The rift above the Black Basalt Crags began to pull the clouds in. A low roar passed through the valley. The purple mist that had hung over the north for ten days thinned and vanished, and the sky over Iron Gate Gorge went black.
Cold followed. Black crystals fell on the road like hail. In the streambeds, water turned the color of soot. Wagon wheels broke it into powder as they passed.
Fiend Sovereign Vor came down through the opening.
The fiend stood eighty paces high. Eight legs supported it, each as thick as a siege tower. Dark scales covered the joints. Tendrils streamed from its shoulders, and three long heads swayed above them.
The left head bore blue runes that shifted the space around it. The right had clear, jagged teeth. When it opened its mouth, the sound reached straight into the mind. The central head was horned. A single upright eye looked down from its brow. It was so dark that the edges of the clouds curved around it.
The cliffs seemed to move as the Sovereign came lower. One moment Pei Jing could have counted the stones along the opposite wall. The next, the rock looked miles away. He heard a pebble fall behind him and saw it strike the ground in front of his boots.
