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Another reptilian hiss, this one louder – coming from a creature trapped in one demon's jaws. Brokeface saw in its terrible eyes a deathly fear, rising to panicThe woman spoke quietly, clearly addressing Brokeface: 'Follow the wizard and his sister – they found a bolt-hole behind the dais – enough time, I think, to make good their escape. And yours, if you go now.'

'I don't want to,' he said, unable to keep from weeping. 'I just want to die.'Advertisement

That turned her gaze from the demons facing her.

He looked up into exquisite, elongated eyes, black as ebony. And in her face, there was no mirror, no twist of revulsion. No, naught but a simple regard, and then, something that might have been… sorrow.

'Go to the Temple of Soliel,' she said.

'She is ever turned away-'

'Not today she isn't. Not with Ganoes Paran holding her by the scruff of her neck. Go. Be healed.'

This was impossible, but how could he deny her? 'Hurry, I don't know how Curdle and Telorast are managing this threat, and there's no telling how long it will last-'

Even as she said those words, a bellowing roar came from further down the hallway, and the demons bunched close before the threshold, yelping in desperate frenzy.

'That's it,' she murmured, lifting her knives.

Brokeface leapt to his feet and ran into the altar chamber.

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Disbelief. Quick Ben could not understand what had held the Hounds up – he'd caught sounds, of fighting, fierce, snapping snarls, squeals of pain, and in one glance back, moments before carrying Torahaval through the back passage, he'd thought he'd seen… something.

Someone, ghostly in shadows, commanding the threshold.

Whatever this chance clash, it had purchased his life. And his sister' s. Currency Quick Ben would not squander.

Throwing Torahaval over his shoulder, he entered the narrow corridor and ran as fast as he could manage.

Before too long he heard someone in pursuit. Swearing, Quick Ben swung round, the motion crunching Torahaval's head against a wall – at which she moaned.

A man, his face deformed – no, horse-bitten, the wizard realized – rushed to close. 'I will help you,' he said. 'Quickly! Doom comes into this temple!'

Had it been this man facing down the Hounds? No matter. 'Take her legs then, friend. As soon as we're off sanctified ground, we can get the Hood out of here-'

As the Hounds gathered to rush Apsalar, she sheathed her knives and said, 'Curdle, Telorast, stop your hissing. Time to leave.'

'You're no fun, Not-Apsalar!' Curdle cried.

'No she isn't, is she?' Telorast said, head bobbing in vague threat motions, that were now proving less effective.

'Where is she?' Curdle demanded.

'Gone!'

'Without us!'

'After her!'

Poliel, Grey Goddess of pestilence, of disease and suffering, was trapped in her own tortured nightmare. All strength gone, all will bled away. The shard of deadly otataral impaling her hand, she sat on her throne, convulsions racking her.

Betrayals, too many betrayals – the Crippled God's power had fled, abandoning her – and that unknown mortal, that cold-eyed murderer, who had understood nothing. In whose name? For whose liberation was this war being fought? The damned fool.

What curse was it, in the end, to see flaws unveiled, to see the twisted malice of mortals dragged to the surface, exposed to day's light? Who among these followers did not ever seek, wilful or mindless, the purity of self-destruction? In obsession they took death into themselves, but that was but a paltry reflection of the death they delivered upon the land, the water, the very air. Selfdestruction making victim the entire world.

Apocalypse is rarely sudden; no, among these mortals, it creeps slow, yet inevitable, relentless in its thorough obliteration of life, of health, of beauty.

Diseased minds and foul souls had drawn her into this world; for the sake of the land, for the chance that it might heal in the absence of its cruellest inflicters of pain and degradation, she sought to expunge them in the breath of plague – no more deserving a fate was imaginable – for all that, she would now die.

She railed. Betrayal!.

Five Hounds of Shadow entered the chamber.

Her death. Shadowthrone, you fool.

A Hound flung something from its mouth, something that skidded, spitting and writhing, up against the first step of the dais.

Even in her agony, a core of clarity remained within Poliel. She looked down, seeking to comprehend – even as the Hounds fled the room, round the dais, into the priest-hole – comprehend this cowering, scaled panther, one limb swollen with infection, its back legs and hips crushed – it could not flee. The Hounds had abandoned it here – why? pqdm.com