Glaeken sensed the weight of all that Rasalom had left unsaid.

"Sunlight, Rasalom? Since when have you been afraid of sunlight?"

"I am afraid of nothing, Glaeken. I am master of this sphere. It fears me."

"It's not sunlight, is it, Rasalom. It's another kind of light. Light from your enemy. And it comes at a time and place that's more than 'inconvenient,' doesn't it? It's shining directly above your little nest, and it has arrived at a time when you're vulnerable, before your new form has matured."

"Nonsense, Glaeken. Pure wishful thinking on your part. When my gestation is through, and that is only a matter of hours now, I shall personally plug that hole in my perfect night. Then you will see how 'vulnerable' I am."

Glaeken noticed a growing warmth at his back. He twisted again toward the rubble-strewn tunnel. Something was happening there. Something he'd never dreamed. The light was working into the rubble, determinedly worming its way through, as if it had a mind of its own.

And then he saw it. A gleaming pinpoint, a tiny bead no larger than a grain of sand, glowing amid the rubble, growing bigger, growing brighter.

"Don't allow yourself to hope, Glaeken. It cannot harm me."

Yet Glaeken did allow himself to hope, could not help but hope when he saw the bead brighten suddenly and shoot out toward the pit in a narrow beam of brilliance, like a needle-thin blue-white laser streaming toward Rasalom. But it came up short against the support under Glaeken's feet, spraying and splashing like water against a stone wall.

The beam of light persisted, though. Like a living thing with a will of its own, it split, one half sliding upward, the other down around the support. The light crept to the top just inches ahead of Glaeken's trapped feet. As soon as it crested the support it raced downward to rejoin its other half. They fused and once again shot out toward Rasalom's amniotic sack.

But the beam did not strike the sack. Instead it flashed toward the weapon, igniting the exposed pommel of the hilt. The pommel blazed with blinding fire, and dimly, through the encrustations, Glaeken could see bolts of light flashing along the length of its blade.

Rasalom howled in Glaeken's mind as he writhed and thrashed within his sack. Glaeken had a feeling that this time it was no act.

The weapon began to vibrate, the encrustations began to crack and fall away like an old skin, and suddenly the weapon was free, blazing with white light.

Another beam of radiance broke through the rubble and flashed across the cavern. It too found the weapon and added its power to it.

As Rasalom's howl rose to a shriek, Glaeken felt the tendrils wrapped around his legs begin to soften, their hold on him weaken. He bent and tore at them, straining to pull free. There was no time to lose. Rasalom's thrashings were shaking the weapon within the wound it had made. The beam of light stayed with it, moving whenever it did, but if the weapon slipped loose it would fall into the pit. And then Rasalom's victory would be assured.

With a final surge, Glaeken yanked his legs free and leapt to the central disk where the four arched supports fused. He dropped to his belly, hung precariously over the edge, and reached for the weapon.

Cold-fire eternity beckoned below.

Glaeken fought a surge of vertigo and stretched his right arm to its limits, violently thrusting it down to force the ligaments to give him the tiny extra increment of length he needed to reach the jittering hilt. His fingertips brushed the pommel twice, and then with a final, agonizing thrust, he hooked two fingers around it. At his touch the weapon seemed to move on its own, slamming the body of the hilt against his palm. Power surged up his arm and throughout his body and once more the weapon was his.

And he was the weapon's.

He stood and looked about. The beams of light from the rubble stayed with the blade, fueling it, following wherever he moved it. He couldn't reach Rasalom or his sack, so he decided to try the next best thing.

Reversing his grip, he lifted the weapon high and drove the point down into the center of the nearest of the supporting arches. A blinding flash lit the cavern as the blade cut deep into the flinty substance. The material of the support began to bubble and smoke as the blade melted its way through it like a hot knife cutting frozen butter. The smoke was greasy, foul, reeking of seared flesh. More flashes followed as Glaeken worked the blade back and forth, widening the gash as he deepened it, strobing the cavern with bursts of light and stretching weird shadows against its walls.

"No, Glaeken!" Rasalom howled. "I command you to stop! Stop now or you'll pay dearly. And so will your friends!"

Without pausing an instant in his labors, Glaeken glanced down at the huge eye pressed furiously against the membrane.

"You've already promised that, Rasalom. What have I got to lose?"

"I won't kill you, Glaeken! I'll let you live on, just barely. I'll make you witness, see, feel everything that happens in my new world."

Glaeken said nothing. He had almost cut through the first arch. With a final thrust, the blade angled through the underside and came free.

The central portion suddenly sagged a half a foot under him. Glaeken hurried to his left, toward the next support.

"Glaeken, NO! That island I promised you—you and the woman and your friends—"

Glaeken shut his mind to Rasalom's rantings and drove the blade into the second arch. More flashes and oily smoke. He worked the blade ferociously, gasping with the stench and the exertion, and eventually it worked its way through.

The center sagged again, its free edge lurching downward almost two feet this time. The two supports he had cut wept dark fluid from their truncated ends as they remained suspended above the void like severed arms reaching for something they would never again possess.

Supported now on only one side by the two remaining arches, the center tilted at a steep angle. Glaeken's feet slipped on the smooth surface as he hurried toward the nearer remaining arch.

And again he drove the blade deep into the substance. As he worked it through, he felt an impact on his right leg. Reflexively he pulled away as searing pain flashed up to his hip. He caught a flash of movement and he rolled away from the center.

It was a huge hand, but it resembled a hand only in the vaguest sense—black as the night above, and only three fingers, each as thick around as Glaeken's waist, each terminating in a sharp yellow talon. Blood dripped from one of those talons—his own.

Rasalom—it had to be. Rasalom in his new form. Glaeken could not see the rest of him, most of which was no doubt still in the sack below. Had his new form finally matured, or was he breaking free before the process was completed in order to stop Glaeken?

It made another swipe, blindly, in his direction. Glaeken ducked under the talons. The sudden move sent a fresh surge of agony through his wounded leg. As it came for him again, he slashed at it with the weapon and felt the blade dig deep into the inky flesh.

Light exploded above him, a flash of brilliance that dwarfed all those before it. In his mind he heard Rasalom cry out in shock and pain. When his vision cleared he saw the taloned hand waving above him, one of its thick fingers swinging madly back and forth as it dangled from its smoking stump by a few remaining intact tendons.

Glaeken straightened and limped to the other support. He had been able to cut only part way through the third and it was unlikely he'd get a chance to finish the job within Rasalom's reach. He'd attack the fourth—but not near the center.

His move must have surprised Rasalom because he was half-way along the arch before the voice sounded in his brain.

"Don't run off, Glaeken. We've only begun to play."