Chapter 32

Revival

The Demons were angry beyond any anger that had ever filled them in previous millennia. And of all five, Qeteb was angry beyond compare.

Fury consumed him.

Rage ate his entire soul.

Revenge, destruction, the blight and devastation of all that still somehow survived: these were his only thoughts.

Now!

"They escaped me!" he bellowed across the land.

Well, so what if they had? They could escape nowhere he would not eventually find them.

If they were in Sanctuary? Then he would consume Sanctuary! He would shred it! Ravage it! Vomit forth its remains into the interstellar wastes to float lonely for eternity!

If they hid somewhere in a secret cave or dungeon?

Then it would not survive his might and power. What devastation he had wreaked on Tencendor to this point was but a foretaste of what he would eventually do.

Qeteb smiled. What he would eventually do with the power of the Enemy. He would turn the Enemy's own power back on them and laugh as they screamed.

Qeteb had never been this powerful in his entire existence, nor ever this potentially powerful. He could feel the power he'd eaten in the Sacred Groves ripple through him, making him stronger, more magical... more dangerous.

And soon he would revel in the power of the Enemy.

And after that, after that lay Sanctuary.

Qeteb's stomach gurgled with anticipation. So many souls, all

waiting for him. Fattening themselves on the false hope of Sanctuary. He laughed.

And after Sanctuary, the entire planet.

And then Qeteb knew he could ravage at will through the universe. The Star Dance would quail and then fail.

"There is nothing that can stop me now," he whispered, and the whisper fled through the clouds and the thin air of the upper atmosphere and fled screaming through the universe.

There is nothing that can stop me now!

They had returned to the scene of Rox's death. Sigholt. Sheol, Raspu, Mot and Barzula stood in a semicircle before the moat where the bridge had once stood. As one they were silent, concentrating, pooling all their power and directing it where Qeteb wanted it.

Before them, supine and willing, lay the Niah-woman. Her arms were by her side, her eyes staring sightlessly into the low and heavy sky.

Her belly, still flat, nevertheless quivered and throbbed with the burgeoning life within.

Qeteb was leaping and screaming atop Sigholt's Keep, a black, maniacal figure, all spindly arms and legs and grinning face full of teeth.

Qeteb was calling Rox's spirit home.

Evil never died, and was never destroyed. It only festered, and Rox's spirit had been festering ever since the bridge's trap had killed him.

Lost, lonely, angry, revengeful, it had drifted among the stars where the bridge had flung it.

Now its master was calling it, singing to it (screaming through a bloody, foaming mouth to it), and Rox's spirit responded.

It crashed through the universe, wailing past galaxies, tearing apart planetary systems, destroying moons and asteroids alike.

Qeteb became a blur of mania atop Sigholt. He flung his arms and legs about with such violence his joints creaked and popped; his voice screeched and wailed through his throat; his teeth waxed and waned in his jaws — now long, razored fangs, now rickety, decayed grinders; his body parts grew to tremendous size and then exploded, reforming in the same instant into grotesque parodies of anatomy that wriggled and reached as if they had a life of their own.

The surface of Tencendor heaved and shuddered. Boils opened and exploded dirt and filth into the air. Chasms writhed across the plains, meeting and breeding and reproducing until the sound of their passing became a nightmarish roar.

Mountains jiggled and jumped, oceans wailed, caverns sobbed.

Qeteb laughed.

Deep in the bowels of Star Finger DragonStar put his hands to his ears and screamed. Every horror that Qeteb visited on the land was visited on his soul.

"DragonStar!" Leagh yelled, and threw herself against him. "DragonStar!" And she grabbed at one of his hands, and held it tightly against her belly. "Believe!"

DragonStar's eyes widened, and he fell silent.

Rox exploded through the sky as the craft of the Enemy had once done.

Fire rained down, and ice sheets shattered the air.

Qeteb screamed in triumph, every part of him wriggling and writhing.

He was a master!

Blood showered down from the sky, and the four other Demons tipped back their heads and let it wash over their faces.

They were very, very happy.

Something black and horrible slowly spiralled down from the heavens.

It was a worm, wriggling and writhing in complete harmony with Qeteb, slick and moist, covered in the oils and juices of its reincarnation.

Rox's homecoming soul.

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" Qeteb screamed, stabbing one finger down towards Niah's still supine body.

"There! In her womb! There!"

And the worm saw, and rejoiced.

It spiralled closer, slowly, slowly, slowly, and then suddenly it became a blur of movement, dropping (squelching) down to the ground before Niah, humping and wriggling, making frantic mewling sounds, desperate ... . "Yes! Yes! There! There!"

And the worm saw, and went. It wriggled up to Niah's feet, and forced them apart.

It began the final journey up the valley of her legs, moving to its sweet haven between her thighs ...

Qeteb roared with laughter. "This is what I will do to you, DragonStar!"

And the worm wriggled home, and disappeared.

Niah's belly roiled.

And DragonStar screamed, and retched, and Leagh pressed his hand even harder against her belly, and said, "Use me, DragonStar, use the flowers."

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, stared at her, and then felt what throbbed forth from her belly.

Life. Wonder reborn.

And DragonStar used it.

Niah's body convulsed, once, twice, a third time, and then it lay still. One of its hands twitched.

Qeteb flung himself into the air, tumbling down from Sigholt's tower like a deranged acrobat determined upon his own destruction.

He landed next to Niah, a jerking, black thing all arms and legs and grinning face, and he grabbed at her arm. "Wake up! Wake up!"

And Niah did.

She turned her exquisitely beautiful face to Qeteb and she smiled with a frightful malevolence.

Niah's body, controlled from within her womb by Rox's soul.

"This feels good," the Rox-Niah said, and it spoke with the voice of Rox, harsh from disuse and the fright and loneliness of his death. It raised itself up on an arm, and waggled its tongue experimentally.

"Two bodies to control."

"The outer will be disposed of when you grow enough to wriggle your way free again," Qeteb said.

His form flowed and reshaped itself into the handsome man clad in grey and ivory. "Now, how do you feel?"

The Rox-Niah — Roxiah — sat up and furrowed its brow thoughtfully. "Strange. Odd ... as if ..."

"As if you have access, perhaps, to a new and strange power?" Qeteb asked eagerly.

"Yes ... yes, that's it. It feels," Roxiah twisted its features into an expression of hate and loathing,

"familiar."

"Indeed, my sweet," Qeteb said, "for 'tis the power of the Enemy."

And Roxiah opened its mouth and roared, and all beasts left in Tencendor quavered and wailed.

Except those surrounding DragonStar.

Lifting his hand from Leagh's belly, calm and assured now, he stared into the ceiling of the basement chamber, as if he could see right through it to the sky above.

"Why not come and get us, Qeteb," he said, and grinned. "If you can find us!"

Qeteb screamed, and lurched to his feet. Roxiah rose as well, and the Demons, now a complete circle of six, capered and reeled about.

Why not come and get us, Qeteb. If you can find us!

"Fool! Fool!" Qeteb screeched. "I have better things to do before I come to eat you!"

DragonStar smiled, and kissed Leagh gently on her forehead. "Good," he said. "It will be the sweeter for the waiting."