... This was interesting. Interesting enough that Solomon actually rolled toward Craven, looked at him, focussed on him. The ants were running wild, but where before it had been in fury now they acted more like fear. Like a child had flooded their nest.

"To magic," he said simply, but more seriously than he had said anything before now. If there was no light in Craven's soul, did that mean he was truly finished? Or just that Solomon's sight wasn't clear enough to see it? "Necromancy is powered by death, Vandameer. Death takes souls. Our own magic uses souls as a power-source. Whose souls do you think are nearest? Ours."

He lifted a bandaged hand, felt it tremble, held it there in half-sleepy fascination. "The Temple fears the lifestream to such a degree that it seeks to cut itself off from it. But we don't go into it to begin with, Vandameer. When a Necromancer dies he is consumed by himself, and spends the rest of eternity in utter agony."

There was a camera in the room. Solomon knew it not because he'd seen it, but because it was logical. Apparently he couldn't see it on the lifestream, though, so he turned to look at Craven again instead. "That's what I've seen. The walls of this place are an unending scream of pain, sounded by the Necromancers who came before."

Melodramatic, perhaps, but Craven reacted well to melodrama. And it wasn't inaccurate, either. The significance, the danger, of this, was not something that could be understated.