Tumbling, Kamahl realized he had done it again-had survived the death that would take her. He hit the ground just as the wurm did and rolled miserably, knowing his sister was gone. Kamahl spread his arms, heels digging in, and flopped to a stop on his back. He flipped over, a shout of grief erupting from him.
Jeska yet lay there, trembling. The wurm was nowhere to be seen.
Staggering to his feet, Kamahl scrambled toward her. "What happened? What did you do?"
Jeska smiled wanly up at him. She seemed somehow stronger, her skin less pale. "I told you it could not kill me."
Falling to his knees at her side, Kamahl saw the dark glint in her eyes, the gray tinge to her flesh. "It is within you, isn't it? You absorbed it back into yourself."
"I once held thousands. There is room enough in me for all of them."
"What are you talking about?" Kamahl blurted.
"I have made these deathwurms. I made them by killing-"
"You didn't kill. It was Phage."
"I am Phage. She is the dark side of me."
The ground thundered with impacts coming straight toward them.
Clenching his fists, Kamahl rose to meet the new menace.
It wasn't a menace at all, though. Eight hooves pounded the ground-a giant centaur galloping beside a giant mule and its rider.
"Stonebrow!" Kamahl gasped in relief. "And… and "Zagorka," Jeska said softly.
The centaur and mule galloped up and skidded to a halt. Dust rose in clouds around them and continued on over the desert sands.
Stonebrow extended his hand to Kamahl. "We must flee! It is death to remain."
"Yes!" Kamahl said. "Carry me away, and Zaborra can take Jeska."
"Zagorka," the old woman corrected.
"She cannot take me," Jeska said. "I'm staying."
Kamahl's mouth hung open. "There isn't time for this!"
"If I flee," Jeska said, breathing slowly, "we all will die. There is one way for Otaria to survive this day… There is only one way for me to survive."
Kamahl shook his head. "You can't do it, Jeska. You can't take them back into you."
"They didn't kill me before. I can bear it again."
"That's not you speaking," Kamahl said. He gripped her arm and felt the first tingle of hostility beneath her skin. "That's Phage. She doesn't want you to live, Jeska. She wants herself to live again."
Her eyes met his, and for a moment the darkness retreated. She was Jeska again. "There is only one way, Kamahl."
His brow beetled. "But all of this-I did this to save you."
Jeska shook her head and stroked his jaw. "No. You did this to save yourself."
He could only stare in amazement at her.
"You have saved yourself. You killed the man you once were and saved the woman I once was. Your journey is done, but mine only begins. These deathwurms arise from the murders I have committed, starting with Seton-"
"Seton!"
"Braids killed him, but I took his life force into me. I took his life! That's where all the blackness began. You cannot destroy these wurms. Only I can. You cannot save me. I must save myself, and to do so, I must take these things back into me."
"No, Jeska."
"I will find my way out again," Jeska said, "or die trying. Better that than to die without trying."
Stonebrow's eyes glinted with fear. "We must go now!"
"Last chance," Zagorka said, reining in her champing mule.
Kamahl drew a deep breath. He looked about. Wurms vaulted everywhere.
"Go, Kamahl," Jeska said. "I will stay. It's the only way to save Otaria."
Kamahl's nostrils flared. "Stonebrow," he said, his voice a low growl. "Get out of here. That's an order."
Nodding his noble head, Stonebrow said, "As you wish."
"I could use an order here, myself," Zagorka broke in.
"Go," Jeska said simply.
It was all the old woman needed. She dug her heels into Chester, and they dashed away. Stonebrow galloped beside her. In moments, they were lost behind twin clouds of dust and sand.
"What are we going to do, then," Kamahl wondered incredulously, "lie here and wait for a thousand beasts to attack, and then absorb them one by one?" He stared out across the desert, where hundreds of wurms already charged. "It will be too late."
Jeska blinked. "We need Ixidor. To reach him, we must reach her."
"Who?"
"Akroma," Jeska said, pointing toward the sky.
Kamahl sat back on his heels, stunned. Above the thundering wurms hung a single point of light, a star beaming down on an abandoned world. "She is sworn to kill you."
"She does not fight me, but the deathwurms. She will help us," Jeska said. "Call her."
Standing, Kamahl lifted his arms and his voice. "Akroma! Protector! We call you. Come to us!" Above the battling beasts, the angel hovered. No longer did she fight. She only hung there. "We wish to ally, to save your land and ours! Akroma! Come to us!"
His summons did not bring the angel but only another wurm. It roared toward them across the same path of compression left by the last beast.
Kamahl turned desperate eyes toward Jeska.
"Step aside," she hissed. "I'll take this one in as well. Call her!"
"Akroma! Come to us!" Kamahl shouted into the literal teeth of the deathwurm. At the last moment, he hurled himself aside.
The black beast pounded down upon Jeska, its mouth wide. Instead of swallowing her, it was swallowed by her. The head was gone, and then the lashing neck of the thing. A half mile of wurm sank into her body as if she herself were a pit. A mile.
At first, Kamahl could only gape at the strange spectacle, but then he lifted his hands again. "Akroma! Help us! Akroma!"
Above the roar of black wurms came a tiny keen: gnat song. It broke through the lethargy of Akroma's mind.
Someone called her. It was not the creator-Ixidor was gone- but it was someone like the creator.
"Akroma! Come to us!"
She stared down toward the sound and saw a strange thing: a deathwurm disappearing. It seemed to plunge down one of the sucking pits. It tail flipped once, and it was gone. Instead of leaving behind a round hole, though, it vanished through the shape of a woman.
Not just a woman. The woman. Phage. She had been the bringer of all this evil. She lay on the desert, and her brother stood above her, calling out in his minuscule voice. Akroma cared nothing for the man, but the woman she wanted dead.
Akroma gathered her wings and dived. It felt good to move again. It felt good to have something to fight. She brought her lightning lance out before her and prepared to kill Phage.
How like the coliseum battle this was-Akroma stooping down from the air, Kamahl guarding his evil sister, and Phage lying, near-slain, on the sands. Only the deathwurms were different, ravaging all the world.
One wurm veered toward them. In two more bounds, it reached Kamahl. He leaped aside, allowing the monster to devour his sister. Its jaws never snapped closed, though. The monster plunged into her, slipping to nothingness. Phage was destroying the deathwurms. She was fighting the same battle that the creator had assigned to Akroma.
It didn't matter. Akroma was made to destroy Phage. With her lightning lance foremost, she plunged from the sky upon her greatest foe. In moments, she was there.
It was so easy. Phage didn't even flinch. The avenging angel rammed her staff down into the unmoving form Except that something hit Akroma and knocked her aside. The lance missed Phage. It pierced the ground deeply enough that the weapon was ripped from Akroma's hands. Careening out of control, the angel crashed down, along with the thing that had hit her: Kamahl. The two of them rolled together in the desert sands.