lava through the marilith just an instant before was already cooling. Sibyl had agreed to deal with Ubtao's worm later, after she became Sseth's avatar. Once the chains that bound the human's fate with the marilith's had been severed, the impudent cleric and her squirming, loathsome spawn could be safely crushed. The marilith, Sibyl had just promised, had nothing to fear.
Fear, Arvin thought. He seized the emotion and braided it together with the marilith's frustration and her ideas of how minions should be treated to form a new memory: Sibyl telling the demon that it had better learn to obey her, and that the demon- worthless dretchl-had better learn that its needs were insignificant, that Sibyl was Sseth's chosen one, that she would deal with Ubtao's cleric when it suited her, and if that time had already come, and if that meant the marilith's miserable life would end, well thenA scream of utter fury ripped through the demon's mind. Ungrateful spawn! I should never have agreed toA sword slashed down. Connected. Blood sprayed as one of Sibyl's forearms was sliced open from elbow to wrist. Marilith and abomination screamed as one. The demon stared at the identical wound on its own arm. Arvin felt a shadow of the demon's pain and gasped. He clung grimly to its mind. Swift as thought, he
added a new memory: Sibyl, grabbing the demon's arm as the sword descended and deliberately twisting it so the blade struck Karrell, instead-causing a wound to spring up magically on the marilith's arm-then Sibyl somehow being wounded in the arm herself by the sword as the demon yanked it away from her again.
It was a crude image, one the demon would have recognized for false in an instant just by glancing down at Karrell, but its blood was up, anger frothing through its mind. Screaming, it launched itself at Sibyl, all six blades flashing.
The demon was lightning-fast, but Sibyl moved even more swiftly. Serpent body writhing, she avoided the slashes. Twin streaks of red shot from Sibyl's eyes. They plunged into the demon's chest, punching hot red holes. Identical wounds appeared on Sibyl's chest. She reeled back, glanced down at them-then at Arvin. Her tail twitched toward him, but before she could blast him with another lightning bolt, the marilith lopped off the tip of Sibyl's tail. Sibyl screamed at it in Draconic, but the demon was in full fury and did not notice that its own tail had been severed as well.
Sibyl, however, had learned something from the exchange. Instead of fighting back, a dark shimmer pulsed from her body: magical fear. It slowed but didn't stop the marilith's attacks. Jungle vines whipped around the demon's body. It sliced them apart and kept coming. In the distance, Arvin could hear wings flapping-another demon, summoned by the marilith to join in the fray?
The vines holding Arvin had loosened somewhat, and he strained against them, trying to get free. Sibyl and the demon were in the way, and he couldn't see Karrell. Had she breathed in the dust and fallen victim to the musk creeper's compulsion?
He caught a glimpse of Karrell crawling toward the net. She reached out, grasped it with both hands, drew it closer to her.
'No!' Arvin shouted.
Karrell staggered to her feet, drawing the net still closer to her. Tendrils reached eagerly for her head.
Arvin tore at the vines. If those tendrils rooted in her scalp…
Sibyl flicked her tail, smearing blood across the marilith as it slapped home, and shouted something in Draconic. The demon was transformed. One moment, it was a massive creature with six arms and a serpent's tail; the next, an ordinary human with six swords lying at her feet-a human who gaped down at the smoking holes in her chest, the blood draining from her lacerated arm, and the abbreviated stump of her left foot… then collapsed.
Arvin ripped free of the vines at last and raced for Karrell. 'The net!' he screamed at her. 'Throw it at Sibyl!'
She did. The net sailed out of her arms-and missed its target. It landed on the now-human demon, enveloping it.
Karrell's face went white. Then another contraction staggered her. Grunting, she sank back into a crouch.
Sibyl whipped around, hissing, her red eyes furious. Her tail lashed forward, catching Arvin around the chest, trapping his arms against his sides. It squeezed…
'Karrell,' Arvin cried. 'I-'
The squeezing forced the air out of his lungs, preventing him from saying more. Then, abruptly, it stopped.
Arvin tore his eyes away from Karrell and looked up at Sibyl. The abomination stared over his head, a vacant look on her face. Like a suddenly loosened cloak, her coils fell away from Arvin. He stepped out of
them and saw, behind Sibyl, the marilith demon. Still in the human form Sibyl had transformed it into, it lay, draped by the net, its eyes empty. Strands of yellow musk creeper had rooted in its scalp and wormed their way in through its ears, nose, and mouth. They pulsed as they drained the last vestiges of its mind. Already it had been rendered an empty husk.
Sibyl, linked to it by Arvin's psionics, had suffered the same fate. The abomination's chest still rose and fell, but her mind was a gaping ruin. She was as good as dead.
Arvin ran past both abomination and demon and lifted Karrell in his arms. He felt tears streaming down his cheeks. 'The net,' he said. 'I thought…'
'Ubtao,' Karrell whispered-though whether it was an explanation or a plea, Arvin couldn't tell. She groaned- deep and long-and her body shuddered.
Arvin glanoed up at the sky. The circle of red was still open, and the wingbeats he'd heard a moment before had grown closer.
'We've got to get out of here,' he said, knowing even as he spoke that there was no hope of esoape.
A shadow fell across them. Arvin reached for the dregs of energy that remained in his almost depleted muladhara, then glanced up.
'Ts'ikil!'
The couatl landed gracefully, despite its injured wing. Her condition had improved. New feathers had sprouted in several of the bare patches and her wings were less tattered. Ts'ikil trilled softly as she stared at Karrell, then touched her with a wingtip.
Arvin stared up at the couatl. 'How…?'
Your sending.
'But I didn't…'
Ts'ikil smiled. Yes, you did. You called out to me, asking me foraid-then very unflatteringly compared me to a demon.
'I did?'
Karrell groaned, reminding Arvin of more urgent concerns. 'Can you fly Karrell out of here?' he asked. 'Quickly, before she-'
I can do better than that, now that the door is open, the couatl said, pointing up at the hole in the sky. She extended her other wingtip to Arvin. I can take her home. Take herhand, and touch me. We will step between the planes.
Arvin scrambled across hot, black stone to the spot where he'd thrown the Circled Serpent. The trip to Karrell's village had taken less time than a heartbeat. They'd spent only enough time there to explain what was going on to Karrell's startled clan and see her safely into a hut. Then Ts'ikil and Arvin raced back to the crater again. The gate to Smaragd had already started to close; a thin crust of wrinkled, almost-hard stone covered the opening. It crackled and steamed, releasing hot gases that stung Arvin's eyes.
He blinked, clearing them, and spotted the Circled Serpent lying near the edge of the cooling lava. 'There it is,' he told Ts'ikil.
He started to pick it up, then yanked his hand back. The silver didn't look hot, but it had burned his fingers. He blew on them, then manifested a power that lifted the Circled Serpent into the air.
Ts'ikil hovered above, her wings fanning away the worst of the heat. Arvin moved the Circled Serpent toward her, but the couatl shook her head.
You should be the one to destroy it, she said. You have earned the right.
Arvin nodded. He enlarged the invisible psionic hand he had created, then squeezed, forcing the tail
of the Circled Serpent into its mouth. He felt a sudden tug, and the artifact yanked itself free. A hissing filled
