"I... see," the priest replied, staring at the bloody combat before them, mesmerized by the sight.
Tarma realized that they were once again playing right into the demon's hands. For if Kethry killed the one wearing her form, she would damn herself irrevocably, once by committing a kind of suicide, and twice by breaking the geas and the vow her bond with Need had set upon her -- never to raise her hand against a woman -- three times by breaking her oath to her she'enedra.
And by such a betrayal she would probably die, for surely Thalhkarsh had warded his creature against magics. Or Need would blast her into death or mindlessness. Should she die, she could damn herself forever to Thalhkarsh's particular corner of the Abyssal Plane, putting herself eternally in his power. It was a good bet he had planned that she must slay the bandit by magic, since Need would not serve against a woman -- and certainly he had woven a spell that would backlash all her unleashed power on the caster. Kethry would be worse than dead -- for she would be his for the rest of time, to wreak revenge on until even he should grow weary of it.
Unless Tarma could stop her before she committed such self-damnation. And with time running out, there was only one way to save her.
With an aching heart she cried out in her mind to Warrl, and Warrl responded with the lightning-fast reactions of the kyree kind, born in magic and bred of it.
He leapt upon the unsuspecting Kethry from the rear, and with one crunch of his jaws, broke her neck and collapsed her windpipe.
Both Kethry and the bandit collapsed --
Tarma scrambled after the discarded mage-blade, conscious now only of a dim urge to keep Kethry's treasured weapon out of profane hands, and to use the thing against the creature that had forced her to kill the only human she cared for. Need had hurt the demon before --
But she had forgotten one thing.
She wasn't a mage, so Need's other gift came into play; the gift that protected a woman warrior from magic, no matter how powerful. No magic not cast with the consent of the bearer could survive Need entering its field.
The spell binding Tarma was broken, and she found herself in a body that had regained its normal proportions.
This was just such a moment that the priest had been praying for. The spell-energy binding Kethry into Lastel's body was released explosively with the death-blow. The priest took full control of that energy, and snatched her spirit before death had truly occurred. Using the potent energies released, he sent Lastel's spirit and Kethry's back to their proper containers.
There were still other energies being released; those binding Lastel's form into a woman's shape, and those altering Tarma. Quicker than thought the priest gained hold of those as well. With half of his attention he erected a shield over the swordswoman and her partner; with the other he sent those demon-born magics hurtling back to their caster.
Kethry had been stunned by Warrl's apparent treachery; had actually felt herself dying --
-and now suddenly found herself very much alive, and back in her proper body. She sat up, blinking in surprise.
Beside her on the marble floor was a dead man, wearing the garments she herself had worn as Lastel. Warrl stood over him, growling, every hair on end. But her mage-sense for energy told her that the tale had not yet seen its end. As if to confirm this, a howl of anguish rose behind her "Noooooooooooo...."
The voice began a brazen bass, and spiralled up to a fragile soprano.
Kethry twisted around, staring in astonishment. Behind her was Thalhkarsh --
A demon no longer. A male no longer. Instead, from out of the amethystine eyes of the delicate mortal creature he had mockingly called his toy stared Thalhkarsh's hellspawn spirit -- dumbfounded, glassy-eyed with shock, hardly able to comprehend what had happened to him. Powerless now -- and as female and fragile as either of the two he had thought to take revenge upon -- and a great deal more helpless.
"This -- cannot -- be -- " she whispered, staring at her thin hands. "I cannot have failed -- "
"My poor friend."
The little priest, whom Kethry had overlooked in the fight, having eyes only for the demon, his servants, and Lastel, reached for one of the demon's hands with true and courageous sympathy.
"I fear you have worked to wreak only your own downfall -- as I warned you would happen."
"No -- "
"And you have wrought far too well, I fear -- for if I read this spell correctly, it was meant to be permanent unto death. And as a demon, except that you be slain by a specific blade, you cannot die. Am I not correct?"
The demon's only response was a whimper, as she sank into a heap of loose limbs among the cushions of what once had been her throne, her eyes fogging as she retreated from the reality she herself had unwittingly created.
Tarma let her long legs fold under her and sat where she had stood, trembling from head to toe, saying nothing at all, a look of glazed pain in her eyes.
Kethry dragged herself to Tarma's side, and sat down with a thump.
"Now what?" Tarma asked in a voice dulled by emotional and physical exhaustion, rubbing her eyes with one hand. "Now what are we going to do with him?"
"I -- I don't know."
"I shall take charge of her," the priest said, "She is in no state to be a threat to us, and we can easily keep her in a place from which she shall find escape impossible until she has a true change of heart. My child," he addressed himself to Tarma, concern in his eyes, "what is amiss?"
"My bond -- it's gone -- " she looked up at the priest's round, anxious face, and the look in her eyes was of one completely lost.
"Would you fetch my fellows from the temple?" he asked Kethry. "That one is locked within herself, but I may have need of them."
"Gladly," Kethry replied, "but can you help her?"
"I will know better when you return."
She ran -- or tried to -- to fetch the little priest's fellow devotees. She all but forced herself past a skeptical novice left to guard the door by night; the noise she made when she finally was driven to lose her temper and shout at him brought the High Prelate of Anathei to the door himself. He was more than half asleep, wrapped in a blanket, but he came awake soon enough when she'd begun to relate the night's adventures. He snapped out a series of orders that were obeyed with such prompt alacrity that Kethry's suspicions as to their friend's true rankings were confirmed long before three novices brought her his robes -- those of an arch-priest -- and half the members of the order, new-roused from their beds.