ruin.' He held out his scarred arms. 'Stand at my side-serve him with me. With us.'
A thought occurred to her, along with the will to pit her mind against the spell once more. Not for the first time, she thanked the gods for her wit.
'You run this bedlam…' Twilight managed. 'Just to find… love?' She forced a smile. 'That's pathetic, or just sick.'
Gestal shrugged. 'Some search taverns, some festhalls,' he said. 'Some wander for gold and prestige to impress lovers. Some go to war for love, some shatter decades of peace for love.' He lowered her hands. 'Do any of these make more sense?'
'Correction,' Twilight said. 'That's pathetic and sick.'
He looked at her hard where she stood, back arched.
'We are beyond your lies,' he said. 'Erevan Ilesere, prankster of the decadent Seldarine, is your scapegoat-the name upon which you blame all of your pain. I shall not begrudge you this, but it is a false path you walk. And what does it bring you?' He shrugged. 'Suffering. Blindness. Emptiness masked by brief illusions like joy and purpose in a world without them. Your way of avoiding the inevitable-the truth.'
'Purpose,' the elf repeated.
'A delusion,' said Gestal. 'Desire, will, and consequence- these are the only truths. You must choose. You hide from this, and that is weakness.'
'Weakness is in my heart.' Just a little more. She could feel the magic eroding.
'What is the heart?' Gestal asked. 'A muscle-a muscle that tastes just like rothe meat.' He appeared to take Twilight's nauseated silence as an avowal. 'It feels nothing but the blade that parts it.'
'You are wrong. I don't run-I have chosen.'
'Perhaps,' Gestal said, inclining his head to that irrelevance. 'But he-Erevan-is the wrong choice. You seek a way to define yourself, and he is not it. He is an illusion. Whether he exists or not, he is nothing but illusion to you. A lie. A deceit. You, only.'
Like Liet, she realized.
'Who is real?' Twilight snuffled blood back into her nose. 'Liet… or you?'
Gestal looked taken aback. 'Why both,' he said, 'but I was the first. Liet is but a lost, love-lorn boy-a pathetic child.'
No, Twilight thought. He's more than that.
'Are there others?' she asked, though she wasn't sure why.
Gestal furrowed his brow, as if searching his mind. 'No,' he said. 'None of consequence-merely me, and my tool, Liet. I am his strength, and he is my weakness.'
'Yes,' she murmured.
Gestal grinned-hideously. 'And yours.' His skin swam and ran like butter slopping over a pail, and Liet stood before Twilight once more-Liet with Gestal's bastard eyes. 'You choose devotion to a lie over your lover?'
Twilight realized he was mistaken. Firstly, Gestal was wrong-or rather, he was right, but he had just slipped and given her the truth. Secondly, his power was failing. The spell was fading, slipping from her mind. Twilight might have smiled.
'What do you choose?'
Twilight did smile. 'I choose myself,' she said.
Then the demonflesh flowed back. Gestal looked at her for a long time, his breathing increasing in rapidity until he panted, then dissolved into mirth. 'You choose death, then?' he asked lightly. 'Very well. All is desire, will, and consequence, as I say. And there are consequences for denying our desires.' His hand came up, glowing black.
'One plea,' Twilight said tightly.
That putrid grin returned. He pointed at the yawning pits-two holes in the stone, from which flames arose. 'You want to go into the pits, instead?' He sighed. The blackness died around his hand. 'I shall enjoy watching the climax of your fall, as I have watched its course these last days.'
'Liet,' Twilight said. 'I have something to tell him.'
The name struck Gestal's ears like a heavy curse, and he recoiled as though stung. He contemplated the floor for several shuddering breaths. Then, gradually, his panting became chuckling, and his chuckling became laughter. When finally he looked up, Gestal's face gleamed and twisted with amusement.
'I shall tell him,' he said. 'Perhaps I'll let him wake up to see your heart lying on a platter before us. Perhaps I'll even let him taste it.'
'He's not watching.' Twilight felt doubt. 'He knows nothing of you.'
Gestal grinned. 'Perhaps,' he said. Then he reached toward her and intoned a series of harsh abyssal syllables to his foul patron.
'No!' the elf begged. She forced tears-painfully easy. 'I must tell him myself. Let me speak to him-your magic binds me. You need not fear. One breath.'
'Why?' Gestal asked. 'You do not trust me. I cannot blame you. We all lie to ourselves, what's to stop me lying to you… or to him, for that matter?'
'I…' Twilight did not need to lie, but she didn't know if she should say it.
She did it without thinking. 'I love him.'
Then Gestal's eyes froze, shuddered, and softened. As she watched, the hideous black flesh receded like water across him, and the demon brand hissed and vanished beneath the skin.
Liet awoke, standing opposite a shuddering Twilight. He wore bulky robes that felt heavy and sodden, and his hands were covered in a sticky liquid. He wasted only that heartbeat examining himself, though-his eyes balked over Twilight.
His lover looked horrible. She stood as though stretched by an unseen rack, her blouse and breeches shredded and soaked with red. Blood-there was so much blood-ran from wounds, nose, and mouth. Her right arm hung limply at her side, burned red and black, and her legs looked none too steady. Her black hair had become a tangled jungle of smeared, caked curls.
Light rippled around him, and he could perceive, out of the corners of his eyes, beams and latticework, as though something was peeling back the walls of reality, unveiling true order. The world seemed to fall into perfect balance-symmetry. Liet couldn't explain the feeling any other way.
' 'Light?' he asked. 'Are…'
As he looked upon the pale, streaked face, his heart roiled in a mixture of bewilderment, confusion, and tragic, hopeless love.
Anger was coming-why was he angry? Oh, gods-why…
He stared unwittingly into the face of his betrayer.
Twilight could not manage words before the air between them shimmered and the room exploded in edifying golden light. The spell binding Twilight's body abruptly failed, dropping her unceremoniously to the floor.
'No!' she shouted. 'I've changed my mind! No!' Liet flew backward in a tangle of flailing limbs as the golden distortion shifted into a hulking black body with three heads and six massive arms, a gigantic sword clutched in each hand. Ruukthalmuramaxamin was already in the midst of a spell, one that would devour Gestal's body as he stood, and the swords darted out to rend the demon priest's flesh.
'Twi-!' Liet screamed. His voice, halfway through her name, was suddenly that of Gestal once more. '-light,' it finished. The change swept through him almost instantly, the demonflesh hissing across his skin like blood. His eyes were bathed, once more, in chaos.
Ruuk's swords cut into Gestal and blood flew. The demon thrall cursed and sputtered and dodged back. A slaying spell came from the sharn, bearing down upon the demon thrall, and struck him solidly in the chest. In a heartbeat, he started to fall apart.
But even as the sharn's spell ruined him, Gestal screamed a single word of power. It was a word of absolute
