energy and his face contorted with rage. Fire leaked from his fists as he bore down upon Twilight.
'Insolent, mongrel bitch!' he growled. 'I shall see you beg!'
'Many have spoken thus,' said Twilight. 'All are dead.'
'You'll join them!' Davoren lunged, power streaming from his hands and eyes.
Twilight put out the dusky rapier and dropped, a low stop thrust that would have spitted any sword-dancer foolish enough to charge thus. Davoren, however, merely sent the sword clattering aside with a pulse of his power and loomed over Twilight. She spun with the blow and buried the stiletto in his side.
The darkness abated and the wall of flames flickered out, leaving an eerie, vile smoke hanging at the edges of their vision.
Davoren, shaking off his surprise, gave her a mocking grin. He looked down at the little trickle of blood making its way down the stiletto's edge. 'Not cold iron this time, eh?' the warlock asked. 'I hardly feel it.'
'Not the blade.' Twilight smiled. 'The poison.'
The warlock blinked in confusion-once, then a second time slowly, then a third time, in which he fought to move his eyelids. He felt it then, a subtle chill that flowed through his veins. His eyes went wide and his mouth opened, but he could not move.
Twilight glared in his face. 'My nar'talas venom. Locklimb, humans call it,' she said. 'Brewed from the juice of a rare breed of centipede native to Evermeet. Causes mild euphoria when inhaled and instant paralysis when introduced to the blood.'
She yanked the dagger free. Davoren didn't flinch-couldn't, Twilight thought-and wiped it clean on the warlock's robe.
'Only a little bit flows in your veins, enough to keep you frozen a few moments-enough to silence your spit hole while I make a few things perfectly clear. Understand?'
She knew Davoren could not reply. His outraged eyes, though, said enough.
'Before we get to business, while I've got you transfixed, perhaps you can help me understand something I've always wondered about.' She paused. 'If you're the descendant of demons, how is it you serve Asmodeus?'
That got his attention, and Twilight saw a flicker of uncertainty in his eye.
'I wonder,' she said. 'The grandson of a demon prince, a servant of archdevils, who takes his power from both the Hells and the Abyss? Which was it, by the way-Graz'zt or Orcus? I'm curious. The latter, I bet. You look like the son of a corpse.'
Unsurprisingly, no reply was forthcoming.
Twilight knelt down to stare into Davoren's eyes. 'Hear this now,' she said. Her voice was soft. 'You cannot comprehend what it would mean to cross me. Your master does not frighten me-I have spat in his eye myself.'
Silence for a heartbeat. Twilight knew he believed her. The truth of that mattered not at all.
'And if you think for a single moment that your power frightens me, you are making a fatal mistake.'
He offered no response but a hateful glare.
'Now then, to the real business at hand,' she said. 'I know you had something to do with Asson's fall. I heard the magic, the word of command. I could have been mistaken, perhaps, but if it were just me, I'd gut you right now and leave your entrails for the scavengers, just to err on the more pleasant side.'
Twilight paused, allowing Davoren to drink in her entire meaning.
'But it's not just me. I have to think of us all, and if we're going to get out of here alive, we need to work together. We all need allies to survive this, and you've got none-not even your own tongue.' Her eyes narrowed. 'So let me make this clear-from here on, you're either with us, or you're dead. Savvy?'
Twilight could tell from the way the color began to bleed out of Davoren's face that the poison was starting to dilute through his blood, and he could feel his body once again. Soon, he could speak. 'Ye-yes,' he managed. 'Yes, that's clear.'
Twilight slammed him against the wall again. Though she was not a big woman, or a strong one, she knew exactly what angles to ply for sufficient leverage.
To further emphasize her point, she stabbed him again for good measure.
'Aack-' Davoren managed. Then he could only look at her, stung and furious.
'I wasn't finished,' she said.
She wrenched the dagger out, causing Davoren's eyes to water, and raised it before his face. His dark blood mingled with an amber jelly smeared along the blade. Then she reached down and pulled out the vial of poison, to wave it in front of his face.
'I carry more of this than you might think. If you try something like that again-if you even think it-I'll pump you so full of venom you'll be able to do nothing but lie helpless while the vermin of this hellhole start with your eyes and work their way toward your brain.' Her eyes bored holes into his face. 'How does that sound, Lord Hellsheart, servant of Asmodeus?'
Davoren could do nothing but stare daggers at her. She saw a touch of pain in his eyes, and she took it for fear. So he was just a bully.
'Remember,' she said. 'You betray us again, and I won't bury you.'
The warlock kept silent. He could speak again, but he could barely move, Twilight knew. She left him then, and Davoren could not follow.
'Twilight?' his voice floated after her. It was pained-broken. 'Twilight!'
She rounded the corner, losing sight of the half-paralyzed warlock. Try as he might, Twilight knew that he could not catch up, not for a while. Long enough, hopefully, to make her point sink home, like a finely crafted blade between a certain pair of ribs.
Twilight shook her head to clear the image. One could dream.
Davoren's despairing cries echoed as she went farther down the tunnel, just loud enough for her to hear, but not for the others to do so.
'Twilight!' he shouted. 'Come back here! Don't leave me alone like this! Help! Please! He-' Then the sound faded. He would catch up.
Probably.
Twilight's grin widened.
When Twilight found her, Taslin was sitting alone, in a chamber far from the others. Wrapped in a grimlock cloak, her acid-eaten armor removed, the priestess sat with knees pulled up to her chin. She was on the edge of a chasm in a great chamber where many sewer passages met. The place probably smelled foul centuries before, when waste flowed through the sewers, but the cool emptiness of the deep underground had replaced it. Only a slight mustiness hinted at the filth that filled these halls in an era long dead.
As though the priestess sensed her, Taslin spoke as Twilight crept up behind her. 'You would have loved Asson as well, had you known him as I did-as he was once.'
'He was not always such a noble old man?' Twilight sat and pulled her knees to her chest, as Taslin did.
'He was not always so old, as humans measure the years,' said Taslin. 'Asson lay in my arms for fifty summers and fifty winters. I knew that our parting would come one day. I have dreaded the moment of loss, but not the leave-taking itself.'
'You did not fear to lose your lover, then,' said Twilight.
'Not a fear that I would lose him-that fate I knew to be inevitable,' the priestess said. 'Rather an acceptance of the truth and a choice to see past it.'
'See past death?' Twilight kicked a stone off the edge of the chasm, watching it disappear into the darkness. Hollowness spread through her. 'You'd have to be dead.'
'Endings and leave-takings are of this life, just as meetings and beginnings,' said Taslin. 'To fear losing what you love is to abandon loving it here and now. To fear losing one you know you will lose makes less sense still.'
'Life to be lived in the moment… I've heard it before. The life of a human.'
'The life of an elf,' Taslin corrected. 'You are young, and do not understand what it is to live as we do. To know the joy of every moment, to release love of the past and fear of the future.'
Twilight looked at her. 'No.' She meant to be firm, but her voice betrayed the slightest tremble. What was
