As he fled, Blasphet tried to make sense of what he'd witnessed. He'd been told that Vendevorex was dead. Perhaps it wasn't true? How else could an attacker have materialized from thin air? Blasphet knew that the so-called wizard's power was mostly illusion. Perhaps he was running from a trick of the light?
No, the crossbow bolt that had bounced against his head was real enough. Was there any other possible explanation? Blasphet stopped feeling his way down the tunnel as his mind snapped onto the most likely scenario. Vendevorex was dead, but what of the human he'd trained? The girl, Jandra? If Jandra had snuck into the room with an ally under the cover of invisibility, it could have looked as if they were stepping from thin air. Blasphet wasn't sure what sort of creature they'd been riding, but apparently the beast had enough reptilian physiology to fall to the smoke. Was he fleeing nothing more than a boy with a crossbow and a girl with a few trick mirrors?
Blasphet gazed back toward the Nest. Again and again his grandest designs were thwarted by the meddling of others. The Free City would have been a marvelous triumph if Albekizan hadn't interfered. Was he prepared to allow his latest scheme to be unraveled by a few youthful humans?
He shook his head. Fleeing such feeble opposition was simply… ungodlike.
Blasphet flicked away the ceramic caps that covered his poison-coated claws. As he slogged through the stagnant water back toward the dim and distant light, a voice, unseen in the gloom, whispered, "Where do you go, Murder God?"
Blasphet froze. The voice was human, male. Where had it come from? The falling water and the echoes in the tunnel made it difficult to pinpoint.
"Who's there?" he said. His voice echoed in the tunnel. No one answered. Blasphet slowly let out his breath. Perhaps he'd imagined the voice?
Just as he was certain he was alone, the voice once more spoke: "I am the screams of innocents crushed beneath the talons of your race. I am the shadow on the stone; I am the Ghost Who Kills. I come this day for you, Murder God."
"The Ghost Who… Bitterwood?" Blasphet asked, cocking his head. "The murderer of my brother?"
For a moment, only the water answered. Then a chill voice said, "You know my name."
"I don't know whether to curse you or thank you," said Blasphet.
Bitterwood gave no reply.
"I despised my brother," Blasphet continued. "I dreamed of his death. Yet, in the end, I loved the dream of killing him more than I wanted to actually watch him die. You succeeded where I failed, Ghost Who Kills. I'm in your debt."
Again, his words were met only by silence.
"Has my gratitude left you speechless?" Blasphet asked. He took a slow, careful step forward, drawing a yard closer to the dim light at the end of the passage. "We're much alike. We've transcended mere mortality: You, the avenging ghost; I, the god. We each tap a higher truth as our path to power-we know there is so much more to murder than simply ending a life."
Blasphet paused, allowing his words to sink in.
"Did you come here in search of an enemy only to discover an admirer? Reveal yourself, Bitterwood. I would look upon the man who rid the world of Albekizan."
At last, a reply came from the darkness. "Perhaps we aren't so different. In the end, only one small thing divides us."
Blasphet tilted his head, still unable to pinpoint the source of the voice. "And what would this small thing be?"
"I know where you are," Bitterwood answered.
The words were followed by the hiss of an arrow cutting the air. Blasphet grunted as the arrow sank into the wrist bone of his left wing. He sucked in his breath through clenched teeth as he spun to face the direction the attack had come from. The arrow had flown for mere seconds. Bitterwood wasn't so far away. He held his right fore-talon at the ready as he studied the darkness, glad he'd uncapped the poison. He thought he could discern a shape now, vaguely human, no more than twenty feet distant.
"You could have killed me with a single arrow," Blasphet said, attempting to keep his voice calm. "Yet you shot my brother three times. They pulled thirteen arrows from my nephew. You take the same pleasure from the suffering as your victims as I do. You drink fear like wine." Blasphet crouched down, the muscles in his legs coiling tightly as the nearby shadow emerged more clearly from the darkness. "I'm sorry to disappoint you. I'm a god. I shall not fear a ghost."
Blasphet lunged for the humanoid shadow. He thrust his poisoned claw before him, burying it dead center of his target. A rotten tree branch snapped beneath his grasp. He stumbled in the water, trying not to fall. When he found his balance once more, he was left standing with only a large piece of cloth in his hand. A human's cloak from the stink of it.
There was a splashing sound reverberating up and down the pipe. The echoes of his own attack? Or was Bitterwood moving to better target him? Suddenly, he discovered that his left leg was numb. He toppled as he lost control of the limb. A dull pain throbbed through him as he discovered an arrow jutting from his hamstring. He hadn't even felt the arrow strike.
"Bitterwood," said Blasphet, swallowing hard. His saliva had a metallic flavor. "Killing me is a mistake! Legends say that you seek vengeance against the dragons who killed your family. Can't you see that I am an instrument to that end? Kill me, and you kill a single dragon. Spare me, and you guarantee the deaths of thousands."
Blasphet pushed with his uninjured wing to a sitting position against the tunnel wall. At least the next arrow wouldn't come from behind.
"No answer?" he asked. "My words intrigue you? We've killed so many, each acting alone. Think of what we could do as an alliance; ghost and god, holding the power of life and death over all."
There was a loud splash as something heavy dropped from the pipes above. Blasphet slithered his tail beneath the water as he saw the silhouette of a man rise, several dozen yards away. If Bitterwood got close enough, Blasphet would trip him with his tail and make one last strike.
Bitterwood was clearly defined now, a black outline against the distant light. He slowly walked closer. Blasphet braced himself to attack. Then, just beyond the range of Blasphet's tail, the shadow stopped. The Ghost Who Kills lifted his bow and took aim.
Blasphet opened his mouth to make one final appeal.
The bowstring rang out. Blasphet screeched as the arrow flashed into his open mouth, puncturing his cheek from the inside, pinning his head to the wall behind him. The agony of the arrow through his jaw muscle was astonishing. Was this white searing energy that filled him the same force that his victims had felt? If so, what a gift he had given them. As the pain washed through the recesses of his brain, it left in its wake a cleansing light that illuminated a simple, fundamental truth: It felt good to be alive. Only facing his end did Blasphet truly understand how much he cherished his existence.
It felt good to breathe. Each ragged gasp inflated his chest with damp air, bringing fresh oxygen to his hungry lungs. It felt good for his heart to beat, for the blood to race through his body with each pulse. Blasphet had long believed death to be a superior force to life. Life was merely a momentary act of resistance, while death was the ultimate champion. Ah, but what an act! What a glorious flickering moment!
Bitterwood stood before him, sword in hand.
"I won't be quick about this," he said.
Blasphet thought of the thirteen arrows that had been pulled from Bodiel. He recalled how the corpse of Dacorn had been found wedged into the crook of a tree, his tongue crudely hacked out. Blasphet's courage failed him. In one last hope of remaining the master of his own destiny, Blasphet sank the poisoned claws of his right fore-talon into his thigh. The deadening effect of the poison was swift.