Halisstra struck him-and disappeared.
An illusion!
Something odd was happening to Cavatina. A brilliant white light poured from her body, illuminating the demon from below and throwing a harsh shadow across the ground behind him. White as the moon, the light sang from Cavatina's pores. A crackling square of darkness drifted down through this light, settling upon Cavatina's face with a velvet-soft touch, then disappearing. The demon, inside her mind a moment ago, was shut out. Peace filled Cavatina's mind, gentle as a mother's lullaby, even as the searing white moonlight poured from her skin with the rage of a mother's wrath.
"Eilistraee!" Cavatina cried.
Wendonai reared to his feet, his leathery wings flapping. He staggered backward, wincing, as if pummeled by invisible blows. He shot Cavatina a look of anguished rage.
"No!" he howled. He shook a blood-red fist at the sky. "I will not be denied her!"
Flames erupted on his crimson skin and crawled across it in white-hot waves, licking at the wound in his abdomen. He forced himself, stomp by stomp, toward Cavatina. Bulling his way in through the protective shield that Eilistraee had thrown up around her.
Cavatina threw herself to the side. She rolled onto her stomach, her bound hands scrabbling against the gritty soil. An instant later, her holy symbol was in her hands. Clutching it, she forced herself to her knees. She sang out an urgent note, and the blackened singing sword rose into the air behind Wendonai. Soot exploded from the blade, revealing gleaming steel. Then the sword began to sing.
Wendonai whirled to face it.
Too late. Cavatina yanked her bound hands toward her chest, urging the sword forward. Its point plunged into the demon's chest, finding his heart. The sword's peal of triumph drowned out the demon's anguished roar and the angry howl of the rising wind. Wendonai staggered, clutching the hilt that was rammed tight against his chest. A bloodied length of steel protruded from his back, quivering in its victory dance.
Before the demon could heal himself, Cavatina sang out another prayer. This time, her voice was funereal and low. The dirge she sang resonated through the blade in the balor's chest and vibrated through his blood with each pulse of his massive heart. He staggered, his cloven feet scuffing furrows in the salt-crusted earth. His wings snapped erect and fluttered stiffly, and his eyes blazed. Even as the dirge forced him to his knees, Wendonai shook his massive horned head.
"This… is not finished," he gasped. "You cannot… kill me."
Another lie. Wendonai had made one terrible, fatal mistake. Had this battle taken place anywhere else, Cavatina would have been unable to kill him. The demon's essence would have fallen back into the raw chaos of the Abyss, there to be reborn. But in the Abyss, he was as mortal as she was.
Cavatina braced herself. When Wendonai died, the resulting void would tear at the fabric of the Abyss, rupturing it in a tremendous explosion. She, too, would die.
That didn't matter. Her soul would join Eilistraee's eternal dance, and Cavatina would have her victory.
Cavatina was on her knees, still at bound at ankle and wrist with the smoldering remains of the demon's whip. But Eilistraee's symbol was in her hands. Tiny and dull though the ceremonial blade might be, it would be Wendonai's downfall.
She ended her dirge with two droning words: "Die, Wendonai."
The balor's eyes rolled back in its head. He groaned-long and low as tortured metal twisting apart. Then he began to tilt to one side. The wind howled, tearing at Cavatina's hair and driving sharp granules of salt into her bare skin. The demon's hands clawed at the air, as if he were desperately trying to prop himself upright, but to no avail.
With a crash that rattled the ground on which Cavatina knelt, Wendonai fell.
For several heartbeats, the air was utterly still.
Wendonai was dead, even though his body had not been consumed.
And Cavatina was still alive.
A miracle.
The glow that enveloped Cavatina abruptly ended. She let out a shuddering sigh. "Praise be to you, Eilistraee. In my time of need…" Realizing something, she amended her prayer of thanksgiving. "Masked Lady," she corrected. "My heartfelt thanks, for… everything."
She moistened her wind-chapped lips. They were crusted with salt, but she tasted something far sweeter.
Redemption.
She shuffled on her knees to where the demon lay. Using the length of blade that protruded from his back, she sliced apart the tight binding of leather around her wrists. Then she sat, raised her bound legs, and sawed the bindings off her ankles. She nicked herself in several places but didn't care. It was all part of the dance.
Leaping to her feet, she gave in to it. Whirling, clapping, spinning in place. A victory dance. Not just for herself, but for the Masked Lady. Embracing all that they both had become.
Only in the middle of it did she suddenly remember Halisstra. She whirled in place, but the salt-encrusted plain was as bare as it had always been. Empty and flat, stretching as far as the eye could see.
"Where is she?" Cavatina wondered aloud.
She'd asked herself the same question, nearly two years ago, after slaying Selvetarm. Just as she had then, she vowed to search for Halisstra. Only when Cavatina found her again, Halisstra would pay for her treachery.
With a grunt, Cavatina flopped the dead demon onto his side. His lips were pulled back, his fangs exposed in what looked like a grin.
"Go ahead and smile," Cavatina told him. "It's Eilistraee who has the last laugh." She planted a foot on his chest and yanked out the singing sword. She whirled it around her head, letting the dark blood slide from it. The sword pealed its joy.
What now? Cavatina thought as she glanced around. This is the Abyss, and I still need to escape.
Her eye fell on the pile of blackened skulls. A thin tendril of black seeped from the eye socket of one of them. She crouched and peered at its source.
The void she stared into left her mind spinning. For an instant, she felt nothing-not even the beating of her own heart. Her very soul teetered on a blade's edge: on one side, life; on the other… nothing. Just a terrifying emptiness.
Cavatina reeled back, sickened. The eye socket was indeed a portal. A portal to death itself.
There had to be another way out of there. Halisstra must have gone somewhere. And if she could escape, then so could Cavatina. She was a Darksong Knight. A slayer of demons. No, a slayer of demigods. She…
She smiled. There is was again. Pride. It had nearly been her downfall, more than once.
Still, she would find a way out of there. When she'd trained as a Darksong Knight, her instructors had foreseen just such an eventuality. More than one of them had followed a demon onto its home ground, slain it, and returned to tell the tale. They'd told her how it was done. The prayer was one Cavatina had never attempted before, but she was certain she could master it.
Anything was possible, with Eilistraee's grace.
Holding her sword in both hands, Cavatina raised it until the blade was horizontal with the ground. Then she spun and sang. Her blade tried to dip toward the skull portal, but she would not allow it. Muscles straining, she kept it level. Then suddenly the point plunged down, driving itself deep into the salt. A shaft of twined moonlight and shadow shot out from that point, a hair's breadth above the ground and thin as a sword blade. A path that only a devotee of the Masked Lady could see. A path to the next nearest portal.
Cavatina yanked her sword from the ground. With the softly humming blade balanced across one bare shoulder, she set out upon the path.
Karas stepped down into the boat, taking care that his too-short legs didn't stumble. Getting used to being half his usual size was the easy part. Coping with having his face bare was harder. His mask- a bright red handkerchief-peeped out of the pocket of the leather vest his piwafwi had transformed into. He resisted the urge to touch it.