He had poured forth Fire that would easily kill ten men. He could pour forth a flood. He had been bred to it. And he'd been given one tiny flaw.

Talen looked at the monster. He could pour forth a flow that could kill ten men, but could it kill a monster? He knew how to open and close himself. He only needed to fling himself wide at the right moment.

"Open," the woman said, and this time he could not resist her ease.

He felt the monster rip into him.

Talen prepared to fling himself wide, but then he was lost, floating, in his body, but out of it.

His panic rose. He'd missed his chance!

"River," he called in fear.

With a roar like rushing water, a door burst open within him and another one behind it. He could perceive the chaos of the monster outside that first door, and beyond it, behind the second door, stood the woman.

She was beauty and power like nothing he could imagine. A being worthy of his every devotion. He longed to make her happy. But the truth sang in his bones. He knew she was an illusion. Knew her promises would turn to dust. And yet he didn't care.

No, he said to himself. The link between them must be magnifying her effect. He focused on Da and River, on the monster.

"Well done," she said.

He basked in her grat.i.tude and knew he was hanging by a finger. He was slipping, sliding, falling into a powerful river from which he knew he would never return.

He had to act quickly. He could not withstand this longing.

The monster wrapped its fingers around his being.

"Yes!" Talen shouted into the roar of noise. "Come and take me!" Then he threw open his doors and poured himself forth.

The Fire coursed from him and into the monster's arm.

Talen ripped himself wider, a ma.s.sive rent. The Fire crashed around him like turgid rapids.

But the monster simply swallowed it up.

"Yes," the woman said. "That is good."

How much Fire did it take to break a man? How much did it take to break a monster? Talen had no idea, but what he was doing didn't seem to have any effect.

Talen opened himself as wide as he could.

Black spidery lines ran up the creature's arm, spreading down its side and along its chest. But the creature showed no sign of breaking.

Fear rose in him. This wasn't going to work. He'd been a fool! He should have run to Uncle Argoth.

He tried to pull away but could not, and he didn't really want to anyway.

No, Talen thought. No! He searched for more to give, to release all that was in him. And then he felt something slip. He had been standing in the rush, watching it flow by. Now he knew he simply needed to let go, to flow with the Fire. He had his weapon. He had his one tiny flaw.

"What is he doing?" the woman asked in warning. "Stop it. Close him up."

Talen ripped the remnants of the wall that stood between him and the monster and let go. Pain shot through him, and instead of standing in the Fire and watching it flow away, the Fire picked him up, engulfed him, carried him like a piece of flotsam.

So much Fire.

The tips of the fingers of the monster lightened like ash. A wave of whiteness pa.s.sed up the creature's arm.

"It's too much," said the woman. "Close him!"

The boy's power was immense. His pool of Fire vast. Hunger had never felt such power in anything he'd ever eaten. He hadn't felt it in the Mother, and she was the most powerful thing he knew.

The Fire raged, and Hunger desperately tried to devour it all. The amounts roaring through him to his stomachs was astounding. But what shocked him was that, Lords, he felt pain.

But no, it was the Mother's pain. How could that be?

The link, he realized. She used Hunger to wield powers she could not. And the link was exposing her to the heat of the raging Fire of the boy.

"It's too much!" she cried.

An idea shot through Hunger. Hope sprang forth.

"No!" she said and tried to break her bond to him, but Hunger held her fast.

"Release me!" she commanded.

"Never," Hunger cried, and instead of funneling the boy's raging might into his stomachs, he directed it all through his bond to the Mother.

Talen no longer watched the Fire. He was the Fire. He was a furnace, an inferno, a roaring, molten sea. He flowed forth, the Fire engulfing everything. His vision blurred. His body screamed.

The woman yelled, but her voice was drowned out by the rushing of the Fire.

He felt her trying to close herself against him, but the monster was fighting her.

The woman yelled, commanded the monster to let go.

The creature ignored her.

"Here," Talen said, "is my heart's desire." And he gave himself, every whit.

The surge of Fire raged into the monster, turning its dirt and gra.s.s white as ash.

The woman screamed. There was a deafening roar. And then all flashed a blinding white, and Talen's world cracked.

The shock tore the monster into pieces, flung Talen like a leaf, and hurled the others in the room into the rock. The Creek Widow tumbled away and crashed into the pallid beast, the bowls of liquid light splashing over the walls.

Talen reeled and saw a body lying below him.

He expected to slam into the ground or wall and braced for it, but he twisted and hovered above the scene.

He looked closer at the body on the floor, and saw it was his body.

River coughed. She lay on the floor, tangled in her chains. She got to her hands and knees. "Talen," she said.

"River!" he yelled.

But she did not respond.

"Sister!"

She did not hear him.

The fact of the body on the floor finally registered with him and Talen grew very silent.

He'd expected pain would vanish at the moment of death, but he hurt all over. He felt as if he'd lost something essential, a leg or an arm.

He looked about to see if the others were moving. Ke lay on his side, face to the wall.

Something caught Talen and tugged him around.

It was a hideous thing, all mottled blue with many twisting limbs and too many eyes.

"Save them," it said in a voice of gravel. "My pretty girl. My wife. Unravel her binding."

Talen tried to pull away, but couldn't.

"Quickly," it said.

A piece of the creature holding him struggled and then broke away and flitted off over its shoulder. Talen knew this abomination was the monster. It looked nothing like it had in that body of gra.s.s and stone, but he knew it was the many souls of the thing.

It pulled on him with violence and carried him to his body.

Another part of the monster wriggled free and flitted away.

"Quickly," it repeated. "She keeps them in the room where she sleeps." Then it somehow stuffed him back into his body.

Pain slapped him, left, and came back in earnest. Talen gasped for air.

Another part of the monster began to writhe.

A loud buzzing filled Talen's ear, and something black darted past the creature.

The monster turned as if alarmed.

"Find my stomachs," it said. "The ones she already took. Unravel them."

Something struck the monster, seemed to bite or bore into its back. The monster winced in agony, but continued to close Talen in.

"Loose them," it said. "Set them free."

Talen's vision of this new world diminished like someone had drawn closed the mouth of a sack, leaving nothing but three horrid eyes. Then they too winked out and the monster, the wicked buzz, the motion and light-all of it vanished.

Talen gasped and choked in a mouthful of dust.

He couldn't see. Couldn't breathe. Lords, he hurt. Something was broken inside his chest, cutting his innards like a knife.

He rolled over and cried out at a searing pain in his ribs, a pain that stole his vision and turned it into a flash of light. "Merciful Creators," he prayed, imploring, begging for help. "Da."

But the pain was too great and everything reeled to the side.

48.

Shim TALEN AWOKE WITH his eyes closed, wailing in pain.

"Talen," a voice so soft he almost didn't hear it. "Brother."

It was River. But Talen couldn't contain his wails.

River stroked his forehead. "Shush," she said gently. "Shush."

He gritted his teeth, tried to stop. He panted and then the wailing turned to sobs, great wracking sobs and tears streaming down his face.

He opened his eyes.

Blood had run out of one of River's nostrils and dried in the dust on her face. The odd beast light still lit the room behind her, but it had diminished greatly.

"Where's Da? Ke?"

A weary grief rose in River's eyes. "Ke is fading fast."

"And your father," said the Creek Widow, "let us hope that he has been gathered by the ancestors." Talen turned and looked at her. She'd tried to wipe it away, but he could see her mouth had been smashed. Dried blood caked the edges of her lips. It caked her gums. She was missing two teeth on one side.

A sob rose in him. But he swallowed it. He could not fathom Da being gone.

Talen closed his eyes and composed himself, then opened them again.

"It wanted me to unravel its stomachs," he said.