“Are you hungry?” Sanford asked. “I have a few traitors for you to eat.” The warden… Ruby… Altman… they’d all turned on him. They’d all bet on Tillinghast, over him. They were fools, but the treachery still stung. Tillinghast might have lost the war, but he’d done irreparable damage to Sanford’s world in the process and left the sort of wounds that might never heal.

  He looked back, expecting to see the great beast vanished and a tiepin in the shape of a dapper little man on the floor, but instead there was a burst of green light, and, impossibly, Randall Tillinghast, strolling forward, wiping off the blade of a silver dagger with a handkerchief. Was the knife an artifact? It wasn’t immediately familiar to Sanford, but if Tillinghast had slain the bound creature with it, the dagger must possess potent magic.

  Unless it was just an ordinary knife, and the magic belonged to Tillinghast inherently.

  “That was quite a nasty beast you unleashed on me, Carl,” Tillinghast said conversationally. “You brought it back from the Dreamlands with you, I presume? It looks like someone’s nightmare. Not mine, of course.”

  “How?” Sanford began, but it didn’t matter how, did it? He pointed, and said to the shoggoth, “Kill him!”

  The guardian – the only ally I have left, Sanford thought bitterly – slimed past him, contorting its semifluid form to avoid touching the magus with its caustic flesh, and then bore down on Tillinghast, its countless mouths lamenting, “Tekeli-li!”

  Sanford could see nothing past the bulk of the writhing shoggoth, but he waited a moment to see if Tillinghast would scream… but he didn’t. He laughed, instead. And then the shoggoth screamed.

  Sanford turned and ran. He began to confront the possibility, once again, that he might not win this fight.

  Fine, then. If he was going to lose, he could at least make sure that Tillinghast lost, too, along with those who’d betrayed them. The Lodge belonged to Sanford, and if he couldn’t have it, no one else could.

  •••

  Altman and the warden started back toward the stairs, intending to flee for the upper floors, and were halfway there when Ruby came barreling out of a side passage that Altman would have sworn didn’t exist a moment ago. “Sanford is back!” she shouted. “And Tillinghast is down here! I think they’re fighting!” As if on cue, a great rumbling crash sounded from deeper in the basements.

  “We don’t want to be in the middle of an occultist duel,” the warden said. “Let’s get upstairs and wait to see who emerges. Though we might be better off if both perish down here.”

  “As long as we don’t,” Altman said. “Warden, lead us out.”

  They traversed corridors, some of which Altman didn’t even recognize, and he dearly hoped Van Shaw was using a shortcut. “Nearly there,” she said, turning a corner into an octagonal room with a domed ceiling and a black stone fountain in the center, with passages leading off in all directions.

  Carl Sanford walked out of an adjoining passage on the left, holding the besmirched sword. He wore a white fur across his shoulders and looked like he’d been through the wars.

  “Hello, traitors,” he said, standing before the fountain to gaze at them, the same old look of supercilious smug­ness on his battered face. “Fancy meeting you here. Shall we discuss your grievances before I end your lives?” He slashed the sword back and forth a few times, and the blade began to glow, something it certainly hadn’t done for Ruby.

  He pointed the sword at Altman. “You, cur. This is how you trample your brother’s memory? By turning on me? What did Tillinghast bribe you with, to make you forswear yourself?”

  “He offered me your job,” Altman snarled. “You think I want to be a lackey for the rest of my life? Tillinghast is going to make me the magus!”

  “Tut, tut.” Sanford shook his head. “You’re a fool. No one can make you into the magus. You have to make yourself into the magus. And you simply don’t have the experience, Altman… though you have the ruthlessness, perhaps.”

  He sniffed dismissively and turned to Ruby. “And you… after all we’ve been through… I really thought we were friends, or as close to friends as people like us could be.”

  “Tillinghast left me no choice,” Ruby said. “He promised me money, sure, but he threatened me, Sanford. It was either take his side, or suffer a fate worse than death.” She fiddled with the watch at her wrist, then cursed as it flashed briefly with green light. Broken glass, springs, and gears pattered down onto the stone floor. Ruby rubbed at her wrists, hissing, and said, “No, damn it, too soon…” She looked up, stricken, like her last and greatest hope had just died.

  Altman didn’t know what Ruby had tried to do, but it had obviously failed. Sanford didn’t seem to care either way. He stroked his uncharacteristically unkempt beard, still gazing at Ruby. “Hmm. You had no choice. I can see that. A fate worse than death! Well, you’ll be heartened to know the only fate I’m promising you is plain, old, ordinary death. But give me just a moment.”

  Sanford shifted his stance slightly and looked at Van Shaw for a long moment before sighing. “I knew you were a trifle disgruntled, warden, but really, do you consider this protecting the Lodge? I’m going to have to bring the whole place down on your heads, you know.”

  Van Shaw snarled, stepping forward, and shadows thickened around her. “You dare to threaten the Lodge in my presence?” Her voice was full of snarls, and Altman and Ruby edged away. The darkness gathering around her flashed with sharp whiteness, like the teeth of her hounds.

  “I’ll dare almost anything,” Sanford said, seemingly unconcerned by her transformation. “If I can’t have the Lodge, no one can. I’m going to sever the connections between the deep basements of the house, setting these dark chambers adrift in the void, and rendering them inaccessible from the world above. Not that any of us will ever see that world again in any case.” He smirked. “Cutting off the magic will cause a certain amount of damage down here… and I’m afraid when the magical foundations are ripped away, a sinkhole or two might open beneath the Lodge house, which won’t do the architecture up there any good, either.” Sanford clucked his tongue. He actually seemed to be enjoying this! “Don’t worry, though, Sarah. You won’t live to see the devastation of that grand old house. You’ll die down here in the dark like the rest of us.”

  Sanford rested the sword, point-down, against the wall at the base of the fountain, and Altman reached into his coat for his brother’s knife. But then the old man unhooked a bracelet from his wrist, and Altman froze. That bit of jewelry was one of the relics Sanford had taken from a strongbox, and it could do anything–

  “These are my keys to the Lodge,” Sanford said. “Among other places. They open all the doors, and they shut all the doors, and most of all, they keep the walls up, and the geometry Euclidian. I don’t have any use for these keys anymore, though, do I? The time of the Silver Twilight Lodge is over.” He dropped the bracelet on the ground and stomped on it, grinding his heel down hard.

  The very walls around them groaned, followed by a distant roar of snapping wood, like a thousand trees falling in a forest. “We’ll all be entombed here together, rather like a pharaoh and his servants.” Sanford picked up the sword. “You’ll die first, warden. Your betrayal cut me the most deeply.”

  The shadows around her thickened, and a pair of hounds stepped out of the darkness around her feet, snarling and stalking toward Sanford. He struck a fencer’s pose and held the shining sword aloft. “You want me to kill your dogs first? Whatever pleases you, my dear.”

  But before the magus and the hounds could do battle, Tillinghast walked in from a corridor on the right. He looked like a man out for a Sunday stroll, though there were flecks of gray slime on his lapels. He was carrying a knife, but not by the hilt – he had the blade pinched between his thumb and forefinger. “I’d step back, my friends,” he called. “Or don’t. It’s up to you.”

  Altman grabbed Ruby’s arm and hauled her back into the shelter of the passage they’d come from, and the warden retreated, too. Tillinghast threw the knife, deftly as a carnival performer, but not at Sanford: it flew straight up at the roof of the chamber.

  The dagger should have bounced off the dome and clattered into the fountain… but it was clearly no ordinary knife, because it buried itself in the roof of the room instead, vibrating from the impact.

  And then the roof came down.

  Altman watched Sanford as he looked up, mouth agape, and dropped the sword. He hunched over and crouched down, as if ducking his head could possibly save him from the tons of stone that dropped straight onto him, with a deafening crash.

  “My god.” Ruby coughed, waving away the clouds of dust sent up by the explosion. “Tillinghast crushed him.”

  Pebbles bounced across the floor, including a perfectly formed white cube that rolled out of the collapsed wreckage and bumped against Altman’s boot. He looked down and watched the cube crumble into an undistinguished heap of white powder. Altman lifted his gaze at the pile of huge broken stones that covered Sanford and nodded. “No getting out of that.”

  “The tethers are tearing loose!” The warden shook Altman’s arm. “Sanford really did cut us off! The deep basements are being ripped away from the world above! We have to hurry!” She set off running toward one of the room’s many exits, her hound in tow, and the others followed suit.

  Altman didn’t see Tillinghast anywhere and wondered if he’d be trapped down here. Altman hoped so. The old man had basically cheated him. Altman was supposed to get the Lodge, its treasures, its basements, and now what was he going to inherit? Smoking wreckage? Smoking wreckage he wouldn’t even be able to access once the connections to the surface world snapped.

  The three of them, and the hound, reached the stairs, which were beginning to stretch out, lengthening as the walls cracked on either side to reveal gashes of the void beyond. They raced up, the roar of the collapsing structures below them drowning out the sounds of their ragged, rushing breaths. The landings reappeared, but the gas lamps were dead, and the benches broken into splintered boards and bits of bent metal.

  Altman was in good shape, but even he was breathing hard by the time they made it to the top – a shorter trip than the descent, but not by much. They piled into the hallway, and Altman looked back in time to see the staircase twist, like a wet rag someone was wringing out, and then snap. Only darkness remained at the end of the hall.

  “Is it all gone, then?” Altman wailed, gazing at the void. “All those wonders, all those treasures, lost forever?”

  “Oh, the deep basements still exist,” the warden said. “Sanford just destroyed all the bridges, all the portals, all the passageways… you can’t get there from here, not anymore. Not from anywhere, I’d wager. Their absence is an ache.” She frowned down at her hands. “It’s like I’ve had my fingers chopped off. I know they’re gone, but I’d swear I could still feel them…” The walls trembled, plaster sifting down from the ceiling. “The house isn’t stable. We should…” She trailed off, winced, and bent over, clutching at her chest. “Oh. Oh, it burns.”

  “Look,” Ruby said, and grabbed Altman’s shoulder. He looked back into the void, where Ruby pointed, and watched as the darkness filled with a deep red glow.

  “What is that?” Altman whispered.

  “Fire,” the warden croaked. “Fire in the dark.”

  Was this a final trap Sanford had sprung, or a consequence of all that magic breaking down? Altman had heard enough stories about the charred remains of occultists found in their chalk-scrawled laboratories to believe either could be true.

  Then, he felt the leading edge of the heat, like he stood too close to a bonfire and realized the red glow was getting brighter. “Run!” he shouted and sprinted down the hall. Ruby and the warden kept pace, but Van Shaw hissed, clearly in terrible pain.

  They made it to the ground floor, where the chandeliers were swaying and dust sifted down from the ceilings. Was the whole building going to collapse, or would it burn to the ground first? Even when he lost, Sanford managed to strike a blow against Altman.

  The warden led them through the shuddering house, and out onto the lawn, almost to the fence, where they all turned to watch the great house shudder and slump in the moonlight. The warden tottered forward onto her knees and groaned.

  “Oh, good, you all made it out.” Tillinghast was sitting in a wrought-iron chair just inside the gate. He’d acquired a cup of tea from somewhere and sipped it.

  Altman and Ruby both sat on the lawn, gasping from their exertions, listening to glass panes crack and rafters groan. “It’s going to fall into the earth!” Altman shouted.

  “Into a pit,” the warden whispered. “Into a pit of fire.” She curled up on her side and shuddered, and Altman moaned as smoke began to billow out of the broken windows, and the walls sagged outward. Ruby began to cry, unless… was she laughing?

  “It’s a pity,” Tillinghast said. “I didn’t come to Arkham to destroy one old house. Still, there’s plenty of real estate in Arkham, and we can always find another place to call home, can’t we? The warden can see to the arrangements, I’m sure.” He rose and put his cup down on the chair. “We have a little time yet before dawn. I’d like to change out of this befouled suit, and then I have some business to attend to. I’ll see you all in the morning, hmm?”

  “You can’t leave!” Altman said. “The warden is… she’s… I don’t know, but she might be dying!”

  He sniffed. “She’ll suffer, but the Order of the Silver Twilight is more than a building. She won’t die until the Order itself does. It certainly won’t cease to exist under my watch, and you’ll take good care of it when I pass it over to you, won’t you, Altman?” With that, Tillinghast strolled down the path, out of the gate, and into the darkness beyond.

  Altman sat down and touched the warden’s shoulder as she shuddered and gasped beneath his hand. Watching the great house burn, his dreams collapsed before his very eyes. But Tillinghast was right. The Order was more than real estate. Sanford had left behind wealth and influence, and Altman would inherit those in time. He looked helplessly at Ruby. “I suppose… even with all this… we made the right choice, didn’t we? We chose the right side. Sanford lost, and Tillinghast won, in the end.”

  “Is this… what winning… looks like?” Ruby gasped.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Final Dispositions

  “I’m done,” Ruby said after dawn finally came. Tillinghast had sent a taxi for her, and the two of them were on opposite sides of the counter in his shop, which was now located uptown, for some unfathomable reason. “I betrayed Sanford, watched his whole world fall, and even got the stupid red rock of R’lyeh for you. It’s time for me to cash out and move on. I won’t even ask you to replace my broken watch.” She put the cursed thing down on the countertop. She’d tried to use it when Sanford confronted them in the room where he died, but it was too soon, and the crystal had cracked.

  “Playing with time wasn’t nearly as much fun as I thought it would be, anyway. Whatever your Great Work is, you can finish it without me.”

  “Mmm. You aren’t curious to see what I’m trying to achieve?” He gazed at her through half-lidded eyes. The fact that all Sanford’s relics, apart from the ruby, had been lost when the basements were torn loose from reality didn’t seem to trouble him much. But then, Tillinghast was never easy to read.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care,” she said. “Curiosity about that sort of thing has never done me any good. Now, will you pay me?”

  “You’re truly determined to leave my employ now?”

  She crossed her arms. “I did what you hired me to do. I don’t want to do anything else.”

  “Very well. But please, have a drink with me first.”

  “The sun is barely up,” she said.

  “You haven’t slept, my dear, so in a sense, it’s still the night before.” He took two small black cups from beneath the counter, and a glass of something thick and scarlet, and poured them each a small measure. “Let us part friends, hmm?”

  Was it poison? It hardly seemed necessary. He could have just stabbed her in the neck if he wanted her dead. And besides, the wine looked delicious, and she was suddenly so thirsty, and the cups were beautiful, weren’t they? “Friends,” she said, and reached for the cup he’d indicated. The moment before the rim of the cup touched her lips, she thought, This looks like it’s made of the same stuff as the Grail of Dreams–

  She tasted something warm and salty, and the darkness whirled all around her.

  Ruby groaned, sitting up on a heap of stones beneath a sky the color of bruised plums. “No,” she whimpered. “No, no, no, no.” The wreckage of a city destroyed lay tumbled all around her, with distant fragments of high walls visible in the distance. She got to her feet and stumbled away, down the heap of rocks until she reached the bottom, where she stared at a great wooden chest the size of a steamer trunk, with the shape of a triangle around an eye burned into the wood. The chest was locked, but a golden key rested on top, neatly aligned below the base of the triangle.

  Ruby knelt, and reached for the key, hands trembling. She unlocked the chest, and lifted the lid, and inside, she found heaps of gold coins, and emeralds, and diamonds – all the riches she’d ever dreamed of. There was also a small wooden box, square, and when she opened that, she found a black cup, a silver knife, and a sheet of paper covered in flowing script.

  My dear Miss Standish,

  Enjoy your riches in your new home. Or, if you’ve reconsidered, and would prefer to remain in my employ until my Great Work is completed, simply deposit a few drops of blood in the cup, and drink, and return home. You’ll receive the contents of the chest, and further rewards, when we’re finished, and I daresay you’ll enjoy them more here.