After I have recovered from the second of my tasks—it will take a few days—there lacks only the final summoning and sacrifice to set all in motion. Then he will rise again and serve me; the Demonlord, who sold his name and his soul for ultimate power, will be my servant, bound to come and go at my will!

It is good. He will accomplish for me the death of the Kantri. Ah, somehow I must arrange to see at least one of them die.

What would be the point, otherwise?

My robes await me in the anteroom to my hidden chamber. I have drawn my blood into a sealed vessel and healed the wound. I have the scrap of cloth from Kaibar, and the last of my Ian fruit in my scrip. Its worth is a thousand times the value of the dead and dried leaves, this living piece of the island of my foes. It is precisely the sacrifice I require.

Oh—and I must find a student along the way. Or a Magis-ter. I need a heart from a living body to sacrifice to the Lord of Hell for the control spell—but there are so many hearts walking around that it's not really worth planning in advance. I shall simply take what I can find.

Now for it.

A plain lantern to light my way this night, Durstan at my side. I passed no one on the way to my summoning chambers. I may have to go to All Comers and see who is available, but I have a minor task to accomplish before I require whoever it may be.

Once inside I renewed the spell that renders this room un-noticeable, for though I was still in need of a heart there was too much at stake to risk interruption.

While speaking die appropriate prayers and binding spells, I lit the seven candles placed on the boundary ring, each at the point sacred to one of the seven Lords, and with a word I charged the fire under die main brazier on the altar. In moments the coals began to glow red. I lit the incense from the candles and breathed deep. The familiar scent was like coming home.

Durstan, robed now and prepared to assist, helped me on with my robes and handed me my knife. I called my power about me and began the familiar words of the invocation, pierced my fingertip and offered seven drops of blood. They hissed on the coals. I had spoken the invocation so often I felt that I hardly needed to concentrate, but I knew that feeling so well I laughed at it. Ever the Rakshasa attempted to trap the unwary. I concentrated as usual, avoiding the stutter in the fourth Une that would have changed the meaning and left me open to instant attack.

In any case, this was a slightly different summoning. I had planted a demon in Maikel while he slept, drugged, at my mercy. It bore in its claws two ends of a demon Une, one out and one back, the other ends of which were in these very chambers. The spell on Maikel was subtle and had cost me dear, in time and blood and lansip, but it was worth it. Once I set the spell in motion Maikel, out wandering the world even now, would follow whoever I told the demon to follow, thinking that he had his own reasons for doing so, and when the prey had come to rest he would stop and build an altar. The instant it was built the demon would burst forth, plant the demon lines in the earth and disappear. I could then travel to wherever it was, take my prisoner and travel back in the bUnk of an eye. Maikel wiU most probably live long enough to watch me appear. I will enjoy that.

Above the altar, in the red air, a shadowy impression of the demon within Maikel took shape. "Sso, prey, you dare ssummon your death! Despair as you die, for I am—"

"I am MaUor, Master of the Sixth Hell. You have taken my blood, little Rikti. Serve me or die," I said, tightening the binding charm.

"Ssspeak, masster," it spat, tearing at the charm like a rope around its neck.

"I have your quarry," I said. 'Taste the blood on this cloth. Send your host to seek her and build an altar where she stops, but it must not be before three days' time."

I was proud of that detail. I had calculated that the summoning that would follow this minor one would leave me drained for two days, giving me one day to prepare for La-nen's arrival. The instant she was safely in my hands I would complete the summoning of the Demonlord, but it would be folly to attempt it until I had her safe. I knew she had Farspeech—Marik had warned me—so she would have to be silenced as swiftly as possible once I had her.

The creature objected and threatened, of course, but it had no choice. "Ass you command, masster," it hissed finally.

"When the altar is built, plant both of the Swiftlines you carry. When that is accomplished you will return to me and inform me that all is done. You will then be free to go."

"Ssoon, ssoon, masster," it begged.

"Three full days from this moment at the earliest. You submit?"

It cursed and hissed and struggled to escape, but I could hold such a creature captive in my sleep. "I ssubmit. Three daysss at the earliest, and when the prey iss at resst."

"Yes. Go now. You will return and tell me when all is done."

"Yesss," it hissed as its form dispersed into nothingness.

I threw lansip on to the altar to sweeten the air. The simpler of the two done, but I had known it would be easy. The smoke from the lansip leaves was pleasant enough.

Now for the second of my tasks. I renewed the incense and began to prepare myself for the ordeal ahead, but the truth was that I knew most of what I needed already.

There was a certain simplicity to it, overall. I had pondered long on the problem: How should anyone be burnt to powder by the Kantri and laugh all the while? Either he was completely insane—and I refuse to believe that one who could destroy True Dragons at will was mad—or he must have found a way to do in life what has only ever been heard of in legend. It was that thought that had led me to realise that the Demonlord had performed the spell of the Distant Heart.

There are many children's tales of such thing, the mythical wizard who removes his heart and hides it away, making himself invulnerable. The heart is always removed to a great distance, hidden and guarded: in the stories it is some variation on the theme of "inside an egg inside a duck inside a box hidden in the trunk of a hollow tree," guarded by fabulous beasts or simply by obscurity.

But I know where it is. Fabulous beasts and all.

For thousands of years the true death of the Demonlord was within the grasp of those who hated him most, and they never knew it.

The heart of the Demonlord was hidden on a green island in the west, inside a series of caves too small to admit any of the creatures who lived there. The final stroke of irony is that, vulnerable and without a body to use, his heart continued the destruction of the beasts he so longed to destroy. In their exile they thought they were so safe, so wise and strong, and all the while his heart beat in the mountains and poisoned the air, the water, the very land they lived upon. They are fewer now than they have ever been, barely enough to breed.

I must be sure to tell them before they die.