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.