Dermanassian woke to find a black demon crouched beside his campfire. It snarled like a giant mountain cat and blinked twice before springing. As Dermanassian grabbed his sword, a flash of sorcerous fire hurtled from the nearby wood and slammed into the demon’s side. Its eyes widened as the pale green flame knocked it howling into the turf.

He scrambled to his feet, his heart pounding. He was angling the blue lotus sword for a thrust beneath the demon’s ribs when another bolt rushed past him to envelop the creature. Wailing, the demon flickered and disappeared, leaving only the scent of charred hair and a curl of greenish smoke.

Dermanassian spun toward the tree line. He squinted into the darkness, his sword gleaming in the firelight. "I would like to thank you properly," he called, not loosening his grip on the sword.

Another demon, robed and barefoot, stepped from the brush. She was both taller and broader than he, although she did not dwarf him. She carried no obvious weapon, but, with both sorcery and curved claws at her command, he judged she needed none.

"You're the one they call the Gray Mist?" she asked, staring at his gray clothes and cloak. Her voice was unexpectedly and disarmingly smooth.

"Yes. And you?"

"Janan." She smiled, showing dagger-like teeth. "Looks like I came just in time."

"So it seems." He inclined his head in wary thanks. "Though it is strange to me that demons should be here at all."

"I was looking for you. I guess I wasn’t the only one."

"You knew that creature?" Dermanassian’s black eyes narrowed with suspicion.

The demon grunted. “I knew him.” She squatted beside the fire, her muscular legs flexing. The claws upon her broad feet dug into the ground as she poked at the flames with a hooked finger. The fire flared and popped in response. "Reminds me of home," the demon smiled faintly. When he said nothing, Janan explained, "That was a joke. Anyway, I hear you kill demons."

"Not out of habit."

She frowned. "But you have killed a demon?"

"Yes," he said, working to keep the puzzlement from his voice. "And this creature who sought to ambush me –"

She grunted again, waving away his question. "I thought so. For a moment, I thought I had the wrong human."

"I am not human," he answered in defensive habit.

The demon squinted curiously at him, as if noticing for the first time his angular features. "What are you then?"

"A desert elf."

"I didn’t think there were any left."

"I am the last."

Sympathy flashed across her face, but she shrugged it away. "I have a task for you. I'd like you to rid me of a demon named Aradan. The pay will be good."

Dermanassian frowned. "Are you asking me to go to the demonworld to commit murder?"

The demon shook her head. "Not at all. Whether you do it in the demonworld or elsewhere is no concern of mine."

"I am not an assassin or for hire."

The demon shrugged again. "I know you’ve killed. Whether you think of yourself as an assassin or not is your business. If you won't take pay, then the burden on my treasury is eased." Janan scratched her cheek. "If you like, you can fight for vengeance and self-preservation rather than coin, for it was Aradan who sent the cat."

Dermanassian was taken aback. "I do not know this Aradan. Why would he wish me ill?"

“Not ill,” she corrected, “dead. And it’s because I've already told the gossipers that I hired you. With the aid of my spies, Aradan tracked you down. Now that his assassin has failed, he will send others. I will help you against them too, if necessary, until Aradan comes for you himself. Then one of you must surely slay the other, for he is not one to abandon a fight once joined. The choice of who then dies-–if choice it is–-will be entirely yours. Should you kill him, then I am satisfied. Should he kill you, then I'll eventually find someone who can prevail against him."

Dermanassian rubbed his eyes with a long-fingered hand. This seemed to him some incomprehensible, maddening dream. "If he comes, then I will tell him all that you have told me."

She laughed. "He might even believe you! But he'll kill you anyway, just in case."

The desert elf was confused by the demon's frank and strange ultimatum. His hand again tightened on the hilt of the blue lotus sword and, with poorly-disguised frustration, he jammed a wayward wisp of black hair behind an ear. "You have evidently spent much time building this trap around me. Why are you so determined to have me kill this Aradan?"

"Most of the better wars started with an assassination," she joked half-heartedly.

"You are starting a demon war?"

"Is there any better kind?" She sighed wistfully. "You have not lived until you've seen a demon war. Demons on wing, on hoof, on paw. Demons riding upon demons. In armor of every design, with every weapon imaginable. It's as the poet sang, 'The dust turns to mud with demon sweat and blood.'"

"Why should I not kill you here and now?" he asked, though, mindful of her evident physical and sorcerous power, he had no wish to battle her. "I want no part of this war."

"That would suit my purpose as well, and it would not stop the war nor Aradan and his assassins from coming after you. If you kill me, then my generals will announce my murder at Aradan's hands. They will swear to it through they be dipped in the Agony of Tolon, and then his horde will be given to my generals as blood payment for my murder. My generals will take the hordes to war against the Low Auth." Her eyes narrowed in thought. "I prefer not to die now, but I’ve resigned myself to the probability of my death in this endeavor. My horde stands ready to fight, whether I am there to lead it or not. So slay me if you like; it alters little."

Dermanassian was uncertain. Her tone was collegial, as if she traded logic with an old friend. She saved him from an assassin that she, through political manipulation, had caused sent after him; evidently she did not intend to attack him. He squatted by the fire, imitating Janan's relaxed posture. He could not hide his bewilderment, and his shoulders bent with the weight of it. "Why?"

"I've got your attention, eh?" Janan grinned humorlessly, teeth flashing in the firelight. "You know of the Low Auth, for you've banished one of their gods from your world."

"Yes." Years ago, he lost twin swords in the fight with the Atpoelateq, embedded to their hilts behind the god's yellow eye and sunk with its thrashing body into the dark pool in the labyrinth of caves beneath Galst Creek.

She nodded. "The Low Auth gain influence in our outlands. They are on the verge of breaking through from their chaosworld to the demonworld."

Dermanassian frowned. "Why should this be of concern to me?"

"That is what the High Auth said when I brought my petition to them. But demons are not bad; not all of us. Yes, there are some who interfere with your world. But most of us have no such ambition. For the most part, we come only when forced. You can't seriously expect that we enjoy being dragged from our homes to be enslaved by a raiser!"

Her voice turned from angry to soft. "I myself was captured by a raiser once. I was with my brother, sparring knee deep in the River Whitetooth, our swords filling the air with cold spray. Then he and the river faded and I was frozen, unable even to blink, hovering in the air like a puppet. The raiser stood before me, smelling of incense and hubris. He made me…," the demon trailed off.

Abruptly she was defiant again. "I've since warded myself. Cost me a fortune, but it was worth it. I've been tutored quite a bit since then too. I'll not be taken again, and woe to anyone who tries."

She shook her head as if to clear such thoughts. "But it matters little whether you like us. There is no demon that compares to the Low Auth, devouring everything in their path like apocalyptic locusts." Her eyes narrowed in warning. "And you know that when they have had their way with the demonworld they will turn to this one. They are a storm coming to engulf us all."

Dermanassian paused, his anger at Janan suddenly suspended. All he had ever learned of demons was sinister, ominous. But what he knew of the Low Auth stirred dread in his gut. Whatever demons might be, he knew that Janan spoke truly when she said the Low Auth were worse. "How will killing Aradan further your efforts against the Low Auth?"

"It will mobilize the demon hordes where my words have failed. Aradan has refused to fight the Low Auth threat. At long last, I accept that the reason for his reluctance is that he himself is an agent of the Low Auth and is seeking to bring their armies through. If Aradan is dead, I can take over his horde and add it to my own."

"If Aradan is the root of your problems, then why not challenge him to a duel and be done with it?"

"I cannot," she spat. "A demon is forbidden to spill the blood of kin. And, anyway, he warded himself against demon assassins long ago. No one from the demonworld could lay a hand on him."

"Aradan is kin to you?"

"He is my brother."

"And this prohibition against kin-killing does not extend to commissioning assassination?"

"No."

Dermanassian grimaced. "I fail to understand demon ethics."

"I shall guide you through them," she offered cheerily. “But, you are welcome to see for yourself. You have a gate of some sort to the Red Caverns, as I recall?"

"Yes."

"I will meet you there." She stood and placed one wide foot into the fire, and it popped and crackled in protest.

"And if I do not come?"

She winked. "I'll be back for you." Her head cocked, and she added, "I advise you to pull that gray hood tight about your face, for your features will not go unnoticed and you may be remembered by more than me--and less fondly." She stepped fully into the flames and vanished.

Dermanassian sighed as the campfire sputtered. He was not certain he wanted to be involved in a war to control the demonworld. Yet he was not certain how to avoid it either, or even if he should avoid it. If Janan told the truth, then joining forces with her to fight the Low Auth--even slaying Aradan--was as much in his interest as in hers. Certainly the Low Auth were capable of the destruction she described, and far worse. He might as well go to the demonworld, he thought. Though he did not trust her, Janan did not appear to mean him direct bodily harm and, should things not be as she claimed, he would leave. And he had no doubt that she would, as she said, be back for him if he refused.

Grunting, he kicked out the fire. He shook his cloak out and swung it about his shoulders, pulling the hood over his braided black hair until the gray cloth shadowed his bronze face.

He no longer needed the drug jajab to aid his journey into the dreamworld; he could access it at will. So he called to mind his entrance, the white-pillared courtyard of his youth. In an instant, he was there. He walked past the lotus-filled pools, where he had gained the blue lotus sword, to the huge doors at its end. Outside was the familiar gray nowhere. He walked directly to the massive gate master-crafted by his enigmatic foster brother. As if looking through a gold-framed window, Dermanassian watched as demons of every type bustled about the dusty network of caves that formed their capital.

The desert elf stood by the gate until he saw Janan leaning against a rock formation in the subterranean metropolis. Shifting his travel pack on his shoulders, he stepped through and into the Red Caverns.

Demons glanced in his direction, but none save Janan moved toward him. "Come," she said in a hushed voice, "I am more well-known here than I care to be." She walked quickly away with Dermanassian following.

"Janan," someone yelled.

The demon shouted guttural obscenities that were soon lost in the crowd.

"You see how it is," Janan whispered. "Aradan spreads rumors to undermine me."

"And he sends assassins against you, as you do him?"

"Oh, certainly!"

"You warded yourself against demon assassins, as he has?" he asked, marveling at their twisted politics.

Janan nodded. "More than that. I'm a mage. Still, I suspect the next one he sends will not be a demon, but a creature of Low Auth."

"And you are not warded against the Low Auth?"

She scowled. "Those with the power to make such a ward would not lend or sell their talents to me."

"And what happens when an assassin of the Low Auth comes?" he asked.

Janan grimaced. "I may die. Still, I hope that Aradan is hesitant to use the Low Auth that way. It would only confirm his allegiance with them, and I don't think he's quite prepared to reveal that yet."

She led Dermanassian to a series of smaller caves before finally they came to a narrow alcove blocked by an iron door without a doorknob. Janan placed her palm in its center and it clicked softly before swinging open.

Inside, five demons sat at a circular table holding paper cards bent from heavy use. Each had a pile of gold tiles of various sizes; a larger mound spilled in the center of the table.

The demons looked up as Janan and Dermanassian entered.

"My generals," she said.

They stared at Dermanassian.

Nodding toward a massive cat-like demon whose black coat was singed along his ribs, Janan added grinning, "You've already met Zibidin."

Dermanassian glowered. Yet before he could speak, one of the generals, who seemed to be made of stone, rumbled, "Is this your assassin, Janan?" An identical demon sat expressionless to its left.

She nodded.

"He's smaller than I expected," he said.

Janan smiled. "He can do the job."

"But is he going to?" grated the stone twin.

After a moment, she said, "He's still deciding."

"Sit," Zibidin said, turning back to the game.

Scowling, Dermanassian gritted to Janan, "Mock assassination attempts and magic tricks. There are no killers after me."

"I needed to get your attention," she laughed, slapping him on the shoulder.

Churning with anger, suspicion, and curiosity, Dermanassian pulled another chair to the table.

* * *

Three of Janan's generals accompanied the desert elf to the outlands. They approached Vazan’s Void, a puncture from the demonworld to the chaosworld. Long past, Vazan had created the aberrant hole in error. Unable to undo the Void, she quickly patched it. Now Aradan and the Low Auth fought to reopen it. Thus far, the generals explained, the Void could be opened only for short intervals.

Dermanassian and Degen rode springing war mounts with cloven feet suited to the rocky terrain. The feline Zibidin galloped soundlessly beside them. Kadal glided high above, her long shadow crossing the rocks. Her huge wings rarely beat, instead angling into the fast, hot winds.

Dermanassian’s hood was tight around his bronze face, blocking the worst of the choking dust and blazing heat. The desert of his homeland was not unlike this. It was, he admitted to himself, disconcerting to find familiar settings in the demonworld, for he imagined it had nothing in common with his own. He shifted the blue lotus sword on his hip uneasily, knowing that confirmation of Janan’s story was soon at hand. He had yet to decide whether he preferred that she was a trustworthy new comrade, or that this was a convoluted hoax. Neither possibility was heartening.

Kadal circled back to them, slowly losing altitude until she lightly dropped to the ground. "They're there," she said, pointing to the unseen distance. Her beak made her words harsh and clipped.

Dermanassian squinted, but his sharp black eyes saw nothing but unending sands.

"Their scent is weak." Zibidin lifted his nose to the wind and sniffed. "There is demon blood in the air."

"Aradan?" Dermanassian asked.

"He's there too," Zibidin said.

"Can we move closer?" Dermanassian asked.

"Still you do not trust us," Degen snorted. "You want to see for yourself?"

“Given the circumstances under which I am here, I prefer proof to trust,” he answered.

"Then let us go," Degen spat into the dust as she urged her war mount forward, "and you will see more than you care to."

They continued in silence until Degen raised a hand and muttered. Immediately, the rough ground rose before them in a wall, slowly curving until it surrounded them in a sluggish swirl that moved forward at the pace of their mounts. They were contained within a ring of sand.

"Our camouflage," she explained.

Above, Kadal’s flight line kept them moving in the correct direction. They traveled in near silence, the shuffling of their mounts' hooves on the uneven ground and their heavy breathing were absorbed by the rasping wind.

"This is as close as we come," Degen suddenly announced. Her hand flicked the reins of her steed, and the beast stopped. Degen raised her palm and a narrow slit opened in the swirling shield. They were still quite a distance from Aradan and his demons, but now close enough for Dermanassian to see clearly.

He counted more than two dozen demons around a stone platform. Several were chained, their wails carrying through the thin air. On the other side of the platform was the dark, gaping opening of a huge pit that was Vazan’s Void.

"What are they doing?" Dermanassian asked.

"The agents of Low Auth toss captives into Vazan's Void," Degen whispered. "Their sacrifices – five live demons – enter the chaosworld and then those of the chaosworld can enter here, if only briefly. Watch. That is Aradan atop the altar."

Aradan looked nothing like Janan. She and her generals were far taller than the desert elf, but her brother was gigantic. His four muscular arms and leathery wings stretched out in homage. White stripes decorated his face. He lifted one of the captured demons high over the platform. Crying incomprehensibly, he threw the chained demon into the pit. Light flashed from Vazan's Void, then, just as abruptly, died away.

"Another!" Aradan snarled.

All doubts about Janan’s claims resolved. Unable to watch passively as Aradan killed the helpless, Dermanassian jumped from his war mount and walked through the shield of rubble.

To the devotees of the Low Auth, Dermanassian must have seemed a gray-cowled figure that flickered into existence in the barren outlands.

"Another devotee?" Aradan called.

Dermanassian shook his head and removed his hood. "I have not come to join you."

"What are you doing?" Degen whispered sharply, and Dermanassian realized she and Zibidin were almost directly behind him, still camouflaged by the sand wall.

Aradan squinted at Dermanassian. "You are not a demon."

"No."

"You're a human? What are you doing here?"

"I am not a human. I am a desert elf. I am here because Janan asked me to come."

Aradan erupted in laughter. "Let me guess! You're Janan's assassin? Huh. And smaller than I would have thought."

"I am not an assassin."

"Not an assassin, not a demon, not a human," Aradan mocked. "I think you are our next sacrifice." The giant demon leapt from the high platform and with swift beats of his wings swooped to where Dermanassian stood.

The desert elf pulled the blue lotus sword from his side.

"Focus on Aradan," Degen whispered urgently to Dermanassian. "We'll take his followers."

Aradan landed beside Dermanassian with a dusty thud. "I don't think you'll cut me with that blue toothpick," he jeered.

"I might," Dermanassian said, aiming the tip of his blade at the demon's throat.

Suddenly, Degen and Zibidin appeared beside Aradan's waiting followers. Degen pulled two curved and serrated blades from her war mount's saddle and, guiding the beast without reins, charged.

Dermanassian concentrated on Aradan. As the winged giant turned, the desert elf leapt forward, his sword high. At the last moment, Dermanassian dropped to cut at Aradan's exposed legs. But the demon was faster. He swiped brutally at Dermanassian, knocking him hard to the ground. The blue lotus sword merely nicked at the demon's skin. Enraged, Aradan reached for Dermanassian, but the desert elf rolled away, hacking again at back of Aradan's thick legs. The demon yelled with pain and surprise as the blade bit deep.

With a few wingbeats, Aradan retreated to the stone altar. "You will not stop the coming of the Low Auth," he howled.

As Dermanassian struggled to reach Aradan, Janan’s generals battled around him. Degen's blades cut through the worshipping demons like harvesting scythes. Behind her, Zibidin pounced upon the wounded, snapping necks with a twist of his jaws. Spitting blood, he pulled a knife out of his side and forced it under his attacker's arm.

Covered in dust, Dermanassian jumped on Kadal’s back as she wheeled close to him. Quickly, he realized the generals would be bested without help. He cursed himself for forcing this confrontation.

Beneath, Degen yelled, wheeling her war mount. "Janan, we need you!"

Then Janan appeared.

"Witch," Aradan sneered.

"That's right, brother." She put her hands out to her sides and suddenly her other two generals appeared as well: Keren and Kerelen, the stone twins. The golems bent forward and rhythmically pounded the ground. Aradan's demons were thrown from their feet and the huge demon himself was knocked off balance before he could take to the sky. Dermanassian and Kadal took full advantage: she dived sharply and the desert elf swung the blue lotus sword high. He cut Aradan across the chest and through one wing. The giant demon reached out with his four arms and swiped them from the air. They fell in a jumble. Dermanassian untangled himself as, gasping, Aradan threw another captive toward the mouth of the pit.

Janan thrust out her hand and the captive's motion stopped. It hung in mid-air squealing in terror, then Janan's gesture brought it to the side of the Void where it rolled in the dirt. She stepped back as a pair of knives hit her wards and fell harmlessly to the ground. She picked up the knives and, her hands engulfed in green fire, threw the flaming daggers back at her attacker. They buried in his chest and he collapsed in an eruption of flame.

Dermanassian turned just as Zibidin was hit by a studded mace and tumbled into the Void. Aradan shouted triumphantly as Zibidin's screech echoed downward. The Void flashed ominously.

Dermanassian ran toward Aradan.

Aradan grabbed two of his own demons and with them wrapped in his four arms threw himself into Vazan's Void.

"We are coming," he screamed, and his words echoed triumphantly from the pit.

Janan and her demons froze. From the stone altar, the remaining captive whimpered.

"Oh, no," Degen whispered. "What will happen now?"

“Aradan will find a way to bring the Low Auth,” Janan shrugged. "Then we will win or we will die. Maybe both."

Degen's war mount pawed a cloven hoof at the outland rocks. "Let's hope for the first."

Kelen and Kerelen looked at each other, their stone faces impassive.

"Gather the hordes," Janan ordered quietly.

Dermanassian stared resolutely into the stirring depths of Vazan's Void.

* * *

After two days of nearly unrelenting battle, the blue lotus sword was drenched with gore. Dermanassian gasped with exhaustion as another wave surged from the chaosworld through the Void.

It was as Janan foresaw: demons of every description filled the air and land, fought and strived, and were slaughtered by the howling armies of the Low Auth that exploded through the Void like a geyser. Another army swarmed as well, for Janan used her magecraft to call upon allies: clouds of massive, iridescent beetles devoured injured Auth even as they screamed and tried to tear the ravenous, scuttling insects away. The desert air churned with the shrieks of the injured and dying, and no ear could distinguish between the two.

Mounted upon a lithe dragon-like creature, Dermanassian spotted Janan directing her hordes, her orders delivered to her generals by tiny darting animals that reminded him of bats. Occasionally green fire burst from Janan's fingertips like lightening.

Another black dragon-creature landed near Dermanassian, its rider peppered with arrows. The desert elf yanked the slumped body from the saddle and jumped into its horned saddle. The beast cried out as he kicked its armored flanks, and it sprang back into the air. Dermanassian urged the beast above the seething battle, above the range of arrows, to where Janan conducted war.

"We must do something," he told Janan. Even from a distance, the Void was daunting: the dark rim of its wide mouth gave way to a swirling kaleidoscope in the depths within. Crawling everywhere were the endless armies of Low Auth.

"We are," she snapped with fatigue.

"Is there no where else to turn for aid?"

"I have called upon all I can command or beseech or convince or trick." She shook her head, clearing her thoughts. "You don’t need to face oblivion with us. Access the dreamworld, Dermanassian, and flee this place."

Janan's shoulders slackened and he knew she could not continue much longer. The effort of magecraft and warcraft consumed her. Were it not for the straps tying her to her mount, she may have well tumbled into the fury below.

"The demons may rise again," he said, salvaging hope. "You hid your youth in other worlds."

"They will be vagabond exiles with no homeworld, their deaths at the hands of the Low Auth merely postponed." She squinted at her cavalry driving a wedge into the north flank of the Low Auth while her winged forces dove, time and again grabbing at the enemy with long talons and dropping them heavily into their fellows like boulders from a catapult. "We did not anticipate a final battle so soon. I fear that, by maneuvering Aradan, I've brought this upon us before we were ready."

"It was I who, by my actions, chose this time and place. The blame is mine." Dermanassian steadied his mount. "But let us not concede hope just yet. We must determine why the Void has not closed."

Janan nodded. "Something holds it open, but our scouts and spies cannot tell what. They cannot slip past the Authian forces into the chaosworld. I suspect it is Aradan; he yet causes mischief, although I haven’t seen him. But the time has come for our final clash: we must charge the Void."

"I will go,” Dermanassian said quietly. “If it is Aradan, then only I among us can slay him.” He said nothing of his desire for redemption.

Janan knew he spoke truly; it was, after all, the reason for her luring him into this conflict. "Take a squad of the winged cavalry. We will focus all our might on the mouth of the Void to give you what cover we can."

She sent a messenger to a bearded demon astride a winged creature. As the messenger approached, the demon spun, a curved sword raised to halve it. It chittered anxiously. Hearing its message, the bearded demon sounded a brass horn and his squad retreated into the air to where Dermanassian and Janan waited. Meanwhile, Janan sent messengers to her generals.

"Commander," the bearded demon panted as he pulled up his mount. Beads intertwined in his yellow beard jingled.

"You are under Dermanassian's command," Janan said curtly, thumbing at the desert elf. She did not bother with further introductions. "Follow him into the chaosworld. Guard him well. Discover what holds open the Void and destroy it. Farewell, Peretek. More than likely, you will die."

Peretek saluted Dermanassian without hesitation. "Let's go."

Horns sounded across the battlefield. Units of the combined hordes shifted like flocks of birds, retreating and reforming. Janan shot a burst of flame from her palm. As it arced, the demon hordes launched themselves at Vazan's Void in a wall of shrieking fury.

Dermanassian pulled hard at his beast's leather reins and dug booted heels into its flanks. The beast lurched and he aimed it straight for Vazan's Void. He hunched low against its musty neck, using its plated body to protect his own from the black-shafted arrows blurring past him and ripping through his gray cloak. The beast fought him, straining to pull away from the pulsating Void, but the desert elf's hand was strong and he forced the beast straight into the emerging army. His mount spun and jerked as it dove, desperately avoiding collisions with the enemy spewing forth. All around Dermanassian, Peretek's squadron hurtled, their swords twisting against metal and flesh.

Then, in a rush, they entered the swirling channel of the Void.

His beast blew hard with fatigue and fear, but Dermanassian forced it downward. He swung the blue lotus sword only as necessary, preferring to dodge grabbing hands and slashing blades. The air was thick and hot with sweat as the Low Auth streamed upward into the demonworld. Dermanassian risked a glance behind him as an arrow thudded into Peretek's shoulder nearly knocking him from him saddle. The bearded demon's mount reared in the air as he hissed and jerked the reins. Dermanassian's own mount screeched as an arrow pierced its wing, but he kicked the beast hard to keep it on course.

Then suddenly, Dermanassian glimpsed the chaosworld as the Void funneled like a tornado into its churning skies. Armies stretched into its purple dusk as far as he could see. Approaching slowly were columns of utter darkness, inconceivably tall. In despair Dermanassian knew he looked upon the gods of the Low Auth. For where a lone god might be defeated in a time of weakness as the desert elf had defeated the Atpoelateq, a phalanx of gods would not--specially after their armies had decimated the demon hordes, leaving their corpses to litter the rocky outland. Then, as Janan warned, they would turn their appetites to Dermanassian’s world.

Behind him, the survivors of Peretek's squad flocked. Peretek himself still clung to his saddle, though Dermanassian saw that life and reason bled freely from his body. Then Dermanassian saw the demons' only hope. Aradan hovered, his bulk nearly horizontal to the base of the funnel. Surrounded in an iridescent aura, his four arms were outstretched, his torn wings flung wide, and his head titled back. His eyes rolled in euphoria as he held open the Void.

As the squad flanked the desert elf, he streaked toward Aradan. The dragon-creature hit Aradan's iridescent aura and, as it screamed, the beast’s neck shattered as if it rammed a solid wall.

Unsaddled, the desert elf tumbled onto the giant demon’s broad chest. Aradan's head rolled up and he sneered. Dermanassian jumped to his feet. Holding the blue lotus sword like an axe, he hacked at Aradan's thick neck.

The demon's hands surrounded him, fingers curled into thick hooks, and pulled Dermanassian away before the blue lotus sword could sink into his flesh. Dermanassian's back arched as Aradan’s claws stabbed through his bronze skin and he fell to his knees atop the suspended demon.

The desert elf swung the sword around and with the hilt in both hands, jammed it into Aradan's chest. The sword sank to its inlaid pommel. The demon roared in shock and pain. Then the roar abruptly ceased as the blade pierced heart and lungs, and his mouth gaped silently. The iridescence disappeared. Aradan's dead body hovered an instant longer before plunging toward the ground with the desert elf still straddling his bloody chest. Dermanassian yanked the sword from the sucking wound.

Without Aradan as the keystone holding it open, the Void began to close. All around, the armies of the Low Auth fell back upon each other as the collapsing Void sucked those closest to its vortex back into the chaosworld. The survivors of Peretek's squad struggled in the maelstrom to reach the Void and return to the demonworld, but they had no chance. Their mounts barely had the power to stay aloft, much less climb into the dark channel.

As he fell, Dermanassian called to his mind his gate to the dreamworld. Suddenly, he was there – no longer falling through the purple dusk to his death, but instead tumbling onto the polished stone paths of the palace courtyard. His bloody sword clanged as he banged against a lotus pool. The red-beaked doves scattered to the cornices and cooed a scolding.

Dermanassian shook himself out and unhooked his ripped cloak. He was consumed by a single thought: he must return to the outlands. Bruised and aching, he jogged from the pillared courtyard back to gate to the Red Caverns. When he reached the gold frame, he stepped through to find the city deserted.

It was several hours before Dermanassian reached the outlands. The sun was already turning rosy as it dipped in the west when he came within view of the battlefield. He and his stolen mount collapsed in a sweaty heap. As he pulled free from the dying beast, he saw that Vazan's Void was closed and Janan's tattered demons finished off what remained of the Low Auth trapped in the demonworld.

He stumbled to assist, but Janan's green fire burst in the air like celebratory fireworks well before he could reach them. A roar of victory filled the air and upheld blades flashed in the setting sun. On her wide tour of the devastation, Janan veered to Dermanassian. Her black mount circled above him once before spiraling down to land. Grinning through pale fatigue, Janan leapt from its back.

"You have made friends today in the demonworld," she said, clasping Dermanassian's long-fingered hand in thanks.

"The sacrifice of the demons was greater than any of mine."

She wiped her sweating brow. "We will rebuild," she said confidently.

"But you cannot destroy Vazan's Void. What will happen if the Low Auth open it again?"

Janan spat in the dust. "Then they will meet our swords."