"Why did you dive screaming for the Demons?" one of the ice women asked SpikeFeather.

The birdman was seated with Urbeth's two daughters about a small fire to one side of the Ravensbund warriors' larger camp. Both ice women sat close to him, and the one who spoke rested her hand on his knee.

SpikeFeather supposed he should feel uncomfortable, but in truth he rather enjoyed the closeness.

"It was all I could think of doing," he said. "You were both so ..."

He wasn't sure if it would be the best idea to mention how tired they were; if SpikeFeather had learned one thing over the past few decades of dealing almost daily with highly magical people, it was that they tended to be sensitive about any implied criticism, however slight.

The other ice woman shrugged. "My sister and I were exhausted, as was our mother."

"You brought us a pause," her sister continued, and her hand tightened very slightly on SpikeFeather's leg, "during which we could regain composure —"

"— and some measure of thought," her sister finished for her, and she lifted her face and smiled at SpikeFeather.

He grinned, and relaxed.

"Tell us about the Underworld," one of the ice women said, and SpikeFeather wondered if he would remember to ask after their names at some point.

"We have always wondered about the Underworld," her sister said, and leaned so close that her breath played over SpikeFeather's cheek.

He suddenly became aware of how attractive, and compelling, if not precisely beautiful, the two were.

"The Underworld seems to us to be so much like our beloved icepack," the other said. "As full of dangers, as full of twists and conundrums."

"Tell us ..."

"Please, tell us..."

And SpikeFeather found himself telling, and revelling in the closeness and warmth and loveliness of these two enchanted creatures.

So absorbed was he, he did not notice Theod's approach.

"SpikeFeather?"

SpikeFeather jumped, startled, and the ice sisters' hands tightened on his arms.

"SpikeFeather, DragonStar needs to see you."

He finally had something to do? SpikeFeather jumped to his feet, the ice sisters with him.

"I can smell an adventure!" one of them said.

DragonStar dropped down beside Zenith and WolfStar, and took the plate of food that Zenith handed him.

"I am not surprised to find you visit us," WolfStar said around a mouthful of food. "It feels that half this convoy has individually appeared and pleaded with Zenith to come to her senses and return home to her mother and father like a good girl."

His eyes watched DragonStar carefully as he wondered how it was he could use Zenith to control this man. Perhaps he would wait until the man disposed of the Demons, and control of Tencendor would be there for the taking. Perhaps ... Ah! WolfStar let the problem slide from his mind for the moment. The how would come to him eventually, and WolfStar did not mind the wait. The mere fact that DragonStar was here showed the depth of his feeling for his sister ... and revealed the extent of his vulnerability. Zenith could be used, WolfStar had no doubt of that at all, and power would eventually be his for the taking.

DragonStar looked at Zenith, and found that she met his eyes cleanly and honestly.

He sighed, and fiddled about with his food. "You can understand that most people find your, ah, union to be somewhat surprising," he said. "Perhaps even unexpected."

WolfStar laughed softly. "Oh, aye, and I imagine that StarDrifter heads the brigade of the righteously indignant," he began, but stopped when Zenith put a hand on his arm.

"Don't belittle StarDrifter," she said. "I have loved and do love him, and will not sit here and listen to you ridicule him."

WolfStar's face tightened, and he averted his gaze.

"Zenith," DragonStar said, "you mean a great deal to me. When everyone else in Tencendor turned their backs on me," and DragonStar shot a hard glare at WolfStar, "you believed in me, and aided me, even through your own distress."

Another glare WolfStar's way.

"If you now tell me," DragonStar continued to his sister, "that you love — no, I do not want to hear that... if you can look me in the eye and tell me truly that this is a course you have chosen of your own free will, and that you stay at WolfStar's side through your own choice, and with no coercion on his part, and that this is what you want, then I will walk away and make no attempt to dissuade you."

Zenith looked him in the eye, and her gaze did not falter. "I am here of my own free will and of my own choice, DragonStar," she said, "and I would that you respected that."

DragonStar stared at her, searching into her soul, and then he sighed again, dropped his eyes, and nodded.

"Then there is only one more thing I must say," he said.

"Yes?" WolfStar said, and DragonStar raised his eyes and looked at him.

"StarLaughter is on her way," he said, "and gods alone knows what she will do when she finds you —"

DragonStar's eyes shifted slightly, "— with Zenith."

Chapter 47

The Door

The Lake of Life had once been a beautiful body of water nestled within the protective Urqhart Hills and the bridge's hazy blue mists. Now it was an undulating smear of disgusting sludge and stench, pustules rising, ripening and then bursting in slow, horrid abandon across its entire surface.

Occasionally body parts of indeterminate species would rise to the surface, sometimes to slowly sink again, other times to be snatched out of the sludge by loathsome flying creatures that had once been birds but now ... but which now were something else.

This was pestilence, and it was to this that Pestilence came home.

Raspu danced in glee on the side of the spreading sludge. This was his creation, and this was where he felt at home. His naked body mirrored the surface of the lake: sores and running blisters besmirched his skin, and his hands occasionally scrabbled thoughtlessly (but nevertheless mirthfully) at the spreading rashes that scabbed across joints and face.

Raspu fell to his hands and knees and drank of the loathsome lake.

His skin roiled as the sludge slid down his throat.

Raspu tipped back his head and laughed. Nothing could outmanoeuvre him!

Two figures sat their mounts atop adjoining hilltops.

On one, Qeteb sat fully armoured and arrayed in spiked and bladed weaponry on his black beast.