“Licking her lips?” Dania asked.
“Licking her lying, cheating, blasphemous lips,” Krael said. “And then she struck her deal with Havoc. Anyone want to guess what she gave him in exchange for his help in finding the Tablet?”
“You,” Janik and Dania said at the same time.
“Exactly. Havoc grabbed me while I was still paralyzed by Maija’s spell. He drained Mudren dry and left him for dead, but Havoc turned me into this—” he bared his teeth again. “And until Dania and her friends so kindly obliterated him, I was forced to obey his commands. Which reminds me, Dania, I never did thank you.”
“Believe me, the pleasure was all mine,” Dania said. “I would have killed you, too, if I could have.”
“And if I can ever return the favor, I will. Anyway, I think Dania knows the rest of the story, or most of it. Havoc led us to the Tablet—”
“You found it?” Dania interrupted. “We were never sure.”
“Oh, yes. We found the Tablet right where Havoc had left it a hundred years ago. Maija spirited it away, breaking her word to Havoc. And Dania and her friends barged in right after that, when Havoc was about to tear Maija’s throat out.”
“If only we’d come a few moments later,” Dania said.
“I said that’s enough, Dania,” Janik said.
Dania got to her feet for the first time. “Well, I’m not going to stop until you get it through your head that this isn’t just some lark that Maija is pulling on us. Don’t you see? If Maija has the Tablet of Shummarak and she’s here, that means she’s trying to release whatever fiend lord is imprisoned here. She might as well be plotting to destroy the world!”
“And of course we’re going to stop her,” Janik said, “but that doesn’t mean we’re just going to cut her down.”
“What if that’s what it takes? We’re not just going to talk her out of it, either. What do you have in mind?”
“We are talking about my wife, damn it!” Janik’s face was a hand’s width from Dania’s. “I will take up arms against the Sovereign Host before I kill her—or let you do it!”
“She is not your wife any more, Janik, any more than she is the friend I once loved. Evil has consumed her! There isn’t any Maija left.”
“You talk as if evil were a monster, like the chuul we fought on the shore. Evil doesn’t eat people, Dania. What are you saying? That she’s undead? That she’s been turned into a vampire, like Krael?”
“I don’t know, Janik! She’s not a vampire, she’s definitely still alive, but—” She stopped abruptly. “Wait,” she said to herself.
“But what? If she’s not undead, then what do you think happened to her? What kind of evil could consume her and leave nothing behind?”
“The undead aren’t the only great evil in the world, Janik. Look around you! We’ve been fighting fiends in the flesh since we entered the desert three weeks ago. This whole place was erected by a force of evil so great—” She broke off suddenly.
“What, then? You think she’s been turned into a rakshasa?”
“Hosts of Shavarath, how could I be so blind?” Dania whispered. “Janik, I think you might be right!”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re here because the Keeper of the Flame sensed something—an evil spirit escaping into the world about the time that we were here. Janik, what if that spirit possessed Maija?”
17
Escape
“Possessed?” Krael said. “That would explain a great many things.”
“So you’re saying that the evil spirit we accidentally released while we were here is Maija?” Janik said, incredulous.
“It’s in her,” Dania said. “It has taken up residence in her body and controls her actions.”
“And that’s the evil that has devoured her?”
“That’s just it, Janik! If I’m right, then Maija is still in there—like a passenger in a carriage the fiend is driving, helpless to stop it. And that means we might be able to save her—if we can drive the fiend out of her!”
Janik could not speak. He had clung to shreds of hope for so long without having any idea what to hope for. Now, when hope seemed justified, he wasn’t sure how to deal with it.
“Dania?” Auftane said, looking up from Mathas. “What makes you think she’s possessed?”
“Look,” Dania said, “all along we’ve been baffled by what happened, unable to explain such a sudden and dramatic shift in her behavior. It was like it came out of nowhere, and we felt like she must have been keeping up an incredible charade for over a decade. But if I’m right, that’s not what happened at all—it really was a sudden change. She wasn’t lying to us all those years. When the spirit entered her, that’s when she turned against us.”
“So that makes it desirable to believe your theory,” Auftane said, “but what evidence supports it?”
“Evidence? There’s the stink of evil on her, which is stronger than the mere taint of a corrupt heart. It overpowered me back in that room. Even Krael’s evil odor isn’t strong enough to do that.”
“I’ll have to work on that,” Krael said.
Dania ignored him. “Then, there’s the connection with this place. It was here that she changed, as if the evil of the spirit imprisoned here had seized her. And, once she found that tablet in Karrnath, she brought it back here, as if she were obeying the orders of the rajah. And finally—” She paused a moment, searching for a conclusive argument. “Krael—you said possession would explain things. What things?”
Krael grimaced. “Well, as I said to you in Karrnath, I never thought much of Maija. I always thought of you and Janik as my real enemies, Mathas to a lesser extent, and Maija as sort of the annoying accomplice—Janik’s good little wife. Believe me, I was as surprised as you were when she brought me the Ramethene Sword. And when she gave me to Havoc, I was stunned. I never trusted her, but I would have expected her to go back to Janik rather than betray me to a hundred-year-old vampire.”
Janik scowled and opened his mouth to speak, but Krael cut him off.
“And then, just before we found the Tablet of Shummarak, she killed a man—a priest of the Blood of Vol, really just an innocent bystander. She used a spell on him to split him open. Blood oozed from his eyes first, then his skin erupted. I asked her where a cleric of the Sovereign Host learns magic like that.”
“Exactly,” Dania said. “A cleric of the Sovereign Host doesn’t use spells like that. But ancient demons of Khyber do.”
“I’m convinced,” Janik said, and Auftane nodded as well. “So what do we do?”
“If we can drive the fiend out of her, then we can confront it on a different footing, perhaps destroy it. No matter what, Maija should be restored to her right mind.”
“I liked the plan of killing her better,” Krael said.
“Careful, Krael,” Dania said. “There are three people in this very small room who have been hoping to kill you for fifteen years. Don’t provoke us.”
“Without weapons, I’m fairly certain that Sever would rip all your arms off before you managed to hurt me,” Krael shot back. Sever accentuated Krael’s point by slamming one fist into his open hand.
“Krael, help me here,” Janik said, dropping to his knees in front of the vampire.
“What?” Krael said, one eyebrow arched in surprise.
“You stole all my books that have anything to do with Mel-Aqat, damn it. I assume you had a reason for doing that besides spite. What is the spirit possessing Maija?”
“Dhavibashta?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Janik said, and Krael grinned.
“What are you talking about?” Dania said.
Janik got to his feet. “Dhavibashta is the name of the rajah imprisoned here, according to the Serpentes Fragments. But it’s clear to me that whatever spirit has possessed Maija is trying to release the rajah, so it’s obviously not the rajah.”