's body. It entered his lifeless corpse and soon wrapped around it like a blanket. Sol began to twitch and shudder as he clenched his teeth, continuing whatever process he was undertaking. Elmar, eyes bulging, gasped and took a step back as Durn's body shuddered. Aragol watched with amazement as Durn's body, without a mask on its scarred and mutilated face, began to come to life. His fingers curled, his shoulders hunched, his legs moved and just as light began to brighten within the cell, Durn's face lifted.

Luthar, along with most of those watching, gasped. "Blasphemy..."

Sol dropped his arms, wobbled on his feet for a few seconds, and then fell back. Boog hurried in and caught him in time, helping him step back as Luthar neared the now living Durn. Unlike the masked Durn, this one was different. His skin lost its sickly greyish green colour and the creases and corpse-like folds. It smoothed out and faded to a healthy, slightly tanned skin colour. Durn's face, normally a mass of scars, gouges, missing pieces, holes, and broken sections filled in with flesh. His empty eye sockets were now full with eyeballs of sapphire. His chin, which had been cut in half, was now whole and lightly covered in hair in the form of a trimmed, golden beard. His long hair, normally grey and wispy, glowed with life, now blonde, full and thick. The man shackled before everyone was no longer the fearsome King of the Dead but a young man, fit in body, handsome in face, and absolutely alive. He blinked his eyes, wide with shock and trepidation, and glanced at each person in turn.

"Is this a dream?" he asked, his voice no longer hollow and sounding as if gravel was travelling down a tube but instead deep, clear and smooth as honey. "I can smell...I can truly see with my own eyes...and I can feel..."

"Durn?" Elmar asked, his sword still pressed against the skin of the man's neck. "Is that you?"

"Durnevir," the man corrected. "I am Durnevir. That is my real name. Am I alive?"

"You bloody well are," Sol said weakly, still leaning heavily against Boog. "I can control the undead and I just gave you life, you murderous wanker. Now answer their godforsaken questions so I can go home."

Durnevir nodded. "Yes, of course." He straightened his back and looked down, suddenly freezing in place. There, staring back at him from the floor, was the white mask.

Aragol tensed, gripped Dragon's End tighter, and prepared to act. If Durn or Durnevir or whoever he was moved toward that piece of porcelain he would lose his head, answered questions or not.

"Get that thing away from me," Durnevir said in disgust, looking away from the mask. "I never want to see that cursed artifact ever again."

Luthar bent down and reached for the mask. He touched it and immediately pulled his hand back, wincing. "The unholy energy in this mask is beyond anything I've ever encountered before. It will have to remain in this cell, locked away from the outside world. I will not risk exposing it to anyone beyond whoever is here." He then went to Durnevir, produced a key, and began undoing the shackles. After Durnevir was freed, he stood up, rubbed his bruised wrists, and thanked the Chief Paladin.

"Do not thank me yet," Luthar said. "You have been given life for the sole purpose of using it to tell us what we want to know. Deny us this information and we will kill you."

Durnevir furrowed his brow and nodded. "I understand. I will tell you all you need to know."

"Good. Now follow me to more hospitable environs. I suspect you must be hungry."

"Is that what I feel? I forgot the sensation of hunger..."

As Luthar led Durnevir out of the cell, the eight companions exchanged amazed and bewildered glances before fixing their attention on Sol.

"How did you do that?" Elmar asked in astonishment.

Sol, finally able to stand on his own, shrugged. "It's part of the Stewart curse. I can bring the dead back to life and not just undead life, but real life."

Casandra was perhaps the most shocked of all. "You can create wari? You can actually generate the strand of energy that binds a spirit to its body?"

"I don't bloody know what any of that is but it's like I told Durnevir, I can control the undead. A demon escaped the Abyss centuries ago and gave us Stewarts this curse. I don't ever use the damned thing because I've no right reason to but I can make corpses rise from the ground, move about, and even burst into a jig if I wanted them to."

"So why didn't you just force the answers out of Durn when he was still undead?" Karmen asked curiously. "Why did you have to go through the trouble of making him alive again?"

"It was that infernal mask of his. I could feel its power, long before Luthar ever asked me to do anything, and I knew I could never defeat it. The mask is what gave him life, or unlife, or whatever you want to call it. I can control corpses but not objects. That thing far surpasses my capabilities, by a bloody long shot. I did the only other thing I could do and that was find his spirit and jam it back into his body."

"And recreate his wari..." Casandra said, still awestruck.

"Yeah, whatever you say."

"Durn isn't even from this world," Elmar said in confusion. "How could you find his spirit?"

"That's why it bloody well took me so long. I can sense spirits easily enough, when I put some effort into it, and I didn't see it in this world's spirit realm. I had to navigate through a few of them before I found it. It sounds bloody well impossible but it's like riding a bike; it's not something I can ever forget how to do. It hurts like a writhing bitch every time, though."

"How about we go home and you get yourself a glass of ale?" Ophelia said, placing a comforting hand on her brother's shoulder.

Sol nodded. "Aye, I'm going to need something stronger than ale. I could use some rum, and a few pints of it too."

Boog turned to Aragol as Sol and Ophelia left the room with Celestia and Victoria. "Do you think we can trust anything this new Durn says?"

Aragol was uncertain. "I do not know, Boog. The man seems genuine and real enough but he is still Durn and we must never forget that. He may not be masked but he is still our enemy."

"I sure as hell won't forget that. Do you think since he's alive now that we can kill him?"

"I would assume so."

"Good, then he's got more to risk in trying to trick us."

"Indeed. We should supervise the questioning. Having men he's fought against standing so near to him might persuade him to tell the truth."

Casandra approached them, overhearing the conversation. "I sensed his wari just before he left. I can tell if he is lying or not now. I will join you."

"Thank you, Casandra."

"I'm coming too," Elmar said. "I want to know that all that torturing wasn't for nothing."

"Must have felt damn good to give that bastard some pain, eh?" Boog asked the short man.

Elmar shrugged and nodded at the same time. "It did but at the same time it didn't. I knew he was Durn and that torturing him wasn't beyond anything he'd have done to us but it still felt...somewhat wrong."

"Bah! You're just a little soft, Elmar. I'd have enjoyed every sizzle of that monster's skin."

As would I, Aragol thought to himself. He walked out of the cell and headed in the direction Luthar had gone with Durnevir. Casandra, Elmar, and Boog followed close behind. This new living form of Durn acted with apparently good intentions and appeared far more agreeable than the undead form but Aragol did not trust him at all. Durn was a dangerous enemy and would forever be so. Giving him life only made him easier to kill.

Dragon's Edge hummed, as if hungry for the man's flesh.

Aragol grinned.

Soon.