The knight sat erect, slender, the form of a woman, he thought. The armor was some strange steel he’d never seen before, and its surface rippled in his vision. She held a lance, which changed into a greatsword in her hands. She dispatched demon beings in effortless, sweeping blows. The stallion reared to crush others under its front hooves. With one hand she seemed to beckon, command, the rest of the entities as they trailed reluctantly behind, as if caught in some invisible net.

Westrion’s avatar, Zachary thought. She had come, and she was saving them. Then he remembered that it was what Grandmother wanted. Grandmother intended to trap the avatar. He must warn her.

His movements, however, were sluggish as if he were mired in deep mud. He was barely able to take a single step forward. He tried to shout his warning, but she had vanished. He had blinked and she was just gone. Battle surged and he was once more aware of all those around him. They were still hacking and stabbing at demon creatures, but there were fewer now and they appeared to be drawing away.

The avatar saw that one of the living stood out from all the others. A bright flame, was he, like stellar fire. He stared back at her, and some distant memory that came from the part of her that was human sparked recognition. The flame of him warmed her. And he could see her? Not many could.

She changed her lance into a greatsword and continued on her mission to end the invasion of the dark ones, the image of the stellar fire lingering pleasantly in her mind.

• • •

She rode the stallion toward the entrance of the passage that led to the chamber of the Aeon Iire. An old woman concealed herself nearby, behind a rock, shielded by etherea to protect herself from the dark ones. It was plain she could not see the avatar. She was the one who had broken the iire, the avatar knew, but the star steel sword was not for touching the living, and so she rode on.

The dark ones tried to disgorge themselves from the passage into the open, but the avatar raised her shield and pushed them back. Claws scrabbled at her armor. The ones she had dragged along with her continued to resist, but they could not escape.

“You will return to the deep,” she commanded, and her sword’s blade easily cut through a clump of them. Their bodies leaked black rot and steamed in the snow.

Some retreated, others attacked. She cleaved into them, the stallion trampling those before him, and slowly they forced their way into the torchlit passage. Healing the iire and stemming the tide of the dark was the only way to halt their invasion.

More claws scraped at her. Some dripped with an acidic venom on her. Her armor shielded her, but she felt the protections of it straining. As they made their way, she left mounds of their corpses behind her.

At last they reached the chamber and she dismounted, for the chamber held some barrier to the stallion. She could not feel it, she did not know what it was, but he knew and would go no farther. Within, a group of the living stood chained together. Many others were dead. She swept away the dark ones that threatened those still alive and feasted on the corpses. She ignored the screams and sobs of the living and went to the iire. It had been cracked and twisted and torn. Great magic had been used in its mutilation.

Dark ones swarmed at the breach trying to gain freedom, but she pushed them back, commanded those she had pulled in with her to return to the hell they had crawled out of. She slew those who disobeyed; then she touched the tip of the sword to the iire.

“Steel of the stars, the fire of Belasser, heal. Be whole.”

The torn edges of the iire uncurled with fluid ease. Burred edges joined one another, melded together until the iire was once more whole and uncorrupted, and gleamed with renewed strength. She brought the protections back to life until they flowed across the steel with vigor. The dark ones howled and shrieked in frustration from their prison.

The avatar had cleansed the living realm of the dark ones, and the iire would not be easily broken again. She turned at the stallion’s sharp whinny of warning. Had she missed something?

Living, burning, constricting tendrils of magic woven into a net fell from above and trapped her.

AUREAS SLEE

Slee had watched the dread denizens of the hells issuing out of the maw of a hill, and streaming among the mortals in their battle. It marked the Zachary’s presence, and Slee found itself impressed by his prowess against human enemies and dark ones alike. Slee would get back to the Zachary later, providing he survived the onslaught, for Slee scented magic that carried a familiar tang that it could not ignore.

The avatar, it found, had entered the passage from which the dark ones had emanated, leaving a trail of carnage behind her. A mortal who had hidden herself near the entrance appeared and took mincing steps down the passage. Slee knew her, knew her scent of magic. This was the necromancer that had forced Slee from its domain, had roused it from its slumber. This wielder of magic had brought great woe upon Slee. Slee would make this person suffer for its many wounds and all it had lost—its cave palace, its collections, its pets.

Slee drifted quickly down the passage in pursuit of the necromancer, the necromancer who had summoned it and forced it to serve, the source of its great misery.

DARK ANGEL

The avatar had not been visible to Grandmother, but when the outpouring of the dark ones stopped, and in fact reversed, she knew it could only be the avatar’s work. She’d remained safe within her magical shielding, or perhaps the bloodshed of battle had proven more alluring to the ravening dead than one boney old woman. In any case, she’d been left alone, and now she abandoned her hiding place and entered the passageway.