A grinding noise brought the anxious Torquil to his feet. A quick look showed what he most feared: the opposing spikes of their prison walls had begun to advance slowly toward each other. Their captor had set the game in motion once again.
All three men moved to the center of the room. Then Bardolph was scanning the floor frantically.
'What's wrong?' Oswyn asked him.
'My knife. My golden dagger. There it is!' Before Torquil or Oswyn could put out a hand to restrain their companion, he'd bolted toward the far corner of the room. The dagger had fallen from his belt. Now it lay just beneath the lowest of the protruding spikes.
'Bardolph!' Torquil yelled. 'Let it go! Don't be a fool, man!'
Ignoring him, the thief threw himself prone on the floor and stretched out a hand toward the gleaming weapon. Torquil ran up behind him and grabbed at his feet but Bardolph kicked him away.
'Leave me be! Ah, I've got it!' His hand closed around the dagger and he started to worm backward.
But the spikes were tight about his body and not even Torquil's strength could free him,
'Torquil!'
The bandit chief would have preferred that his friend breathe his last with another name on his lips. Too late now. He looked away as the spikes continued slowly onward, until they were locked tight through the twitching form. Save for shouting Torquil's name, Bardolph died quietly.
The walls continued closing on the two survivors, their progress slow but inexorable.
'Fool,' Torquil mumbled, not looking at the body in the corner. 'I told him once that that royal pigsticker would be the death of him!'
'Some men fix on certain objects the way others fix on women,' Oswyn observed quietly as he studied the ceiling. 'It's a madness. I like gold as well as the next fellow, but I value my life higher. Bardolph always was a gambler.'
Torquil resisted the obvious rejoinder. They had more pressing matters to deal with, all of them long and pointed.
The flashing lights were brighter now. Colwyn tensed as he examined them, his gaze locked on the gap he'd cut through the dome's wall.
When the Beast fell upon them, however, it was from a different place. The monster exploded through the hexagon with as much disregard for the damage thus done as for any harm it might do itself. The ball of green flame it flung at Colwyn looked familiar. It was the same color as the Slayers' spears.
Colwyn barely had enough time to deflect the ball-lightning with the glaive. Though blocked, the fireball had passed near enough to graze his right side. His nostrils brought him the odor of burnt leather and fur. Wincine. he backed awav from the alien colossus. A second blast of energy followed close upon the first, singeing him again.
The relentless onslaught would already have overpowered any dozen well-armed warriors. Ynyr had prepared him to deal with strength but not fury.
Colwyn halted. No more retreats, he told himself angrily. He was in this place, at this moment, from exercising his own will. There was no point in blaming Ynyr, who had done the best by him he could. Ynyr could not help him defeat the Beast. This was his own destiny, the destiny he'd crossed half a world to confront. /
Think! Your opponent is mortal. Huge and intimidating, powerful and alien, but mortal. Use your skill. Press him hard. Wound his confidence if not his body.
The next time one of the green fireballs came toward him he dodged under and forward, deflecting it over his head and following through with the motion to fling the glaive at the Beast. It shattered another fireball in midair, sending tendrils of green flame in all directions. The weapon continued onward to rip into the Beast's arm.
The monster emitted a bellowing moan and clutched at himself. Staggering, it launched a much larger globe of energy. Hanging in space between the two combatants, the glaive shattered the fireball almost as soon as it left the Beast's grasp. Eyes damp with the sweat of concentration, Colwyn moved his hand through air. The glaive responded by swooping in a wide arc around the Beast's head.
Trying to dodge, the monster lurched to one side, crashing into the hexagon. At the same time, Colwyn's arm dropped. So did the glaive, burying itself so deeply in the creature's chest that only two blades remained visible above the skin. The Beast staggered and fell against the sanctuary, his great weight caving in the standing wall as he toppled. He lay motionless amidst the rubble, the flashes from the great body sparse and barely visible.
Colwyn extended a commanding hand, but try as he might, the glaive refused to return to its master's grasp. Lyssa stepped hesitantly clear of the corridor wall that had shielded her.
'Is it dying?'
'I don't know. I don't know how any living thing could survive a blow like that from the glaive. But it won't return to me. I think it must be too deeply buried to pull free.' Cautiously, he approached the huge, immobile body.
Whereupon a hand moved; a massive, taloned hand, rising to cover the still embedded glaive. Colwyn backed away as the monster rose. It stood before them as though the blades buried in its chest troubled it no more than the pile of debris it contemptuously shoved aside.
Another fireball flew toward Colwyn, the largest the Beast had yet conjured, a swirling green planetoid that blinded both Colwyn and Lyssa with its power.
Somehow they managed to avoid it, running wildly down the corridor. It exploded behind them, tearing away a huge chunk of ceiling. Debris rained down about them as they raced for the shelter of a side tunnel.
The faked death had failed to dispose of Colwyn. For the first time he thought he could sense something like anger .emanating from the monster. It was on its feet again, coming after them, the flashes from its body bright enough to light the dim chamber like midday.
Behind them a voice reached out, full of strength and the promise of unnatural death. 'She will be my queen now!' the voice promised.
'The glaive is lost,' Colwyn told her, panting hard as they ran. They entered a different kind of chamber, full of sharp projections rising from the floor and descending from the ceiling and walls. Anxiously they ran through the unsettling cavern, frantically searching side passages for a hiding place. 'I have no weapons against him.' Another fireball raced after them, exploding contemptuously against the ceiling. He could feel the heat of it as fiery splinters rairied down around them. He turned into a branching passage.
'Colwyn… Colwyn, there's no peace for us in flight!'
He slowed, gasping for breath. She leaned against him, holding him tightly to her, trying to regain her own wind. There were no telltale flashes in the dark passage behind them.
For a second he thought they'd gained a respite… until he turned to see the pulsating glow ahead of them. Hopeless. It was hopeless. The Beast was content now to toy with them, to prolong the game.
Lyssa was shaking him, trying to gain his attention. He stared dully at her. 'I've failed, my love. I'm sorry.'
'Don't talk like that. Think! Those last two fireballs did not touch us, did not harm you.'
'He doesn't want to damage you, so he is careful.'
'Not that careful. Colwyn, I watched the fight. He directs his energies as you directed the glaive. He should have struck you twice.'
'He'll kill me soon enough.'
She shook her head violently. 'No! Remember the first fireballs you dodged before you began to fight with the glaive?'
'I was fast and fortunate.'
'More than that. It has to be more than that! It wasn't the glaive. It was you. The glaive was only a tool, a lens that enabled you to focus your energies. Consider, husband, the requirements of the marriage ceremony. The ability to bring a torch to life.'
'A trick, nothing more.'
'A trick how many could duplicate? None!'
'Ynyr,' Colwyn muttered, his mind working furiously. 'He told me that the Beast needed to keep us apart. I didn't understand. He tried to explain to me but the explanations went away with his life. And it's not me.' He was suddenly excited.
'Half-right, you are half-right, Lyssa! It's not me the Beast fears. It's us. It's what we might do
