“I hope your protection spells are sufficiently efficacious.”
“I hope the same for you. Although they will not be sufficient to protect you from me. Later.”
“Thank you for the warning.” Incarnadine looked about. “I sense someone nearby who is not a Guest, one who has not entered the castle by dint of magic.”
Melydia searched off to one side. “Osmirik, perhaps. My scribe.”
“He is still alive. I will have to extend my influence to protect him.”
“Look to your own safety, Incarnadine.”
“I always do, Melydia. But I’m bound to see to the welfare of my Guests. You did not consider what would happen to them, did you?”
“I do not care.”
“Of course not. But did you know that detransmogrification entails some spatiotemporal effects?”
“I am not familiar with your terminology.”
“You really should study some natural philosophy. Magic is only one way of looking at the universe. At any rate, my Guests will not die, but they will be swept back along their individual time lines to a point just prior to their entering the castle. At least that is my best guess as to what will happen.”
“Time, say you? Time has run out, Incarnadine.”
The smoke and the vapor and the traceries of fire were swept away by an explosion of white light.
On The Plains Of Baranthe
Shouts roused him from sleep and brought him out of his tent. He strode out from under the sun screen, looked up at the citadel, and was awed. Dark clouds lay piled like mountains above the castle. The castle itself glowed like an ember, and great flaming prominences rose from it: sheets of pink flame, wreaths of incandescence, starbursts of fire. Forked lightning shot from clouds to castle.
A strong wind rose, and Vorn closed his cloak about him. He watched. Pointing, gesticulating, nervously shouting, his men watched with him.
The castle changed color, turning to orange, then to yellow. Glowing streamers unfurled from it, and white smoke rose. Its hue shaded to a lighter yellow, a sun-yellow, then to yellow-white, pure white, then to searing blue-white. It grew unbearable to look at.
Vorn watched for as long as he could, then averted his eyes. There was a brilliant, actinic flash. When he could, Vorn looked again. A white ring of vapor was expanding at astonishing speed from the epicenter of the explosion. But the epicenter itself — that he could make no sense of, at first. It was something huge and dark. It was not smoke or fire, but a shape, a thing.
Then the thing unfurled its wings and darkened the world beneath. Its head reared up, and its eyes were like windows to Hell. Its great taloned feet splayed out, eager to pounce, to tear, to crush.
Vorn found himself screaming. He wanted to run but he could not. The face of the beast stopped his heart, its eyes pierced him to the soul. Shouts, shrieks, curses, appeals to deities rose up from the troops. Some began running. Most, like Vorn, were transfixed.
The ring of vapor reached them with the sound of thunder, much like that produced by the flying ship that had sailed overhead a while ago. A blast of air hit, and tents blew down.
The titanic beast was on the wing, coming this way. Its faceted eyes searched the ground, its horrid mouth opened, and a cataract of fire spilled forth.
Vorn’s mind slowly formed dim thoughts. He had been bewitched … she had been lying … he was dead, as were all his dreams of empire.
So be it. He dropped his cloak and drew his sword. He was still Vorn, Prince and Conqueror. He raised his head. The beast blotted out the sky with its vast obscene bulk. Vorn beheld, but could not grasp it. No human mind could apperceive its structure, or figure its lineaments, or live to tell of the horror of its ugliness, its loathsomeness, its frightfulness.…
His last thought was of how angry his mother would be with him for acting so foolishly.
Atop The Citadel, And At Its Base
They faced each other across a bleak plateau. The castle was gone, nothing but bare earth remained.
“It is done,” she said. “You were right. I cannot control the beast.”
“You have unleashed an ancient evil. Have you no regrets?”
She was silent, staring at the ground. Then she said, “I do not know. Now that I have accomplished my purpose, I feel strangely empty.”
“Your madness has run its course. The maggot has eaten its way out of you.”
“And left a shell? Perhaps. I cannot fathom why I feel this way.”
“You have loosed the beast to destroy the world, as you wanted to.”
“Could I have wanted that? I wanted to rule the world.”
“The desire to rule, to dictate, is born of nothing but contempt.”
“You may be right. It is so strange. I feel nothing. Nothing whatever. I am weak. I have used all the power I had within me.”
“And it was considerable. But you will not get your wish. The world will not die, neither will you. Neither shall the beast be loosed.”
“How will all this be prevented?”
“By magic, of course. I will use the same spell that trapped the beast three thousand years ago.”
She shook her head. “You cannot do it. The stars are not right. The beast is now forewarned. You will not be able to lure it down again from its home in the skies. It will descend only to destroy.”
“The missing aspect will offset those unfavorable conditions. The beast cannot exist in its incomplete state. It will return of its own accord and will bargain with me. It will see that there is only one course open to it.”
“So you hope.”
“I know, Melydia. One thing — I will need your help. I will need protection.” He pointed to the still form of the scribe at his feet. “So will your servant.”
“I will do this thing. Methinks you have bespelled me.”
“I have. Your madness is gone. Forgive me, it was a precaution.”
“I only wish you could have done it earlier.”
“That was not possible, as you well know.”
“Of course,” she said. “Only now am I vulnerable … so to speak.”
“Enough. May we begin?”
“You need no accouterments? No paraphernalia?”
“None. The spell is purely mental in execution.”
She pointed to the sky. “Behold, the beast rises.”
“It will return soon, if all goes according to plan.”
The tunnel had been dark, lit only by the strange glow that had stayed with him through the underworld. The aura of his sainthood? But he saw light ahead, daylight. He smelled the outdoors. It was strange, because he hadn’t
