Duke watched the people outside the church die one after another, their red blood mingling with the rainwater and spreading into the distance.
The trails of blood followed the cracks between the paving stones, forming complex symbols on the ground that resembled certain mathematical equations.
His mind felt compelled to solve those equations. In the process, countless pieces of obscure, incomprehensible knowledge were poured into his head.
Along with them came a will that urged him to break the shackles of the rules laid down by the Seven Gods, forsake their decrees, and summon an entity from the darkness.
After a deafening thunderclap, he jolted awake.
Rain was still falling outside the window, but there was no trace of those people in the square. Nothing was there-no Nine-Pointed Star Magic Circle, no priest.
Just as he thought it had all been a hallucination, the floor beneath his feet seemed to vanish. His body plunged uncontrollably downward, finally landing in a pitch-black space.
There was only endless darkness there, where time and space lost all meaning.
He could only grope blindly around in panic. All he could see were dustlike flecks of shimmering light, a deep, eerie blue.
But he could smell an unbearable stench. He had encountered it before: the carcass of a sperm whale that had long since rotted on the rocks by the docks, reeking of decaying flesh and the rank smell of the sea.
Strange sounds rose from every direction, reaching his ears with perfect clarity.
They sounded like chalk scraping across a blackboard, or teeth grinding together.
The sounds came and went. After he followed them for a while, they grew clearer. This time, he recognized them as the sounds of some mechanical device activating.
He could only feel his way through the darkness. Eventually, he