A flicker of movement not far away caught Moriana's eye. It was Brightlaugher, a young blond boy painfully proud of the skimpy golden fuzz on his chin. He moved up on the nearest of the Watchers. He was almost in position lor the quick final rush.
'Moriana.' The low voice was so distorted by effort she almost didn't recognize Ziore. 'Moriana, you must help. Can't hold by myself any more.' 'What?' she whispered back. Darl and Khirshagk stared at them.
'The Ullapag. Help me blanket it.' 'But… I can't!'
'You can!' Ziore snapped. 'Since I've known you your power has increased steadily. Help me, or all is lost!'
The princess wondered if the nun was right. Then she shut her eyes and concentrated.
She didn't have to grope to find the Ullapag's mind. It loomed bright, short of sentience, but old, old and very watchful. A bright thread of suspicion shimmered in the creature's mind. Moriana felt Ziore's presence and realized that the genie couldn't soothe the sense of wrongness troubling the Ullapag. She stretched out her own mind, soothing without words. The doubt-thread vanished.
I did it! Moriana thought. The realization exhilarated her. Had her power grown because she'd slept with Khirshagk? He said her ancestor namesake hadn't perceived true magic herself. Had she gained something her forebear hadn't?
Hidden within her tunic, the Destiny Stone turned black. A rock loosened, twisting away beneath her foot. She stifled a yelp of alarm but couldn't save herself from falling.
The guard below turned and saw Brightlaugher rising from behind a bush twelve feet away. The Nevrym boy lunged. The spear came down, and the boy gasped as he ran onto its broad point.
The other guards shouted alarm. One standing above the Ullapag nocked an arrow and drew. Sprawled among the biting edges of the larva, Moriana recovered her grip on her own bow, drew, fired.
The Watcher stiffened and pitched forward, falling past the Ullapag's perch to disappear into the boiling lava. Foresters wrestled with the other two. One of Khirshagk's warriors, overcome by battle-lust, leaped past Moriana and struck down the Watcher as he struggled to free his spear from Brightlaugher's belly. The Ullapag screamed.
Moriana heard it as a bass thrumming, almost below the level of hearing. The Zr'gsz standing over the sentry jerked as if struck by an arrow. He began to twitch and his head twisted to score his own shoulders with his fangs.
'Unnghh.' Khirshagk's body was bent backward like a bow. His jaw was locked and his eyes rolled wildly. In spite of the agony gripping him, he ground out words between his teeth.'You must… slay it. Or… we… die!'
She stared at the Ullapag. It had grown until the princess realized it had lifted itself upward enough to allow a huge throat sac to expand beneath it.
'It's producing a vibration,' Ziore shouted. Moriana barely heard her, though the hum of the Ullapag wasn't loud. 'It'll kill the lizard men.'
As if to prove her right, the Zr'gsz who had dashed into the open fell to the ground beside his victim. His eyes stared upward. His mouth shone darkly with his own blood.
Moriana drew another arrow from her quiver and shot, aiming for an eye. The broadhead flew true.
It was four feet from target when a pale tongue leaped from the Ullapag's mouth and snagged it in the air like a fly.
Darl was up and running, broadsword in hand, shouting, 'Victory! Moriana and victory!'
The moist eyes swiveied and fixed him with their baleful gaze. The throat sac expanded further, the humming came louder. The monster's vibrations obviously affected humans, but not as they did the Zr'gsz. The uncontrollable contractions of Khirshagk's muscles were breaking him like a thief on a wheel. His men rolled on the ground at his side, hissing in terminal anguish.
The Ullapag was puzzled. Here was a man running at it with hostile intent. Yet its deathsong to Zr'gsz had no effect. Was it possible a human might attack it? The Ullapag pounced.
Darl escaped being crushed under the monster's bulk by inches. The Count-Duke rolled and came up running. He charged. Swinging his sword doublehanded he hacked at the bloated, warty flank.
His sword rebounded with the sound of a stick striking a poorly stretched drum. The monster's lipfess mouth opened and the tongue shot out. Instantly sword and swordarm were tangled in loops of wet, pallid flesh.
Darl tried to pull away. The tongue held him fast. It began reeling him inexorably inward. He twisted, slashed at the tongue with his dagger. Green blood sprayed his chest.
A mental squeal of agony made Moriana and Ziore wince. The Ullapag raised a foreleg and clumsily clutched Darl, trying to hurry him forward into the pink cavern of its mouth. Darl dug in his heels and locked his knees but lacked the strength to resist for more than seconds.
It earned him life. Moriana needed no more than a heartbeat to fit a new arrow, draw and aim, to let fly.
With the monster's tongue coiled like a serpent around Darl, nothing hindered the arrow's flight. It struck the eye and sank to the fletchings, The Ullapag reared, hauling Dar! off his feet. A second arrow followed the first.
The tongue uncoiled, spilling Darl onto the hard lava. Even as he fell he struck at the monster's throat sac. The blade cut through the membrane.
A third arrow sang its shrill song of death. The other eye exploded. Darl rocked to his knees and drove his sword into the moss-green belly.
The Destiny Stone turned white. The dying Ullapag fell to the right, rolled onto its back away from the kneeling warrior. Its legs kicked spasticaily at the air.
As though dropped by an invisible hand, Khirshagk fell limp among the rocks. His men lay about him, frozen in attitudes of ghastly death. Moriana knelt by his side. His eyes opened, looked into hers, then he said, 'Thank you.' She was up and running to Dad's side.
'How could you do it?' raged Ludo, the Chief Warder of Omizantrim. 'For a hundred centuries we've kept our faith with Felarod for all humanity. How could you betray us?'
'Don't talk to the princess in that tone, pig,' snarled Darl. He came forward, face dark with menace. Moriana waved him back.
'No, Darl. He has a right to speak that way.' The words threatened to congeal in her throat. 'Listen carefully, Warder Ludo. I'm not betraying anybody. I must explain.' Ludo spat at her.
'Calm down, old man,' Quickspear said softly, bouncing his spear suggestively in one hand. 'Brightlaugher was my sister's husband's cousin, and well-loved.'
'He got what he deserved.' The old man's blue eyes were merciless and as fearless as a hawk's. 'He was a traitor to men, embarked on a traitor's errand.' Quickspear raised his weapon.
'Hold!' shouted Moriana. 'Quickspear leave us.' The dark-haired forester scowled at her, weighing rebellion. He was no fool. He left.
Moriana slumped on her stool. She massaged her face with long, slender fingers. She suddenly snatched them away, screaming. They were drenched in blood. But it was only a trick of the candlelight.
'I am Moriana Etuul,' she said, 'rightful Queen of the City in the Sky.'
'Pah! You live with the stink of Vridzish magic. What else can we expect of you, witch?' At a warning growl, Moriana spoke without turning her head.
'Please, Darl, let me finish.' He subsided. 'Thank you, Darl.' Leaning forward, she told the entire story to the Chief Warder, of her sister's usurpation of the Throne of Winds, of Synalon's dabbling with the blackest of magics and her desire to make a compact with the Lords of Infinite Night.
'So it is to fight the Dark Ones that I march against the City,' she told him earnestly. 'The Zr'gsz are no more foes to men. They know their time is past. They aid me to recover ancient treasures they were forced to leave when exiled from the Sky City.' She inhaled deeply. 'When they have those things, they'll return to Thendrun in peace. Khirshagk, Instrumentality of the People, gives me his word on this.' Ludo fixed her with an eye as frosty as the Southern Waste.
'You're either a liar or the most accomplished fool I've ever encountered.' He jerked his head at Darl. 'You can have your bully-boy kill me now.'
'No one's going to harm you.' She started. Ludo stared past her shoulder, his eyes wide.
She turned. A Zr'gsz male stood there, a torch gripped in his talons.
'Khirshagk want you,' he said. 'Come. Now, Pleezzz.' Moriana and Darl looked at one another. Then they
