more terrible and devastating than any war humans had ever fought.

It survived in human legends as the Ragnarok. The Gotterdammerung. The

Twilight

of the Gods. In the end the white faction had emerged victorious. Although

the

white mages were able to subdue the necromancers, whom they called the Dark

Ones, they were unable to destroy them. So the ruling council of the white

mages

devised a spell to contain the unrepentant Dark Ones for all time. They gave

their lives to empower the incantation, imbuing their own life energies into

the

symbols of the spell.

"Three stones, three keys to lock the spell,

Three jewels to guard the Gates of Hell.

Three to bind them, three in one,

Three to hide them from the sun.

Three to hold them, three to keep,

Three to watch the sleepless sleep."

"'Ey, that's nice, I like that," Billy said. "'Ere, I got one. There was a

bird

whose name was Sherry, she thought she 'ad a golden—"

"Please! We're talking about spells, not infantile limericks!"

"Well, all right, guv, don't get yer cock up."

"God, why me?" said Merlin.

" 'Ey, look, I didn't ask to 'ave you in there, y'know. Go on, then. Finish

the

story. It's not like I could get up an' walk out, anyways."

Merlin sighed and continued. The keys to the spell, he said, were three

enchanted milestones—a sapphire, an emerald, and a ruby. And when it was done

and the white archmages had infused their life spirits into the symbols of

the

spell, the youngest and the last of the ruling council of white mages, a

sorcerer named Gorlois, stood alone in the vast underground cavern that would

be

the prison of the Dark Ones for all eternity.

He placed the milestones inside a small brass box, which he then placed inside

a

golden chest. He placed the chest upon the lip of a stone ledge high above

the

deep pit to which the Dark Ones had been consigned. The chest he sealed with

a

spell and fixed in place so that it could not be moved. The pit he surrounded

with a warding pentagram, and then he sealed up the cavern, burying the

entrance

beneath tons of stone. He then took off his sorcerer's robes, never to put

them

on again. He left them where they fell and went out to join the others of his

kind, the few who had survived and scattered all throughout the world.

"What 'appened to 'em?" Billy said.