Resurrection

The chasme's wings beat in agitation. His voice rose still higher. "No, priestess, no. He is too big, his smell too foul. Just you."

Jeggred said nothing, merely stared.

Pharaun found it mildly amusing that a giant fly-demon found Jeggred too foul for transport.

A cutting quip seemed in order, but he restrained himself.

Danifae smiled and put her hand on Vakuul's head. The chasme's wings beat fast as she ran her fingers along the bristles of the demon's hair.

"You cannot begin to comprehend what I am prepared to do for you," she said, low and husky, "if you but do this for me and my servant."

The thing protruding from the creature's thorax managed to squirm out just a little farther.

"Both then," the chasme said, drooling from his open mouth. "Come. Come, now."

Danifae turned and gestured Jeggred forward.

"Come, Jeggred," she said, even while signing to the draegloth:

When we arrive at the mountains, tear off anything that is sticking out of it, then kill it.

Jeggred smiled at the demon and stalked forward.

When Danifae turned back around to face the chasme, she again wore a seductive smile.

Pharaun could not help but admire her. The woman was not as powerful as Quenthel-that was clear-but she was as skilled a manipulator as Pharaun had ever encountered. Pharaun thought back to his encounter with Jeggred in the chwidencha tunnel. Pharaun had said that Danifae was manipulating the draegloth; Jeggred had answered that Danifae was instead manipulating

Pharaun and Quenthel.

Pharaun began to suspect that both were likely true. Where Quenthel was raw power, Danifae was skillful subtlety. Both women were dangerous. He was coming to believe that either could be the Yor'thae, or perhaps neither. In truth, he did not care, as long as he came out of it with his life and his position.

Danifae looked back to Quenthel and Pharaun and said, "To the mountains then, Mistress

Quenthel?"

Quenthel nodded, her face a mask of impassivity that poorly hid her anger.

Jeggred took the smiling Danifae in his arms, and the chasme wrapped both of them in his legs. Vakuul's wings beat so fast that they became a barely visible blur.

"Heavy," the demon said, in his whining voice but managed to get off the ground. "So heavy."

Quenthel turned to the nalfeshnee and allowed him to scoop her up in his huge arms. His wings too began to beat, and somehow those absurd little appendages bore his huge bulk aloft.

"Follow, wizard," Quenthel called.

Pharaun sighed, called on the power of his ring, and took flight behind them.

They soared high over the Demonweb Pits, flying into the teeth of the wind. They stayed below the souls but above the highest of the tors. The nalfeshnee cradled Quenthel against his mammoth chest. Her hair whipped in the wind. The chasme held Jeggred and Danifae close.

The creature pawed at Danifae as best he could while they flew.

Despite their respective loads, the demons moved at speed, and Pharaun struggled to keep up.

He could hear nothing over the roar of the wind other than the muted buzz of the chasme's wings.

Rain pelted his face.

Taking flight allowed them to avoid the difficulties of the harsh terrain, and they devoured the leagues quickly. On foot, they would have had a five or six day trek to the mountains. Flying at the rate they were, Pharaun expected to reach the mountains around daybreak, perhaps a bit after.

He surveyed the plane below him as he flew. From above, the surface of the Pits looked like diseased skin-blistered, scarred, pockmarked. Lakes of acid dotted the ground, spider carcasses lay everywhere, and great crevasses split the landscape like scars.

He looked ahead toward the mountains but they remained invisible in the darkness. He could see the glowing souls, though, flying toward the mountains' base, toward the Pass of the Reaver.

He replayed the demon's words in his mind: You cannot attempt the pass and live, Zerevimeel had said. Then, I will think fondly of your soul being devoured by the Reaver.

Pharaun decided that he would rather keep his soul than not, but he still flew on.

Chapter Ten

The night was hours old, and still Halisstra had not disturbed her sisters' Reverie. She knew she should. They ought to have used the night to travel, in case the slaughter renewed with the dawn, but Halisstra knew her sisters needed rest. They would have little opportunity for it after they left their makeshift temple atop the tor. Besides, Halisstra wanted them to have a few more hours of peace, alone with her faith. They soon would have little opportunity for that too.

She sat near the edge of the tor praying to the Dark Maiden for the strength to face the challenges ahead.