Already the sky darkened with the swarm, no less than an insect plague. As yet, the roaches were only gathering, but once they swept down in hunger, they would consume everything.

Phage fell to her knees. She tried to clamp her mouth shut, but barbed legs jutted between her teeth. Pincers gnawed her gums, and leathery shells pressed against the back of her throat. She began to gag. Let them kill her. Better to die than to let this evil plague out on the world.

The thought stunned her. It was not her own. When would Phage had ever died to save the world?

Still, she couldn't hold the bugs within. They burst out in a slick column.

All joined the cloud. It was huge, spreading above the whole battlefield. Many of the warriors paused to stare up into that boiling cloud-a horror worse than any they had ever conceived. It did not look like separate insects, but like one great darkness eating away the blue sky. Planetary gangrene, it turned all it touched to nothingness, and it grew greater by the moment.

Tears rolled down Phage's face. She had not wept since that horrible day in Krosan, when her brother had left her to die.

Phage shook her head, tears flying from her cheeks. Kamahl wasn't her brother. She wasn't Jeska, but with each new roach that tumbled from her mouth, she felt less and less like Phage and more and more like Jeska.

He had been right; Kamahl had been right. Jeska had survived within that cloud of horrors. The sister he sought had been imprisoned in pollution.

Still, the foulness gushed from her as if it would never cease.

"Jeska!" said a husky voice, and a powerful hand grasped her arm.

"Ka-mahl!" she gagged, turning toward him even as the plague poured out.

It wasn't Kamahl. General Stonebrow knelt beside her. He had apparently slain his own greatest nightmare and come to help slay hers. Strangest of all, he touched her without rotting away.

"Jeska! What is happening to you?"

She tried to answer but could not for all the roaches.

Even for Ixidor, high in his glimmering palace above the sapphire sea, the battle had turned deadly. Outwardly, he was at peace, surrounded by his unmen and the finery of his bedchamber. Inwardly, he was dying.

Ixidor trembled. His jaws clenched, teeth grinding upon each other until grit covered his tongue. Rot spread in his mind. It ate away will and thought. Ixidor wanted to rise, but he could barely breathe.

This Phage's skin had held a nightmare that could destroy the world. No wonder her very touch killed. No wonder to her the death of a single woman was nothing. She held within her the death of everyone.

Shuddering, Ixidor managed to scoot forward on the seat. It was a seizure, yes, but it was movement. If only he could break through this rigidity that held him. If only he could… but the part of his mind that contained the answer no longer remained.

Ixidor fell from the chair. An unman swooped as if to catch him, though Ixidor would have simply fallen through to another part of the castle. Instead, the creator's own instinctual mind took hold. His hands broke the fall. Ixidor crumpled to the floor.

Instinct. It would save him. Panting, he cried out the first word that came to his tongue. "Nivea!"

The unmen heard. In voices like bleeding air, they repeated the name.

Ixidor growled, convulsed, crawled. "Nivea!" It was not the right name, but it was the only name he could speak. "Nivea!"

She came, not Nivea but the creature who had once had her face.

On majestic wing, Akroma dropped down to the balcony. Her feline claws scratched the marble floor. When her face cleared the archway, its faint color fled away entirely.

"Creator!"

Akroma hurried toward him. Once she would have drifted above the floor, but now her claws scrabbled like a beast's. She had been soaring the skies above Topos, guarding her creator against any approach, but this attack had come from within.

Ixidor wished he could comfort her, but he could hardly join thought to thought.

Akroma knelt above him. "What has happened? Who has done this?"

If only he had the words. It was not Phage who had done this. Phage had kept this monstrosity imprisoned in her skin. To kill the woman now would be to destroy the one vessel that could contain all this evil. It was not Phage whom Akroma must fight. It was the blackness.

"Blackness…" he muttered. "Blackness…"

Akroma's face was quizzical. "Blackness?" She lifted her eyes, glaring at the unmen. "What blackness? Speak a name, Master, and that creature will no longer be."

He could speak the name of Phage, but it would mean the end of all. No, Akroma must not kill Phage, but the blackness.

The contagion changed in his mind. No longer was it a great amorphous shape, no longer a swarm. Now, it was a tangle-a mass of glistening tubes. They were eating and eating.

"Eating," gasped Ixidor. He struggled, managing to shove himself upright and sit. He was regaining his mind, his strength, but not quickly enough. "Eating."

"What is eating?" Akroma asked.

"Wurms," blurted Ixidor. He grasped her hand, stared into her piercing eyes, and squeezed the words out. "Kill the wurms."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: THE TRUEST FOE

Have a look, all of you!" Braids shouted ecstatically. She gripped the sides of her head and yelled, "Clay warriors, crab men, jellyfish, and now living nightmares!" Shrieking her delight, Braids leaped from roof to roof atop the long curve of the caravan.

The wagons formed a broad semicircle on one flank of the battlefield. Nobles within watched avidly, feasting on appetizers and atrocities, drinking wine and drinking in blood. Their appetites had been only whetted by the sudden appearance of monsters among them. Though a few nobles had been killed, the beasts were quickly dispatched, and the other nobles considered it all a thrilling show. Why worry about death when it was someone else's-and when the amenities were so stellar? Attendants saw to their every want.

Braids saw to their entertainment. "The death toll stands near to six thousand in our armies alone. Ten thousand of the foe have died! For those who have placed bets on individual deaths, hold your tickets. The lucky winners will be toted up when every body is tagged!"

Braids paused, staring at the battlefield. Something big was on its way, something boiling out of Phage. It gathered above her, churning in a black cloud, and ate away the air wherever it spread. Already, Braids had made mention of it, but until the horror was fully formed, she needed a more immediate attraction.

"All eyes, turn to Kamahl! He's easy to spot. There are two of him. Many of you will recognize the old Kamahl, tawny of skin and bloody of eye, a barbarian in the Pardic tradition-killer of thousands, of Chainer, of Jeska!"

An impromptu ovation answered her call, and Braids turned an eager flip.

"Others know Kamahl of Krosan, druid in the forest tradition-creator of thousands, of giant serpents and Stonebrow."

More applause answered.

"Place your bets. Who is the more powerful? The old Kamahl or the new? We all wish to escape our past, but now Kamahl will kill it or be killed by it. Place your bets!"

Kamahl circled warily, keeping the stone axe before him. His truest foe-he, himself-crouched on the other side of that blade.

It had been one thing to slay dozens of false selves. It was quite another to face down this one true one.

The man was tall and muscular, with not an inch of fat anywhere and skin that gleamed like polished bronze. His shaved head seemed a battering ram and his red armor the carapace of a rangy spider. Never had Kamahl faced so brutal and bloodthirsty an opponent. Never before had he faced the man he once had been.