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father's daughter... But what value will and stubbornness against such as
Nevenka Nieroda?
Irritably, Gathrid brushed off an attack by the Guards.
Bleibel went berserk. He screamed. Hordes of Sar-tainians swept in. They
hurled themselves on the bewildered Ventimiglians.
Gathrid felt removed from it all. He seemed to be an observer watching killing
machines at work. The attackers kept coming. Their corpses piled in drifts.
Their blood gathered in lakes on the vast jade floor.
He felt no sense of time. It just seemed that, finally, they stopped coming.
He stood alone except for grim, pale Tracka.
He felt stronger than ever. Daubendiek had fed on countless lives. He felt no
connection with place or event. He was the Instrument of Suchara....
He began speaking the words she wanted said.
Something inside him monitored and adjusted them. "Now, Nieroda. Now we settle
the accounts. Finally. Forever." He thought he used a tight-throated whisper.
Why were the walls shaking? "For all that you've done, and been, this time you
die the death from which there can be no resurrection."
That great mass of flesh twitched a finger.
From behind the throne came the surviving Toal. They bore Gerdes Mulenex. They
dragged Rogala, chained, collared and stumbling.
"You've blinded him!"
A monstrous cackle filled the hall. Gathrid saw that one of the Dead Captains
was not a Toal at all, but the demon Gacioch restored to a whole body. He held
Rogala's lead chain, and mocked the dwarf with every step.
Outmaneuvered again, Gathrid thought. But riot beaten. Far from beaten. As he
would teach Nieroda.
Gacioch had been deceiving them. Crafty demon. He had done his spying well.
Gathrid felt no pity for Rogala. Perhaps Suchara's indifference to the welfare
of her tools was leaking over.
He sprang at the Toal, destroying one'before it could defend itself. The
second took but a moment longer.
Tracka handled the demon. He attacked with that savagery unique to masters
betrayed by slaves. Gacioch let out one great long wail of surprise and
dismay. He cursed Nieroda as he faded.
Gathrid laughed, a peal like a long roll of thunder. The demon had not
foreseen his own fate. The Dark Champion had tricked him. "Roast forever," he
called after Gacioch. "May it be a solitary Hell."
Gathrid turned to the throne. The thing that had been Gerdes Mulenex began to
twitch. The gross corpulence of the Emperor began to snore.
The youth moved toward the two.
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"Watch out!" the blind dwarf shrieked. "Trap!"
A storm of poisoned darts hurtled from a thousand hidden recesses. Their
numbers darkened the chamber.
The Shield came alive. Missiles pattered off it like hail off a tin roof.
Gathrid sighed. Its protection enveloped him completely.
Tracka was less fortunate. Gasping, one hand extended eastward as if he meant
to yank himself home, he died. He was the last Ventimiglian.
He left a legacy. With his final breath he mounted a final, violent
incantation. His body became a standing bolt of lightning. Jade melted beneath
his feet. The blinding fire of him dissipated, becoming a foul, oily cloud.
Something burst from its deeps.
It was a tentacular clump of nightmare a dozen feet tall. It had legs like a
man. There the resemblance to humanity ended.
It leapt on Elgar. A mouth Gathrid could not see ripped bloody gobbets from
the Emperor. The youth muttered, "Wrong one, idiot!" He kicked a passage
through the darts mounded around him. Nieroda-Mulenex responded uncertainly.
Tracka-monster realized its error. It whipped off Elgar and threw itself at
the Red Brother. Nieroda barely evaded it. She seemed puzzled.
Wailing daggers hurtled out of nowhere. They pounded the Shield and Tracka's
demon. The latter squealed and leapt at Nieroda again. Gathrid leaned into the
storm of blades. He wanted to reach her before she eliminated the distraction.
Slithering like a snake, Rogala removed himself from danger. Though blind, he
seemed to know exactly what was happening.
The jade opened between Gathrid and Nieroda. All Faron shifted, shaking like a
dog coming out of water. Screams sounded throughout the palace. The hill
groaned as whole wings collapsed.
Gathrid looked inside himself, hunting the spells Ah-lert had used to bring in
fill from afar. He could not find them. The Mindak had become as elusive as
his sister and Loida. He sprinted along the abyss in search of a place narrow
enough to jump.
Smoke ghosts drifted in through high, vaulted windows. Their frames were
taking on an orange tinge.
Nieroda lacked confidence. She was trying to avoid a one-on-one. Gathrid
grinned wickedly.
She was not retreating. Why?
At the moment she was preoccupied with the gift Tracka had left her. It froze.
A struggle took place within it. It swayed, made a surprisingly kittenish
sound. And turned on Gathrid.
The youth seized the Staff from where Tracka had dropped it. He used it as an
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