And after that, after that lay Sanctuary.
Qeteb's stomach gurgled with anticipation. So many souls, all
waiting for him. Fattening themselves on the false hope of Sanctuary. He laughed.
And after Sanctuary, the entire planet.
And then Qeteb knew he could ravage at will through the universe. The Star Dance would quail and then fail.
"There is nothing that can stop me now," he whispered, and the whisper fled through the clouds and the thin air of the upper atmosphere and fled screaming through the universe.
There is nothing that can stop me now!
They had returned to the scene of Rox's death. Sigholt. Sheol, Raspu, Mot and Barzula stood in a semicircle before the moat where the bridge had once stood. As one they were silent, concentrating, pooling all their power and directing it where Qeteb wanted it.
Before them, supine and willing, lay the Niah-woman. Her arms were by her side, her eyes staring sightlessly into the low and heavy sky.
Her belly, still flat, nevertheless quivered and throbbed with the burgeoning life within.
Qeteb was leaping and screaming atop Sigholt's Keep, a black, maniacal figure, all spindly arms and legs and grinning face full of teeth.
Qeteb was calling Rox's spirit home.
Evil never died, and was never destroyed. It only festered, and Rox's spirit had been festering ever since the bridge's trap had killed him.
Lost, lonely, angry, revengeful, it had drifted among the stars where the bridge had flung it.
Now its master was calling it, singing to it (screaming through a bloody, foaming mouth to it), and Rox's spirit responded.
It crashed through the universe, wailing past galaxies, tearing apart planetary systems, destroying moons and asteroids alike.
Qeteb became a blur of mania atop Sigholt. He flung his arms and legs about with such violence his joints creaked and popped; his voice screeched and wailed through his throat; his teeth waxed and waned in his jaws — now long, razored fangs, now rickety, decayed grinders; his body parts grew to tremendous size and then exploded, reforming in the same instant into grotesque parodies of anatomy that wriggled and reached as if they had a life of their own.
The surface of Tencendor heaved and shuddered. Boils opened and exploded dirt and filth into the air. Chasms writhed across the plains, meeting and breeding and reproducing until the sound of their passing became a nightmarish roar.
Mountains jiggled and jumped, oceans wailed, caverns sobbed.
Qeteb laughed.
Deep in the bowels of Star Finger DragonStar put his hands to his ears and screamed. Every horror that Qeteb visited on the land was visited on his soul.
"DragonStar!" Leagh yelled, and threw herself against him. "DragonStar!" And she grabbed at one of his hands, and held it tightly against her belly. "Believe!"
DragonStar's eyes widened, and he fell silent.
Rox exploded through the sky as the craft of the Enemy had once done.
Fire rained down, and ice sheets shattered the air.
Qeteb screamed in triumph, every part of him wriggling and writhing.
He was a master!
Blood showered down from the sky, and the four other Demons tipped back their heads and let it wash over their faces.
They were very, very happy.
Something black and horrible slowly spiralled down from the heavens.
It was a worm, wriggling and writhing in complete harmony with Qeteb, slick and moist, covered in the oils and juices of its reincarnation.
Rox's homecoming soul.
"Yes! Yes! Yes!" Qeteb screamed, stabbing one finger down towards Niah's still supine body.
"There! In her womb! There!"
And the worm saw, and rejoiced.
It spiralled closer, slowly, slowly, slowly, and then suddenly it became a blur of movement, dropping (squelching) down to the ground before Niah, humping and wriggling, making frantic mewling sounds, desperate ... . "Yes! Yes! There! There!"
And the worm saw, and went. It wriggled up to Niah's feet, and forced them apart.
It began the final journey up the valley of her legs, moving to its sweet haven between her thighs ...
Qeteb roared with laughter. "This is what I will do to you, DragonStar!"
And the worm wriggled home, and disappeared.
