Son of Crows spoke, but Willow heard nothing.

She gulped. "Willow Danielle Rosenberg," she said, but her words fell silently into the void.

Your sacrifice is the merest token of what is right for you to lose. Be grateful we demand no more of you be lost now. We have need of all that you know and are. End our suffering and yours will not be prolonged.

Some sales pitch. Willow was not impressed. No wonder the Neverborn needed Deathlords as recruiters. They might have made the universe, but they didn't understand people at all.

Motion on her left and right caught her eye and her hands shot out to catch Tara and DoppelBuffy as they unconsciously shuffled forward. Her skull thundered.

"I need them!" she shrieked into the void. "I work best with my...assistants," she finished lamely, doubting the Neverborn understood friendship. The pair continued shuffling forward. "Tara's one of the most powerful mortal witches in the world. Buffy...Buffy spends her nights killing. They can be useful to the cause."

The siren song of the void released her friends inches from the infinite drop. The furious rumbling inside her head subsided more gradually. Willow resisted the urge to say thank you. It would go unnoticed and unappreciated.

"That was well-spoken," Meticulous Owl said wryly. He turned and began to lead them away from the brink. "Better not to have brought them here-but remember at all times: to the extent the Lords of Nought are coherent, they value only pragmatism."

"But they're not always coherent," Willow said thoughtfully.

"Listen to the voices in your head," the Owl said. ""Sometimes you hear nothing but vile rhymes, or repetitive nonsense. Sometimes mad rants about this or that foe-real or imagined. For me, I think the most horrible is the begging for small pleasures: a cup of cold water, the scent of flowers, the sun on one's face. At least, so it translates in our human minds."

Willow managed not to squeak. She hadn't squeaked in a while; most of her emotions seemed dull and blurry since Exalting. She gave a small nod. "Pretty awful. I think I pity them a little."

"Indeed," the Owl said drily. "Pity. What a weapon for them. All they want is an end to their suffering, and all that would require would be the world's end. How dare we mortals enjoy living when the architects of the cosmos suffer so. An affront to justice...if, that is, one believes in justice." He glanced over at Buffy. "Not everyone does."

Willow frowned as she hurried upward. What was he implying? Meticulous Owl was such a thoroughly amoral jerkass she could've mistaken him for a vampire. He definitely didn't believe in justice.

Did that make him an ally?

Chapter 39: Cactusland

Buffy yawned, stretched, and rolled over. Last night had been a delightful romp, and after a few hours she'd actually let herself sleep. Sweet's eyes flicked open. Maybe he'd slept too.

"I think," he murmured, "you might actually be the first queen I let rule my domain."

"You'd better," Buffy said. "I'm not some empty-headed Disney princess looking for twoo wuv. I'm the first ever Green Sun Queen, and I kinda think tossing me off the balcony would be frowned on."

Sweet chuckled uncertainly. "Certainly I don't expect to contradict the will of the Yozis, who after all have put you in this lofty posi-" Buffy cut him off with a burst of laughter.

"You're joking, you're joking/
I can't believe my ears/
See, I'm the demon slayer/
That every monster fears."

Buffy climbed off the bed and slipped her feet into Sweet's tap shoes-which fit her perfectly, of course. His own magic dictated that.

"When Buffy Summers tells you/
she means to take your throne/
you better pay attention/
and hope you're not alone./
Ambition? I got it./
I know just what you're thinking/
Cause now I'm not the good guy/
I'll waste my life on drinking/
And sex and feasts and sex and song/
You're serious no doubt/
And so I have to tell you/
Just what this plot's about."

Sweet was wide awake now, sidling his way to the door. "Ligier will hear of this, you fool!" He yanked it open, only to be buried beneath a pile of green silk dresses. It was the closet, of course. That was how a number like this went. Buffy tapped closer.

"He's never gonna know/
Because I'm Buffy Summers/
And you're just on my show./
The fact is I'm the nightmare/
In every demon's dreams/
And yet you think you'll get away?/
I'm bursting at the seams!/
I'm laughing, I'm howling/
You really are the worst/
I'll slay you with my lethal puns/
Unless I stab you first."

Sweet backed away, stumbling over empty chalcanth bottles and random bits of clothing. "Release me now/
Or you must face the dire consequences/
The Yozis are your lords and mine/
So please, come to your senses!"

"The Yozis! The Yozis!/
You really do believe/
That they can tell me what to do/
When I can up and leave?/
I've done my bit, it suits me fine/
To have a pretty crown/
And jewelry, and groupies/
And my own special town/
But Sweetie, you're joking/
You've put me in a spin/
You just aren't comprehending/
The trouble you're all in/
The Yozis? I hate 'em/
I see that makes you writhe/
But Sweetheart, I'm the Slayer/
And you're not leavin' here...alive."

Sweet backed away, backed away, further and further, till at last she had him pinned against the wall, his mouth hanging open stupidly. Did he really, seriously think she hated demons any less because she'd given up all moral restraint? The things she wanted to do to him...

His feet skittered along in a silly little jig, but no words escaped from his slack jaw. She really had left him speechless! Buffy laughed in his face, and he spun away from her, still dancing, turning, searching frantically for the door. Smoke began to rise from his fancy suit. Faster, spinning, twirling a mad pirouette, and suddenly he was on fire, his mouth still open as he screamed without words.

Sweet was engulfed in green flames now. He wrung his hands as if pleading with her, soft-shoeing back in her direction. Laughing, she danced nimbly aside as he crumpled to the floor in front of her.

Buffy nudged the suit jacket. Ashes poured from it. Not really how she'd planned to kill him, but it would do.

It would.

How long had they been trudging through these tunnels? This place was dead. This place was death. Tara didn't think DoppelBuffy felt it at all, and the Abyssals, even Willow, felt at home with it. Son of Crows had departed from them. When, she could not have guessed.

Tara's energy was aligned with life; even Buffy's queasy Infernal energies were healthier than this. The weight of it dragged her down until she could no longer tell if minutes had passed, or days. She thought Willow had changed the environment for a while, but the gleaming sterile corridors had given way to thrumming intestinal walls, and that had to be someone else's doing.

The squirming flesh became solid rock walls. The ceiling vanished. Tara looked up to see jagged canyon walls, and ahead of them, the solid stone of fortress ramparts. The dead lined the walls, faces set in expressionless sameness, each with a dead black pike ready to lift. They could close their ranks and hold against almost any army this world could boast.

Meticulous Owl held up his left hand, and the great grey doors swung open without the whisper of a sound. A pair of spirits glided out, one whose form was wrenched as if he had been hanged, the other unmarred save for a face contorted into a perpetual scream. The former took the Owl's hand, the latter Willow's, leaving Tara and DoppelBuffy to hurry after. Tara clenched Willow's hand on the right and grabbed Buffy's with her left; no one was getting left behind in this place.

They passed beneath a series of vast stone arches. The first few still opened to the sky, revealing progressively higher jagged peaks, but finally a high ceiling closed over them, carved out of the dead grey rock. Afterwards, at last, stone arches began to appear, dividing up the great space into levels and then rooms. Directly ahead, they passed through ironwood doors bound in black metal that cried out wordlessly in her heart as they opened and closed, and entered a sort of audience hall with a bulky throne mounted on a dais at one end.

On the throne sat a figure in full plate armor, with an array of spikes on the helmet that made Tara think of the Witch-King of Angmar. Not such a bad comparison, really, for an ancient death-obsessed ghost who ruled a huge underworld fortress. Too bad she couldn't think of herself as Eowyn.

Perhaps the woman who attended him was both Eowyn and Gollum. Clad in a long black dress witha train that resembled tail feathers, she had a big round eyes in a babyface thst reminded Tara of her first crush. She gazed at the armored figure as if she'd like nothing better than to eviscerate him. Yes, there was definitely tension there Willow could use. How, though?

"Meticulous Owl," the armored figure-the First and Forsaken Lion-said in a hollowly booming voice. "What have you dragged in this time?"

"A Midnight Caste abandoned by the Walker in Darkness," Owl said in his usual sardonic tone. "And a pair of her living allies-a sorceress of considerable ability and an avatar of the Despot of Gem."

"I'm an avatar now?" Buffy wondered under her breath. Willow shushed her.

"Why should the Walker's castoffs interest me?" the Lion rumbled.

Owl glanced at Willow, who spoke up as if she didn't have a worry in the world. "My previous incarnation was the sorceress Salina," she tossed out offhandedly. "And I'm no slouch at magic myself."

"Have you any knowledge of necromancy?" the Black Heron said. Her voice was soft and melodious, with nothing to indicate the furious glares she kept shooting the Lion's way. Certainly no indication she'd once been as powerful as he.

"Not really," Willow admitted, "but I'm a-"

"Just as well," the Heron said. "Better not to have too much knowledge of necromancy floating about. What about First Age artifacts?"

"Sort of," Willow said. "I've got some experience with Shogunate-level technology, but nothing more advanced."

"She'll pick it up," the Lion growled. "Any experience as a priest or public speaker?"

"I, ah...my bat mitzvah was about eight years ago," Willow mumbled.

"Bah," the Lion said. "He was just flailing about with Salina again. Maybe we can make something useful from this one.

"With respect, my Lord," Meticulous Owl began, "may I speak to you in private?" He glanced significantly at the Princess.

The armored figure rose from his throne. "Come aside," he said, and the floor shook as he led Owl into a side room.

Willow's thoughts whispered in Tara's mind. He's trying to talk me down, get me sent out as a scout. The Lion doesn't think much of me. He just expects me to die.

The Black Heron arched an eyebrow as if she'd detected something, but she remained silent. Abruptly Willow's eyes narrowed. She's in on it already, Willow reported to Tara. [We could drown in the politics here. No wonder they haven't destroyed the world yet though.

You won't, Tara thought reassuringly. You can keep up with them even if I can't.

Thanks for the v- Willow flinched. She wants candidates. People we'd have to send to their deaths unless she decides she wants them.

DoppelBuffy made a face and said nothing, at least not that Tara could hear.

The door banged open and the massive armored figure stormed back through it, Meticulous Owl scuttling in his wake. "What use do I even have for her? Send her back to the damned Walker! Let him use her to rally the troops if he can. I have troops to manage!" He stormed from the audience room.

"Go!" the Owl rasped. "I'll see you to the exit. Be glad I persuaded him to let you keep your friends."

"How-?" Buffy started.

"Don't need a diplomatic incident with the Walker," Owl grumbled. "Don't push your luck. Go while you can!"

Willow seized them by the arms and skedaddled.

"'Scuse me," Buffy called. "Planning war maneuvers here!" True, she was planning them as she prepared to climb into a milk bath, but what did that-

"Well, then," bellowed a giant of a woman, clad in scaled armor, "we can talk as we walk, because that's definitely something that should be planned with my input. My name is Madelrada, and you, Summers, have caused no end of trouble to the Great Mother Kimbery. If it were up to my mistress I would kill you now." She seized Buffy by the arm and began dragging her to the door.

All Buffy's resistance counted for nothing, so she gave up and let herself be led. "Glad it's not then. What's the plan?" The gigantic demoness was one of Kimbery's souls...something to do with Buffy's Exaltation? Kimbery had tampered with it-or would have, in Buffy's time frame.

Madelrada drew her out of her bedrooms and into the main living room before bothering to answer. Buffy was gearing up to break loose when the giant demon snarled, "It's time to do something about your damn mindset, before you go from spearheading the Reclamation to wrecking it. Stand against the demons? Pah! What could possibly have gone that wrong?"

Buffy was about to share a few choice words with her, Unquestionable or not, as Madelrada pulled her into the courtyard, where demon gardeners had struggled to recreate a California lawn from available plants. Another figure waited there, a young man who shone with a cold green light and unimaginable authority. Ligier, fetich soul of Malfeas himself, lord of all Slayers-and Sweet's oversoul.

"I suppose it was inevitable," he said irritably. "Others have exploited those loopholes in our overbeings' natures-though not in quite such a bold way, not yet, and your urges demanded it. Your service has been exemplary till now, so I suppose it's of little consequence that Sweet's new self will not remember the details of his last death. But there can be no more of this."

"I slay demons. It's what I do," Buffy protested.

"That ends," Ligier stated, a mere fact. "You won't even want to."

"Right," Buffy scoffed. Abruptly she came to a pond that had definitely not been part of her landscaping plans.

"Dive," Madelrada said.

"Er...how deep?" Buffy was a good solid swimmer, but she was no mermaid.

Madelrada shoved her, and she toppled in.

Driving a swift rider wasn't so hard. It seemed mostly to be a matter of gesturing emphatically. Anya had the hang of it before they were a mile from the gate.

"We need to talk," Anya said.

"What's to talk about?" Iron Siaka's gaze remained fixed on the course ahead.

"You tried to kill my fiance," Anya explained. "You tried to kill my friends."

"Just politics," Siaka tossed off flippantly.

Anya nudged Siaka's swift rider with hers. Banged them together, really.

"Hey!"

"That's a shame. I'd understand a blood vendetta. I'd at least half understand 'for the good of humanity'. 'Just politics' means I need a good place to hide your body, and trackless desert seems suitable to me."

"What the hell? You can't-"

"I'll figure something out," Anya said. "In fact I think the final technique Chejop taught me would do the trick nicely." This time their vehicles banged together more solidly despite Siaka accelerating to get away.

"What do you want?" Iron Siaka gunned the motor. "If you just wanted to kill me-"

"I want to know why you found it necessary to kill the people I care about! Maybe you even know a good enough answer to save your life, but I doubt it."

"You're an Ending! You should-!" Anya's swift rider rammed hers from behind, hard. "The Commission on Oversight! They insisted it needed to be done, for the world's sake! You think I like killing? You don't turn down missions from Oversight."

Anya pulled away to the left. "Now we're talking."

"I'm not supposed to. I could get into serious trouble."

"You already are. Tell me about your missions for Oversight. Maybe they really were necessary. Maybe not. But I want to know what I'm dealing with."

The longer Iron Siaka talked, the more worried Anya got.

Buffy clawed and fought for breath, but Madelrada dragged her deeper beneath the water. Not that it was water exactly; it stung her eyes and skin. Beside them she caught glimpses of Ligier, who seemed mildly uncomfortable at worst.

How was she supposed to survive being taken...wherever she was being taken? Kimbery might have originally made the Slayer line, but Buffy'd never used any of her powers. She couldn't breathe down here, and Madelrada's viciousness was making holding her breath increasingly difficult. Maybe they didn't really mean her to live through this.

She fought, and without warning something shifted inside her. Holding her breath grew much easier. Swimming, instead of merely being dragged along, became posdible as well. Something filmy, even slimy, oozed from her hands to help pull her along. She let it. How far were they going?

Too far, and Buffy had lost too much air already. The need to inhale overpowered her, and water flooded into her mouth. That feeling of a shifting inside herself recurred; water flooded into her lungs, but the stinging vanished. The urge to cough and choke vanished. She blew a stream of water from her mouth, and only a little more fizz escaped.

Well. She'd taken the plunge, and no tentacles yet. That wasn't so bad. Madelrada laughed silently at her. "It's about time you appreciated the Mother's gifts. She's angry enough already."

"Funny, my mom always understood when I didn't like the clothes she got me, and none of those involved freaky tentacles or poisoning people." Madelrada glared at her, but over her shoulder Buffy caught a glimpse of Ligier with a faint smile that vanished when he realized she'd seen it.

Deeper and deeper, but now at least she could breathe comfortably. And no tentacles. Maybe this was worth it.

After what might've been hours, her feet struck something at least halfway solid. Halfway. "Seriously, this is your 'mom' aesthetic? I think this went out in the Cretaceous Epoch."

No reverence, to be expected. No sense of self-preservation either? This place channels Kimbery. Great. She'd thought she was rid of this guy.

"Buffy," yet another voice, a warm, seductive one, murmured. "I don't care for this aesthetic either, though at least it's dark. But you could show some respect, perhaps."

"Congenitally incapable, Erembour." Erembour had greeted her at the entrance to hell. She had no direct authority over Buffy, but she was one of the Ebon Dragon's most influential souls.

"Gratitude, then. We're here for you. We're here to free you of that one last compulsion that's been plaguing you. Always it draws you back. Wouldn't you like to walk away?"

Buffy laughed bitterly. "And replace it with what?"

"Something you enjoy. Something that doesn't drive you to hurt your friends. Something that actually fits your circumstances. You fought the fight, Buffy. You did what your 'Slayer line' always had to, longer and more successfully than most." Erembour took her by the shoulders and began to massage them. "You're our hope of escape, Buffy. We value your happiness. We saw you try to establish your idea of justice in Gem-and we saw how your impulses failed you."

Transparent, all of them. "You wouldn't know justice from baked potatoes."

"We're willing to learn," Ligier said, but it couldn't have been less sincere if Erembour had elbowed him in the ribs. She did elbow Madelrada in the ribs, but Miss Generalissimo only grunted and scowled at her.

"Have you considered that your task is obsolete, Buffy?" Ligier said in a tone so unlike his normal imperiosity that she wanted to vomit. "The events that led up to it have never happened here. Perhaps when you go home they will matter again, but not now. For all intents and purposes, your job is done."

"You look pretty free and untortured to me," Buffy said with a smirk. A quote whose source she couldn't remember reading drifted into her head; that was happening more and more as her powers grew. "This is worst? Sitting, consulting, in arms? You think this is the worst the Exalted could do to you?"

"You put us here," Madelrada snarled. "You can get us out. The only question is the best use for you. I've seen worse generals; you could lead our armies, honestly, if not for your issues. You could sit at the right hand of the Unquestionable."

"Why do you even want out anymore? The Yozis are whole worlds themselves. The rest of you...you've made a home of this place. You could make it so much more. Creation's a flyspeck town compared to all this. It doesn't even have to suck if you'd just move on. You could fix it!"

"You will find that collective minds like those of the Yozis rarely move on," Ligier said sternly. "Should they do so in their own time, so it will be, but-"

"Let her finish," Erembour purred. "Let the human speak her mind, get her thoughts straight. She's not like us." Ligier frowned uncertainly but held his peace.

"No," Buffy said, "we're not! Demons...are demons. You don't change. We have our lives, we dream big, we get what we're dreaming about, and we go on. Or we don't and we quit. Or we just finish that part of our lives and we move on. You don't always have to wrap up all the details to be done."

"You police the Hellmouth for five years," Erembour murmured. "Another takes the position. And then you leave. You move on."

"Well, bad example, but-"

"Why?" Madelrada asked suddenly. "Soldiers finish their assignments and are sent to new posts. The posts go on. It's not that the conflict has passed. But one soldier need not own it forever."

"Another no doubt guards the Hellmouth already," Ligier said. "Another will make us suffer, in your own place. The task goes on, but another carries it. Your work can be finished without ending."

It was a seductive idea. They wanted her to abandon her duty-well, what had she ever wanted with that duty anyway? They were right. She'd carried it out to the end, sacrificed herself to it. So she'd lived through the experience? Great!

But- "We'll find you another task, yes," Erembour said gently. "But it needn't be like your old one. Idleness is boring. You can release the old task, not as a failure but as a job well-done."

Buffy savored the idea for a moment. A little rest, then something new. She wasn't quitting. She'd [I]done the job[/I].

"I'd like that," she said.

"We shouldn't come back," Tara sighed. "We did the one thing you really had to do. If Buffy wants an alliance with the Princess Magnificent she can make it herself." She'd had too many close calls since she got here; she had no desire to get herself killed.

"Indeed she can," Meticulous Owl said, as he led them away from the fortress walls. "I'm sorry your mission was a failure."

Willow sighed, and in the moment her concentration failed, the Owl produced a throwing knife from his pocket and flung it at Buffy. Tara started to try to catch it-but Buffy could-no, not this Buffy-!

The knife caught Buffy full in the throat. She tried to scream, but could make only a strangled gasping sound.

Tara caught a glimpse of Buffy's bones as she crumbled into dust.