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[Thrax]

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The scream was high-pitched, shrill, like that of a low-born woman who had absolutely no sense of self-respect, full of uncontrolled fear... most unmanly, Thrax noted. The eyes of the victim turned pleadingly toward him as his quivering lips formed one last word... "mercy." Thrax stroked his chin and with a careless headshake watched as Angus, the executioner, lopped the man's head neatly off with one swing of an axe. Blood spurt wildly from the gaping wound but only for a few moments as the man's heart finally realized what the man's head would have told it, had it still been attached. Thrax rose from his throne and prepared to complete the rites he had started, first washing his hands with fresh water and wiping them with a towel. There was something in all this that gave him a twinge of regret, something he could not put his finger on, something that made it less... fulfilling... as it had once been. He could not quite determine what it was. Uttering a brief sigh, he put his mind back on his work.
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Magistrate Skurj returned to Papua from Magincia and found the crate that Magnate Isk told him would be there, brought to Pier 39, his office, by Emperor Tai's men. A clerk, not knowing that Skurj knew what was in the crate, approached him and began to explain its contents but he waved her away. As she turned to resume her duties, he bade her send several men to help him with it. She quickly complied and two very strong dock workers arrived, ready to help. "Pick it up and follow me," he ordered. As they did, Skurj cast a gate spell that would take them to the Rectory in Thraxstadt where he knew his father would be completing the daily sacrificial ritual.
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"What is this?" Thrax inquired, wiping blood from his hands onto a towel. He suddenly threw it over his shoulder and Angus caught it deftly with one hand. He pointed to the crate.

"What is left of Mauric, milord," Skurj replied.

Thrax nodded. "What happened?"

"He has finally paid for his crimes, at least in part."

"Why did you kill him? Running his mouth off again?"

"I did not kill him father... personally, that is. He was assassinated in Magincia while on a diplomatic mission. That is the "official" story." He held out a stout whip, flail-like, like one found on orcish captains. This one was not quite like those. "This was placed near the body to point the investigators to Nizzre, but it didn't work."

Thrax took the whip and as he did the cords of it transformed into the a seething mass of vipers. Several stuck their fangs into his hand injecting their deadly toxin. The Dark Lord cursed, dropped the whip and stomped it. But instead of being crushed to pulp, the vipers simply transformed back into what appeared to be long leather cords. Thrax shook his hand, flexed it while Skurj cast a cure spell upon him. "I'm sorry father," he apologized. "I have had it with me for months and it has lain quite dormant."

"It is a whip from a priestess of the Spider Queen, somewhat altered to be a marker for an assassin," he explained. "Where did you get it?"

"Nizzre dropped it at the feet of Emperor Tai at Poet's Garden months ago. It struck at him too but no one else. I decided to keep it to use it as evidence to implicate her once I had the chance." He kicked it away. "But no one, save the Magnate, seemed to know what it was for."

"The Magnate... Isk?" He considered Isk for a moment... the former adherent of Humanis who seemed to have given up on his intense distrust and dislike of elves. There was something appealing about a philosophy that pitted one race against another for supremecy.

"Aye. He kept trying to tell everyone that it was a clue, but they had their own theories. We will make sure word gets out, milord."

Thrax's hand felt normal again. He looked down at it and then looked at the crate. "Mauric's shade is free but it will be bound to this world until we locate it and force it here to perform the ritual of banishment. I will make sure it does not find rest and remains mute until then. Take the corpse and prepare it for the ritual."