Melock's mind filled with visions of the Necromancer's world long before it was destroyed. He was once a member of an advanced humanoid species that discovered technology long before they dabbled in the magical arts. 

Dark shadows did their best to cloud a vision of an ambitious young man climbing to a state of prominence in a futuristic utopian society. He held no resemblance to the wicked creature Melock fought. Flashes of a book, a manuscript, years of secret research, and a ritual that summoned a demon. Melock dove deep into the recesses of his memories. 

He saw the young man atop a massive skyscraper looking out into a planet-wide ecumenopolis. The man turned his back on the city and gazed upon a room filled with runes, potions, candles, a human sacrifice, and a portal. He cut his own arm and said the word, "Mazlovado."

The Necromancer pushed him out. "No!" 

The vision swirled away in a ghostly phantom. 

"My work is not for you to steal!" said a sonic voice in Melock's head. 

"I share your quest for knowledge, but don't use it to rule over others. I have no interest in the powers of extra-planar evil. " 

"Don't you? You went out into space seeking eternal life and the universe brought you to me."

Melock shuddered at the truth of this statement.  

"You extend your life by sucking it from others." 

"Energy can neither be created nor destroyed—only converted from one form to another."

Melock ran his hand down his Fu Manchu. "You understand physics well enough, but what of philosophy?" 

"Don't speak to me of morals, you hypocrite!" sneered the voice.  

The Necromancer pulled images out of Melock's memory of him luring Sister Murphy into his own personal plot under the guise of righteousness. 

Melock took a deep breath in and said, "I may be guilty of unfair influence but I certainly don't make choices for others." 

The Necromancer showed Melock a future where he wouldn't return Øregård to his own world and kept him as a bodyguard and errand boy. "We have more in common than you think."

Melock exhaled slowly. His own prognostications gave reasons why he would need Øregård's help in the future. 

"I released you from captivity. It seems fitting that you would turn to conquer my homeworld first. I hesitate to put a being with such a wealth of experience back into prison, even if your history is plagued by high crimes against so many species."

"We both know you can't send me back. You don't know how." 

"Don't I?" said Melock placing his fingers on the sides of his teleportation amulet. 

Tykö jumped off the ground with a crazed look in his eyes. It was unclear if he was alive or dead or undead? Melock broke his focus. Tykö fired a ray from his mechanical arm and cracked the shell around the Necromancer. Melock rushed a wave of force knocking the Technowizard back down. The Necromancer shed his capsule and plucked the blue butterfly from his forehead. 

"You are a crafty one," he said crumpling the insect in his long fingers and morphing into a giant black spider that ate it. 

 Melock shape changed into a galactic space wasp, took to the air, and divebombed the arachnid. The spider turned into a beautiful yet grotesque creature that resembled a crustacean without its shell. Its head was all mouth and jagged teeth and its black oily body pulsed with bioluminescent rainbows. It grabbed the oncoming man-sized wasp with eight muscled appendages. The wasp changed into an adult male silverback mountain gorilla. 

The two animals beat on each other and wrestled across the rocks. Tykö was down and not getting up. Murphy remained frozen in a state of genuflection. The gorilla picked up the space creature and slammed it on a boulder. The creature kicked the gorilla away from beneath it. Then the wizards returned to their normal selves. 

"You'll not be the one to defeat me!" said the Necromancer. 

He formed a ball of black energy between his hands and created a miniature black hole. The object started sucking everything into it and the Necromancer sent it flying toward Melock. He in turn created a basketball-sized self-contained fusion reactor and threw the bright white light at the oncoming darkstar. Darkness pushed into light, light fed into darkness, and the two wizards became locked into an unwinnable game of tug of war.

"Our skills are evenly matched," said Melock. 

"Imagine what we could learn from each other?" 

The tempting words got to Melock. Yes, he wanted to know the secrets of the Necromancer. Yes, he wanted to understand his life story, his adventures, his victories, his conquests, his defeats. What secrets did such an ancient being hold? He wasn't killed for his wrongdoing he was imprisoned. For eternity. Punished. Why? And how had he so easily defeated Sid? Melock's peer and mentor. He wanted to know. He needed to find out. Killing the Necromancer wasn't the way! 

The dark orb began to overtake the light. When Melock saw the electric green blade of the Lich's dagger spark to life behind the Necromancer, he began to panic. He had pulled Sabastian along with his follow spell. He'd been here all along. Had the battle with the Necromancer blinded him to what was invisible but still right in front of him the whole time? And how had the Necromancer failed to see him? 

Sabastian de Martín shimmered into sight and winked before stabbing the Necromancer right in the spine. The two wizard's powers cracked into each other with an explosion that stunned them both. Sabastian twisted the blade and the Necromancer let out an ear-piercing wail. 

Murphy was on her feet. She'd been replaying in her mind what she would do if she got free and now she was! Three quick steps, a reach with a pull, and she held the Necromancer's wicked spiked ball mace. Two more steps and a leap and she was in the air before him. The mace went high above her and she brought it down with all the skill, might, and accuracy she possessed.

The world went black. A darkness supreme fell over the universe; no sight, no sound, no stars, no planets, no gravity, no motion, no feeling, no emotion, no thought, no perception. It was the true void, utter lack of sensation in every imaginable form. Unmitigated emptiness. Nothing. 

Nothing.

Nothing.

Close your eyes.

Count to one. 

That's how long eternity is.

And Bam! A crack of light for a second and reality returned. 

The Necromancer's head was crushed into his body with the mace stopping, lodged in the middle of his upper ribcage. Murphy landed on her feet and kicked his tall body, yanking the mace from his chest. Sabastian ripped the dagger from his back as the Necromancer fell. 

His crumpled body shrivel when it hit the ground and dried into ash, deteriorated, and blew away like dust in the wind. A dark body-shaped stain on the gray dirt and a pair of iron gauntlets were all that was left of him. 

Murphy knelt back down on one knee and picked up Sid's spellbook. She held it close to her chest and prayed for the soul of Luculentus Dicax Sid. Then she thanked the gods of luck, war, light, and darkness for their help in defeating such a foe. 

de Martín reached down to pick up the Necromancer's gauntlets.

"Sabastian, don't!" shouted Melock. 

He was a second too late and the cursed gauntlets struck. Sabastian screamed out in horror, his hands went to his temples, and he swallowed his own tongue. He fell to the ground in a violent convulsion, bleeding from his eyes, kicking his legs, and flailing his arms. He desperately gasped for air as death seized him. 

"Sabastian, don't!" shouted Melock.

de Martín froze in his tracks with a deep feeling of deja vu. He looked down at the Necromancer's gauntlets. They were objects of extreme power. And value. He reached down to pick them up and screamed in horror. He fell to the ground in a violent convulsion, bleeding from his eyes, kicking his legs, and flailing his arms. He desperately gasped for air as death seized him.

"Sabastian, don't!" shouted Melock.

He stopped, struck by a deep feeling of deja vu. And danger. He looked down at the Necromancer's gauntlets. They were objects of extreme power. Probably cursed. Best let the wizard check them out first. He rubbed his thumb across his fingers. 

"What about these accursed things?"

"Leave them alone. Don't even touch 'em. Come help me with Tykö," said Melock kneeling down beside the crumpled old man on the ground. 

"Is he dead?" asked de Martín. 

"Not quite."

Melock snapped his fingers in an odd rhythm and Tykö's soiled appearance radically improved. The old man coughed and hacked in a fit as if the cleaning of his body also cleaned his insides, then he opened his eyes. 

"What happened?" asked Tykö.

"The Necromancer aged you with some kind of curse," said Melock. 

"What?" 

"You've been cursed," said Melock loudly. 

"What? I think my hearing is gone." 

Melock spoke to Tykö with his mind saying, "The Necromancer did extensive damage to your body. I've stabilized you. We need to go back to Abraxas and check on the others. Do you feel you can travel?" 

Tykö leaned up painfully on his elbows. He tried to connect his neural transmitter to Melock's but was unable to, so he spoke back in response. 

"I'm probably more of a liability," he said in a pained voice, "than a help at this point. Is he defeated? Is he back in his prison?"

"He's dead." 

"How?"

"Sister Murphy stoved his head in."

"No conventional weapon could hurt him. Are you sure?"

"She used his mace."

"That might do it." Tykö laid back on the ground. "Let's hope he stays dead." Blood ran out of his nose and he wiped it away. 

"Indeed," said Melock. "Will you be ok for a second while we check out the area? Then we must get back to Abraxas."

"Yes, yes. I'll be fine. Just let me rest here a few minutes and I'll go with you." Tykö put an arm under his head and closed his eyes.