The last leg of the journey. This time, it proved no less perilous than the first he'd crept through the laybyrinth beneath the city of Ar. For not only did its maw open up to the throat of a lepers' pit, it seemed on this occasion there stood two men, one a builder and the other an initiate, arguing over the mouth of the pit.

Vedric had not been near enough to overhear them, as he kept himself hidden in the black tarry mud behind the overgrowth of bullrushes along the swamp's perimeter. It had been perhaps more than two ahn before the two seemed to have reached some sort of agreement. For they each left and went their separate ways. And yet, it was not until the sun had sunk itself over the horizon and the shadow of darkness enveloped Ar, that the metal worker made his sudden leap right down into the pit of death.

Down in the stink of all things unholy where those afflicted with this holy disease -- the Dar-kosis -- were banished, Vedric skimmed the narrowed walls with his fingertips and blindly felt his way through the labyrinth. Sometimes even crouched so low that he was forced to slither along upon his belly.

Even death shall not rip us asunder, my seraph.