Tenebroum lost itself for days this time rather than weeks, but the strange visions were much the same as they had been before. It swam through the swirling memories of the All-Father, expl the junctures where they met and, indeed, often differed with individual dwarves. Still, big or small, they pounded against the Liches mind like the blows of a fe hammer.

  In those swirling, rigid facts, there was enough information to make it feel some measure of shame for the way it built its ir. The core had been redone as a temple to aodate its growing cult of followers, but the warrens of tuhat had been built for defense and the ste of zombies, well, the influence of the All-Father made it clear that those would have to be redone, but only after it improved its fes.

  Tenebroum had always thought that quality issues in its pos were due to the unwilling nature of the fewights, but now that the knowledge of the All-Father swirled through it, it could see dozens of problems in need of corre. Ventition, ination, temperature. None of those were quite where they should be, even for simple steel. It would take steps to improve all those things when it woke if it remembered.

  For now, though, it remembered w with Lunaris to rebuild Siddrim’s chariot. It remembered chastising her in the All-Father’s gruff voice when it found out they had no oo recapture and harhe horses or even drive the thing.

  “It’s a waste of my time if the thing won’t be put to use!” the dwarven God had roared.

  Despite her assurahat it would be, the memory faded before the dwarf’s ire did, and instead, Tenebroum watched the All-Father force a sword made from silver dragon scales. This seemed important, but as soon as it saw that Oroza was with the All-Father and that it was her scale the divine smith was using, Its rage blotted out the whole memory.

  She lives! Howled in e. The Lich had not seen his escaped handmaiden in so long that it had assumed its poisoning of her domain had been successful. To think that she was still out there and still w against its is, even as rough as she looked, was more than irksome.

  Eventually, even that drifted off, too. The Lich couldn’t hold on to anything for long, no matter how much it might care about it in the moment.

  Remembering anything was hard. Sometimes, the iy of the maelstrom at Tennebroum’s core reached such a fever pitch that it felt like it was either going to colpse or explode. It was especially intense when feeding on a god, though, and the dwarf was alien in so many ways. There was such attention to detail and uniformity, but beyond that, even, there was a certain alienness.

  It was a sed sort of ology.

  Above the world, past the stars and their strange steltions, there was nothing except the endless primordial darkness, but the same was true, acc to the All-Father at the very ter of the world, too. He kept the void from expanding the same way that the Moon Goddess and her glowing shield kept back the night.

  Tenebroum had no idea if that was true, of course, or what would happen if those fe fires one day went out, but it was hard to focus on anything, let alone worry about it in the stantly drifting and morphing images. The fes of creation held back the nothing in the same way that the light kept the monsters at bay, and truly, the Lich wanted nothing more than to devour them all. It wao extinguish every light and life until there was nothi but a cold, gilded mo ruling over a world of the dead.

  Then, just as soon as it was fog on those writhing shadows so far away and trying to figure out how it could devour them, it woke once more. What it had been waiting for had arrived.

  That news was important enough that to finally get Tenebroum to stir from its slumber. Still, it y there for the better part of a day while its drudges transported both the coffin and the hound that apa to their proper p the boratory that it had built for this specific purpose.

  As urgently it wao dive into those experiments, there were too many valuable insights left over from the ing remains of the All-Father, so instead of rushing anything, it spent time reying as many of those memories as it could recall to the Skoetiikos. It was only then, after all of that tedium was dohat it swirled out of the hopelessly damaged cathedral.

  It wasn’t sure recisely it would do with it now, but on a whim, it ordered its drudges to repce dull skulls with the few glowing ohat remained iory room. Tenebroum wasn’t sure if there was more magic left to be done in that pce, but even if there wasn’t, it would serve as a fitting tomb to the dwarven race. After all, that was where their God had died, and when it was dohe only dwarven souls that remained might be left in that room.

  Dwarves were no los , though. It was doh that enemy and moving on to the one. Would that be the human kingdoms to the north? Somehow, the idea of hunting down mortal prey after dev a god seemed less thaig. Perhaps it would make its Queen of Thrones some allies to tinue her hunt while it baited a trap capable of catg Niama, the nature goddess. Si could not have the moon, then perhaps she would be its meal.

  When Tenebroum reached the room set aside for studying the worm, the rat, and the wolf, it found his dark nature Goddess waiting. She’d grown stronger si had st seen her, and it was obvious that her hunts were going well. She was not nearly as strong as the true Goddess, of course, but she was already the equal of Oroza; she might everonger. It was hard to say.

  “Finally, a servant that does not disappoihe Lich said, suffusing the room as a mist while it studied the stone sarcophagus that sat in the far binding ring. “Tell me everything about this discovery. Leave nothing out.”

  Tenebroum listeo her as she reyed everything in a tohat rideful enough that it would have sifted through her soul to search for treasonous thoughts if it was not already ed by this new discovery. It would let her have her pride for now since she had done such good work.

  She spent the few mielling the Lich what it already knew, with only minor additions. It wasn’t until she talked about the strange behavior of the wolf that it stopped her and studied the beast.

  “What do you suppose it wants in there?” Tenebroum asked her.

  “I don’t know, my lord,” she answered, bowling her head. “I only know that it wants it badly.”

  “What about you, Ghrosin?” the Lich stormed, making the cage full of rats that sat in the far circle scurry and swarm in fear and agitation.

  “I-it wants the worm,” the chorus squeaked. “It needs it!”

  “And what about you?” the Lich asked again. This set off a chorus of excited squeaks.

  “Please,” they begged. “Please let us devour and knaw!”

  The Lich had no iion of doing any such thing, of course, but it was all the firmation that it hat what it sought was here now. It had taken lohan it would have liked, but it had collected three dark gods that were, at the very least, turies old. Acc to the All-Father, they might even be older than that.

  “You may leave us,” it said finally to its dark forest Goddess. “tinue your hunt, and when this project is done, I will build you more suitable panions than this hound so you take der prey.”

  “Yes, my master,” she said with a sinuous curtsy that would have been impossible for ah a limited number of human joints. Then, she was gone, and Tenebroum was aloh its menagerie of monsters.

  That solitude didn’t st long. Seds ter, a number of zombies ehe room to be the hands that the Lio longer had to do the work that o be dohree zombies came in with chisels, hammers, and prybars to begin opening the lead-sealed sarcophagus, and one more 7 eyed fleshcrafter came in for the darko coalesside to better study the problem.

  Suffusing the room with itself had advantages, but with all the unknowns here, the Lich wanted a bit of dista wao be as separated from its subjects as they were from each other.

  Breaking opehing wasn’t hard. The thing was almost identical to the tainer in which the other two animals were found. This one wasn’t filled with the mangey, emaciated corpse of a wolf or hundreds of dead mid rats. It was filled with grave earth. Though that was the end product of decay, of course, it still struck the Lich as odd.

  Did the other two survive all these ages while this one did not? It wondered. It wasn’t sure why that would be the case or what that would mean, but it did strike the Lich as odd, and the ued always made it nervous.

  Still, after only a moment's hesitation, it decided to tihe experiment and had rge bowls of bloht to it to feed the thing. That was how Tenebroum had woken up the wolf, and that was how it would wake up this mooo, probably.

  Blood feeds rage, though, Tenebroum deliberated as it watched its unthinking servant fill the thing with blood that was quickly absorbed by the desiccated soil. What might a worm require? If it's the ination of pestilehe require flesh? A victim to i?

  The Lich was just trying to decide whether it should fet acolyte for this thing to e when the grave earth began to stir, or rather, something stirred beh it. It was barely noticeable, but it would have been difficult for anything to hide from a struct with so many eyes.

  “Are you there, spirit?” The Lich asked in an a, cracked voice rather than speaking out into the ether.

  Groshian could speak in their way through the rats, but the wolf had only ever mao howl in pain as the Lich took it apart and then put it back together to better uand its undying nature. So, there was no way to know if the worm could speak. So it was with mild surprise it heard the words “Yesss… I have risssen… Onccce more…”

  Just a couple reminders here:

  Tenebroum's sed ebook is avaible for preorder here

  Its physical book will be up soon (when I finish the final cover)

  and audiobook will release the first week of January. I will provide a link when it is up for preorder as well.