"That is not a name one uses lightly in these parts," Mika said sharply.

"Well, I'm pleased to hear that," said the old man in a pleasant tone as though he were discussing the weather. Then, still smiling gently, he drew the roan closer and began to fumble with the bonds that held the princess.

"Death! Destruction! Pestilence!" thundered Hornsbuck as he turned round and round, holding up his arms and staring up at the broken dome.

"Leave her alone, old man!" cried Mika, lifting his sword once more. "Take your hands off her and stand back. I will listen to no more of your nonsense, and do not think to stun me again. I will slice you through with my blade before you can say the words."

"You do not believe me," the old man said sadly as he turned around and gazed at Mika. His expression was mournful as though Mika were a prize pupil who had suddenly fallen stupid.

"Perhaps you would recognize me if I looked different. Like this, perhaps." And the old man's body began to change. His back humped under the dark cape and then it seemed to fill out, bulging strangely in odd places.

Then the cape fell away from his head and the skull itself began to twist and move as though it were made of soft clay and being shaped by an unseen hand.

The skull lost what few threads of hair it possessed and swelled to three times greater in size. The forehead bulged grotesquely and eyebrows, great bushy red eyebrows, pushed through the skin and grew before Mika's startled eyes.

Red eyes. Red, the color of warm blood, with no pupils, looked out at Mika and seemed to gleam with an evil light.

The withered cheeks grew fat, the deep wrinkles smoothing away as though they had never been. The nose became bulbous and misshapen, and a gold stud was fixed in each nostril. The mouth formed wide and cruel and the lips fleshy and somehow obscene. The ears were mere slits in the sides of the skull.

The cape fell to the ground as the man-thing grew, revealing an immense broad-chested, round-bellied body, thick with layer upon layer of fat.

Its arms and legs were ma.s.sive, smooth of skin and hairless and red. The entire monstrous manifestation was red. The red of a lobster boiled in seawater.

The man-thing continued to grow, becoming taller and taller and wider and wider till it towered over Mika, more than seven feet tall and four times his weight. And it wore nothing but an evil smile.

The horrible thing stood before Mika clasping the princess against its ugly body like some tiny toy. Mika could hardly bear to look; it was a sacrilege just watching the foul thing touch her.

The dome of the temple seemed to whirl around Mika's head and he closed his eyes to stop the giddy sensation. His heart hammered against his ribs, and his fear was like the taste of cold iron in his mouth. He shivered and his hands could barely grip the handle of his sword. The roan screamed, wheeled, and ran from the frightful apparition. Mika heard Tam and RedTail whine and slink away and wished that he could do the same.

"Do you believe me now?" thundered the awful red demon.

"I believe," whispered Mika with his head bowed, daring to wonder if there was any hope of escape. Opening his eyes, he saw the demon's hand reaching out for him, its long fingers twitching as though they already held him in their grasp.

"Wait!" cried Mika, shrinking back out of reach, totally terrified. He knew that he would not survive if ever the creature touched him.

"Wait!" he croaked through his fear-clenched throat. "Don't kill me! You can't kill someone who's done you a favor. Can you?"

"Of course I can," chuckled the demon, smiling widely, exposing his long sharp fangs. "I've done so many times. But perhaps it would be more fitting if we permitted the princess to reward you herself. Yes, I think I would enjoy that more." And gesturing with his long fingers, waving them over her head in strange arcane moves, the monster muttered soft words beneath his breath and Mika saw the princess stir. A lump filled his throat. He had envisioned this moment many times, but never had he pictured it happening like this.

One grubby slender hand trembled and lifted shakily to press against the tattered silk-clad breast. The magnificent bosom rose and fell, taking in great gulps of air, and her eyelids fluttered and then opened.

Mika recoiled in shock! Peering at him groggily through a dirty tangle of thick black curls was one brilliant blue eye and one as green as the gra.s.s of spring!

"I shall allow the princess herself to bestow your reward," said the demon. Then, before Mika's bewildered eyes, the monster began to shrink and whither, until it was once more the same wizened old ugly man in the voluminous black cape.

The princess leaned against him, seemingly too weak to stand alone and, as yet, totally uncomprehending.

The old man gestured with his frail, thickly veined hand, and the princess's hand rose and pointed at Mika.

Mike knew without a doubt that something terrible was about to happen.

"Wait! Wait! Stop!" he yelled. "I don't understand. What's happening? Who are you? All right, I saw some horrible apparition. Something big and red, but maybe it was all illusion, it doesn't prove that you're Iuz.

"Why would Iuz need to kidnap a princess? None of this makes sense. I don't believe you're Iuz at all. I think you're just some old has-been magic-user. You can do some illusion and some spells and you can kill me, but you're not Iuz."

Mike held his breath as he waited for the old man to respond. In his heart he was not at all certain that the old man was not exactly whom he claimed to be. But if he could get the old man talking, he might be able to think of a way to escape what now seemed to be certain death.

"You have touched on more of the truth than you know," sighed the old man and he seemed to stagger off balance for a minute as the princess leaned on him more heavily.

The old man fixed Mika with a baleful eye and his voice rose in cold fury. "I am Iuz! This, this old tired body is that which I have inhabited on this plane of existence for more years than I can number. It is a tired body, no longer strengthened by the blood and spirits of sacrifice. Soon, unless I take steps to prevent it, this body will die, and I will have no access to this material plane for more than a century.

"I have bided my time in the planes of other existence, in other forms of being, one of which you have just witnessed, searching for that which could return me to strength and power. And at last I found it.

"The answer is twofold. First there is the gem which you know as dramadine.

"Dramadine is a rare gem, occurring but seldom in nature, and it has never been replicated by man or mage. As you have heard, it heightens one's powers to the greatest potential. Such a gem would strengthen me and make me invincible.

"But it is not the gem alone I desire, for the princess herself is a conduit of power; her eyes, as you have no doubt noticed, give evidence of the strength hidden within."

"But how can you use her power?" asked Mika, noticing with a quickening of pulse and a thread of hope that the princess was standing on her own feet, no longer leaning against the old man, and her eyes seemed to be focusing more clearly. If only he could keep the old man talking until she regained her senses! If she heard what he was saying, she could not fail to recognize their danger. Maybe she would help Mika in some way, or at the very least, allow him the opportunity to escape.

"I will encapsulate her power," the old man said patiently, not seeming to notice that the princess was now erect and was staring down at her hands and arms, examining them in a puzzled manner as though she had never seen them before.

"The power of a virgin is very strong," said the old man. "It will rejuvenate this old tired body and make me young and strong enough to bring this world under my control. And I have you to thank for bringing her to me. Without your special brand of protection, she might never have reached me."

"How do you encapsulate a princess, and wouldn't just any old girl do? Does it have to be a princess?" Mika asked hurriedly, hoping to keep the magic-user from noticing the bright look of fury that Mika detected in the princess's eyes as she picked up the shredded remains of her filthy silk dress between her dirty fingers and stared at it in angry silence.

"It's really a simple process," said the old man, warming to the explanation. "I need only distill the essence of the virgin and place it in a crystal, or in this case, the gem.

"No ordinary virgin will do. This princess, despite her plain exterior, is the end result of several hundreds of years of breeding that have produced kings, queens, magic-users, and men of power. Although her potential is as yet unrealized, I shall bring it to greater heights than she would ever have realized as a mere human.

"But enough talking, let me show you what I mean." And with a gesture, he caused the princess's arm to rise above the filthy skirt and her grubby fingers pointed directly at Mika's chest.

Mika opened his mouth to yell and tensed his body to drop and roll, but before he could even move, a pale, sickly stream of ochre light shot from the princess's filthy fingernail and struck him full in the chest.

"I'm dead," he thought, and waited to die. But nothing happened. He looked at his fingers and wiggled them. He was still alive!

The old man looked as though he had swallowed a bitter potion. Thrusting the princess's hand out again, he seized her finger and pointed it at Mika a second time. He screamed out words that Mika could not understand, and a faint pink light wobbled from the princess's finger and then faded in mid-air before it even reached Mika.

Mika laughed out loud.

Iuz turned the princess around violently and shook her hard, staring into her eyes. She struggled in his tight grip and tried to break away. Iuz pulled her closer and scrutinized her intently as though reading a familiar text whose message had suddenly rearranged itself into strange and peculiar words.

A blank look came over his features, and his fingers loosened their hold. He looked old and lost for a moment and then, feeling Mika's gaze on him, lifted his eyes. Hatred leaped from the dark eyes, hatred so tangible that Mika felt as though he had been physically struck.

Iuz flung the girl away from him furiously, and she staggered for several feet before she gained her balance.

"She is no longer a virgin!" shrieked Iuz. "Not a virgin! And it is your fault! You've ruined everything! Now I shall be forced to depend on the gem alone!" And the edges of his cape began to shimmer. He began to grow taller, and his skin took on a rosy hue. Mika knew that he had waited too long. It was time to leave.

But the princess had other ideas.

She too seemed to have grown in stature. She was no longer asleep, and she marched angrily up to the magic-user.

"Forget it, old man," she said harshly as she shoved him aside, propelling him into the catatonic Hornsbuck. Hornsbuck swung his right arm in a reflex motion and caught Iuz under the chin, knocking him down into a dizzy heap.

"It's my turn, and I've got a few words of my own!" She stalked toward Mika, hatred blazing in her multi-colored eyes.

"You! You're to blame for this . . . this mess!" she screamed at Mika as Iuz wrapped his skinny hand around Hornsbuck's leg and began struggling to his feet.

"One minute, I'm at home safe in my casde where I belong. And the next minute I'm here! Wherever here is! And just look at me! I'm dirty! I'm filthy! My hair's a mess! My dress . . . my dress, or what little there is of it, is totally ruined! I even smell bad, if you can even imagine such a thing! And now! Now . . . thanks to you, whoever you even are! Certainly no one I would ever even talk to by choice! Look at you! You're . . . you're . . . YOU'RE n.o.bODY! I find out that I'm not even a virgin any more, and I don't even remember what happened!"

Iuz staggered up, clinging to Hornsbuck's tunic. He steadied himself and then turned and stumbled forward, his face a contorted mask of rage, his hands outstretched, reaching for Mika like claws.

The princess, never ceasing her litany of rage, batted him out of the way with the back of her hand. So accustomed was he to inspiring fear, the demon had no reason to expect an attack on his frail person. The princess dispatched Iuz with ease, knocking him to the floor at Hornsbuck's feet, where he lay stunned.

Mika almost felt sorry for Iuz. He could have told him that even a demon has something to fear from an angry woman.

The princess looked around with a stormy gaze as though searching for something to throw. Not finding it, she reached down the front of her dress and pulled out the tiny crystal bead that Mika had used for his spell of invulnerability. She gazed at it with a curled lip as though it were a slimy slug. She knotted her fist around it and yanked it hard, breaking the chain, then tossed it aside with distaste.

Her fingers sought and found a second chain, which Mika had never noticed, tucked at the edges of her dress. Dangling on the end of the chain was a gem the size of a goose egg that glittered a brilliant rainbow of green and blue.

"The stone. Dramadine!" Iuz muttered hoa.r.s.ely as he tried to crawl to his feet. Mika stared at it with awe. So much death and anguish for one pretty stone and one unpleasant princess.

The unpleasant princess's nostrils were pinched and white, her brow was creased with a frown, and her eyes glittered with anger no less brightly than the gem. Her mouth was an angry slash in her dirty face.

She snapped the gem free of the chain and, drawing back her arm, she let fly. The shining stone flew through the air and struck Mika in the center of his forehead. Mika staggered off balance and the gem fell at his feet and bounced along the floor before coming to a halt several feet away.

Iuz scrambled to his feet, his eyes fastened on the stone. Then he halted and screamed a hoa.r.s.e flow of words, pointing his own claw-like finger at Mika.

Just then, Hornsbuck, who had been staring upward, his face bathed in the warm sunlight, looked toward them, his attention captured, finally, by all the noise.

Blinded by the bright light that had been shining directly in his eyes, he looked at the small dark figure in front of him and exclaimed joyously, "Lotus Blossom!" and wrapped his arms around the magic-user, interrupting him in the middle of his incantation.

A bright bolt of fiery red light shot out of the end of Iuz's finger and then, as Hornsbuck touched him, breaking his concentration and disturbing the elements of the spell, the red light doubled back upon itself and entered the magic-user's body.

Iuz shivered and stiffened as the red light spread throughout his being. His eyes turned up in his skull and his lips peeled back from his teeth in a terrible rictus. His body twitched and jerked as the red light pierced his skin, illuminating him from within like a cruel aura. The air about him seemed to resonate as though echoing to unheard music. Then, there was a thin curdled scream, and the demon disappeared completely, banished from the material plane.

"Lotus Blossom?" Hornsbuck said plaintively, looking at his huge hands as though she might somehow be concealed behind one of his immense fingers.

Mika gaped at the spot where the demon had stood, then at Hornsbuck, then at the gem at his feet. Then he stared at the princess. It was almost more than he could comprehend.

There was a faint whine. Mika looked down and saw Tam crouched at his feet, his eyes filled with bewilderment.

"I hate you!" cried the princess, as she stamped her foot on the dusty floor. Her strange eyes were huge and wild. She did not even seem to realize that she had just helped dispatch a major demon.

"I'll kill you," she screamed. "I'm royalty! I'm a princess! You just can't treat me like this and live!"

"Now wait a minute," Mika said appeasingly as he took a step forward and picked up the stone, meaning to hand it back to her as a conciliatory gesture. Maybe something could be salvaged yet. After all, it was a long way back to her island.

"Give it back! Give me back my stone!" shrilled the princess, her hands curling into threatening claws.

"Now hold on!" said Mika, beginning to get angry. "I didn't exactly take it from you. You threw it at me, if you remember. And you've got this thing all wrong. I didn't do anything to you. It was Iuz, not me.

"Did you bring me here?" asked the princess, now deadly calm.

"Well, yes, in a matter of speaking," admitted Mika. "But . . ."

"Are you responsible for the way I look?"

"Well, yes. I guess you could say that. But there were a few things . . ."

"Am I still a virgin?" asked the princess, tight-lipped.

"Well, I guess not," Mika said diffidently, "but I didn't . . ."

"Shut up!" screamed the princess. "Just close your stupid mouth. There's nothing else to be said." And walking up to Mika, she seized his arm and tried to pull his sword free.

Mika looked down at her in disbelief, tempted to laugh as she flung her tiny self, scarcely taller than his chin, on his sword arm with intense fury.

"Oh, come on now," he said, tucking his sword behind his back and trying to put a calming hand on her shoulder.

"Leave off," he said with a laugh. But his laughter drove her further into her rage, and she turned her head and sank her teeth into his hand.

Mika yelled in pain and surprise.

Tam leaped for her, snarling. This! This was something he could understand! Demons were one thing, but no human threatened Mika and emerged unscathed!

"No, Tam!" shouted Mika as he stepped in front of the wolf and flung the princess from him with ease, scarcely believing her ferocity. He examined his bleeding hand, putting it to his mouth and sucking the blood. What had happened to the sweet gentle beauty he had believed her to be? If this was her true nature, it was no wonder she had never married!

The momentum of his push carried her back toward the entrance to the tunnel. Back toward Hornsbuck who was still standing in the beam of sunlight, gazing at his hands, still in the grip of confusion.

"Lotus Blossom," he said in wonderment as the princess careened into him, his face spreading in a beatific smile.

"Oh, Lotus Blossom your stupid fat self," screamed the princess, and ripping his knife from his belt, she turned and threw the knife at Mika with all her strength.

The knife flew through the air, straight as a sable-wood arrow. Tam, knowing only that she was still a threat, leaped into the air at the same moment and caught the knife square in the center of his chest.

Things seemed to go very, very slowly from that moment on. Mika felt, saw, each and every separate movement around him as though it had been caught in a crystal and hung up to view at his leisure.

The princess bared her teeth in unreasoning hatred and came toward him again.

Hornsbuck sat down and began singing a raucous nomad drinking song.

RedTail crawled into Hornsbuck's lap and sighed deeply.

Tam crumpled like a body without bones, and his blood ran red over the hilt of the knife and puddled on the dusty floor.

Mika sank to his knees and lifted Tam in his arms, cradling the ma.s.sive head and holding the wolf to him like a child. Tam's eyes were open, the magnificent gold now dark with pain. He looked at Mika and held him in his gaze as though imprinting his vision on his faltering heart and mind.