Water poured out around him, sluicing through the legs of the unman. Ixidor blinked, seeing twin floods gush across the ground. The unman hadn't closed. He yet stood there, a portal between the deep sanctum and the theater. Why hadn't he closed? And where were the other unmen?

Ixidor hadn't seen them since he fell asleep. They should have been incapable of leaving him, for he had never granted them free will.

Two of his unmen had abandoned him. The third remained open, waiting for its companions to jump through. The open gate would allow any creature to pass Ixidor lurched backward Through the unman burst the head of the wurm. Its mouth gaped, teeth spread, and jaws snapped.

Ixidor could not get out of the way.

The thing's mouth closed around him, and its cold gullet swallowed. All was darkness and agony.

The wurm withdrew its head through the unman.

Deprived of its master, the unman only stood and trembled, water pouring through shuddering legs.

He was gone.

Above the ravenous wurms and the sucking pits, Akroma somehow sensed it. The creator was gone. "Ixidor."

She could do no more. Battered and weary, Akroma had killed fifty deathwurms. More than a thousand remained. She had fought because she knew Ixidor wished it. Now he was gone.

Akroma labored into the uncaring sky.

Beneath her feline feet, wurms bounded across the nightmare lands and entered the sandy desert. They continued on, gobbling up folk as they went. They could not bite through the world anymore, but they would scour it of all life.

Akroma hung in the sky and watched the end of Otaria.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: THE SAVED AND THE DAMNED

Kamahl knelt before Jeska. She lay limp in his arms, panting miserably. She was dying once again, dying of the old, unhealing wound. An identical injury crossed his own belly and made him weak. It would kill him too, if he and Jeska and Otaria somehow survived the third laceration-a wound on the world.

Like giant black maggots, deathwurms galloped across the nightmare lands. They had already scoured the battlefield of all living things and left the soil itself riddled with holes. The infection spread. Many wurms had plunged onto the desert, pursuing the routed troops. No one would survive this battle-not warriors, not countryfolk, not anything on Otaria.

A deathwurm bounded straight toward Kamahl and Jeska, its mucousy muzzle homing on their scent.

"Go, Brother," Jeska said faintly. "They cannot kill me."

Clenching his jaw, Kamahl stood, a bulwark of flesh between his sister and the monster that thundered down on them. "They will not."

Jeska shook her head fiercely. "They cannot. They did not kill me from the inside, and they cannot kill me from the outside."

Kamahl turned away and said to himself, "Delirious." He faced down the wurm.

It was lunacy. The thing's head was the size of a house, and its body was a league long. Kamahl did not even have a weapon. Still, rage and desperation had been Kamahl's greatest weapons in the past. He smiled. Of all the deaths that he and his sister could suffer, at least this one could be punched in the face.

The wurm pounded the ground, almost flinging Kamahl off his feet. One more leap and it would be upon them.

Kamahl clenched his hand into a fist, and he reared it back. "Good-bye, Sister."

He swung. His fist crashed into the black nose of the beast, but it in turn smashed into him, hurling him back. Kamahl flew over Jeska. The wurm plunged atop her, its mouth agape.

Tumbling, Kamahl realized he had done it again-had survived the death that would take her. He hit the ground just as the wurm did and rolled miserably, knowing his sister was gone. Kamahl spread his arms, heels digging in, and flopped to a stop on his back. He flipped over, a shout of grief erupting from him.

Jeska yet lay there, trembling. The wurm was nowhere to be seen.

Staggering to his feet, Kamahl scrambled toward her. "What happened? What did you do?"

Jeska smiled wanly up at him. She seemed somehow stronger, her skin less pale. "I told you it could not kill me."

Falling to his knees at her side, Kamahl saw the dark glint in her eyes, the gray tinge to her flesh. "It is within you, isn't it? You absorbed it back into yourself."

"I once held thousands. There is room enough in me for all of them."

"What are you talking about?" Kamahl blurted.

"I have made these deathwurms. I made them by killing-"

"You didn't kill. It was Phage."

"I am Phage. She is the dark side of me."

The ground thundered with impacts coming straight toward them.

Clenching his fists, Kamahl rose to meet the new menace.

It wasn't a menace at all, though. Eight hooves pounded the ground-a giant centaur galloping beside a giant mule and its rider.

"Stonebrow!" Kamahl gasped in relief. "And… and "Zagorka," Jeska said softly.

The centaur and mule galloped up and skidded to a halt. Dust rose in clouds around them and continued on over the desert sands.

Stonebrow extended his hand to Kamahl. "We must flee! It is death to remain."

"Yes!" Kamahl said. "Carry me away, and Zaborra can take Jeska."

"Zagorka," the old woman corrected.

"She cannot take me," Jeska said. "I'm staying."

Kamahl's mouth hung open. "There isn't time for this!"

"If I flee," Jeska said, breathing slowly, "we all will die. There is one way for Otaria to survive this day… There is only one way for me to survive."

Kamahl shook his head. "You can't do it, Jeska. You can't take them back into you."

"They didn't kill me before. I can bear it again."

"That's not you speaking," Kamahl said. He gripped her arm and felt the first tingle of hostility beneath her skin. "That's Phage. She doesn't want you to live, Jeska. She wants herself to live again."

Her eyes met his, and for a moment the darkness retreated. She was Jeska again. "There is only one way, Kamahl."

His brow beetled. "But all of this-I did this to save you."

Jeska shook her head and stroked his jaw. "No. You did this to save yourself."

He could only stare in amazement at her.

"You have saved yourself. You killed the man you once were and saved the woman I once was. Your journey is done, but mine only begins. These deathwurms arise from the murders I have committed, starting with Seton-"

"Seton!"

"Braids killed him, but I took his life force into me. I took his life! That's where all the blackness began. You cannot destroy these wurms. Only I can. You cannot save me. I must save myself, and to do so, I must take these things back into me."

"No, Jeska."

"I will find my way out again," Jeska said, "or die trying. Better that than to die without trying."

Stonebrow's eyes glinted with fear. "We must go now!"

"Last chance," Zagorka said, reining in her champing mule.

Kamahl drew a deep breath. He looked about. Wurms vaulted everywhere.

"Go, Kamahl," Jeska said. "I will stay. It's the only way to save Otaria."

Kamahl's nostrils flared. "Stonebrow," he said, his voice a low growl. "Get out of here. That's an order."

Nodding his noble head, Stonebrow said, "As you wish."

"I could use an order here, myself," Zagorka broke in.

"Go," Jeska said simply.

It was all the old woman needed. She dug her heels into Chester, and they dashed away. Stonebrow galloped beside her. In moments, they were lost behind twin clouds of dust and sand.

"What are we going to do, then," Kamahl wondered incredulously, "lie here and wait for a thousand beasts to attack, and then absorb them one by one?" He stared out across the desert, where hundreds of wurms already charged. "It will be too late."