Book excerpt: In this thrilling tale of fear, a desperate scholar is driven by love into the darkest corners of the world When Aurek Nuiken travels to Richemulot to search for a spellbook that lies buried within the dark bowels of the undercity, little does he know the horrors that await. As two beautiful women vie for the interest of the enigmatic scholar and his handsome younger brother, a family of wererats and a double dose of sibling rivalry conspire to endanger not only Aurek but the object he holds most dear: his wife, who has been attacked and made prisoner by an evil mage. Faced with his own personal torment and the all-too-real monsters of Ravenloft, the scholar is pushed to the edge of madness and a choice no man should ever have to make.