Eldrid waited beside the box for about thirty seconds, then slammed the lid shut, cutting off the pillar of fire.  "So where is this mighty master of yours?" he growled to ShadowDemon.

"You must be patient," the shadow hissed.  "Many worlds claim his attention, and he must travel a great distance."

Eldrid began to suspect as much when he had opened the Box of Balefire.  He realized that it was a beacon, calling out to someone or something whose home was not the Realm but the cosmos.  Yet any doubts about his actions were drowned under his desire to possess the wild magick.  I will give anything!

A thundercloud began building on the horizon, miles from the ruins.  It grew even as Eldrid watched it.  Then he noticed that it was not moving.  It was building itself into a massive vertical column of cloud that reached to the ground and stretched into the sky.  Once it had reached a certain height and thickness, it started to move, a pillar of dark boiling cloud traveling the landscape.

"Is this your Master, ShadowDemon?" Eldrid asked.

"My Master is within," the shade said, with more than a little fear in his voice.

Everywhere the column of cloud touched was left a scorched, smoking ruin.  This did not seem to faze Eldrid at all.  "I can restore those places later, if I choose."

Winds swirled all around Eldrid; a roar like twenty earthquakes shook the sky and land.  Yet Eldrid knew that he had to steel himself for the appearance of this visitor from the stars.  He could not show fear; he would give this thing no chance to declare that Eldrid was unworthy to receive the wild magick.

The cloud rolled to within a few feet of him, then stopped.  Eldrid could feel his mind being probed, as if by a hundred searching needles.  Then, the cloud spoke.  What sounded through the air seemed to be the slobberings and grunts of some ghastly animal hunting for prey.  Eldrid’s mind, however, received a clearer message:

"Why have you summoned me?"

Eldrid was by no means as confident or calm as he seemed, yet he willed his terror to be still as he addressed the cloud:

"I wish to know of the wild magick, so that I may control the Realm.  What must I do to gain knowledge of the wild magick?"

The shapeless shape within the thundercloud seemed again to speak without words into Eldrid’s mind.  "Acknowledge me as your suzerain.  I will give you dominion over this world.  You may rule it as you wish; but you must first call me ‘Master’."

"And you," Eldrid spoke up with as much arrogance as he could find, "must first change me.  Make me into a fit master of this Realm.  Those who look upon me must see a great and powerful magician, not a boy."

This entity wasn’t used to being ordered about.  The flames within the cloud flared up hotly for a minute, then cooled back down.  "Are you willing to abandon your body?"

Without hesitation Eldrid took a step forward.  "I am."

A beacon shone out of the cloud, as hot and brilliant as the Balefire, its light engulfing Eldrid where he stood.  He held his fear under control, but the pain was almost more than he could bear.  It took every ounce of his will not to cry out.

"You who were Eldrid shall cease to be," the voice rang in his head, "and out of your ashes shall rise the instrument of my revenge against the DungeonMaster.  He thwarted my last attempt to bring this Realm under my control.  He shall not do so again.  You will see to that.  Arise, my Venger!"

Eldrid had sunk to one knee; now in his place knelt a nightmare being twice the size of the child; taller than many grownups.  Rampant batwings were only the most obvious change.  The face had now a corpselike gray pallor; the head misshapen and bulbous; the nose missing altogether, giving a skull-like appearance.  The sickening asymmetry was capped by the single horn growing out of Venger’s skull.

"Go forth!" the voice within the cloud rumbled.  "Be my instrument to bring down DungeonMaster!  Become the master of this Realm, and what you seek shall be yours!"

"Wait, Master!  What is your name, that I may honor you properly?"

"My name can be spoken by no living thing.  In time you will come to know it, and fear it."

"I fear nothing!"

"We shall see."

The cloud seemed to pour itself up into space, gradually leaving a Realm partly scorched, but returned to the stillness of night.

He who would now be known as Venger took a minute to survey his new form.  "Excellent," he pronounced.  He took a moment to test the batwings.  He could not fly with them, though; they were merely fearsome ornaments.

What shall I do? He mused.  Teleportation would be tiring if I had to do it all the time.  And no horse living could carry me as fast or as far as I wish.  He bared his fangs in a tight smile.  Then I shall not ride a living horse.

He glanced down and saw a piece of black marble left in the wake of his unnamed Master.  He gestured above the stone.  It gave off a pale blue glow and began growing.  It grew until it gave off an explosive blue flash, revealing the shape of a horse.  Yet it was the shape of no horse that had ever lived in the Realm.  This steed was completely black, except for its eyes, which glowed red with the fires of a hundred torture chambers.  Its knotted stone mane could never be groomed.  Most unsettling of all, this horse might once have been a meat-eater for—like its master—it bore fangs.

Venger mounted his automaton, and again smiled his grim smile as it rose into the air.  "Follow me, ShadowDemon!" he called; "I may have need of you."  Obediently, the shade rose up into the air.

Venger wondered where he would go now, and for a fleeting instant the idea of "home" rose within him.  He recalled the cottage, leagues and a lifetime away, where he had lived with DungeonMaster, and hastily shook any remaining sentiment for the old wizard out of his mind.  It seems I must fashion my dwelling as I fashioned this mare.

Setting his eye on the horizon, on one of the most forbidding peaks of the Mountains of Parna, Venger pointed his steed toward what would be the first of several large, grotesque and fearsome dwelling places Venger would keep in the Realm.

DungeonMaster gestured, and the cottage was encased in a glowing red sphere.  Another gesture, and the sphere sank below the surface, without disturbing so much as a blade of grass.

"There shall you rest until I need you again.  Let that time come quickly."

With that, DungeonMaster took up his old life, from the time before Eldrid, when he lived everywhere in the Realm, staying in no fixed place.  Yet, even as he traveled the Realm, his mind traveled to other worlds, searching for those who would fulfill the prophesied destiny of the wild magick.

Those who could not be controlled through magic were dealt with through terror.  Other dark wizards lived in the Realm; Venger was hardly the first.  However, most of them recognized the power Venger wielded and did not wish to oppose it.  There were a few challengers, notably the wizard Kelek and Warduke, but the challenges did not last long.  They eventually came to agreements with Venger (even if they did not always intend to keep them).

Venger drew whole races of lesser beings under his sway.  He raised armies of Orcs, lizard-men and bulliwogs (frog-like humans).  Of course, this was the easy part.  Getting them to fight effectively was another task, as these races were hardly the most intelligent in the Realm.  On more than one occasion the Orcs or bulliwogs would break off an attack to turn on each other. He might as well have tried to organize an army out of the zombies: blue-skinned, vacant-eyed, wandering members of the walking dead who once were among the humans of the Realm.  It was all Venger could do at first to keep his armies focused on the task at hand. Eventually, he singled out the few smartest members of these armies, putting them in command of the others.

Still, no allied wizard or army of lesser creatures was strong enough for Venger.  He needed a weapon to use against DungeonMaster; something that DungeonMaster would not expect and could not defeat.  He was turning this problem over in his mind one day when he rode to the farthest reaches of the Realm, a twilight domain more welcoming to the dead than the living.

The Dragons’ Graveyard.

A dragon in its daily life mixes magic and nature in ways reserved only for unicorns, harpies and other mystic immortals of the animal kingdom.  Dragons, however, seldom use all the power at their command, being content to use their various kinds of breath-weapons to bludgeon their enemies.  Because the magic has been allowed to grow dim in dragons, they are not literally immortal.  As their centuries-long lives draw to a close, they seek out spots where magic is most vibrant.  Originally, the presence of magic in these spots eased their transition from one world to the next.  Nobody thought that the magic should be exploited.

Siegfried may have been the first.  He had been well taught in the dwarfish art of sword-making, and his finest blade, Nothung, was powerful enough to slice in two the anvil upon which it was shaped.  Yet it was not until he slew the dragon Fafner, and the sword was bathed in the dragon’s blood, did its powers increase a hundredfold.

That started a land-rush.  Anyone with a weapon (or even a common household article) that they wished possessed by magic would seek out a dying dragon—and most of them weren’t above helping nature along if the dragon was ill or elderly and couldn’t defend itself.  For a time in the Realm, everything from mousetraps to rowboats carried some dragon-blood enchantment or other.

As a result, magic items diminished in value, as did the number of dragons.

Their search for magical locales in which to die comfortably and safely took the dragons farther and farther from the heart of the Realm.  In time, one remote spot was found at the edge of the known world: a desolate spot of barren waste and craters.  This spot became the sole Dragons’ Graveyard for the Realm.  It still attracted those looking for easy enchantment, but the trek was now long and arduous, and the outcome less than certain.

Venger, on the other hand, knew what he wanted: not a weapon enchanted by a dragon, but a dragon itself—preferably the strongest one in the Realm.  Even if it could not defeat DungeonMaster, it would divert him so that Venger could deliver the final attack.  But no single dragon proved worthy.

So he thought his luck was on the rise when he found five of them.

All that had brought these five dragons to the same place were chance and the desire to rest somewhere sheltered from the demands of men.  Even though this was the Dragons’ Graveyard, none of these were anywhere near death.  They were, however, exhausted from their separate treks about the Realm.  Venger recognized them all:

--Lahmu, the white dragon whose breath was a polar frost, seldom strayed from the northern wastes.  This day, however, he had been hunted by the humans who lived on the fringe of the polar wastes.  He did not know what they wanted from him, and did not linger to ask.

--Lahamu, the blue dragon whose breath was the lightning.  She inspired a special fear among humans, because no thunder accompanied her lightning.  Killing in silence, she inspired more fear, and more hatred, than most dragons.  Her whole life had consisted of defending herself against humans.

--Anshar, a green dragon who breathed poison gas.  He had lived all his life in marches and fetid swamps, where he was mostly camouflaged against the humans who hunted him.

--Kishar, the black dragon.  She spit a highly corrosive acid.  Little was known about her, since she avoided the haunts of men as much as she could.

Watching over them all like a mother hen was the Queen of Dragons, Tiamat, whose red scales stood out like the flame she breathed.  Twice the size of the other dragons, she had taken upon herself the role of protector of her kind, and remained watchful even in the relative safety of the Dragon’s Graveyard.

Venger stayed well away from Tiamat to avoid being seen, then cast a sleep upon her and the other four dragons.  This was simple enough; the four were asleep already, and Tiamat had been dozing fitfully.  Then Venger grinned wickedly and cast his greatest spell to date.

When Tiamat awoke a short time later, it was to a sick feeling that reality had somehow changed.  She tried to look east, but her mind saw the north, then east, then back again.  She wanted to run and fly and stay still, all at the same time.  Terror seized Tiamat; her world had become one gigantic hallucination, threatening to drive her mad.  The terror grew worse as she realized the truth: that four of her children had become snakelike appendages to her own body.  This explained her hallucinations: five minds were trying to govern one body, and she was hearing and seeing and feeling through all of them at once.

"Look upon me, Tiamat!"

The voice came from somewhere above her.  All five of Tiamat’s heads turned to the sky, where they made out the nightmare figure on the black horse.

"What have you done to me?!" she cried out.  "Restore me to myself!"

"Not until you have destroyed DungeonMaster.  I have need of a dragon so powerful that DungeonMaster will surely fall before it.  If you destroy DungeonMaster, then you shall be as you once were."

Hardly were the words out of Venger’s mouth when the four new heads of Tiamat fired on him at once.  Ice, lightning, acid, poisonous gas all rushed toward Venger, who dodged in the nick of time.

"DungeonMaster is nothing to me," the main head of the dragon hissed, "but you and I are enemies, now and forever.  As long as you and I draw breath, I will hunt you down, and I will pay you back for what you have done to me and my children!"

Venger rushed away through the sky, with the dragon in eager pursuit.  He dared not turn and fight his creation; there might still be a way to turn it against DungeonMaster.  Even as he sought to lose the dragon in high clouds or steep-sided valleys, he clung to his original plan.  He had forgotten one of DungeonMaster’s first lessons:

"You must always remember, Eldrid, that magic is not a tool to be used by a wizard.  Magic is a living thing, as much as any animal or plant in the Realm.  You must work with magic if you want it to work at all."

Yet, even as he ran from his own creation, Venger tried to find a way to create a less risky dragon.  Clearly, the magic of five dragons was enough to break his hold.  Perhaps only two dragons the next time—

"Six Young Ones"