Dio surveyed the pentagram, and nodded. It felt right. He had just drawn the last line. The preparations had been relatively easy. [Half the trouble was the candle. The other half was getting enough blood out of my body.] Dio glanced down at his forearm, where his latest incision had long since vanished. [Enough musing.] He stepped into the center of the pattern, and began.

"I stand in a symbol, marked in blood from my own veins.
"I have a lit candle, made from wax melted by sunlight.
"I have a mirror of silver, polished in the moonlight.
"I have a thimble of diamond’s dust, shining like stars."

Shadow Dio stood on the roof of a nameless tomb. This was his journeyman ritual, that would mark him forever as one who walks the path of darkness and shadows, and could learn no other magic. If his face didn’t fill that role already.

"I extinguish the candle, and cast it from the symbol that is me.
"I break the mirror, and cast it from the symbol that is me.
"I scatter the dust, and cast it from the symbol that is me.

"I stand alone in the symbol that is me, and I call.
"I have abjured the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars.

"I call the Darkness black as pitch, deeper than the deepest night.
"I summon thee, I pledge myself to thee!
"Free yourself from the bonds of the heavens!
"Become one with my body, one with my Power!
"Grant me my due as a Lord of the Night!
"Grant me my Mantle of Shadows!"

Darkness crashed down, filling the pentagram drawn in Dio's blood without a sound.

The roof was still and silent for a long time. The mirror, dust, and candle were gone. Not a trace of Dio's blood could be seen.

A smooth-sided pillar of Dark stood at the center of the platform.

Eventually, it faded. Dio swirled his new garment around his shoulders, and smiled to himself.

Then he realized what time it was. "Why didn't the damned book say the ceremony would last until dawn!"

He fled.

Dio scurried as far back in his tomb as he could, hiding until The World could push the stone slab into place in the door. He owed his life to his Pallium Umbra, as the Tome of Shadow Knowledge named it. Of course, his life wouldn't have been in such acute danger if he hadn't spent the night evoking it.

Both he and his new cloak were in sorry shape. While the fabric spun from darkness had kept the worst of the light off of him, the sun had obviously been winning, even with Dio pouring every magical resource he had left into reinforcing it. But protection from light was not the purpose of having a Mantle of Shadows.

The mages who walk the paths of Darkness, Night, and Shadow have long used the Mantle of Shadows. They have used it to hide from those who study the light and call themselves virtuous. They have used it as a badge, and a mark of accomplishment. They have wasted its potential.

Though I have been teaching apprentices for less than a half-dozen years, I have already found two uses which profoundly alter the way to mastery of Dark magics. The first of the two is that a thing made from Shadow can be taken into the fabric of the cape, and called forth at need. As much as this is convenient and reduces our dependence on stationary, discoverable laboritory space, it is a trifle compared to the second property, even though it is closely related.

Until now, long years or even decades needed to be spent developing a memory that could perfectly store and recall numerous spell patterns, as well as the study needed to learn and understand the patterns themselves. No longer, for once a spell is understood, its pattern can be stored in the mantle, and called to mind perfectly at need.

Dio snapped the book shut. And began to pace. He had not need to sleep during the day since he had consumed the blood of the Ancient One from the river, but today that was no blessing. Since he became aware during the Stillness, he had been slowly, so slowly rebuilding the reserves he had burnt in the space between instants. And now he had been hurt. Again. After spilling several pints of blood for the ceremony. All of which meant one thing.

He hungered.

And there were twelve hours of daylight between him and feeding.

A Stand user. He needed the strength from a Stand user if he was going to recover enough to journey to Makai. Shadow Dio had not seen any of Dio Brando's servitors still in Cairo, and he was certain most other Stand users in Cairo itself would have been consumed by his original. Which was why his hands were clenched in the crumpled sheet-metal of the roof of a big-rig's trailer.

He had taken a newspaper from the first man to assuage his hunger. His new vision made reading mortal words so easy that turning the pages became the limiting factor. He had found an article on a series of gruesome nighttime murders in Suez, a hundred kilometers to the east. [It might be the work of a Darkstalker, but the choice of victims argues otherwise.] Local bullies, disciplinary figures. The odds favoured the culprit being a youth with a newly-discovered Stand.

Thus, he rode.

From the roof of the school building, Shadow Dio watched the bleeding teen enter the yard in a staggering run. He was probably fifteen or sixteen, and both tall and bulky for that age. The youth compulsively glanced over his shoulder with eyes that were both beady and cruel behind a glaze of panic. Behind him, a younger teen entered Dio's view, moving in a steady, taunting stalk.

Dio knew he had found his own prey. The newcomer, probably fourteen, had eyes that shone with the rush of newfound power. This one was small, with disheveled brown bowl-cut hair. Aside from the diabolic expression on his face, he looked like the archetype of a bully's target.

Dio leaped to the pavement in front of the first boy, and drove straighten fingers through a breastbone that would now never reach its full growth. His veins pulsed briefly with the added fluid.

The tormentor did not seem immediately apprehensive. He surveyed Dio. Blonde, jeans, shirt, jacket. No face. "I'm Shane. Are you going to obey me too, like Emperor Grey?"

Dio chuckled just loud enough to shake the expression on Shane's face. [Ah, youth. So sure they have seen the edges of the world, and all that it holds.] Dio allowed the first corpse to drop. The surviving teen made a broad gesture, calling in a Stand that resembled a badly articulated Roman statue, covered in spikes and wrapped in black barbed wire. The pale silhouette of The World rose above Dio's shoulders. "Boy, I came a long way, not to obey you, but to drain your blood and eat your life. I came to break your Stand into pieces, to take your strength and consign your soul to the hell you deserve! Now, give me your throat or show me how well your torturing has taught you the arts of war and pain!"

Shane stumbled backwards, wide eyes devoid of any of their previous malicious light. The Stand stood passively. Dio shook his head slightly and sent The World to smash aside the immobile statue aside. Then he glanced down at the new cut across his knuckles. Meanwhile, Shane peeled himself out of a chain-link fence. He bared his teeth and snarled, "I'll show you!"

Emperor Grey skated forward, loops of barbed wire stretching  forward from a swinging right arm. Dio stiffened his fingers, ducked the lashes, and hammered a dozen blows between the Stand's defensive spikes. Both Stand and user skidded backwards, one remaining upright. The other landed hard on his skinny ass.

Dio crossed his arms and leaned backward.. "Child, I give you two minutes to make your peace. Then I'll bury your stand in the cement and leave your corpse to be the last victim of the 'Suez School Slasher.'" 

Dio knew it was a mistake, and didn't find any particular pleasure in rubbing in his foe's weakness. But the habit beat him.

"Emperor Grey - Shrike's Cage!" The first strand of barbed wire opened a gash on Dio's neck. Then he was ducking and weaving, evading the others with the absolute minimum motion. When it was over, Dio was in the same pose as before, arms crossed, facing a kneeling Emperor Grey and Shane. Facing them, from the center of a slowly-rotating sphere of barbed wire.

[Hmph. Like Kakyoin's Mystic Trap.] Keeping an eye out for attacking strands, Dio flicked out a right jab to test the wires. When he snapped his hand back in, two fingers were dangling by nothing more than skin. Then the air hit the wound.

Dio hissed.

Pressing his fingers back in place with his left hand, Dio paced the cage, looking for a way out. Shane recovered some nerve and came closer. "I think we'll just wait for morning. Normal people can't see my Emperor Grey, so what will they think when they find big bad you and little victim me?"

Dio called in and perfected a knife. The cage removed the tip of the knife cleanly. Dio gathered himself briefly, then launched a full barrage of fifteen knives. Emperor Grey pulled in his left arm slightly, then his right. The cage rotated to deflect and section each knife.

"I know you aren't thinking, so why should I consider what they think?" Dio brutally attacked Shane habits of thought, even while he was cursing his own patterns. [There must be something. Something new, something I can do that Dio Brando couldn't.]

"What? Wha' do you mean?"

"People like us, people with power, the average men and women can't understand. us. They can't even stand to try. We are like shepards, kings, gods onto them." [Or is that just another pattern of Dio Brando's? Jotaro didn't think that way. 'Course, Dio killed Jotaro, but...] Without missing more than two beats, Dio concluded "When was the last time a sheep solved one of your problems?" [When did Dio last solve a problem of someone else's? Wait! In the Tome, Maien said...]

Dio spun to face Shane, called his Mantle, and grabbed the edge with his left hand. With his right, Dio held the open Tome of Shadow Knowledge. He raised his head to where Shane was still reacting to the flurry of motion, and swirled the Mantle of Shadows around him, at the same time casting a corner an unlikely length out beyond the cage. The shock hit Dio like a cold shower, then he was rising just in front of Shane, and two empty hands dug into the teen's abdomen. Emperor Grey faded.

Then the Tome hit the ground. And vanished.

Feeling sated for perhaps the first time in his new life, Shadow Dio caught another ride back to Cairo.

It was hours before dawn, but he still had much reading to do before midnight.

Sitting on the stone floor, leaning against the cenotaph, Dio held the pattern in his mind and held his cloak in his hand. He felt the weave of the Mantle shift as it accepted the new spell. This was the second hardest listed in the Book of Shadow Knowledge, and was much different in kind from the hardest, the Gate to Makai.

Calling more of the Mantle's substance into his hand, Dio released some of his energy, weakening reality around his hand. Then he invoked the pattern in the cloth, giving new form to the world. "Tenebri Impellere!" Fine black fabric changed, becoming an almost fluid thing of darkness. Which surged forward, crashing into the stone slab blocking the doorway, smashing it into a dozen pieces, as structure lost the war between momentum and inertia.

Outside it was dark, and as silent... as a graveyard. Dio stood, as his Mantle slid back around his shoulders. If he could make a physical blow from Darkness in a single attempt, he was ready to make the Gateway. In the distance, a single bell broke the silence that Shadow Dio had taught the area. It tolled a dozen times. [Perfect.]

Dio halted two steps outside the crypt. [Inhale - exhale. Inhale - hold.] Legs braced wide, arms held straight forward, palms facing away from him. Dio poured forth magical Power until the space before him seemed to shimmer with potential. [Grab the cloak, swirl it clockwise through...] As the shimmer vanished behind the cloth, Dio called the name of the new form he would impose on reality. "Night Path!"

The Mantle trailed from Dio's right hand, dragging on the ground as he slowly circled the thin pitch-black oval of the portal he had crafted. [Well, the only thing left to do test it.] Dio remember his cape, and lifted it into view. [Not a speck of dirt on it.] Settling the night-fabric back around his shoulders, Dio walked into the dark.

Chaos hit him like a cool shower on a hot day. Looking around, Dio saw a circle of stones, all humming along with a stereo labeled 'God.' He saw a man's arm, turning a selection of mirrors, like pages in a book. Each mirror held a completely different reflection. By his feet he saw a ball of silly-putty which was also the human world, rolling over a newspaper that represented the nature of the universe. The putty was covered in news ink, but it was becoming an illegible blur. And the newspaper itself was pale and faded, missing too much ink to be easily read.

[Which way leads to Makai?] There were many paths that were clear of any solid images. Dio took two steps down the path that lead most directly forward. As he moved, everything around him blurred and changed. Needing reassurance, Dio glanced over his shoulder. The portal wasn't there. [Am I truly lost so easily?] Then he found the portal. It was immediately behind his heels, parallel to the soles of his feet. [Even up and down...? Ah.] Dio moved back to stand before the portal. Where the standing stones had been there was now an orchestra, black tie, all playing different songs on electric guitars. Above them hung a banner reading 'United Nations.'

Dio declared to the chaos "I am going to Makai." He began to stride straight ahead, ignoring the imagery.

Dio emerged into Makai, striding into a pleasantly arranged landscape of rocks and statues, near an inside corner of what appeared to be a hedge made of cold-worked iron. A hundred meters behind him there stood a mansion of black stone, accented with white marble. [I don't suppose this is the Makai Visitor's Center.]

That suspicion was confirmed as one of the statues, a human-looking warrior, stepped of its pedestal and shed his appearance of stone. Without speaking, he drew his sword, which gleamed silver.

"Please hold. I intended no trespass. I will leave in peace if..." The former statue wasn't standing still to listen. Dio aborted his plea as the sword lunged for his heart. He leaned back and backhanded the sword to his left. [It's a good thing silver isn't dangerous to me.] The warrior's left hand hooked towards Dio's chin, but he caught the fist in his right hand, and applied pressure. The human regained control of his blade, and aimed for Dio's neck. Dio pressed forward, pushing on the warrior's left hand while weaving a knife into his own. The fighter chose to be pushed beyond the reach of his sword, rather than relax his arm and allow Dio to close inside the range of swords.

Dio leapt in a low arc, cannoning his foot up under the warriors chin in a flying snap kick. When all the motion stopped, Dio could see at least two places where the iron hedge had gone completely through the sword arm of the unmoving figure. "I apologize, I..."

Dio was interrupted again, this time by the sound of wings approaching from the manor, which then stopped. Dio turned about. He had guessed right. A pale-skinned man with red-glowing eyes and obvious fangs stood between Dio and the building, dressed in nobleman's finery. "I am Lord Fein Juratio of the clan Juratio. You have trespassed on my estates and injured my guardian. For that I will oppose you with all the magic and martial skills I possess."

"Wait! I only defend myself and I seek only directions!" The vampire wasn't standing still to listen either. In fact, he wasn't standing at all.

Dio knew where the vampire must have gone. Up. So he moved.

The sword [Sword?] gouged the earth a foot behind Dio's leg, and attempted a closer approach as Lord Fein found leverage on the ground. Dio's left arm interposed itself in the nick of time, and the sword drove the back of Dio's knife into his forearm. The Shadow leapt backwards.

[The knife is gouged, but it held. However, I need a longer tool.] Taking advantage of the restored distance between himself and his opponent, Dio flipped the damaged knife to his right hand, then snapped that arm forward. Juratio brought his sword up to deflect, but the point of the knife moved only a few feet closer, while the hilt remained in Dio's grasp. Taking a moment more, Dio compared his new-made sword to his opponent's shimmering black weapon. [My weapon lacks both any sort of crosspiece, and the magic of Juratio's blade, but it should suffice. I hope he'll listen after I wear him down a bit.]

Blades crashed together, a pair of high backhand strikes meeting midway down each blade. Fangs were bared, a black blade shifted, a pale hand looped in a short chop. Dio's hilt jarred in his hand, but he held on. The tip of his blade flew off to his left. Lord Fein indulged in a smirk, which faded as Dio stepped back and willed his sword whole, adding a flourish as he resumed his guard.

Sparks flew from a flurry of strikes, each vampire focusing effort on keeping the other outside his own guard. [I need to raise the risk.] Dio shifted to a two-handed grip, taking the offensive with a series of short thrusts and tight, powerful arcs. After a moment, Lord Fein shifted tactics as well, turning to place Dio at his right, using his sword to deflect the energetic blows, rather than parrying them directly.

Thrust - guided left. Twist of blade, hard swing right - allowed to slide up the black sword. Step forward, thrust again, grinding swords, sparks - sidestepped. Pull back, low swing curved upward - short jump.

Dio grinned, knowing the expression couldn't be read. His sword was now in front of Fein, inside the noble's guard.

Long step forward, twist of grip, contact - black edge crashing down on left arm.

Dio stumbled back. Blood gushed from his severed forearm, then stopped. It hurt. But also - more - it was wrong. Dio fed strength to that instinct. [Make...] Black blade lunged for throat. [it...] Twist, back foot found purchase, flat of sword deflected edge... [RIGHT!] Left hand shattered right wrist, black sword skidded along ground.

Dio cast his own sword aside, now truly aware of how serious Makai was. [Time for my best style.] Juratio recovered his lost balance and halted, two paces from Dio. As his wrist finished healing, he assumed an unarmed guard stance. It didn't help. Dio lunged forward, begining his favorite rapid punch. And The World appeared and held the clan Lord's arms apart just long enough. Then the pain had begun. When Juratio was about to pass beyond Dio's reach, the Stand, still behind the vampire, started to rain down blows as well.

A brief eternity later, The World's fist punched through Lord Fein's chest - followed by the rest of the Stand, as Dio could no longer sustain its substance, and it faded back into its user. Without the balance of forces, Juratio tumbled backward, coming to a halt against the pillar the guardian had come from. [I'm amazed he's still conscious, let alone able to lift an arm!] As, indeed, was the case. A finger inscribed a looping sigil in the air concluding as the words "Dark Binding" hissed out through fangs. An amorphous black something took form in front of Juratio, much too slowly to catch Dio by surprise. When it surged forward, Dio brushed it aside with a fold of his Mantle. [Did the weave just shift - like it learned the spell?]

Still seated, the vampire patriarch gazed with wide, bloodshot eyes at his uninvited guest. "You... You are a mage?"

"Yes." the visitor replied, "I am both vampire and mage and I have no desire to harm one of my own kind. I made a portal and arrived in your estate purely by chance. I seek only directions to where the Shadows dwell in greatest numbers. There are things I must learn there."

"Ha." There was little humor in the sound Fein made, but there was returning confidence and a dollop of dark opportunism. "If that is truly your desire, then go out that gate and follow the road that leads away from my boundary."

Dio graced the fallen figure with a slight bow, and walked away.

Dio knew when he crossed the border into the Land of Shadows. The land... sang, in a way, with a voice that was formed of half-heard whispers, accented by sourceless rustlings and punctuated by flurries of dark motion.

 As he strode onward, Dio began to hear more, see more. [That pillar of darkness... could that be a tree?] It was. Suddenly the images made sense. He was in a swamp. A dying swamp, a drift of textured shadow representing a drying bog, the undergrowth a fine, blurred mist.

Dio strode deeper into the Shadowlands, walking straight through shadows that once could have blocked his passage.

Darkness was a positive thing here - an active force, denying the reign of light. Dio walked through a towering forest of dark, skeletal forms. More than a dozen of meters-thick trunks lay on the ground along his path. A village of black straw huts, where almost half the substance of each wall drifted and swirled on the ground in a silent, phantom wind. He reached a jungle. The undergrowth was blurred and unidentifiable. Not a single shadow insect disturbed the air.

On the far side of the jungle loomed a low range of gray stone mountains. After a time, Dio found a pass, filled with the howl of wind, which opened into a valley of bizarre, unidentifiable shapes, perhaps once crystals, now merely pillars of black, slowly leaking dark mist in the wind. Dio placed his hand against one, and felt a slight resistance before the shadow engulfed his forearm.

 At the end of the valley, cliffs converged to form a bottleneck a mere score of meters wide. [A handful could hold off an army here.] Dio would have guessed that as the purpose of the pair of massive black statues that stood in the gap, except that their bearing and expressions were so despondent that Dio doubted they had the will to stop even a single opponent. Each was shaped in the likeness of a tall, powerful man, who was saved from looking gawky only by the balance of his muscles.

As if in response to his regard, the statues raised their heads. In the eyes of the statues, darkness danced a slow waltz with light, managing to convey the impression of blue, even without color.

To Dio's left, the statue spoke in a non-voice that was silent, yet deep and sonorous *The Doors are open.*

To his right, the other replied *The Shade Lord is dead.*

As the statues folded back down into their funk, Dio strode into the heart of the Shadowlands.

At the heart of the stone mountains, there stood what had once been another mountain. But it had never been a mountain of stone - it had always been crafted of Shadow. And now it tore at Shadow Dio's heart, as had every new faded scene of the Land of Shadows [Is this... remorse?]

The mountain was no longer solid. But unlike the slowly vanishing outskirts, the mountain was a... framework. It could have been pierced by the lances of a thousand thousand giants, or tunneled by gigantic termites, or slowly eaten by scavengers, leaving only a jumbled, random skeleton. A path wound around the mountain, wide enough for four walking abreast, and was as riddled as the bulk of the peak. At the summit, a mass of stone loomed, supported by the black skeleton below it.

Dio walked closer, and took a grip on a horizontal shelf just higher than his head. It felt like the blackest of iron. It was solid, and felt chill from the night. It would take his weight easily, and felt tiny bit slick, like from a touch of morning's dew. It felt like... sacrilege. Dio turned and began to pick his way up the treacherous path.

When he placed his right foot on stone, Shadow Dio raised his head to examine the structure at the summit. The foundation of stone was circular, and extended a half-dozen meters beyond the walls of the single building. Around the edge was a band of darkness-filled carvings. The keep was circular as well, with six round towers spaced around the perimeter, and a seventh, taller spire in the center. It could have been carved from a single piece of stone. The Doors were, indeed, open. Dio strode through them.

The throne room filled the entire first floor. A stairway on each wall climbed the score of feet to the ceiling. The plain throne rested on a short dais at the far end of the room, both of a piece with the stone floor. On the throne sat a featureless man with truly black skin. Another identical man hung from arms tangled in the coat of arms hanging from the wall behind the throne. Three more were scattered around the dais: one standing with a black crystal pendant around its neck; another knelt, presenting a dark metal rod across lifted palms; the third clasped both hands around the hilt of a knife that was imbedded beneath its ribs. None of them even trembled as Dio approached.

"Welcome, Tsel." The voice snapped Dio's gaze back to the throne. [Tsale? Oh, written Tsel, Hebrew for shadow.] Where the featureless male had been, there was now a man in an identical pose, with his arms along the stone armrests. His dark hair drifted in a cloud about his aquiline features. His black skin glistened, as if it had just been oiled. His bones were too long for a human, but the man's muscles ameliorated the effect. [The eyes, like pools of blue light... This was the model for the statues!]

As Dio's stunned pause lengthened, the man cocked his head to the side. Then, under Dio's gaze, he faded back to the featureless form, with its head bolt upright. To the side, the man straightened to his feet, clasping the rod with both hands. He sighed. "I suspected you were one of the ones who chose to forget. Still, you think, and wear your own flesh, so it's not as bad as could be, eh? Ask me what you will, since you have come back here." Finishing the sentence, the life faded from the figure, and it sank back down to present the rod once more. A creak drew Dio's attention upwards.

Looking like a parody of a church nave, the man hung cruciform, naked and unabashed. Dio stammered slightly, asking "W, who are you? Why do you shift around like that?"

"I hope you have guessed, Tsel. I am the Shade Lord. I move between my councilors because..." Shift. The Lord grimaced, feeling the knife in his side. "I appreciate Yaletha doing this for me, but still... These are five of my six councilors. When I was stabbed with this knife, and dying, they chose to carry on my essence with the only five items I was attached enough to. Yaletha, as I said." Shift to the throne. "Theasen." To the wall. "Aramat." Shift, holding the rod. "Wyle." Wearing the pendant. "Joiquith. Each can only bear my active form for a few moments."

"What happened to this land... To our land?"

The Shade Lord returned to the throne, and hung his head. "I died, Tsel. I died. That is what happened. Remember, or re-learn, that this land is different from the surviving realms. Here, there are no divisions." Shift into the coat of arms, revealing a glimpse of wings and tail. "No line between plant and animal." Shift. "No separation between sentient and beast." Shift to throne once again. "There is only us. We were human and house, tree and panther. All were merely matters of preference, points of view. All equally aware, all equally valued. All able to change, at will."

The Shade Lord manifested holding the pendant between finger and thumb. "Even though each Shadow has its own nature and personality, the metaphor of a point of view is close to the truth. And I was the object that each Shadow, each view, focused on."

The hilt of the knife was cradled in black, glossy-skinned hands "When I died from this wound, some of my people, like you, chose to bury their memories and pain under the identities of others, seeking the life that will redeem their emptiness. Some did find it, not by taking another's form, but by the action they took in that form. They remained thus, and passed into the Dark at the end of that form's natural span." Tears welled up in Dio's eyes, and he began blinking them back. Blind, he tracked the voice to up on the wall. "Others chose to abandon their bodies entirely, their minds hoping to truly join one of the other races. Millennia, retaining only a personality and the pain of loss. I cannot imagine what it has done to them. Those who preferred sessile forms locked themselves in those forms, achieving a Nirvana oblivion at the price of a slow fading to death, without true end or hope."

"The shadow environments I walked through? Those were once as I once was?"

"Indeed, Tsel. Perhaps half of our remaining people form the outskirts of the fallen Land of Shadows. I knew I was not eternal, but I had barely begun to prepare you and my councilors here to take over for me if I passed into the Dark."

Dio could not make sense of it all. "Prepare me? And why do you keep calling me Tsel? Is it an honorific? My name is Dio."

"The name of your form may be Dio, but your name is Tsel. I gave it to you when you entered this world, just under sixteen thousand years ago. And I was preparing you because..." The rod was planted into the stone of the dais. "...you were the youngest of my council. I added you to their number as soon as the first of them chose to pass into the Dark."

Reeling from the revelations, Dio continued questioning to keep from spiraling into guilt and despair. "You named every Shadow? If I was on your council, why have I not been here?"

"There were only five talismans sufficient, and so the others drove you away. And I don't name every Shadow." The Shade Lord's fist slammed the arm of the throne for emphasis. "The Shadows I name are determined by the same rules humans use. You... were the first."

Dio knew he knew what that had to mean, but his mind refused to follow the thought. Instead, he asked a question that had been growing in the back of his mind. "Who stabbed you? Are they still alive?"

Through blurred eyes, Dio watched a dark figure approach him. A pace away, the Shade Lord withdrew the knife from his side, then lay the clean blade of cold crystal against Dio's black-shrouded cheek. "Feel him. I can sense that you are bonded with him already."

There was a familiar scent, or texture, or style in the blade. [The Tome! Maien!] The thought was a snarl.

"He resides at the border of our realm. I am straining my servitors. If would find him, Tsel, travel" The sound was unknown to Dio, but the meaning of the word was clear: toward Chaos. "Go now, with my blessings. And know this: whatever form you wear, whatever you remember, the essential you shall always be you."

Halfway to the door, Dio turned, to look with drying eyes at the tableau that had stood for millennia: five soft black figures, pressing against reminders of their beloved liege.

Eyes now clear, Dio whirled back toward the exit and ran.

As he passed through the door, a sound of rage and loss and guilt tore from his throat.

One step. Two. Three.

The edge.

Dio leapt.

Slow clapping drew Dio's notice to the top of the hill ahead of him. Standing at the crest was what looked like a man in his middle years. He wore a cape as black as night over voluminous robes of a deep blue. Rising to his feet in the crater of his impact, Dio caught a glimpse of the image of a black flame on the man's right palm.

The man walked down the hill, stopping on level ground twenty feet from Dio. He tilted his head to one side, the wind disheveling a full head of gray hair, which almost seemed to shimmer with highlights of deepest black. His voice was perfectly average, but there was an undertone like the thrumming of dark wings. "So, something did cause the old shade to stir. Hmm. I don't believe I've seen your type before. Are you just the face-shroud," Maien pointed, "possessing someone's body?"

"I shaped this form. My nature tore it from the night and the contempt of my foe, and I know full well what I am. Who are you?"

"My name will make no difference to you. You know your nature, eh? So, how do you like what I've done with the place?" An arm swept out expansively, indicating the entire realm around them.

"You claim to be the one responsible for this? Perhaps I should find your homeland and show you how I feel."

Rage colored Maien's pale skin and distorted his elegant features. "Enough! Why do I chatter with a piece of the night that's suffering an identity crisis? Umbra Ligare!"

Dio felt his skeleton stiffen. It was like every joint was clogged with years of rust. He supposed a normal Shadow would be out of options now. [I will not yield so easily!]

Dio called his Mantle to his shoulders, focused his will, and began walking forward. His muscles strained, tore, and healed with vampiric speed. He was slow, and jerky, but his legs still began eating the distance to the mage at a deceptive pace. He could sense that trying to slip closer through the cloak would be a bad idea.

The mage's eyes had widened at the appearance of the Mantle of Shadows. "So, you're the one who disturbed my book. I am quite amazed you have actually made progress at learning the basics from my naive ramblings."

Dio decided to apply his new rule #1 of practical fighting: [If they gloat, capitalize.] Before he really finished the thought, he was calling "The World!"

Maien was not as off guard as Dio had hoped. Before the pale blue silhouette could cross the remaining distance, the mage threw up his palm with the mark of the black flame and cried "Tenebri Avertere!" The darkness draped across Maien's shoulders twisted to life, forming a flat shield just in front of The World's fist.

"Enough games, little Shadow! Mentis Demergere!" And indeed, Dio felt his mind being drowned in waves of sharp-edged darkness.

He hung upright from a skeleton that refused to collapse.

And Maien took him home.