She seemed unhurt as she advanced on him. There was blood
on her clothing, but not much. There was no expression to be
seen behind the mask, nothing in her eyes or on her mouth, just
an emptiness that was as chilling as ice. Morgan edged away
from her, searching the cavern floor for any kind of weapon at
all. He caught sight of the iron bar and desperately snatched it
up.
Teel seemed unworried. There was a shimmer of movement
all about her body, a darkness that seemed to lift slightly
and settle back again-as if the thing that lived within her was
readying itself.
Morgan backed away, maneuvering toward the crevice. Could
he somehow manage to lure this thing close enough to the drop
to shove it over? Would that kill it? He didn’t know. He knew
only that he was the only one left to stop it, to prevent it from
betraying the entire Jut, all those men, to the Federation. If he
failed, they would die.
But I’m not strong enough-not without the magic!
He was only a few feet from the crevice edge. Teel closed the
gap that separated them, moving swiftly. He swung at her with
the iron bar, but she caught the bar in her hand, broke his grip
on it, and flung it away.
Then she was on him, her hands at his throat, choking off his
air, strangling him. He couldn’t breathe. He fought to break
free, but she was far too strong. His eyes squeezed shut against
the pain, and there was a coppery taste in his mouth.
A huge weight dropped across him.
“Teel, don’t!” he heard someone cry-a disembodied voice
choked with pain and fatigue.
Steff!
The hands loosened marginally, and his eyes cleared enough
so that he could see Steff atop Teel, arms locked about her,
hauling back. There was blood streaking his face. A gaping
wound had been opened at the top of his head.
Morgan’s right hand groped at his belt and found the handle
of the Sword of Leah.
Teel ripped free of Steff, turned and pulled him about. There
was a fury in her eyes, in the way the cords of her throat went
taut, that even the mask could not conceal. Yanking Steff’s dag-
ger from its sheath, she buried it deep in his chest. Steff toppled
backward, gasping.
Teel turned back then to finish Morgan, half-raised over him,
and he thrust the broken blade of his sword into her stomach.
Back she reared, screaming so that Morgan arched away from
her in spite of himself. But he kept his hands fastened on the
handle of the sword. Then something strange began to happen.
The Sword of Leah grew warm and flared with light. He could
feel it stir and come to life.
The magic! Oh, Shades-it was the magic!
Power surged through the blade, linking them together, flow-
ing into Teel. Crimson fire exploded through her. Her hands
tore at the blade, at her body, at her face, and the mask came
free. Morgan Leah would never forget what lay beneath, a coun-
tenance bom of the blackest pits of the netherworld, ravaged
and twisted and alive with demons that he had only imagined
might exist. Tsel seemed to disappear entirely, and there was
only the Shadowen behind the face, a thing of blackness and no
substance, an emptiness that blocked and swallowed the light.
Invisible hands fought to thrust Morgan away, to strip him of
his weapon and of his soul.
“Leah! Leah!” He sounded the battle cry of his ancestors,
of the Kings and Princes of his land for a thousand years, and
that single word became the talisman to which he clung.
The Shadowen’s scream became a shriek. Then it collapsed,
the darkness that sustained it crumbling and fading away. Teel
returned, a frail, limp bundle, empty of life and being. She fell
forward atop him, dead.
It took several minutes for Morgan to find the strength to push
Teel away. He lay there in the wetness of his own sweat and
blood, listening to the sudden silence, exhausted, pinned to the
cavern floor by the dead girl’s weight. His only thought was that