"My hounds hunger for your blood," he said again, "but I shall not set them to you."
"Why not?" Qeteb said. "Scared I might tear them apart?"
"I shall not set them to you because," DragonStar paused, and smiled, "because I love you."
Qeteb stared unbelievingly at the StarSon. "No!"
"I offer you love," DragonStar said, "and love shall be your destruction."
And as Qeteb screamed, StarSon DragonStar stepped forward, the hounds parting before him, and plunged the lily sword deep into Qeteb's belly, driving the Demon back until he lay impaled upon the ploughed field.
Then he stepped back.
Qeteb writhed about the sword, like a spider mounted for a live display ... and laughed.
"Weapons will not hurt me," he said, still chortling. "You have learned nothing!"
Qeteb wrapped his hands about the hilt of the sword, as if to wrench it out.
Then he stopped, and stared, and screamed in horror.
From behind DragonStar lumbered a small, dark cheerful shape.
The bear cub.
Qeteb shrieked, and lifted his hands away from the sword, holding them out before him as if to ward himself from the personification of all he feared most in the universe.
Love.
Qeteb's skewered body jerked about the sword so violently he twisted about in a full circle, his heels digging into the earth, his hips and shoulders contorting in the effort to somehow free himself from the pin which held him.
Love, in the guise of the bear cub, padded forward. The cub stopped just short of Qeteb's feet, and he lowered his snout and sniffed curiously.
Qeteb kicked at the cub.
The cub snapped, and Qeteb shrieked yet again.
One of his feet had gone.
The cub chewed, crunched, chewed some more, and then swallowed.
It licked its lips, and made a happy, mewling sound.
Every one of the Alaunt licked their lips, and shifted hungrily.
"No," said DragonStar, "this is a meal only Love can consume."
The cub's head darted forward again, and took Qeteb's other foot, as well half the leg beneath his knee.
Qeteb wailed and moaned and shrieked, waving his amputated lower limbs about wildly, splattering blood about him in a frenzied arc.
The bear cub swallowed, growled and leaped forward, his head darting between Qeteb's legs to the Demon's genitals.
DragonStar stood watching the bear cub eat the Midday Demon mouthful by mouthful, and yet seeing nothing.
He was remembering.
Remembering how Axis had plunged the Rainbow Sceptre into Gorgrael until the Destroyerhad literally disintegrated about it.
And yet Axis had not truly destroyed the evil that was Gorgrael, had he? It had simplyfestered, causing fatal cancers within Tencendorian society, as well Axis' own family.
Many years after Gorgrael's death the Sceptre had called to Drago, pulling him beyond theStar Gate, and eventually transforming, first into the purse, then into the staff, and finally into thelily sword.
Which DragonStar, in turn, had plunged into the evil that was Qeteb.
Yet, finally, it was not the weapon that was destroying the personification of mad, vindictiveevil.
It was Love. Love had allowed Faraday to escape, and had sacrificed itself for her, and Lovewas now consuming the evil of Qeteb.
This was not an evil which would re-emerge in some unthought of place.
This was an evil which, finally, was being consumed into nothingness.
The bear cub swallowed the last tasty morsel, licked up a few stray drops of blood, and then raised its head and looked at DragonStar.
DragonStar smiled, his eyes brimming with tears, and he nodded his thanks to the cub.
His job done, the cub began to shape-change back to its true form.
