Gaping, Kamahl said, "How did you know-?"

"I cannot slay Akroma anymore than you can slay Phage."

Steely-eyed, Kamahl stared at Ixidor. They -were the same. Somehow he sensed it. Neither was a villain, but both were poised to commit villainous acts. Neither could give up the woman he championed; neither could back down from defending her to the death. War was inevitable. Perhaps it was always so when two men were the same.

"What is this?" asked a new voice. Kamahl had been so entranced by the eyes of Ixidor that he had not seen Braids charge up the line. She stood with a hand on her hip, her scarred face squinting impatiently. "The audience is getting restless. They've paid for a war. Let's get to it."

Kamahl ground his teeth. Of course he could not fight this man. The madness of it was only too obvious in Braids's face. Without intending to, she had saved them all. "Yes, Ixidor. You and I are the same. That is why "Why we will destroy Akroma," interrupted Phage, "and pursue you to the ends of your land and kill you as I should have done in the pits."

Astonished, Kamahl tried to gabble out a rebuke. He was too late.

A fading star, Ixidor retreated across the wastelands. Beneath him, the ground riled like the belly of a giant awakening from sleep.

Braids clapped madly and grinned. "Great speech, Phage. They heard it all!" She went from clapping to rubbing her hands. "Let's get to it then. The war must go on!" She skipped away, leaving tan ghosts of sand in a line behind her.

"What did you do?" Kamahl asked Phage.

"He was twisting your mind. That's what that spark was. It read your mind and planted thoughts in you. He made you pliant. He almost made you surrender."

Kamahl blinked, unsure what to think. "Why didn't he send a spark to you?"

"He did," she replied, "and it died in me."

Shaking his head to clear it, Kamahl said, "If it's going to be war, then let's fight it." He glanced to General Stonebrow, who gave a brooding nod. Signaling over his shoulder, Kamahl shouted. "Ahead at double-time!" He dug his heels into the sides of the great red serpent, and Roth slithered forward.

Phage did not deign to convey the command to her own troops. She let Zagorka clamber atop Chester and give the order. Already Phage advanced. Her undead snake ambled forward on its rib tips. Rags of flesh dragged across the sand. Phage rode easily, her eyes on the wasteland ahead.

General Stonebrow rumbled, "That isn't a ridge." He pointed to the gray rill on the horizon. "It's moving. It's coming toward us."

Regaining her seat on Chester, Zagorka stared at the wall. "What is it?"

"I don't know," Kamahl said. He squinted. "What are those? Those folds in the air?"

Kamahl hadn't noticed them a moment before-definite contours, as if the air had turned to warped glass. Some spots gathered and folded. Others formed tubes, or walls, or valleys. Kamahl was struggling to make out the patterns when Roth's jowl struck one slanting portion. He continued forward, channeled by transparent forces toward a whirling tube in the air ahead.

"Do we dare continue?" asked General Stonebrow. His hooves struggled against a strange slope in the air.

Phage's face was set, though her serpent also followed a groove. "We will not turn back."

Invisible walls closed in. They clamped around Roth's sides and tightened their hold. Though he could still slither forward, his skin grew taut around him. It was as if the wurm swelled within.

Kamahl said, "What's happening?"

"The space is bent," Stonebrow growled, "the dimensions distorted. Your serpent is too big for its own skin."

Already, Roth's scales were beginning to pop loose. They shot from stretched follicles, the skin beneath as tight as the casing of a sausage. A terrible and manifold ripping sound began. Roth shrieked in agony.

The invisible force tighten around Kamahl's legs. He clambered up the serpent's back and leaped away, tumbling over a rift in space. Kamahl sprawled in the dust.

The serpent lashed his head, eyes rolling in their sockets. His skin split open, and muscle spurted out. Another hernia appeared, gushing meat, and a third and fourth. All the while, the wurm's skin shrank in upon his body, ever tightening as if crushed in a giant fist. Soon ribs cascaded in a gory fountain.

Kamahl staggered up and stared, disbelieving. He took an unsteady step but felt a wall of magic hold him back. "He's twisting space itself!" he shouted. His words were lost in the explosion of the serpent's body. Only the spine remained, with ribs cracked away and meat in a red well around it. The vacant spine settled down upon the gore.

Just beyond the carnage, Phage yet rode her undead mount. Without skin and flesh, the creature seemed immune to the compression of space.

The folds in air relented. Ixidor was shifting his assault, warping a different vector. Energies coalesced in front of the undead serpent and formed into a looming wall.

Kamahl scrambled to his feet and shouted, "No!"

He was too late. The undead serpent lurched into that scintillating wall. Its head broke through, and it slithered on. Just beyond the disturbance, flesh and bone dissolved. Still, the body of the snake wound forward, as if its head remained.

"A temporal wall," Kamahl muttered in realization. Ixidor could fold not just space but also time. The temporal loop had rotted the snake's head in moments. Its body crawled on because the temporal wall still conveyed the signals from its missing head.

Kamahl rushed up beside the serpent. There was no time for delicacy. With the flat of his axe, Kamahl struck Phage and knocked her from the creature's scabrous back.

Phage rolled in the sand, came to a halt, and looked back.

The snake slithered on through the wall and dissolved to nothing at all.

The commanders stared, amazed.

They weren't the only ones who had witnessed the power of Ixidor's nightmare lands. The army shuffled to a stop.

The safari patrons let out a surreal cheer.

"Idiots," Phage growled, spitting into the dust "They'll be reamed as well."

Kamahl shook his head. "This is his worst. He wants us to stay out and so throws his worst at us first. I doubt he can sustain such powerful effects for long." He gestured toward the scintillating wall, which was already fading. Kamahl rose and dusted off his clothes. "You are right about one thing."

Phage climbed to her feet and snapped. "What?"

"The safari patrons are idiots."

Kamahl and his sister shared a rare smile. Together, they bowed low, both mocking the spectators and heartening their own armies. The roar of the caravan doubled, and the army shouted in cocky fury.

Between gritted teeth, Kamahl said, "There isn't only darkness in you."

"Or lightness in you."

Together, they raised their hands in the gesture for march. Turning, they strode deeper into the nightmare lands. The armies shoved up toward their commanders. They were ready to fight. Dwarves, goblins, dryads, centaurs, rhinos, and spinefolk all spread out in a wide line of advance that reached from the caravan on one side to the horizon on the other.

Still Kamahl and Phage were ten strides ahead of them.

Phage eyed the gray ridge. It seemed a great worm, rolling across the hills. "You think he has thrown his worst at us?"

Kamahl nodded, his axe gripped tightly in both hands.

"We're about to find out."

No longer a worm, the roiling line ahead resolved into an army. The soldiers were gray skinned and naked, human in shape but hairless and half-formed, like hunks of clay. They strode with staring eyes toward Kamahl, Phage, and their army.

"What do you think they are?" Kamahl wondered aloud. "Zombies?"

Phage shook her head. "He wouldn't dare throw undead at the Cabal."

Kamahl scowled. "Whatever they are, they have no weapons."