'I have the laser,' Lissandra said. 'We'll use that for the kill. The flamethrower probably won't be needed. But I want it here just in case. There are worse things than fire, Simon.'
He nodded. The last plank came free of the cellar door. There was still no sound from below. Lissandra snapped an order, and her underling fell back, took up a position behind her, and leveled the
flamethrower squarely at the door. She slipped her mask back on, hefted the laser, stepped forward, and pulled the door open.
No motion. No sound. It was dark down there.
'Is there a light?' Lissandra asked.
'Just inside the door,' Kress said, 'On the right-hand side. Mind the stairs. They're quite steep.'
She stepped into the doorway, shifted the laser to her left hand, and reached up with her right, fumbling inside for the light panel. Nothing happened. 'I feel it,' Lissandra said, 'but it doesn't seem to . . .'
Then she was screaming, and she stumbled backward. A great white sandking had clamped itself around her wrist. Blood welled through her skinthins where its mandibles had sunk in. It was fully as large as her hand.
Lissandra did a horrible little jig across the room and began to smash her hand against the nearest wall. Again and again and again. It landed with a heavy, meaty thud. Finally the sandking fell away. She whimpered and fell to her knees.
'I think my fingers are broken,' she said softly. The blood was still flowing freely. She had dropped the laser near the cellar door.
'I'm not going down there,' her operative announced in clear, firm tones. Lissandra looked up at him. 'No,' she said. 'Stand in the door and flame it all. Cinder it. Do you understand?'
He nodded.
Kress moaned. 'My house, ' he said. His stomach churned. The white sandking had been so large. How many more were down there? 'Don't,' he continued. 'Leave it alone. I've changed my mind.'
Lissandra misunderstood. She held out her hand. It was covered with blood and greenish black ichor. 'Your little friend bit clean through my glove, and you saw what it took to get it off. I don't care about your house, Simon. Whatever is down there is going to die.'
Kress hardly heard her. He thought he could see movement in the shadows beyond the cellar door. He imagined a white army bursting out, each soldier as big as the sandking that had attacked Lissandra. He saw himself being lifted by a hundred tiny arms and being dragged down into the darkness, where the maw waited hungrily. He was afraid. 'Don't,' he said.
They ignored him.
Kress darted forward, and his shoulder slammed into the back of Lissandra's operative just as the man was bracing to fire. The-operative grunted, lost his balance, and pitched forward into the black. Kress listened to him fall down the stairs. Afterwards there were other noises-scuttlings and snaps and soft, squishing sounds.
Kress swung around to face Lissandra. He was drenched in cold sweat, but a sickly kind of excitement possessed him. It was almost sexual.
Lissandra's calm, cold eyes regarded him through her mask. 'What are you doing?' she demanded as Kress picked up the laser she had dropped. 'Simon!'
'Making a peace,' he said, giggling. 'They won't hurt god, no, not so long as god is good and generous. I was cruel. Starved them. I have to make up for it now, you see.'
'You're insane,' Lissandra said. It was the last thing she said. Kress burned a hole in her chest big enough to put his arm through. He draped the body across the floor and rolled it down the cellar stairs. The noises were louder-chitinous clackings and scrapings and echoes that were thick and liquid. Kress nailed up the door once again.
As he fled, he was filled with a deep sense of contentment that coated his fear like a layer of syrup. He suspected it was not his own.
He planned to leave his home, to fly to the city and take a room for a night, or perhaps for a year. Instead he started drinking. He was not quite sure why. He drank steadily for hours and retched it all up violently on his living- room carpet. At some point he fell asleep. When he woke, it was pitch-dark in the house.
He cowered against the couch. He could hear noises. Things were moving in the walls. They were all around him. His hearing was extraordinarily acute. Every little creak wasp the footstep of a sandking. He closed his eyes and
waited, expecting to feel their terrible touch, afraid to move lest he brush against one.
Kress sobbed and then was very still.
Time passed, but nothing happened.
He opened his eyes again. He trembled. Slowly the shadows began to soften and dissolve. Moonlight was filtering through the high windows. His eyes adjusted.
The living room was empty. Nothing there, nothing, nothing. Only his drunken fears.
Kress steeled himself and rose and went to a light.
Nothing there. The room was deserted.
He listened. Nothing. No sound. Nothing in the walls. It had all been his imagination, his fear.
The memories of Lissandra and the thing in the cellar returned to him unbidden. Shame and anger washed over him. Why had he done that? He could have helped her burn it out, kill it. Why . . . he knew why. The maw had done it to him, had put fear in him. Wo had said it was psionic, even when it was small. And now it was large, so large. It had feasted on Cath and Idi, and now it had two more bodies down there. It would keep growing. And it had learned to like the taste of human flesh, he thought.
He began to shake, but he took control of himself again and stopped. It wouldn't hurt him; he was god; the whites had always been his favorites.
He remembered how he had stabbed it with his throwing sword. That was before Cath came. Damn her, anyway.
He couldn't stay here. The maw would grow hungry again. Large as it was, it wouldn't take long. Its appetite would be terrible. What would it do then? He had to get away, back to the safety of the city while the maw was still contained in his wine cellar. It was only plaster and hard-packed earth down there, and the mobiles could dig and tunnel. When they got free . . . Kress didn't want to think about it.
He went to his- bedroom and packed. He took three bags. Just a single change of clothing, that was all he needed; the rest of the space he filled with his valuables, with jewelry and art and other things he could not bear to
