Dagger

The demon halted in midair, its left foot above the concrete and its right leg, spindly and terrible as that of a giant spider, lifting to deliver a kick that would disembowel Samlor. Dust settled and the urchin of light rolled jerkily forward, one spine at a time. The demon hung frozen like an idol of ravening destruction.

Its eyes were as bright as tu

Samlor started another cut at the demon. Light reflecting from the triple scratch on his blade reminded him how useless that would be, so he turned instead to Khamwas.

Who had not moved since last Samlor had leisure to glance at him.

Khamwas hunched slightly forward, his left forearm crossing the top of his staff and his eyes fixed on the demon ~with a reptile's intensity. Tjainufi still perched on his shoulder.

The Napatan's lips had been moving soundlessly, but now he said in a cracked whisper, "Go on. . quickly."

The demon was not quite frozen. The movements the creature began before Khamwas' spell took effect were still going on. The leg that stretched toward Samlor at a glacial pace quickened noticeably when the Napatan spoke, and the demon's mouth gaped slowly to display interlocked arrays of teeth like needles in the upper and lower jaws.

"But how can you," the caravan master began as he slipped a step back, beyond the present arc of the claws. The demon bent at its girl-slim waist as it leaped, because otherwise its flat skull would have banged the ten-foot ceiling.

"Samlor," said the Napatan scholar, "get out I brought you here!"

The demon had trembled back to near stasis for a moment. Now it lurched far enough forward in its unsup-

ported motion that it was clear one hand was reaching for Khamwas' head even as the kick extended toward the Cirdonian.

"There is none who abandons his travelling companion whom the gods do not call to account for it," said Tjainufi.

"Fuck your gods," said Samior, who was already sliding the knife back under his belt to free his hands. He encircled the Napatan's waist, underneath the cape for a firmer grip, with his left arm.

"No" said Khamwas desperately.

"Do your job. ' Samlor snarled back as he lifted the smaller man. The air swirled with the demon's renewed movement, but the claws now behind the caravan master did not rend him as he stepped with regal determination to the ladder.

Focusing on the creature from the stone was for Khamwas. Samlor hil Samt had the responsibility of getting them both back up the ladder while his companion did that job, eyes, arm and staff locked into their duty.

Khamwas' body was muscular, but weight wasn't the problem. Carrying him upright while Samlor's right hand needed to grip the ladder for balance was brutal punishment, and it reminded him of how badly he had strained himself getting into this damned house.

One foot above the other, each step a deliberate one because a jolt at the wrong time might break Khamwas' concentration irrevocably. No way to tell what was happening behind him, and nothing to do about it if things weren't well. One foot and then the other.

A gust of wind shocked Samlor as his head lifted above the floor of the reception hall. Fabric, a curtain or a counterpane, had been snatched from a room on the upper floor and was flapping from the railing.

Star was calm as molten glass as she watched her uncle struggle up the ladder with the other man clamped to his side. At his first wild glance, Samlor thought the whorl of white on the child's temple was one of the creatures of light which pulsed through the reception hall. It was so bright. .

He couldn't bend over to balance with his palm on the floor as he neared the top of the ladder, so the caravan master mounted the last three rungs at a quickened pace. Toppling backwards would mean the floor killed them if the demon didn't, but if Samlor sprawled on his face the result would be no better. He'd seen the creature start to move; it would be on them in an instant if Khamwas were flung out of his concentration.

Samlor stepped from the top rung to the marble floor, sucking in his lips as he strove to move as smoothly as a duck gliding on water. He set the Napatan down, conscious of the man's weight only after he was free of it, and with same motion strode for the wall and the latch mechanism.

Khamwas' voice was audible again, breaking with strain as he chanted over and over again a dozen or so words. Sweat from the Napatan's face had splashed Samlor's left forearm as he climbed.

The caravan master's boot skidded when he tried to slide back the piece of marble which was half withdrawn beneath the molding. Instead of trying again with his hobnails, Samlor knelt and scrabbled at the black stone with both sweaty palms. It moved into position with the same greasy certainty with which it had opened.

The pond of mirror-smooth water slipped down to cover the demon soundlessly.

Samlor skidded as he ran from the sidewall to the front door. Hobnails weren't the footgear for these polished stones. . and this house wasn't a place for humans. Not now, and probably not before Setios' pet got loose.

There was no inside door latch.

"You didn't let them out, Master Khamwas," said Star, patting the hand of the scholar who had knelt and was sobbing with exhaustion. "They're playing with us."

"Come on," Samlor shouted. There was certainly a way to open the i

"There's six of them, Uncle Samlor," said Star. "They're playing with us."

Something emerged from the pilaster beside the stairs to the second floor. It was a clawed hand like that of the demon below. Instead of streaming like smoke from the stone, it broke free as a chick emerges from an egg. Rock shattered away from the groping limb, and a section of the wall started to lift.

Khamwas rose to his feet. His face was blank and his body swayed with fatigue. He crossed his arm over the staff again and began a whispered chant.

The wall from which the demon crashed, already formed, was load-bearing. Tortured roofbeams squealed as plaster in chunks of up to a hundred pounds broke away. A big piece hit the center of the pond and blasted water out across the reception hall.

Samlor caught his niece with one arm and Khamwas with the other. He flung them, all three together, to the floor against the nearer sidewall. A block of stone, notched for the butt of a crossbeam, tumbled from the roof to the rail of the second-floor walkway. It caromed to the floor in a shower of dust and chips.

"We'll get out through the back!" said the caravan master who doubted that they would. The wall beside where they hunched under cover of the walkway was crumbling as gray claws harder than the stone emerged from it.

Across the reception room, the other sidewall was disintegrating into bits and blocks. They hid but did not disguise the cause of the destruction. One of the demons was clasping a dismembered human leg. Samlor figured he knew where Setios and his servants had gone.

Six of 'em, Star'd said. Likely five more than they'd need, but you didn't quit just because you couldn't win. .

The three humans rose and scuttled for the room's back wall and the door there. They were bent over because the walkway's partial roof was no protection against blocks bouncing from the floor at crazy angles.

The front half of the house staggered forward into the street with a roar that was not loud until Samlor realized that he could not shout with enough volume to be heard by the two companions he had dragged with him into the temporary safety of the door alcove.

Skeletal, inhumanly tall figures minced toward the trio, shrugging off the tons of rubble that had thundered down on them. There were four, and the mound of stone and timber covering what had been the floor of the reception room heaved as the creature in the room beneath rejoined its fellows.