The creatures, with their pale, death-worm skins, cowered on the floor of the vast chamber. Their howls of agony from the light were so intense that even Leiria, the most battle-hardened of soldiers, was moved by pity.
They were like flies in a cruel boy's insect collection-pierced through with needles of light. Pinned to the floor, their immense wings flapping feebly as they circled those impaling shafts on all fours, shrieking in pain and begging for mercy.
After Leiria had recovered she clambered to her feet and saw Jooli rising from the place where she had fallen-tossing away her broken pike. Blood leaked from a shallow arm wound where a talon had caught her.
About twenty feet away she saw Biner, surrounded by the other members of the Kyranian party, transfixed by the sight of the groaning monsters. The Kyranians were covered with blood, but when they unfroze from the shock and started to move Leiria sighed in relief when she realized that little of the blood was their own.
Biner came up to her, shaking his big head. 'What do we do with them, lass?' he asked. 'Make them prisoners?'
Before she could form an answer out of the chaotic thoughts and feelings racing through her mind, Palimak stepped down from what Leiria realized for the first time was a dais.
Behind him she saw the great coffin sitting on the platform-the mighty sarcophagus that was also the source of all that brightness. For out of its open lid spilled a blazing river of light, filling every nook and cranny of the chamber with an intensity that forbade the existence of even the smallest shadow.
The coffin light framed Palimak, silhouetting him larger than life. As intense as that light was, Leiria could see his eyes huge and glowing with magical fires. She saw the long talons arcing out from his fingers. And when he opened his mouth to speak she shivered at the sharp teeth he revealed-almost like fangs.
His ears seemed to have points that were more pronounced than normal. And his pale skin appeared more translucent than usual, with a green cast just beneath the surface. It was as if, she thought, another Palimak were ready to burst through. His demon side. Which was a Palimak she wasn't so certain she wanted to know.
And then she thought, No, it is a trick of the magical light. He's still my little Palimak. My dear little Palimak. The strange child I carried away from Zanzair on horseback. Chortling the first rude words taught to him by Gundara and Gundaree, 'Shut up, shut up, shut up!'
He had been still oblivious to the fact that his mother, Nerisa, had just been killed by Iraj Protarus. Or that Iraj and his soldiers were hunting him now, bent on putting Safar, Leiria and the child to the sword.
Palimak turned to her, blazing eyes commanding. But when he spoke, his voice was a soft, almost mournful, counterpoint.
'We have to kill them, Aunt Leiria,' he said. 'I'm sorry to make you do this, but I don't think we have any choice. They're worse than any nest of vipers.'
He drew in a deep breath. 'Vipers, at least,' he said, 'have a purpose that's not so different from ours.
No more terrible than ours, anyway. They have to eat, they have to breed and protect their young. And they only harm us if we threaten those needs and wants.'
He gestured at the corpse of one of the beasts. It was much larger than the others, its head sheared from its body and fallen to one side. Eyes glaring hatred even in death.
'That's their queen,' he said. 'Queen Charize. And she was an evil thing, a hateful thing. And her purpose was something I still really don't understand.'
He pointed at the open coffin. 'That's Asper's tomb,' he said. 'I think there's promise there. Hope there.
Father said there was, at any rate. And Charize was trying to subvert it. Turn it into an evil force for her own uses.'
Palimak picked up his sword, which he'd dropped while making the light spell. He advanced toward one of the cowering creatures, talons retracting into his fingers. Fangs turning back into human teeth again.
Eyes transforming into something more human with each step he took.
He looks so sad now, Leiria thought. And she wondered how hard it must be for him to wear a cloak of human form after living in the steel-hard skin of a demon.
He raised the sword high. 'Mercy, master!' the creature shrieked. 'Mercy!'
Leiria thought she heard Palimak groan in sorrow. But perhaps it was only a result of the muscular effort it took as he brought the sword down and cut off the creature's begging. Then, without pause, he went to another and took its life. Then another, and another…
Reluctantly, Leiria retrieved her own sword and joined in the slaughter.
After she'd killed her first victim, Biner, Jooli and the soldiers joined in. But just as hesitatingly. Whereas before they had fought and killed with a will, now they just struck out blindly, trying not to look at the poor, mewling things who were their victims.
Sometimes they stopped, sick of themselves and the gods for requiring such a thing. But Palimak urged them on, saying his light spell wouldn't last much longer.
In the end Charize's underground kingdom sank in a welter of gore. A place where the Butcher King had set up market with enough corpses to feed the greatest of cities. Except no one would ever feed on this flesh, so in their deaths Charize's subjects were denied even that most basic honor. They would putrefy here. Unwanted, unneeded, and mourned only in the nightmares of Leiria and the others who would most certainly never boast of their victory in this place. Because it was mass murder, nothing more.
So went the false Sisters of Asper. And as Leiria slew her last she remembered their refrain:
The words would remain with her for the rest of her life.
Palimak could feel himself transforming. Sharp pin-prickles stabbed his skin as if he'd just been caught out in a lightning storm in the High Caravans of Kyrania. Hair like barbs in his skull. Eyes so dry it was painful to blink. The air was oppressive, crackling with energy.
He felt like he was two animals stuffed into one skin. One was cold logic: what was required, must be done. The other wanted to weep in empathy for his enemy. As he struck another scaly head from its shoulders, he thought, What if this were me?
Gradually, the softer side-the human side, he realized-superseded the first. And each killing blow became more difficult. No, that wasn't correct. It wasn't harder to kill, but it took more passion. He had to conjure up hate to power his muscles as if it were a magical spell. He had to hate these things to kill them. Invest them with all the deviltry the human world could imagine that he could deliver the blow.
And when he was done and there were no more creatures left to kill, he stood panting over the last corpse. Blood singing for more. Mind horrified at what he had done.
It was then that he realized he was fully human again. It was then that he realized he'd been fully demon before.
And on the whole, he thought, he much preferred the demon state.
Palimak mentally shook himself. Appalled at that thought. He was human, dammit! More human than demon!
Wasn't he?
Palimak buried this doubt. Triggered an avalanche of excuses and rationalizations, plummeting so quickly down that mountain of emotions that all other thought was smothered.
He looked at Leiria and saw … what was it? … relief? … in her eyes. Glanced down at his hands and saw that the claws had retracted into … normal? … human fingers. And then the rest of him felt human as well.
Body and mind. Mind and body.
And there was blood everywhere he looked. Blood that he had spilled.
He felt sick and wanted badly to flee from this place.
Then he threw his sword away. By the Gods, he didn't want that blade in his hand anymore! It felt filthy.
Defiled. And he was glad to be rid of it.
He also badly wanted to get out of this chamber. To seal its horrors off from the rest of the world with the largest boulder he could find.
A small voice chattered in his ear. 'The coffin, Little Master,' Gundara said. 'Remember Asper's tomb.'
And Gundaree added, 'That's why we came here, wasn't it?'
