It differed from the Watchers as they had been only in one thing. Beneath the shrouding hood there was no mask, not even a featureless blank, but a black cavern, a dark and endless emptiness. Though it had no eyes it seemed to Maja to be looking directly at her, telling her that she must come to it, come and begin to fill that void. Unlike the demon north of Larg it yearned and ached not simply for the flesh of her living body but for her thoughts, hopes, dreams, the small natural powers within her, for all of her. Even before the Watchers had made their choice, she realized, it had been there, waiting. Been there, perhaps for ever, an unseen presence, waiting for the body that would give it power to act in the world of things. And now it had not only their physical substance but also their immense magical powers and it could begin to absorb into itself all the spiritual energies of this material universe, to satisfy its infinite, unsatisfiable hunger.
This was the ultimate demon, the demon destined to devour the universes. Starting with her, Maja.
“Come,” it told her.
Her shielding faltered. She snatched at her amulet and dragged it down to her wrist. The black bead blazed with smoky fire as it withstood the call. But Ribek had heard it too and was trying to get to his feet. She flung her arms round him and forced him down, struggling feebly in her grip. The horses were already moving blindly forward in response to the summons. Sponge as well, whimpering miserably at the compelled disobedience to his master’s order. Benayu heard, glanced over his shoulder and flung out a hand. Ribek subsided with a groan and the animals stayed where they were.
The demon appeared to notice him for the first time. It turned its hunger toward him, raised a hand and beckoned. He seized the staff, anchoring himself to resist. A gale from nowhere tore at his clothes as if trying to drag him forward. With his free hand he tossed something upward, and the gale became a blizzard, dense, huge flakes streaming in the wind, blanketing the Watcher, melting for a moment and instantly freezing into a carapace of close-packed ice. There had been blizzards like that sometimes at Woodbourne, waking the sleepers in the farmhouse again and again in the night with the crash of another huge branch rent from a forest giant by the sheer weight of the ice that had formed around it.
The demon, though, accepted the blizzard as an offering to feed its hunger. Before it had begun to melt the ice started to flow, not downward as water would have done, but upward and inward, into the cavern within the hood. If any of the powers that Benayu had used to create the blizzard were still incorporated into it, they too were now lost in that darkness.
The call was universal. Already, creatures that had nothing to do with the struggle against the Watchers were beginning to answer it. The white seabirds that had soared around the cliffs of Angel Isle were streaming toward the cavern, their harsh cries of alarm falling suddenly silent as they disappeared. Four or five small bees that had been busy around a spike of sea holly suddenly forgot their job and followed the gulls. Right out in the open, easy prey to a predator, a family of voles was threading its way over the turf. Nothing was too small to be taken.
The monster raised its arm and beckoned to Benayu again. He answered with a bolt of lightning, blindingly bright even by daylight, aimed not at the head but at the midriff. In the instant of its flight it veered from its course and followed the gulls.
Maja’s ears were still ringing with the thunder when she caught Jex’s desperate whisper.
“He needs time, still. Only a little more time. We must all distract the demon if we can. Put me on the ground.”
She hardly had him out of her blouse before he resumed his true form.
A tremor shook him as she placed him on the turf. He turned toward the demon, choked convulsively, staggered a little way forward and then, with what was obviously an enormous effort, started to back away. Beyond him on the rocks she could see several patches of lichen swelling into lizard form.
“Us too. Did you hear what he said?” she whispered.
“Just about. Help me up. Make as if we don’t want to—we’re fighting against it. It’s got to pay attention to us—force us, step by step. Right?”
A pace. A struggle to retreat. Another pace. Reluctant, fearful. To left and right the Jexes, rank after rank of them, were doing the same. She could see one, a little ahead of her and to her left, that seemed already to have lost the use of its hind end and was using its forelegs to drag itself onward and then force itself back.
Another pace and she and Ribek had no need to pretend. They must have crossed whatever barrier Benayu had thrown between them and the demon, for now, suddenly, Ribek felt the call. His struggle to resist it became real. She forced his hand against her amulet. Nothing happened. No, it had barely worked for him with the demon north of Larg, and this was the ultimate demon.
Only his will remained, as he fought with all the slight strength of old age against every pace forward, groaning and gasping as he was forced on. And Maja fought to help him, fought by fighting against him, or rather against the demon through him. She could feel the already exhausted muscles weakening, and at the same time feel the invisible power that drove them on growing stronger and stronger as the demon answered their resistance.
Nothing else mattered. Vaguely she could hear faint, fluttering pipings of distress all around her as the army of Jexes fought their own individual versions of the same struggle. Hopeless, all of them. Each one less than a pinprick. But all together, perhaps, an itch. That was their only hope. That the demon would lose concentration for a moment, and scratch.
So they battled on, losing all the time, pace by agonizing pace. The nature of the struggle barely altered when Ribek gave a final, dreadful groan and passed out in her arms. His eyes closed, his mouth sagged open, and his head fell sideways as if his neck were broken. But still his legs drove them forward.
So far she had been clutching him to her side with her arms around his upper body, wrestling to haul him back. Now she changed her grip, losing a precious couple of paces to do so as she worked herself round to get her shoulder against his belly. His body slumped above her, forcing her to bear half his scant weight. Gasping, she heaved with all her strength against the staggering onward drive of his legs. Her sandals lost their grip on the slithery turf and they toppled in a heap.
He fell on her, half winding her. By the time she’d got her breath back he was on his hands and knees, crawling blindly toward the demon, now desperately near. She saw it stoop, reaching out an arm to scoop him up. The fingers at the end of the ivory sleeve had no knuckles, no bones, but a double row of suckers along their inner surfaces, each like a tiny mouth.
Desperately she flung herself forward, grasped his ankles and hauled him back. Effortlessly the arm extended itself. The talons closed round his waist. She screamed, and her scream was answered.
Answered from high overhead by a sound she knew, a long, clanging neigh, like a war cry. The demon loosed its hold and she tumbled back, dragging Ribek with her.
In the moment that she was facing skyward she saw Rocky above her, wide wings hurling him forward, Saranja and Striclan on his back, the fiery line of the demon-binder snaking out, bright against the storm clouds, curling itself widdershins around the demon’s shoulders as Rocky swung the other way to begin the binding. The demon didn’t resist. It seemed not to respond in any way, or even to turn its head to watch them go. Nor did Maja. Immediately, with her lungs still heaving, her heart still thundering from her previous struggle, she started to drag Ribek further away.