The Ruby Knight

unexsspectedly. Thisss may be thy lassst day of life.’
    ‘Or thine, Azash,’ she replied with calm courage.
    ‘Thou canssst not dessstroy me.’ The laugh was hideous.
    ‘Bhelliom can,’ she told the thing, ‘and we will deny Bhelliom unto thee and turn it to our own ends. Flee, Azash, if thou wouldst cling to thy life. Pull the rocks of this world over thine head and cower in fear before the wrath of the Younger Gods.’
    ‘Isn’t she pushing this a little?’ Talen said in a strangled voice.
    ‘They’re up to something,’ Sparhawk murmured, ‘- Sephrenia and Flute. They’re deliberately goading that thing into doing something rash.’
    ‘Not while I have breath!’ Bevier declared fervently, couching his lance.
    ‘Hold your ground, Bevier!’ Kurik barked. ‘They know what they’re doing! God knows, none of the rest of us do.’
    ‘And art thou ssstill continuing thine unwholesssome dalliencsse with these Elene children, Sssephrenia?’ the voice of Azash said. ‘If thine appetite isss ssso vassst, come thou unto me, and I ssshall give thee sssurfeit.’
    ‘That is no longer within thy power, Azash, or hast thou forgotten thy unmanning? Thou art an abomination in the sight of all the Gods, and that is why they cast thee out, emasculated thee and confined thee in thy place of eternal torment and regret.’
    The thing on the exhausted horse hissed in fury, and Sephrenia nodded calmly to Flute. The little girl lifted her pipes to her lips and began to play. Her melody was rapid, a series of skittering, discordant notes, and the Seeker seemed to shrink back. ‘It ssshall avail thee not, Sssephrenia,’ Azash declared in a shrill voice. ‘There isss yet time.’
    ‘Thinkest thou so, mighty Azash?’ she said in a taunting voice. ‘Then thy endless centuries of confinement have bereft thee of thy wits as well as thy manhood.’
    The Seeker’s shriek was one of sheer rage.
    ‘Impotent godling,’ Sephrenia continued her goading, ‘return to foul Zemoch and gnaw upon thy soul in vain regret for the delights now eternally denied thee.’
    Azash howled, and Flute’s song grew even faster.
    Something was happening to the Seeker. Its body seemed to be writhing under its black robe, and terrible, inarticulate noises came out from under its hood. With an awful jerking motion it clambered down from its dying horse. It half staggered forward, its scorpion claws extended.
    Instinctively, the Church Knights moved to protect Sephrenia and the little girl.
    ‘Stay back!’ Sephrenia snapped. ‘It cannot stop what is happening now.’
    The Seeker fell squirming to the road, tearing off the black robe. Sparhawk suppressed a powerful urge to retch. The Seeker had an elongated body divided in the middle by a waist like that of a wasp, and it glistened with a pus-like greyish slime. Its spindly limbs were jointed in many places, and it did not have what one could really call a face, but only two bulging eyes and a gaping maw surrounded by a series of sharp-pointed, fang-like appendages.
    Azash shrieked something at Flute. Sparhawk recognized the inflections as Styric, but – and he was forever grateful for the fact – he recognized none of the words.
    And then the Seeker began to split apart with an awful ripping sound. There was something inside it, something that squirmed and wriggled, trying to break free. The rip in the Seeker’s body grew wider, and that which was inside began to emerge. It was shiny black and wet. Translucent wings hung from its shoulders. It had two huge protruding eyes, delicate antennae and no mouth. It shuddered and struggled, pulling itself free of the now-shrunken husk of the Seeker. Then, finally fully emerging, it crouched in the dirt of the road, rapidly fanning its insect wings to dry them. When the wings were dry and flushed with something that might even have been blood, they began to whir, moving so rapidly now that they seemed to blur, and the creature that had been so hideously born before their eyes rose into the air and flew off towards the east.
    ‘Stop it!’ Bevier shouted. ‘Don’t let it get away!’
    ‘It’s harmless now,’ Flute told him calmly, lowering her pipes.
    ‘What did you do?’ he asked in awe.
    ‘The spell simply speeded up its maturing,’ she replied. ‘My sister was right when she taught me that spell. It’s an adult now, and all of its instincts are bent on breeding. Not even Azash can override its desperate search for a