"Guardsman!  Let down the gate!" he announced.

The gate descended almost at once, clattering down until it bridged the moat and the castle.  The stranger walked across, cradling in his arms a heavy book that was manacled to his wrist.  The inside of the castle was nearly empty, the place would look barren and disused if it weren't for the night guardsmen on the battlements.  The man walked past several guardsmen who barely acknowledged his presence as he made his way towards the tower.  The tower was the strangest structure inside the walls, it had neither a door nor windows, it was simply a pillar of dull, slate-gray stone.  Without fanfare the stranger stepped towards the tower, and one would expect him to simply smack the stonework and fall to the ground in a heap.  Instead, he passed through it easily, the illusion of the wall rippling as he did so.

Inside the tower was a hall that was furnished with tapestries on bare walls, each one with a different sigil.  These were the markings of the various covenants within the Brotherhood of the Vizjerei.  The covenant had a sacred duty, the Samar Covenant acted as internal security while the Zharish Covenant catalogued creatures of the land.  Normally all the separate covenants would be spread out over the land, but dark times had fallen, and they had all banded together in this place.  He walked down the hall of tapestries and came to a library that stood in vaulted splendor, endless aisles of book-lined columns.  This was the Great Library, the collected lore of centuries of magical work, and the chief domain of the man he sought.  That man was sitting in a high-winged chair in the middle of an oval-shaped clearing in the center of the Library.

"Raius, come in." he said jovially.

"Greetings again, Vischar."

"I take it your… journey to Khanduras was not in vain."

"No, it was not, I found several old books in the cathedral at Tristram."

"Tristram?  I believed it fallen to demons, was it not?"

"Indeed, Tristram was fallen, I saw not a soul when I journeyed there."

"It is a pity… Tyrael save them all."

Raius sat the heavy book down upon Vischar Orous's desk and unshackled himself from it.  Vischar leafed through it for a moment, his face contorted in disgust.

"Blasphemy." He whispered.

"Yes, the diary of an archbishop of the Church of Zakarum."

"Lazarus."

"You know of this?" Raius was shocked.

"I do not… but Rathandel does."

"He is here?"

"No, he left some weeks ago, I do not know where.  He comes and he goes like the wind, answerable to no one, it seems." Vischar laughed nervously.

"What did he say?"

"He spoke before the Circle of Judgement, about the evil that has befallen our land."

Vischar got up from his chair and walked over to a small bookshelf near him.  He placed the worn volume there, with other such books. 

"Raius?" a new voice inquired.  Both Raius and Vischar turned simultaneously.  A man in severe black robes stood before the desk, his face hooded, he clutched a staff made of twisted oak.

"Cadriel…"

"Yes."

"Vischar, why is this abomination here?"

"It was… the decision of the Council to allow the heretical convenants sanctuary for the time being."

"This is madness!  These foul heretics don't belong here!"

"Raius, please…" Cadriel soothed, "there should be no enmity among us."

"Enmity?  You all are implacable killers!"

"We are the Necromancers, Raius!  It is our way to study the realms past life, the plunge into the very depths of darkness."

"And forsake the Light, you go more astray…"

"Silence!" Vischar ordered, "this bickering will cease.  Cadriel, please leave, and let me discuss things with Raius."

"As you wish, Librarian."

In a swirl of darkness, Cadriel disappeared down the same hall he had come down.  Raius turned to Vischar; his eyes dull with rage.

"I leave for but a year and this happens, this is completely unacceptable."

"Raius, listen…"

"No!  I will not listen to madness, if Horazon came here and asked for asylum would the Council grant it?"

"Listen to me, Raius, it wasn't my decision to allow them here, but the Council is the ruling body, and we do as they ask us to.  The Necromancers were under constant attack from village armies who thought them in league with demons, if we did not offer them sanctuary they would surely have all died."

"Let them die!"

"Would you condemn them all to death, then call yourself a man of the Light?" Vischar asked pointedly.

"I… see…"

"Besides, they have a better understanding of demons than any of our most accomplished Summoners, they can be of help to us."

"I do not trust them, Vischar, I do not trust them."

"Sometimes we must accept things on faith, and trust that there is a higher reason for those things we do not understand, Raius."

The two mages walked down the long hallway, walking towards the place where the other magistrates were assembled.  There was much to discuss now that Raius had returned to the tower.  In the shadows, a small assembly of dark-cloaked figures watched the two as the disappeared into the massive double-doors.  The shadows whispered amongst themselves.

"Tonight," one of them said, "they shall know fear…"