Astonished, I took in the craggy earth and jutting bonfires. "I thought  this place refused the Cinder"

"I does." Or'do panted. "That is how I moved us; flaring the Cinder repelled the Darkness, and permitted me a channel bore. The same result from vastly different endeavors." He concluded, eyeing me expectantly.

"Forgive me, Or'do. I do not understand."

"Me neither!" Or'do laughed heartily, then gasped and coughed, leaning forward with hands on knees and stomach convulsing. Dark and foul, tendrils of blood coursed over his parched lips, and splattered against the stones.

"Or'do!" I shifted helplessly, uncertain whether touching him would only intensify his suffering.

"Using the Cinder here travels in the company of grave consequence." He straightened, slashing a forearm over his befouled mouth. Waving toward a deep scarlet beacon that rested atop a hillside to our left, he rasped: "Summon whomever that it is, we cannot fight this beast without help."

I nodded, and reaching for a corroded bell, stained with the centuries it had weathered, I strode toward the pool of sickly light. Long and frail, my clarion call rang out, and from a pool of shadow, crawled our ally: Alfred with hammer of grey slung over his shoulder, and the blighted fire of madness keen in his eyes. That same light had consumed my comrade not so long ago, and for our immense will, I felt that it would soon seduce us again.