"What about you, Dragon?" Kyria shouted.

"Forget me. Save Alouzon. Without her, Gryylth is no more."

Silbakor caught up with the Worm and pulled it back. Clawing, biting, hissing, they fought just above the tree tops, their massive wings flailing, leveling trunks, scoring the jungle floor.

Lifting her skirts, Kyria ran for the steps of the temple as the sound of combat and screams rose in volume. Now she could hear Alouzon crying out.

"You can't have them, dammit! They're mine!"

But the only response to Alouzon's shout was a mocking howl of glee and a yelp of satisfaction.

The ground suddenly gave way beneath Kyria's feet, and amid a shower of moss and a choking cloud of dust she plunged downward toward a thicket of sharpened bamboo spikes. In a moment she would be impaled, and she barely had enough time to swing her staff over her head.

The ends caught on the sides of the pit, and she dangled, her feet inches from the flame-hardened points beneath her. A few feet away, a centipede swarmed up the crumbling wall of earth; and something slithered under the blanket of moss that had fallen among the spikes.

"Punji stakes," she murmured, squinting against the cloud of dust.

Above, the Dragon and the Worm were still locked in combat, and Alouzon's sword was ringing against cold steel. "It's not that easy," the Dragonmaster was shouting.

The thorn-throated scream stopped, and another voice answered. "You used your friends like Kleenex."

"Fuck you, asshole. You sent our boys off to be cannon fodder just so the corporations would be in the black at the end of the year.''

Metal struck metal. The Worm screamed. Silbakor was terribly silent.

Kyria hung her head and choked out a sob. She recognized Solomon's voice. Helen did also: the angry ex-wife threw herself against the walls that hemmed her in, and the sorceress's consciousness reverberated like an iron grating struck with a club.

"They're dead, girl," said the Specter. "They're all dead. You deserted them, and now they're dead. But I'll let you live if you stop interfering with me."

Alouzon's voice went cold. "And what the hell are you going to do?''

"I'm going to get things back to normal, girl."

Kyria forced her eyes open. The walls were too far away to reach, too crumbly to climb. Magic was a possibility, but Helen was staring her in the face.

It is not time yet. Not for that.

"Please," she murmured, closing her eyes, "someone . . ."

And when she looked up again, she stared into a sweet but dirty face framed by amber hair and set with two very blue eyes. The face blinked at her, then vanished. Above the tumult of battling Dragons and clashing Dragonswords, Kyria heard Wykla's voice calling urgently. "Santhe! Karthin! I found Kyria!"

In a moment, strong hands had seized the ends of her staff and lifted her out of the pit. Soft arms encircled her waist and supported her as she was set gently down on the ground. She felt the touch of warm healing.

"Is she badly hurt, Dindrane?" came a familiar voice that she had not heard in days.

"She is not."

Kyria recognized Marrget suddenly. Beneath armor that had obviously been donned in haste, her clothing was in rags; and her blond hair was matted with blood and dirt. But though her eyes were haunted with recent horror, there was a reservoir of peace in them that even Dindrane must have envied.

"Marrget," said Kyria. "You are alive."

"Aye," she said. She bent her head and sighed. "I am. So are we all."

Kyria shook herself back to sense. She saw Wykla, and Karthin and Santhe. Manda had her good arm about Marrget's shoulders, and Dindrane stood nearby. All save Marrget were covered with mud and river slime, and trickles of blood ran down from leech bites.

The Dragon and the Worm battled. Alouzon fought her nemesis. But in a lull in both conflicts, Kyria heard the familiar but incongruous sound of a rifle bolt being slammed home, and a warning exploded from her lips. "Grayfaces!"

They dropped flat on the ground as tracers ripped across the clearing, swung wide, and ricocheted off the temple facade. Keeping low, Kyria gestured at the building. "Alouzon-"

"Is alone," said Santhe. "But that shall not be the case for long, Grayfaces or no." His voice was flat, his humor was gone. He had seen his men cut down with magic and with swords, had seen his closest friend subjected to abominations; and all he had left was a single-minded determination to preserve the lives of those he loved. "Marrget?"

"Dindrane is skilled," came the reply. "I can fight."

Santhe's emotion drove him close to tears. "I do not even know what we may be called upon to face, dear friend. I would spare you further battle."

Karthin looked as worried as Santhe, but he was silent: Marrget would make her own decisions.

The tracers sang by, inches above their heads. As Kyria tried to press herself deeper into the earth, she heard Marrget's voice. "A woman's life is one of changes," she was saying calmly. "And one of strength. I know both now. I will fight."

"Are you sure, Marrget?" said Santhe.

The captain's mouth twisted into a wan smile. "Call me Marrha, friend. I believe I have earned that honor."

Alouzon fought on, feeling each blow she landed on the Specter as a dagger of pain in her mind. She knew that all the skill that the potencies of the Dragonsword could give her could do nothing against an enemy that was, in essence, herself. She could not win. She would die before she ever won. But to give up was unthinkable.

The Specter's sword flicked out and scored her throat. An inch deeper and she would have died. Alouzon rolled back, came up on her knees, and hewed the Specter's legs from under it, screaming with the pain that she inflicted upon herself.

She was not surprised to find that, when she opened her eyes, the Specter was as whole as ever. From moment to moment, her hates renewed themselves. She would only banish the Specter when there was no longer any room for hate in her being.

But the Specter, though whole, halted its attacks. Shimmering, convoluting in a thousand different ways, it climbed back up on its block of stone, eyes fixed on the doorway that led outside.

Alouzon risked a look. Marrget was there. And Kyria. And the others. They were not dead. In fact, despite indications of long rights and hard struggles, they looked stronger and more determined than ever.

Trembling, she got to her feet. "You got any more lies for me today, dude?''

The Specter glared. From above came the sound of a crash. The porcelain dome cracked in a tracery of black lines. Another crash. Stones fell. Dragonmaster!

The Specter pointed at Marrget and Wykla. "Haven't you learned your place yet?" But the words rang hollow. The Specter had unleashed the inner terrors of the party, confident that they would never be able to withstand such a confrontation. But it had been wrong, and, having failed, it was reduced for the time to puerile catcalls and innuendoes.

Wykla spoke. "Indeed, I know my place well. I am a woman. And a warrior. And a king's daughter. But you ..." She pointed her sword at the Specter, her eyes flashing dangerously. ' 'You know nothing of me.''

Marrget examined the Specter with the determined expression of a warrior sizing up an opponent. "I know not what you are," she said, readying her sword, "but I would show you what a woman can do."

"Where is your husband, girl?"

Again the catcalls. But the Specter's mockery changed to bewilderment when Marrget laughed suddenly, brightly, and touched Karthin's arm. "Here," she said. "This is my husband."

Alouzon felt a fullness in her heart, a glow of pride. These were her friends. These were her people. Confronted with the unendurable, they had, nonetheless, endured. Indeed, they had apparently flourished.

Another blow from above sent porcelain showering into the room. Daylight poured down through a rent that was quickly widened by black talons. Yellow eyes appeared at the opening. Dragonm-But a white wing wrapped itself around Silbakor's head and jerked it out of sight. Wingbeats sounded, inhuman cries lanced the air and echoed within the temple.

"Give up," Alouzon said to the Specter. It was not a question, it was a command.

Again, the eyes of void and darkness widened and expanded, the image of Solomon Braithwaite blurring, growing, filling the room. Alouzon's company had readied themselves for a physical attack, but as she watched, a mist covered them, and they stiffened and stared.

For a moment, Alouzon wondered what the Specter could have in mind, since the innate strength of her people had already foiled its best attempts to drive them to despair. What else was there with which to confront them?

Kyria was fighting her way through the illusion, struggling to make herself heard. "Alouzon, it's going to tell them about Gryylth."

Alouzon was confused. "What about it?"

"Its creation."

"Damn!"

The Specter spoke in Alouzon's mind. I can do anything to them.

Alouzon gripped her sword with both hands, and her voice, though a whisper, cut through the room like the edge of a razor. "Leave them alone."

I can make them despair. Or I can strike them dead right now. But I'll spare them if you worship me.

Alouzon advanced toward the block of stone. The Specter was diffused, but if it had a heart, it existed in the sluggish pulsation that hovered just above the perversion of an altar that occupied the center of the room. "You can't have them," she said. "They're too strong. And they're mine."

You 're nothing.

"I'm everything." She stalked the heart of the Specter as, once, she had stalked her own emotional death. "I'm the Guardian here."

You 're nothing.

Alouzon sprang, her sword cleaving the turgid air above the stone. "Dammit, I'm a fucking God."

The impact knocked her almost senseless, and she fell to the ground at the base of the block, her mind a white hot maelstrom of pain. The Dragonsword dropped from her numb fingers, and her mouth was full of the acrid bile of dry retching.

The Specter's words were thick with derision. Some God.

She tried to will her hands around her sword, but they refused to move. It was no illusion of the Specter: it was mortal weakness. She choked. Some God.

But the veils that had shrouded her friends had been torn away, and they shook off their paralysis. Marrget was the first to come to herself. She leaped forward, sword flashing. She had no idea what it was that had dropped Alouzon to her knees, that swirled above her in nebulous and half-formed existence, but she was not willing to allow it to continue to exist unscathed.

But the Specter struck again, diffusing toward her in an icy cloud. Deprived of even a doubtful target, Marrget halted, puzzled, but Dindrane, eyes wide with sudden realization, jerked her back as the deadly mist licked out at her.

The cloud surged forward, lethal, eager. Acting quickly, Dindrane stepped forward and interposed herself. Priestess and magistrate both, she at last confronted the being responsible for the deaths of her people, the murder of her husband, the horrors inflicted upon her friends.

"Leave us," she said. Careworn, her garments muddy and torn, her torque of office caked with river slime, she stood nonetheless as though in the temple at Lachrae. Planting herself before the other members of the party, she lifted her staff: a challenge and a threat.

They've profaned your land and your temples. They've killed your people.

Dindrane held her ground. "As I am the land, as I am the Goddess, I know them. They are my friends, and they carry my protection and that of the King."

You 're nothing without your man. And he's dead.

Dindrane's mouth tightened. "He is dead because you killed him. But I have seen the Grail, and I know what I am. You shall not touch them."

Worship me.

"That I shall not. What power is mine to protect and to cherish, I will use against you." The Specter seeped toward her like a killing frost. Dindrane closed her eyes, grounded her staff, and threw into the battle the only weapon she possessed. "Great Lady," she whispered. "Goddess, Suzanne: descend, I pray you, into the body of your priestess, that your children may be protected."

Alouzon reeled for a instant, for she was suddenly seeing the room from two points of view. Her own . . .

. . . and Dindrane's.

A flood of energy washed through her, and she seized the Dragonsword and stood up. Dindrane was staring at her, startled, frightened, faced suddenly with the mystery of the Divinity she worshipped.

Alouzon could see the conflicting emotions crawl across Dindrane's face, and she felt them in her own heart. Alouzon? A Goddess?

The Specter was still infiltrating the room, and Dindrane pulled herself out of her wonder. With a nod to Alouzon and a sweep of an arm, she called up a warm, yellow glow. "These are my children," she said, wrapping it about the company, and Alouzon felt herself uttering the same words and knew them to be true.

They killed your people.

Dindrane frowned. "Killed?" she said. "Or saved? Tell me, creature: what are your plans for us?" The glow intensified. "These are my loved ones. These are as my own flesh. And ..." She smiled defiantly. "And as my own spirit."

The Specter made an ineffectual movement toward the party, but Dindrane's glow flared into a solar brilliance that seared the mist like a hot iron. Screaming with the pain of an encounter with pure healing and unconditional love, the Specter recoiled and plunged back onto Alouzon. In a moment, it had solidified before her and was driving in, sword raised.

But a flash of violet suddenly illuminated the room. The Specter sprawled on the floor. Kyria, her staff glowing dangerously, advanced.

Since her warning to Alouzon, she had been standing silently and by herself, her hood up and her head bowed as if gathering strength. Now the hood was thrown back, and she confronted the obscenity before her. "It is time."

"Go home, woman," said the Specter, rising. "Go home to your children."

Kyria stood calmly. "My children were killed before they could take their first breath. But I have found others, and I will not let you harm them."

"You can't stop me."

Kyria nodded. "Perhaps. But there is one who can." She struck her staff on the stone floor, and its radiance turned blinding. Her voice rang out. "You are not what you call yourself, Specter. True: you are hate, and anger, and spite, and all the despair of a decade of misunderstanding and war. But your arrogance has caused you to believe that your being is supreme among its kind in this land."

The Specter tried to diffuse again, but Kyria's eyes turned hot, and with another thump of her staff, she chained it to its form.

"But there is another hate," she said, dropping her voice to a whisper. "There is a hate that eclipses your being, because it grows and broods with all the passion that twenty years of stifled anger and terrified hopelessness can bring. It belongs to me, and yet it is embodied in another.''

Santhe started forward. "Kyria," he said. "Please-"

She shook her head. "I have come to love you, Santhe, but I cannot do other than this." With a soft step, she went to Manda. "Child," she said, "I wronged you. I could have remade your arm, but I was afraid.''

The Specter stared.

Manda shrugged, bewildered. "You could not help that."

"Maybe." Kyria glanced back at the Specter. "But maybe I am afraid no longer. If you would allow me to heal you, I would consider it an honor."