Not into her arachnoid form, but into the shape of an archway constructed of pale, unmortared blocks of stone.

Goodbye bridge...

The archway formed over the moat between the road and Sigholt, its lip touching the ground several paces away from DragonStar.

A man walked out of the arch.

He was white-haired and emaciated, and his entire form trembled as he walked. His face was deeply lined, his eyes faded and tired.

"Who are you?" he said, stopping a pace before DragonStar.

"My name is DragonStar SunSoar," he said, "and I am the result of your mistakes."

The old man cackled with laughter. "DragonStar? What kind of a name is that?"

He peered about him. "Where are we? Topside again?"

DragonStar wondered if the old man still thought he was on his home world. "What is your name?"

"Me? Oh, my name is Fischer. Where am I?"

DragonStar stared at him. He'd talked to the bridge about the moment when this man — a vastly younger version, apparently — had appeared and taunted Rox and the other Demons. Then the man had been full of confidence and knowledge. Now?

Ah, but that man was only a phantasm of the trap. The bridge had sent him the original. No wonder the effort had killed her.

"You are in the remains of a land called Tencendor," DragonStar said, "where the craft from your world crashed tens of thousands of years ago."

Fischer looked sharply at him. "Ah, and the Demons have followed?"

"Look about you."

"Aye," Fischer said, and grimaced. "Aye, they followed. Have you summoned me to blame me?"

"No. I need to ask you a question."

"Ah! I'd rather that you blamed me! I am sick of questions ... what to do? When to do it? How?

How? How? It took us forty years of questions before we came anywhere close to a single answer, and even then we only patched up the problem, we did not solve it. What is your question?"

"You reflected the Demon's hatred back at him, thus trapping him."

"Yes. Is that your question?"

"No. It trapped him, and it dismembered him, but it did not kill him. Why not?"

Fischer looked at the man carefully. He was pretty enough, and had a strange charismatic appeal, but Fischer did not know if he would be strong enough to do what was necessary. If he was merely told,

then he would never get the strength. If he discovered it for himself, then he just might have a hope.

"I cannot answer the question," Fischer said, "but I have a piece of advice. Evil cannot be destroyed, it merely festers."

"Why can't you answer the question?"

"I cannot teach you what is right or wrong. In this battle the answers must come from your spirit.

You must learn what will work against the Demons." Fischer looked at him steadily. "You must learn from our mistakes."

DragonStar stared, and then relaxed. "Thank you, Fischer."

Fischer grinned, and nodded his head. "My pleasure, m'boy. Finish it for us, I beg you. Our world was destroyed. I hope yours will be reborn."

DragonStar started to say something, but jerked in surprise as a stone fell from the archway and thudded into the ground behind Fischer.

Fischer likewise jumped, then scurried back under the arch as another, and then another, stone fell.

"Finish it this time," he whispered, and then the entire arch caved in, and the last DragonStar saw of Fischer was the man's arms raised in a hopeless attempt to protect himself against the falling masonry.

There was a rumble, and the archway collapsed into the moat.

Finish it for us.

DragonStar stood there a long time, staring into the moat and the pile of rubble he could dimly see in its depths.

Then he pulled the Song Book out from under his arm and leafed slowly through it.

The Enchanted Song Book did not tell him how to destroy the Demons at all. It was literally a list of the Enemy's previous mistakes.

What the Enchanted Song Book told him was what not to do.

DragonStar hesitated, then, with a quick twist of his wrist, tossed the Song Book into the moat.

It flared briefly as it fell, its pages rippling and cracking in the wind of its passing, then it vanished.

DragonStar smiled sadly, then let it fade. He did not have much time, and he had much strength to gain before he could put this knowledge to use.

Chapter 17

Escape from Sanctuary

Isfrael was impatient to make his deal with the Demons. Then he would escape with the Avar to the Sacred Groves, and leave the Acharites and Icarii to their fate.

But he had one small problem. Getting out of Sanctuary.

DragonStar could do it, wielding Enemy Acharite magic to do so, but Isfrael could not. This place was crafted of Enemy enchantment, and only those of Acharite blood — and who had reawoken into their powers — could use it. Isfrael had Acharite blood aplenty from his parents, Axis and Faraday, but he'd not been through the process of death that was needed to be able to make use of the power, and Isfrael had no intention of dying for his ambitions.

No, there had to be some other way to get out.

He sat under a great spreading whalebone tree in the heart of the forest that Sanctuary had created in order to make the Avar feel at home. Isfrael did not appreciate Sanctuary's efforts at all. The entire forest seemed false: it did not sing, and it did not vibrate with power.