A wave of molten stone splashed around the corner, driving the group back, the heat nearly overwhelming them. A second wave, and then more -- a river of the magma -- coursed around the bend, and three of the group turned in full flight. Avelyn stood his ground, though, and went quickly to work, calling upon his stone magic to enact a shield, constructing a magical wall, floor to ceiling across the corridor.

The demon fires rolled on, bearing down on the praying monk. Pony skidded to a halt, realizing that Avelyn was not with her. She turned and screamed out to him, even took a running step back toward the monk, but Elbryan held her fast.

Avelyn's faith was put to the test as the magma flow approached, as the heat intensified. He had used this gem, serpentine, to survive in the midst of a fireball, but he had no real knowledge of how it would work against the demon magma. It might defeat the heat, he supposed, but what of the sheer weight of the flowing stone?

Avelyn had no room for such doubts. He fell deeper into his prayers, into the depths of the stone magic. The magma was only a couple of feet away, rolling, bubbling.

The monk felt no heat, then, felt no hot wash from the molten stone. As the leading edge passed through the serpentine barrier, it cooled suddenly; turning black and solid, and the magma behind it began to flow over it, until it, too, cooled and hardened.

Now Avelyn saw a new problem brewing: if the lava continued to pile up, it would rise too high and block the corridor, the only way they knew to get at the demon dactyl. Boldly the monk strode forward, stepped up on the leading wall of obsidian, and forward, too, went his magical shield, stealing the demon's heat.

Seeing the spectacle, realizing that their friend had beaten the dactyl's attack, the other three were quick to join him, Elbryan, Hawkwing in hand, moving right to the side of the praying monk. They went around the bend, Avelyn stopping the magma river fully, the demon dactyl coming in sight.

Elbryan lifted his bow and let fly, and the dactyl, so obviously surprised to see its enemies, took the hit squarely in the chest between its humanlike arms.

Bestesbulzibar's eyes flared, and the demon opened wide its mouth, vomiting a stream of magma at the group, and while the serpentine shield blocked the heat, the sheer force of the missile-like spew knocked Avelyn and Elbryan back against the wall. The ranger recovered quickly, growling and sending a second arrow after the first, again with perfect aim.

The dactyl howled, more in rage than pain, for' Elbryan's arrows were but a minor inconvenience to the mighty creature.

Avelyn, though . . . that one presented a more troubling power.

The demon's arms shot forward, fingers extended, and black tendrils of crackling electricity spouted from them, biting against the wall and running the length of the straight passage, nipping and snapping at Elbryan and Avelyn, at Pony and Bradwarden as they followed their friends around the bend. Avelyn had no counter ready and the demon's magic caught him and Elbryan, holding them fast in its sparking grasp for a long painful moment, and then hurled them both backward to crash hard against the wall. Smoke wafting from various parts of their clothing, the pair darted in a quick retreat around the bend, pushing Pony and Bradwarden back the way they had come.

Avelyn desperately searched his magical repertoire, but it was Pony who struck next, thrusting forth the graphite rod and letting loose a bolt of streaking lightning, bouncing it off the, wall, angled perfectly to skip around the bend and bear down on the demon. Her aim was true, it seemed from the howl that came back at them, but that howl was followed closely by a second crackling black bolt, this one hitting with a thunderclap that launched Pony and Avelyn -- and would have sent Elbryan, as well, except that he was holding to the sturdy centaur -- flying to the floor.

"Time for running!" Bradwarden cried.

"Take it!" Pony called to the monk, tossing him the graphite; knowing that he could put it to more powerful use.

"Forward, I say!" Avelyn corrected the centaur, catching the stone and pulling Pony to her feet. He paused for just a moment, considering the fact that his hands were full of a confusing jumble of gems, and none of them were the particular stone he now desired. He quickly handed two stones, the malachite and the lighted diamond, back to Pony, then he scrambled on, taking the lead toward the bend once more. "Now the darkness is before us, so forward, I say!" Avelyn reached into his pouch and retrieved yet another gem, a stone he had used to defeat dactyl-inspired magic before, in a fight with a powrie general.

Avelyn focused the energy of the sunstone, building a wall before him, shaping it and thrusting it forward, taking some comfort in the fact that Pony, who was behind him, kept the diamond glowing brightly.

The dactyl loosed another tremendous bolt as Avelyn rounded the bend, but the crackling magic fell away to nothingness as it entered the disenchanted zone.

"Ho, ho, what!" Avelyn roared, and all the friends came on in full charge.

Bestesbulzibar was confused, had not seen such a display of anti-magic in all its millennia of life. It narrowed its gaze upon Avelyn, upon the gemstone the monk held tightly in his extended hand, and, ignoring the charge, thinking nothing, of the next stinging arrow that soared its way, the dactyl gathered all its magical energy.

They were barely thirty feet away.

Twenty -- another arrow zipped in, deflecting off the dactyl's bone-hard forehead.

Ten feet away, Avelyn roaring wildly, the ranger hooking his bow over his shoulder and drawing forth his sword -- an elvish sword!

The dactyl's shriek echoed all through the tunnel maze of Aida, deafened the four friends, and made them reach for their ears. The demon, recognizing the power of Elbryan's silverel blade and wanting nothing to do with an elven-forged weapon -- Dinoniel had wielded such a weapon! -- loosed a stream of its purest magical force, a green line of sizzling, tingling energy aimed directly at Avelyn, at the monk's extended hand.

The beam stopped right before the monk, wavered there, holding Avelyn in his place, crackling sparks flying wide, forcing Elbryan to slow and shield his eyes.

Avelyn screamed, and the dactyl shrieked again, throwing all its magical strength, every ounce, behind the beam.

On came the green line, engulfing Avelyn's hand, the sunstone glowing fiercely. They held for a long moment, the monk's will against the demon's hellish strength.

The sunstone absorbed the dactyl energy, stole the line from the demon's hand. But Avelyn's expression of joy, of victory, was short-lived, for the stone could not contain such energy, and it threw it out, dispersed as green smoke into the air, the sheer force of the expulsion throwing Elbryan and Avelyn backward into Pony and Bradwarden, the resulting smoke filling the corridor.

None of the group was hurt; but the momentary distraction gave the drained dactyl the time to retreat.

"Ho, ho, what!" Avelyn bellowed when he saw the creature half running, half flying down the corridor, and the roaring monk was the first in pursuit.

Elbryan scrambled to untangle himself from Pony, and charged off behind the monk, the woman coming next, and bulky Bradwarden bringing up the rear.

They sped past several side passages, around turns in the corridor, Avelyn leading boldly, trying to keep the demon in sight, ready but without fear in case the creature was walling for him around each bend.

They raced up some stairs, pounded fast down a long, narrow descending slope, and came at last into a long, straight corridor, the demon visible before them. Elbryan tried hard to get past his monk friend, then, to take up the lead and close tile distance to the monster. But Avelyn was too focused even to notice the ranger's attempt; even to consider letting the faster Elbryan squeeze by him.

The monk was trying furiously to bring up the magic of the sunstone again, but even if he couldn't manage it, Avelyn meant to get to the dactyl, to tackle the damned thing and beat it with his bare hands if he had to!

Up ahead, the corridor widened, like the top half of an hourglass, and then ended in a wall, broken only by a large archway, through which the demon dactyl scrambled. Beyond this portal, Avelyn saw a huge room, braced by columns and lit by the orange flow of molten stone.

This was the throne room, he knew, the very heart of the demon's power. That notion only spurred the furious monk on even more, Avelyn lowering his head and running full out, with his telltale cry of "Ho, ho, what!" He charged through the archway with no consideration that it might be trapped, and Elbryan, though he slowed a bit for caution, was but two running strides behind.

The dactyl, back on its obsidian throne, was ready for them. As Avelyn passed into the room, he was hit full force with more demonic magic: a great gust of wind that held the monk in his tracks, that sent the huge bronze doors to the side of Avelyn swinging mightily.

Elbryan, too, felt the wind and saw the doors. He screamed out and tried to buck, the force and dive ahead, arm extended, Tempest leading.

The doors swung closed, brushing Avelyn, spinning him about, and then slamming together on Elbryan's forearm, smashing his bones, tearing his flesh. Tempest fell to the floor; the doors pushed on, threatening to rip the ranger's arm off.

Bradwarden threw Pony aside and barreled into the doors full force, but even the centaur's great weight and strength could only move them slightly, just enough for Elbryan to extract his arm and fall back, semiconscious, into the corridor. Bradwarden caught him and scrambled back with him, and the bronze doors slammed closed, leaving Avelyn alone in the throne room with Bestesbulzibar.

Or so the monk thought. Bestesbulzibar kept his concentration on the door, using his magic to hold it closed against the repeated slams of stubborn Bradwarden. But then the demon's second trick became apparent as a grinding sound filled the room and the massive stone columns began to twist and shift.

Avelyn, grasping at the opening, was quick to retrieve Tempest, but he was no swordsman. He felt the power of the weapon's gemstone, but it was a magic to strengthen and enhance the blade, he believed, and nothing that the monk could access beyond that.

The closest two columns stretched out their stony arms, broke through the inanimate stone holding fast their legs, and started the monk's way. With a yelp, Avelyn skipped to the side, bringing the puny sword up defensively. These two behemoths weren't going for him however, but for the bronze doors.

Avelyn held his breath, thinking that the pair would throw wide the doors and fall over his friends. To his relief, they did not, but rather they fell against the metal, using their bulk to seal off any chance of entry. The fact that the maneuver put those two obsidian giants out of the fighting did little to bolster Avelyn, for eighteen of the gigantic black animations remained, all stepping forth now, and with the doors thus barricaded, the dactyl was free to deal with this one intruder.

The demon leered down at the monk from its obsidian throne. "Destroy him," Bestesbulzibar commanded, and all the stone monsters started Avelyn's way, except for the two holding the doors.

Avelyn took a careful measure of their approach; they were not fast-moving things, and the monk believed that he could keep his distance, for a while at least. He meant to do just that, and loose whatever magic he could muster against Bestesbulzibar, but to his surprise, the demon did not remain, leaping up from the throne, moving to the side of the dais, and diving headlong into the lava flow, disappearing through the floor.

Avelyn growled in frustration and entertained the thought of using his serpentine shield and chasing after Bestesbulzibar. He found that he had more immediate problems, though, as two of the massive columns bore down on him. He thought to use the sunstone, to counter the magic and disenchant the obsidian, but he feared that the stone itself had not yet recovered from the strain in the corridor. Up came the graphite instead, and Avelyn let loose a tremendous blast of lightning, a thundering forked bolt that slammed both the columns and knocked them back a step, sending cracks panning up and down their length.

Avelyn ran between the pair, easily avoiding their lumbering attempts to grab him. The monk lashed out with Tempest as he passed, for good measure, and the sword took a slice of stone from the back of a giant leg. Avelyn hardly took comfort in that successful strike, though, realizing by the extent of the damage that he would have to hit the thing a hundred times, at least, to destroy it, and probably a score of times on the same spot on the leg to topple it!

So it became a game of cat and mouse, and Avelyn was the mouse. He ran all about the great hall, igniting a fireball, and then, when that proved ineffective, resorting to the graphite, falling into its magic again and again, stinging giant, cracking the black stone.

After a few minutes, the monk amazingly had three of the behemoths down, no more than great piles of broken rubble, but Avelyn couldn't possibly maintain the pace, he realized, for he was huffing and puffing and his magical energies were fast depleting.

He took a different tack then, rushing to the dais and scrambling up the steps. How simple the evasion proved, for the giants could not maneuver their great bodies to follow!

Now Avelyn focused his energy on the pair holding the door, thinking to clear the path for his friends.

He didn't know it, but his friends were long gone.

Elbryan was hardly conscious, with Pony holding him up and holding his smashed. arm out from his body, trying to keep it steady. Waves of pain assaulted the ranger with every slight shift, turned his stomach and dulled his vision. He did see Bradwarden, slamming repeatedly, stubbornly, at the doors, not budging them in the least.

How helpless the ranger felt then! He had come all this way, and now was denied. Was denied!

Summoning every ounce of his remaining strength, Elbryan managed to pull away from Pony, taking two unsteady steps toward Bradwarden, meaning to help with the door. "Hit it with a bolt o' yer lightning!" the centaur bade Pony.

"I gave that stone to Avelyn," she replied, holding up her hands, showing only the glowing diamond and the green-ringed malachite.

That news seemed to take the resolve from the centaur. "Then it's Avelyn and the demon," Bradwarden said, "as the monk knew it should be."

Elbryan swooned and tumbled to the floor. His friends were beside him in an instant, Pony propping up his head.

"Might that ye give him this," the centaur offered, indicating the red bandage.

Pony considered it for just a moment, but when she pulled the bandage down a bit, she realized that Bradwarden's garish wound wasn't nearly healed, and that if she took the bandage away, it would only open once more. Elbryan's arm was agonizing, but not life threatening, and Pony knew her love well enough to realize that he would be angry indeed if she risked the centaur's life to alleviate his pain.

The woman shook her head and looked back at Elbryan.

"Side passages," the ranger mumbled.

Pony turned to Bradwarden, who glanced back helplessly at the great bronze doors. "Got nothing better," the centaur agreed, and so the three were off, Pony supporting Elbryan and Bradwarden leading the way back down the tunnels, up the slope and down the stairs, searching for a side passage that would get them into the throne room from a different entrance.

Their hopes were bolstered shortly thereafter when they heard a voice -- Avelyn's voice -- cursing the demon, then crying out in pain. On they ran with all speed; Elbryan was so strengthened by the indication that his friend might be in trouble that he pulled away from Pony and made his own unsteady way, stumbling often, but using Hawkwing as a crutch and moving faster than the woman could have ushered him.

They went down the next side passage, a narrow, winding affair, and the talking continued, spurring them on.

Around a bend, they saw their folly, for it was not the throne room that loomed before them, not Avelyn at all, but the demon dactyl, standing tall across a wider expanse of the corridor, leering at them.

"Welcome," the beast said in a voice that sounded like Avelyn's.

Pony looked helplessly at her diamond, then wondered if she could make the light shine so brightly that this creature of darkness could not withstand it. Bradwarden's method was more straightforward, however, the centaur charging straight ahead, singing at the top of his lungs. Elbryan moved to follow, but could not hope to keep up.

The dactyl's laughter mocked them. The beast lifted its arms, summoning its hellish magic. Pony cried out, thinking they would all be destroyed.

Bestesbulzibar did not aim the strike at them but rather at the floor beneath their feet, a blast of explosive energy that shattered the stone, dropping the corridor's floor out from beneath them.

The demon cackled and turned away, its work finished.

And so it seemed to be, as the stones and the three friends fell far away -- a hundred feet, at least, two hundred-toward a floor of jagged stalagmites.

* * *

It came up fast through the hole in the floor at the side of the dais, rushed past the flowing lava quickly, spewing the red stone all about. Up the demon soared, and then it dropped, landing heavily on its muscular legs.

The monk refused to be distracted, though this demon dactyl, the darkness of all the world, was but a few strides away. Avelyn growled and fell deeper into the stone, grabbed up all the power the graphite would give him, and hurled it in three rapid blasts at the pair of stone giants guarding the door.

They blew apart into rubble; the way was clear for Avelyn's friends, except that Avelyn's friends were nowhere near the door.

"Well done!" Bestesbulzibar congratulated, clapping his human hands together. "But all for what end?"

"Nightbird!" Avelyn cried. The monk thought to run for the doors, but there remained too many animated columns, crowding around the dais, waiting for him to come down.

Avelyn called out again, but the dactyl's laughter stole his voice. "They cannot hear you, fool," Bestesbulzibar explained. "They are already dead!"

The words nearly knocked Avelyn from his feet, assaulted his mind and tore at his heart. His lips moved in denial, but he suspected Bestesbulzibar would not lie to him; given the demon's awful power, he suspected the demon wouldn't have to lie to him!

So that left Avelyn against the fiend, just them, facing off from five paces. Avelyn was past grief suddenly, and without fear. He had come here to Aida, into this very room, to battle Bestesbulzibar, to pit his God against the hellish power of the demon. And now he was here, the best scenario he could rationally have hoped to find. If he won now, then his friends, all of them, would not have died in vain.

That thought sobered the monk and calmed his nerves. He considered his repertoire, wondered what stone magic would prove most effective against the beast, then went with what he had in hand, his graphite.

"Wretched beast!" Avelyn boomed, his voice resonating throughout the room. "I deny you!"

He thrust out his arm and loosed a tremendous bolt of sizzling blue lightning, a sharp, crackling flash that slammed Bestesbulzibar right in the chest and drove the demon back a couple of steps.

"You are strong, Avelyn Desbris," the fiend growled, all its body quivering from the continuing grasp of the electricity. The demon spread wide its black wings and reached back with one humanlike arm, claws extended toward the flowing lava, grabbing the power and channeling it.

Then the demon's arms clutched tight at its chest, right where Avelyn's bolt was holding fast, and red crackles shot forth from Bestesbulzibar's clawed hands, red to meet Avelyn's blue bolt, joining together end to end in a showering display.

Avelyn growled low and called to God, begging for more energy, channeling it, as pure a conduit of godly might as ever had stood upon Corona. And that power staggered Bestesbulzibar, nearly threw the demon to the floor.

Nearly -- for Bestesbulzibar was no conduit of power, but a source of power, and the red bolts fought back terrifically, grabbing the ends of Avelyn's lightning and pushing the bolt back toward the monk. Red extended to cover half the distance between the pair, and continued to close. Avelyn shut his eyes and growled louder, throwing every bit of himself behind the energy, and the blue bolt gained again, drove on toward the demon.

But then the red bolt strengthened and pushed the blue back, pushed the sizzling point of joining inexorably back, toward Avelyn. The monk opened wide his eyes, straining, straining, but it would not be enough, he knew then.

The demonic red lightning inched closer.

She shouldn't have been able to do it; none of Avelyn's training nor her own experiences with the stones should have allowed Pony to bring forth such energy. But sheer terror, sheer instinct, and an unselfishness that bordered on foolhardiness, allowed for nothing less.

Pony took up the malachite and reached out with it, somehow lending its magic not only to Elbryan, who was within her reach, but to Bradwarden, who was far ahead of the pair, and all three, tumbling with the broken corridor floor, were suddenly floating more gently, drifting down as a feather might, and it took little effort for each of them to step aside from the stalagmite teeth as they lighted on the lower level.

"I'm not for knowing how ye did it, girl," a thoroughly shaken Bradwarden congratulated, "but suren I'm glad that ye did it!"

But for all their joy, for all the centaur's gratitude toward Pony, the three found themselves in a precarious position. Pony knew that she might fall into the malachite once more and become nearly weightless, but the prospects of getting anyone back up to the broken ledge seemed remote indeed, for they had no rope to hang from such a height.

"One way's as good as another," the centaur was quick to point out, motioning toward a tunnel that led out of the stalagmite-filled chamber and wound its way along the deeper tunnels of Aida.

So on they went, with Pony holding the diamond light steady and holding poor Elbryan steady; and Bradwarden, cudgel in hand, taking up the lead. To their dismay, this tunnel complex proved no less a maze than the higher passageways, and most of these corridors seemed to be leading further down and not up.

"One way's as good as another," Bradwarden kept repeating, but it seemed to the others that the centaur was trying to convince himself more than them.

Avelyn could not hold it at bay. The demon's red lightning hit him with the force of a giant's punch, launching the monk to the very edge of the raised dais. One of the stone behemoths was at the spot almost immediately, leaning over the helpless man, its huge hand chopping down to squash Avelyn flat.

Avelyn cried out, thinking himself doomed, thinking that he had failed and that all the quest was ended.

But the stone behemoth creaked and twisted, arm moving back against its massive chest, legs shifting together. In a few seconds, it was no more than a column again, leaning over, and then falling.

Avelyn rolled out of the way; the inanimate stone crashed down and rolled from the dais.

"He is mine!" the dactyl shrieked at the impertinent behemoth, at the giant-turned-column that had almost stolen the fiend's most savored kill.

All the other columns retreated then, going back near the door, dispelling any of Avelyn's thoughts of escape.

The monk stubbornly pulled himself up to his knees, then struggled to stand tall before the monster. The dactyl, eyes narrowed, showing-respect for Avelyn but no fear of the monk, stalked in.

Perhaps this would not be a battle of magic, the monk thought suddenly. He had Elbryan's sword after all, that most powerful of weapons. Perhaps this was to be a test of his body against the dactyl's, a contest of physical strength.

In one fluid movement, Avelyn lifted Tempest high and darted ahead at his foe, slashing wildly.

He missed, the cunning dactyl easily sidestepping and then countering with a beat of its leathery wing, slamming the rushing Avelyn on the shoulder and launching him head over heels to the other edge of the dais.

"You are no swordsman," the fiend remarked, and Avelyn could hardly disagree. Still the monk stubbornly climbed back to his feet and stalked toward the monster more cautiously this time, prodding Tempest with shortened, measured thrusts.

Bestesbulzibar began to slowly circle to Avelyn's right.

Avelyn's free hand came up, launching a handful of celestite crystals that popped in minor explosions all about Bestesbulzibar's face. Thinking that he had his opening, the monk charged ahead.

Bestesbulzibar was gone in a puff of smoke, in the blink of a surprised monk's eye. Avelyn skidded to a stop, then understood his sudden dilemma and swung about hard.

The demon, standing right behind him, battered him with its wing again, knocking him to the ground before the swinging sword ever got close.

Avelyn struggled to his feet once more, stumbling toward the rear of the raised platform.

Bestesbulzibar, cackling with laughter, walked around him, putting Avelyn squarely between itself and the solid wall, cutting off the one route of escape.

Avelyn had no ideas, no plan at all. He came forward a step and began waving Tempest, again in shortened strikes, more to buy time, to keep the fiend at bay, than with any hope of winning.

But the demon's patience was at its end, and Bestesbulzibar came forward in a sudden, terrifying rush.

Out went Tempest, a quicker thrust, aimed for the dactyl's heart, but Avelyn, for all his training in those years at St.-Mere-Abelle, was no Terranen Dinoniel, and the dactyl accepted a minor hit and swept aside the awkward attack with one forearm, then quick-stepped into the opening.

Always ready to improvise, Avelyn launched a heavy punch with his free hand and connected solidly with the powerful beast's chest.

Before the monk could begin to congratulate himself, he found Bestesbulzibar's free hand around his throat, lifting him from the ground. Avelyn tried to whack with Tempest, but the demon understood the power of the ranger sword and would not allow the monk to bring it to bear.

"Fool," Bestesbulzibar thundered, squeezing harder -- and Avelyn feared his head would simply pop off! "Did you think that you could even hurt me? Hurt me, Bestesbulzibar, who has lived for centuries, for millennia? Every day I destroy creatures ten times your worth!"

"I deny you!" Avelyn gasped.

"Deny?" Bestesbulzibar echoed. "Tell me that I am beautiful."

Avelyn stared incredulously at the demon's angular face, at the fiery eyes, the white, pointed canines. Something about Bestesbulzibar, the sheen of the demon's skin, the strong angles of its features, struck Avelyn profoundly as beautiful indeed. The monk felt an overwhelming urge then to do as the demon had asked, to admit Bestesbulzibar's beauty.

But Avelyn saw the lie, the temptation, for what it was. He stared Bestesbulzibar right in the eye. "I deny you," he said evenly.

The dactyl heaved Avelyn across the dais, to slam hard into the back wall.

Avelyn slumped low, his vision blurred, sharp explosions going off in the back of his head. He tried to stand but slumped again, and the room at the edges of his vision began to grow dark.

The monk tried to get to his sunstone, thought to kill the magic in this area as he had done in the hallway. But to what end? his reeling thoughts screamed back, for Bestesbulzibar needed no magic to destroy him.

The dactyl paced in, towered over him.

Avelyn swooned; his thoughts went flying back to the glories of his life, back to Pimaninicuit, the closest he had ever felt to his God. He saw again the island at the start of the blessed showers, saw Brother Thagraine, poor Thagraine, running desperately, reaching out toward the cave, toward Avelyn.

Then falling dead, and Avelyn remembered rushing to him, remembered his horror, fast turned to curiosity . . .

Avelyn reached into his second pouch and pulled forth the giant amethyst crystal, the mysterious stone humming with magical energy.

The dactyl hesitated at the sight, at the stone aglow with teeming magic.

"What have you?" it demanded.

In all truth, Avelyn didn't know the answer to that question. Growling with every inch, all pain vanished, Avelyn Desbris forced his legs under him and slid back up the wall to stand before the hellish fiend.

The dactyl growled and came on.

Following instincts that he could only hope were from God, Avelyn tossed the stone into the air, and then he and the dactyl both hesitated, surprised, for the heavy crystal did not fall but hovered in place.

Again, with no logical basis for the movement, Avelyn exploded into action, grabbing Tempest in both hands and swinging mightily even as Bestesbulzibar reached for the tantalizing stone.

Mighty Tempest sheared right through the crystal, and the whole of it blew into dust, shattered a thousand times.

The demon stared dumbfoundedly at the dusty cloud, at Avelyn, as if to ask what the man had done, and again, Avelyn had no answers.

From within that dust cloud came a low humming noise, a growling almost, and, like a ripple in a pond, a purplish ring emanated, rolling through Avelyn and the dactyl, rolling out to the edges of the room, deflecting off the stone again and again, crossing back in on itself.

More rings, rolling, humming, mounting.

"What have you done?" Bestesbulzibar demanded.

Avelyn, his head throbbing once more, clutched desperately at his sunstone, though he thought the thing a pitiful counter to the mounting strength.

The ominous growling increased tenfold, a hundredfold, deafening Avelyn, blocking the sounds of the dactyl's shrieks. The creature watched in amazement as its stone columns crumbled to dust, as if the very vibrations had shattered the obsidian.

Bestesbulzibar turned on Avelyn, murder in its flaming eyes.

The dais lurched; a great crack opened in the floor and a gout of steam hissed through.

"Fool!" the dactyl shrieked wildly. "Fool! What have you done?"

"Not I," Avelyn answered under his breath, though he knew that the demon could not possibly hear him. "Not I" The monk understood then, knew his fate and willingly accepted it.

He hooked the bag of stones, all but the sunstone which he still clutched tightly, over Tempest's blade. He noticed then the stone in Tempest's pommel, and recognized it for the first time as some sort of sunstone, an accessible gem. It was too late for him, though, and so he grabbed the sword at mid-blade, and thrust it straight up above his head.

The left-hand wall of the throne room crumbled; the twin lava flows intensified, spurting molten stone across the room.

The dactyl shrieked and loosed a bolt of black lightning at Avelyn, but the monk was fully into the sunstone shield then, and the magic was stolen before it ever got to him.

Bestesbulzibar leaped away, flew all about the room, looking for an escape. Then, with none evident, the fiend came straight for Avelyn, thinking to punish, to tear and to kill.

But then the demon was tumbling, the resounding, deafening roar overcoming it in mid-flight, stealing its concentration, stealing its strength. Bestesbulzibar crawled across the dais, away from Avelyn -- who was standing tall, shining, praying -- and toward one of the lava flows.

The hundreds of purplish rings converged in the middle of the room.

Aida, the very mountain itself, exploded.

Far below the jolt sent all three of the friends, even sturdy Bradwarden, flying wildly about the tunnel. Elbryan slammed hard, into the wall of the narrow passageway with his already broken arm. Waves of agony assaulted him, and despite all the courage and determination he could possibly muster, he found himself slumping down into blackness.

Pony, too, was dazed but not so much that she couldn't hold fast to her diamond and keep the precious light glowing, though in the sudden burst of dust, it seemed a meager beacon indeed. She struggled back to her feet as the rumbling continued, as the walls and the floor beneath her feet shifted and bounced. She somehow got to Elbryan and propped him up, hugged him tightly, thinking it fitting that they die in each others' arms.

But then, after what seemed like an hour but was in fact no more than a few minutes, the rumbling stopped, and the ceiling did not fall in on them.

Pony's relief lasted only until she managed to locate Bradwarden through the dust; the centaur was by far the worst off. He stood braced against the corridor's right-hand wall, wedged in tight, his human torso bent far back, arms widespread with muscles bulging, to hold back the largest slab of stone imaginable, to hold up the very mountain itself!

Pony gently eased Elbryan down, then ran for the centaur, crying out his name. She pulled out the malachite as she went, thinking to levitate the block that the centaur might escape.

She couldn't begin to move it; Avelyn himself, with a piece of malachite ten times this one's strength, would not have budged so huge a slab. To Pony's. surprise, Elbryan came up then, groggily, barely conscious, Hawkwing, in hand. With great effort, the battered man wedged the bow in tight against the wall, trying to use it as a lever to relieve some of the pressure on the centaur.

"Ah, me boy, ye'll not be moving this one," the doomed centaur groaned. "She's got me stuck, and got me dead, don't be doubting!".

Elbryan fell back against the wall, dizzy, defeated, with no answers.

"Bradwarden," Pony breathed helplessly. "Oh, my friend, all the mountain would have fallen on us but for your great strength."

"And all the mountain'll be falling soon enough," the centaur replied. "Run to the outside and yer freedom."

Pony's horrified expression was all the reply Bradwarden was going to get.

"Go on!" the centaur yelled, and the exertion cost him an inch, the huge slab sliding ever lower, bending him backward. "Go on," he said again, more calmly. "Ye cannot move the damned mountain! Don't ye make me death a meaningless thing, me friends. I beg ye, get out!"

Pony looked at Elbryan for guidance, but the man was past reasoning, slumping once again into blackness. She stared hard at the centaur then, thinking this to be the cruelest play of all. How could she leave so gallant a friend? How could that be expected of her?

And yet Pony realized the sincerity of the centaur, saw it clearly in his calm features. She imagined herself in his position and knew what she would expect of her friends.

Pony moved up very close to Bradwarden, bent over to him, and kissed him on the cheek. "My friend," she said.

"Always," the centaur replied, and then his visage and his voice hardened. "Now run. Ye owe me that!"

Pony nodded. It was the most difficult thing she'd ever had to do, and yet she did not hesitate. She pulled Elbryan up to his feet, hooked her arm under his shoulder, and started off without looking back. The pair had barely left the corridor when they heard the rock shift once again, heard the resigned groan of the breaking centaur.

Pony wandered for hours in the twisting darkness, with only the diamond light to guide her, and that growing ever dimmer as exhaustion sapped her energy. She found tunnels blocked by flowing lava, others by thick concentrations of sulfurous fumes, and still others that simply ended in a solid wall or in a deep chasm that she could not cross.

Elbryan tried hard to keep up with her, to be less of a burden, but his legs were too wobbly, the pain too intense. Several times, he whispered for Pony to leave him behind, but that, of course, she could not do. Another idea came to her, then, and she took out the malachite, lending some of its levitational magic to Elbryan's body, greatly lessening her load.

And then finally, as hope began to fade to empty despair, as her magical energies at last began to fade to nothingness, the woman felt a breeze, and it was cool and soft, not like the hot wash of flowing lava.

Pony concentrated hard. The diamond was all but out, a pinprick of light that showed her nothing in the heavy air. The malachite's power was no more, Elbryan leaning heavily against her. She stumbled on, following the current, backtracking the gentle breeze. She stumbled and fell, crawled back to her knees and tugged Elbryan along, and then she stumbled again. It wasn't until, exhausted beyond her limits, she rolled onto her back, that she realized that she was out of the mountain; under a sky darkened by smoke.

Just before Pony drifted off to sleep, one patch of that sky cleared, showing a single, shining star, then a second, then a third.

"Avelyn, Bradwarden, and Tuntun," the woman whispered, and merciful sleep took her.