Mike and Micky Gunn wrote:

>  Orim forgotten, the companions leapt through the portal one by
> one....straight into a scene from hell.
> ---------------------------------------
> ---------------------------------

  Years of training taking over, Twilight fell into a fighting crouch
even as she cast shielding spells, almost unthinking.  That done, she
quickly surveyed her surroundings.  The bridge was observed and
discarded from consideration, paling in importance when she saw the
charred, scoured, and cindered remnant of the blasted portal, and the
near-blinding, multi-colored, roiling, seething violence of the magical
energies crashing like waves in an insane storm against the quaking,
trembling, crumbling cliffs of the dimly seen hall beyond.

"Balefire's handiwork, by all the gods!  I know his style, and his aura,
well enough after all these years." She rapped out the words, and then
paused as if listening to other than the hissing and roaring of spells.
"His will remains firm, but little of life is left in him...I can feel
it."  She shaded her eyes with her arm and squinted into the chaos
beyond the door, growling to her companions, "I like not the dark shapes
I see within, but I cannot tarry.  I would welcome your help, but will
not demand it.  My swordbrother dies within, and I would fight with him
one last time."

She strode away toward the corruscant madness beyond the portal,
flinging behind her the words, "I told him once I would follow him to
hell.  I was younger then, but I still keep my word."

Raven hair billowing in the raging magewind, she raised her sword and
marched into the disintegrating, chaos-filled hall.