Chapter 60

The General's Instructions

Qeteb turned slowly about, one arm extended as he indicated the wasteland that stretched for leagues about them. Balls of dust and ice rolled slowly across the plains of Skarabost, while great fingers of mould and putrilage crept over the southern parts of the continent.

Qeteb was all black armour: visored, inscrutable, indestructible.

Before him Mot and Barzula stood attentive and quiet.

They respected the consuming anger that filled Qeteb.

"All this lies at risk," Qeteb said, his voice a hiss behind his visor. "All this beauty. Our home. How hard have we fought to attain this? How many millennia? How many worlds? And now all is at risk!"

Mot and Barzula flinched, but otherwise did not move.

Qeteb strode to within a pace of the two other Demons. "You go together to meet DareWing and Goldman. You rise or fall together. I do not need to explain what this means."

Having said that, Qeteb made a lie of his words. "Raspu and Roxiah have fallen: one turned, one dead. If you fail then I am weakened to a point where I may flounder myself."

"We will not fail," Mot said.

"Make sure that you do not," Qeteb whispered, then reached forward and grasped each Demon's chin in his mailed hands. "Do not fail!"

He let them go, and the Demons turned and faded into the wasteland.

Qeteb stood a moment, watching the space where they had vanished, then he turned about.

Sheol was standing behind him, a robe in shifting shades of decomposing and putrid matter, wrapping itself about her malformed body.

"I know I do not have to concern myself with your success," he said.

She grinned, and when she spoke the stench of the grave issued from her mouth.

"Faraday condemns herself," she said. "She does not even want to succeed."

"I cannot understand her preoccupation with self-sacrifice," Qeteb said, "but I am mightily grateful for it."

Then, without further ado, he, too, vanished.