aware of the manner of death visited on Zenith and StarDrifter.
But this entity was not Zenith. This was the Demon Rox, writhing in Niah’s womb, awaiting birth, and
the combination of Niah’s soulless body and Rox’s demonic spirit (and infant flesh) was loathsome to
behold.
Roxiah’s face was a frightful combination of outward blankness with corruption that writhed
only just beneath the skin. It was twisted, bland, malevolent, torpid. It combined soullessness with the
depravity of evil. It combined vacancy with a sinister and perverted tenancy that waited to explode forth
in fiery and death-dealing birth.
“A joust!” Roxiah crowed, “between you and me! The battle of the bellies, I think! What is the
challenge, milksop? What ‘choice’,” and Roxiah made that word a foulness, “do you have for me?”
Leagh straightened, despite the pain and discomfort that gripped her. “The choice is obvious,” she
said. “Only one child can be born. Yours, or mine. Bleakness or hope. Your choice. Yours. Which child
is to be born, Roxiah? Which?”
“Mine! Mine! Mine!” Roxiah shouted, jumping up and down in a display of ungainly joy. “Mine!”
Niah’s Demon-controlled body dropped to the floor, writhing and contorting as if gripped in the final
pangs of birth. It lifted and spread its legs, as if determined to force out the infant Rox here and now.
“Mine!” Roxiah crowed yet once more.
Far above, Qeteb turned to DragonStar and grinned. “A stupid choice to give Roxiah,” he said, grinning
his joy. “How could Leagh have possibly thought that —”
“The choice must still be born,” DragonStar said calmly, although inside his emotions roiled. Leagh
had lost, it seemed.
Hello Niah, said Leagh’s baby, and Leagh’s face dropped in shock at the strength of her
child’s mind voice as it sped from the womb.
“Niah doesn’t live here any more,” Roxiah chortled. “Someone else does. Me, me, me!”
Roxiah rolled about and finally managed to get to its feet. It spied the table with its birthing
implements spread about, and it seized a large hook, raising it threateningly as it advanced on Leagh.
“Time to go, my dear.”
Niah? said Leagh’s baby. Niah? Come home, Niah. Come home.
The wasteland was far distant, a place with no paths leading to any bridge of escape, a place
devoid of hope.
She stood, her head hanging, her eyes closed to the soullessness surrounding her, knowing she
was beyond redemption.
When she had been in the joy and hope of her youth, this was not where she had thought to
have ended.
Why, when all she had done was love? Why, when all she had done was fight for the right to
love?
Niah, Niah, come home!
Leagh did not move, nor attempt to protect herself. “Your choice, Rox,” she said. “Which baby is to be
born? Whose?”
Niah come home…
Roxiah laughed until spittle flew about the chamber in a mad rain of glee. “Time to go, Leagh!”
It threw the hook, and Leagh had to twist violently to avoid it. She staggered, and then fell.
Niah come home…
Come home? Come home? Where was home?
She remembered the place where she had been raised into womanhood: the peaceful
enchantment of the Island of Mist and Memory, the companionship of her fellow priestesses, the
comforting roar of the waves a thousand feet below her feet.
Was this home?
Roxiah scuttled over the distance between them, another hook in its hands. “Time to leave, depart, and
farewell the scene, Leagh,” it said, and, placing one foot on Leagh’s chest, raised the hook to drive it
home.
Niah come home…
No, that place had not been home, for she had left it.
There had been another home, the house of Hagen in the horror of Smyrton.
There she had birthed her child, her beautiful daughter, Azhure.
And there she had died, burned alive as Hagen poked her further and further into the
fire …
… further and further into the fire …
… further and further …
“No!” she screamed. “No! I won’t come home! I won’t! ”
That is not your home, Niah. Come home. Now, please, you are needed NO W! Come home, Niah,
come home.
“I make the choice!” Roxiah screamed. “My baby, not yours!” Leagh raised her arms, crying out, and
trying to twist away,
her belly left vulnerable as her arms tightened about her face.
Roxiah chortled with joy, twitching and twittering in its
demonic labour pangs.
It had won. Rox would be reborn.
Niah, please, please, come home now.
She lifted her head, staring at the vision that had suddenly appeared in the wasteland
before her.
A Woman, standing under the most wondrous Tree that Niah had ever seen.
The Woman was beautiful beyond measure, and so powerful the surrounding wasteland
cringed in fear.
The Woman smiled, and tears sprang to Niah’s eyes.
“Where is home?” Niah whispered. “Where? Must I fear it?”
“Home,” said the Woman, “is where you are needed, and where you belong. ”
“Where?” Niah said, her voice a whisper. “Where?”
Again the Woman smiled. “Where you are needed,” She repeated, holding out Her hand.
“And where you will be loved. Come home, Niah. ”
“I can never be loved,” Niah said, now on her knees and shaking with shame. “Not after
what I have done. ”
“Done? All you have done is to love, and to be deceived in that love. ”
“Zenith …” Niah’s voice was now barely audible; her gaze was now firmly fixed in the dust
she knelt in.
“Zenith adores you, ” the Woman said. “Trust me. ”
Zenith adores me? Niah wondered, hardly daring to believe it. She cannot, not after what I
have done …
She looked up as a shadow fell across her.
The Woman, still reaching out Her hand. “Come home, Niah. Come home. There is only one
small task to be done along the way.”
“One small task?”
“One small task for utter redemption, and an eternity of love. Come home, Niah.”
And as Niah reached out to take the Woman’s hand, the fragrance of the Tree enveloped her.
Roxiah howled, a combination of triumph and the agony of its labouring womb.
Within the womb Rox wriggled in glee, punching and kicking, determined to be born
immediately so he could savour his victory by feeding on both Niah’s body and those of this
stupid witch and her pathetic infant.
He would eat it out of its mother’s womb! He would!
With all the strength that Niah’s body contained, and the impatient desire of the demonic infant it
carried, Roxiah lifted the hook, screeched, and in one vicious, lightning-fast move, drove the hook …
… into her own belly.
“Oh,” Roxiah said, with the most surprised of expressions.
Inside its body Rox gave a single convulsion, trying to wrest himself off the steel hook that had
curved its way through his belly, out his back, and then back through his chest to emerge just under his
chin. Then he shivered, choking in the bloodied fluids of Niah’s womb, and died.
Leagh still lay on the floor, staring, stunned.
As the infant within struggled and died, Roxiah’s expression altered, and something else entered the
horrid face.
Something sweet, and infinitely regretful. Something beautiful, and serene.
Something very definitely “else”.
Hello, Niah, said Leagh’s baby.
Leagh struggled into a sitting position as the grotesque form swayed above her. Blood was
pouring out from the horrible wound in the body’s belly, and even as Leagh sat up, Niah took the
hook, and twisted it yet further and deeper in.
“Rox is dead,” Niah said. “His flesh is tattered and torn.”
“Oh, gods …” Leagh whispered, managing to rise to her feet. “Niah? Niah?”
“None else,” Niah said, trying to smile reassuringly about the agony that coursed through her body.
“Come … ah, the pain! … come to repair some of the damage I have caused. Come … come to find
some redemption.”
Leagh grabbed the woman’s shoulders, wondering desperately what she could do.
Niah’s head dropped, and her entire body shuddered, but somehow she remained upright.
“Where?” Niah whispered. “Where is She?”
“Who?” Leagh said.
“The Woman. The Woman under the Tree. Where … ah!” Niah’s eyes dropped to Leagh’s belly.
“There. There.”
Leagh tried to find something to say, but could not. She shook her head slightly, uselessly. Why this
tragedy just so her child could be born?
Niah lifted one bloodied hand away from the hook buried in her belly, and touched Leagh’s face
gently. “There is no tragedy,” she said. “For there is only great joy in these events. Lady, will you do
something for me? Tell Zenith I am sorry for what I tried to do to her. I was wrong.”
Leagh bowed her head. She could not tell Niah that Zenith was dead.
“And tell WolfStar, renegade, that I did the best for him that I could.”
Leagh silently shook her head, tears sliding down her cheek. Niah had come home too late — far,