(Sorry for the delay, folks. New joy, new projects, lots of exciting stuff. I think I have to take a brief hiatus while I put the pieces in place to finish Part 6, and maybe the whole story. Plan for the next update 5/1/24. Thank you for reading so far.)

Chapter 155: Pandemonium

The naked man led them across the cratered white walkway, humming to himself. Alma followed as though in a dream. She had seen the power of her three captors—a power that dwarfed her utterly. And even her powerful captors were dwarfed by the man who now led them inside some ancient relic of the Ydorans, so terrifying it had made it into the Gospels as another name for Hell.

She kept moving. What else could she do?

There were no doors to the enormous glowing temple: past the great walkway was simply darkness. Alma expected that darkness to dissipate as they drew closer, but it stayed the same, impervious to the gentle radiance of the stone itself. The closer they drew to the darkness, the more impermeable it appeared: shadow with substance, the same as the darkness that underlit the Lucavi.

The naked man stepped through the veil of darkness, and was gone as though he had never been. Now Alma understood how she had felt him coming without seeing him. This darkness was something like the Underside that the Lucavi could walk through, to step from one side of Ivalice to the other in an instant.

She didn't quite dare to enter that darkness. She was glad to find she was not alone: Cletienne, Loffrey, and Vormav all stopped well short if it.

"I had hoped such places were all gone," Loffrey said softly.

"Nothing is ever truly gone," Vormav answered. His face was set. He started walking forwards, and vanished into the darkness. Loffrey hesitated, then followed a few steps behind.

"What is it?" Alma asked.

"Have you heard of Astrologians?" Cletienne asked.

Alma frowned as she thought. "I think so. They use Zodiac symbols as magic runes to..."

"To bend space, as Loffrey bends time." Cletienne studied the darkness. "It is one of the few arts mostly unknown to me. The theory I understand, but the practice..." He studied the dark a moment longer, then offered her his arm. "Shall we?"

Alma started to reach for his arm, then caught herself. Cletienne had trusted her, just a little bit, when they had fought the fiends. But he was still her captor. Her enemy.

So she jerked her hand back, and sprinted for the darkness. She heard Cletienne give a brief shout-

And the shout was cut off, as she stepped through the darkness, and into the light.

There was no transition. She sprinted, and from one step to the next she was translated from the white stone walkway leading to the temple to a low-ceilinged hallway. The stone in here was the same luminescent white as outside, but dimmer, and tiled in a way that she could see runes that floated freely across each tile's surface like the glowing pictures painted by an Ydoran Picture Window. In some way it reminded her of the narrow hallways of the Orbonne dormitories, though this place was in much better shape.

Vormav and Cletienne were a few steps in front of her. Loffrey looked back at her as she stumbled where she'd landed, arms wheeling for balance. She barely looked at them, glancing behind her instead. The hallway abruptly terminated in something like a broken mirror, refracted images spilling across space. Focus on one fractal, and see something like a high-ceilinged chapel: focus on another, and see a dim block of prison cells, layer in textured shadows: look here, and see Cletienne's gaunt face-

The air rippled, and Cletienne stepped through, blinking. "Oh, that's strange."

"You mastered it?" Vormav called.

"More or less." Elidibus' voice was muffled. "Enough for my purposes, anyways." A door creaked open further down the hall, and Elidibus emerged in ill-fitting furs pulled tight around him with fraying rope. He sketched a clumsy bow to Alma. "I retain a shred of my old good graces, Lady Beoulve."

"Mastered what?" Alma asked. "The...space magic?"

Elidibus shrugged, but the shrug belied the eager smile on his face. "As I said, 'mastered'..." He shook his head. "Even with my power, my knowledge, my experience...I cannot quite equal the old Ydoran wardens. Fortunately, I do not have to. I need just enough knowledge to go where I please...and to set free what I wish."

"And how many of the cells have you opened?" Vormav asked.

"In a place like this, it's hard to be sure. But I suspect...all of them."

Silence in the hallway. Alma saw genuine shock on Vormav's face. "All of them?" he repeated.

"It took time, to be sure," Elidibus continued. His smile had turned sadistic, gleeful at the shock on Vormav's face. "First I had to reach this place, disarm its defenses, study its mechanisms...and even when that was done, there were some remarkably powerful creatures in these halls. And they had been interned for so long..." He shrugged. "I would study my prey. I would set them free. And then, I would begin my hunt."

Vormav's face was white. "And you've hunted...all of them."

"Why?" Alma asked.

Elidibus glance at her. "Why what?"

"Why...hunt them?"

Elidibus blinked. "What else is there?"

Alma looked away—from the wild wizard, who lived inside a wonder of the Ydorans, and used it as his hunting ground.

She'd been more right than she knew, looking at this hallway and comparing it to Orbonne. This had once been a dormitory, in the time of the Ydorans, and it had been preserved from Orbonne's decrepit fate by its remoteness, its careful construction, and its incredible magic. Elidibus had remodeled it over his years living in these halls—he had knocked down the walls between several rooms, fashioning a tannery here, a curing chamber there, and a half-dozen others besides. The more he showed them, the sicker Alma felt. This did not seem a place a person lived. This seemed like an animal's den.

There was a working bathroom, complete with hot water. Alma, thick with grease and dirt, shut herself in gratefully. When she emerged an hour later, she felt more like herself, even with her still-damp clothes sticking to her.

The others had migrated to the kitchen—this and the bathroom were the only places Elidibus didn't seem to have seriously remodeled. Vormav was busily cooking over the runed stove. Loffrey had his eyes closed by the stone table, a little ways from where Clietenne and Elidibus were arguing.

"Archmage," Elidibus snorted. "You don't really take that nonsense seriously, do you?"

Cletienne was white-faced. "There have been...what, six of us since Ivalice was united? You, me, Sarda, Tellah-"

"The lies you speak, and all without knowing it." Elidibus shook his head. "Archmage isn't a title. At best, it's a contract. In my experience, it's more like a leash."

Cletienne frowned. "Meaning what?"

Elidibus jabbed a calloused finger at Cletienne. "You're a Summoner of some ability-"

"Some!" Cletienne squawked in outrage.

Elidibus grinned. "Some," he repeated. "And we all know the legends of Sarda's Circle. Tellah's less well-known, but no less fearsome. But the power they wielded, they wielded independent of any title. And the title was used to control them. Queen Sarah named Garland her Knight-Commander and Sarda her Archamge to wield them as weapons against rebels in Gallione and Limberry. Tellah was granted the title to keep him from leading Gariland as an independent city-state, the same as Mullonde. And you and me, well..." He glanced at Vormav. "He needs you."

"I was Archmage before he needed me," Cletienne said hotly.

"And you joined him, because he offered you what the others couldn't. Even the ones who called you Archmage." Elidibus leaned over the table. "Purpose." Elidibus' savage smile softened, ever so slightly. "Power is a fact. But it provides no purpose. It is a tool to be used. You use it to help Hashmalum's mad dream."

"It is not mad," Vormav replied, returning to the table and sliding their bowls to each of them. He had braised a selection of root vegetables Alma didn't quite recognize, and a hunk of meat that smelled both tantalizing and unfamiliar.

"Behemoth veal," Elidibus said. His grin was as savage as before.

Alma blinked, remembering the climb down through Labyrinthos days ago, the small behemoths the size of chocobos beside their fierce, enormous parents. "You mean...you killed a behemoth cub?"

"I killed a behemoth pack," Elidibus laughed. "But yes, that included a cub or four."

Alma studied the old man in his ill-fitting furs. She had to focus, but she could still sense the immense power of him, the way you can feel the heat from a pot that has just stopped boiling. "That's...your purpose? Hunting them?"

Elidibus nodded. "So you understand at last."

Alma shook her head. "I really don't."

"No?" Elidibus laughed. "I cannot blame you. It took decades for me to be honed to my purpose. I tried many others, in the years before I came here. Archmage was one. Hero of Ivalice was another. Each fit me poorly, though I did my best to measure up to what I imagined I was supposed to be. And yet, with each false guise, I found only one true thing." His smile had turned wistful: his eyes burned with an echo of the same terrible force that she'd seen when he'd attacked them outside. "I did not care why I fought. I cared only for the fight."

He leaned towards her the same way he'd leaned towards Cletienne. So much of this place reminder her of some animal's den, and looking at Elidibus only hardened that impression. He looked like a panther, examining potential prey. His wistful smile was predatory. His eyes burned with their own fire.

"The only time I felt alive was in testing my power in earnest, pushing it to its limits. In the heat of the contest against a worthy opponent, what does it matter why you fight? The fight is all that matters. Who is stronger. Who is cleverer. Who wins." He spread his arms. "So I found my way into Midnight's Deep, to face the beasts of the old world. Challenges who could give me the purpose I craved, without..." He trailed off. His smile flickered.

"Without?" Alma prompted.

The smile Elidibus offered her was somber. "Hero, Archmage...these titles did not suit me. The purpose they offered did not suit me. I tested myself against the enemies of Ivalice, and found them wanting. I began to look at my allies as prey to be hunted. Inquisitor Simon. The Thundergod." He pause. His expression turned guilty. "Your father."

Silence in the kitchen. Elidibus looked at her. She looked at Elidibus.

"They were allies," Elidibus said softly. "Comrades. I did not want to hurt them. To hunt them. And to hunt them properly—to make them fight in earnest—I would have had to..." He trailed off again, and shook his head. "As I said, I maintain a shred of my good graces. The only men I found worthy of fighting...I would have had to do unworthy things, to earn their ire."

He closed his eyes for a moment. When they opened again, his power burned within them: Alma could see magic fluxing off of them, like steam rising from a heated pot. "No, I decided I would chase other monsters. Other prey. I would build myself a hunting ground." His burning eyes drifted away from Alma, to some horizon only he could see. "I hoped to find a contest that would satisfy me. An enemy who could push me to my limits. I hunted dragons. I hunted royal marlboros. I hunted proto-Lucavi."

His eyes drifted back to her, weary beyond reason. The weariness did not decrease the power of those eyes: it merely reined it in, like liquid metal burning in a crucible.

"But Pandemonium is empty now. And the other denizens of Midnight's Dep hold no more allure. Ten years since I raised Ridorana Lighthouse to guard the Deep. Ten years since I began my journey." His smile turned wistful again. "There were worthy contests here. Byblos. Tiamat. The Diamond Weapon. But none could stand against me." His smile saddened. "My hunt continues."

"I can offer you worthy prey," Vormav said.

Elidibus snorted. "You offer me the thinnest hope in exchange for my help."

Vormav shrugged. "If you seek a strong opponent, you can do much worse than a god."

"That assumes your god is ready to be born!" Elidibus retorted.

"What?" Alma was hardly aware she had spoken. Everything Elidibus said felt dreamlike, distant and impossible.

Elidibus arched his bushy eyebrows, and glanced back at Vormav. "What have you been telling this poor girl?"

"As little as possible," Vormav grunted.

Elidibus sighed, and looked to Alma. "What do you know of Ultima?"

Alma frowned. "It's...like a Lucavi, but bigger. And the souls that make him up aren't...willing." Bile in her throat. "Like the revenants."

Elidibus laughed. "Yes, but did they not tell you how it was created?"

"The Ydorans," Alma said.

Elidibus nodded, laughing still. "Yes. But have you really reckoned with what that means? With the experiments they must have conducted, to weave the net of souls that traps every soul who dies within Ivalice's borders? A net that endured the civil wars of the Empire, and the Fall, and the centuries that have past?"

Alma did not answer. Again, that feeling of being small, sensing (but not being able to fully perceive) enormous creatures moving nearby.

"You received a proper noble's education, did you not?" Elidibus grinned wolfishly. "Who was the Emperor in the time of Ajora?"

"Emperor Xande."

"Which one?"

"Which..." Alma's frown deepened. "What?"

Elidibus laughed again. She did not like that laugh—it crackled the same way his power did. "The records were lost...or altered. It's hard to be sure which." He held up three fingers. "They began building Ultima under the auspices of Emperor Xande I. When the Empire fell, it was under Xande III." That wolf's grin widened. "Three kings, jockeying for power and unleashing chaos across their kingdom...the more things change, the more things stay the same, eh?"

"Why do you think I'm here?" Vormav asked.

Alma studied the wizard. There were answers here. There was hope. The more he told her of Ultima, the better her chances of avoiding the grim fate Vormav had assgined her. And Elidibus did not seem willing to ally with Vormav. There might be bigger, better hopes here, if she played her cards right.

"Three Xandes," Alma said. "The sons...killed the fathers?"

Elidibus' wolfish grin turned more bestial still. "And these were not simple assassinations, either. Each man sat at the center of the mightiest empire that has ever lived. Each commanded the loyalty of Workers, of Dragoners, of Lucavi. Magistrates, generals, mages, Judges, Espers, Summoners...they fought whole wars against each other, to seize Project Ultima for themselves."

"Ultima will put an end to that," Vormav said.

Alma looked back at him. She remembered the way he'd sounded, in the darkness of the Deep. "You were there."

Vormav shrugged. Alma felt dizzy. The power of Elidibus staggered her. So did his nature, his motives. She had understood Beowulf, chasing legends. But she had seen the wonders and horrors of Labyrinthos and Midnight's Deep. She had felt the staggering power of Cletienne and Hashmalum. And all of these things were dwarfed by this other power—Ultima, gestalt of all Ivalice's dead. She was so profoundly out of her depth, she felt like she was drowning.

But she took a deep breath, and pressed: "Why can't Vormav set him free?"

Elidibus smiled. "Why isn't he free now?"

Alma shook her head. "I don't know."

"The Ydorans wove a net, to catch all the souls of Ivalice," Elidibus said. "But a net big enough to catch all the souls of Ivalice can catch the creature born of those souls, too. The net is twisted, tangled, knotted: it binds Ultima even as it feeds him." He nodded at Vormav. "He works to feed his would-be god, and to make him mighty enough to break his bonds. But he cannot be sure it will work."

"It will," Vormav said.

"Your faith is not my faith," Elidibus said. "Your cause is not my cause."

"You wish to challenge Ultima-" Vormav began.

"I do," Elidibus agreed. "But I left whole wars behind, because they could not give me the hunt that I desired. You offer me a far thinner hope. Perhaps Ultima can be reborn. Perhaps I can have a battle unequaled in my long life. But that thin hope is all you can offer me. In exchange for my labor. In exchange for my power." Elidibus shook his head. "It is not enough."

"Not even for the promise of her brother?" Vormav asked.

Alma's head jerked up. "What?"

Elidibus laughed that crackling laugh. "Yes, he's been telling me tales of your brother's feats." He glanced back at Vormav. "Neither Dycedarg nor Zalbaag Beoulve, for all their abilities, could measure up to their father. You expect me to believe this...Ramza has?"

Vormav shrugged. "I don't know what abilities he has. I know he counts among his allies a Mage Knight, a Vampire Knight, and a Silencer, all of uncommon ability. I know that together they have slain a Dragoner in command of a small army, and three Lucavi besides. And the reports out of Bethla Garrison..."

"Quite a litany of achievements!" Elidibus agreed. "Mind you, I would find them more compelling if you did not seem quite so desperate." Elidibus laughed again. "You offer me a thin hope, Hashmalum, but your own hope seems thinner by far. How desperate you must be, to risk the Deep and my wrath! And for what?"

Vormav glared at Elidibus, but did not answer. Elidibus shrugged, and looked back to Alma. "So tell me. Your brother...is as he good as Hashmalum claims?"

Alma hesitated. She did not think there was more to Elidibus than met the eye—he was clear about what he wanted. He was not the lurking spider that Grand Duke Barinten had been. But his straightforwardness did not make him any less dangerous.

"I think so," Alma said. "I've only seen him fight a handful of times, but each was..." She trailed off. She was remembering the boy she'd seen, red-faced and desperate, flailing blows against Zalbaag as Zalbaag laughingly deflected each one. And she was remembering the cold-eyed man she'd seen appear like a shadow behind a Templar solider, slitting his throat with one practiced slice. And she was remembering her brief glimpse of the whirlwind of magic and steel that had ripped through the soldiers in front of him, as he struggled to reach her.

She managed to smile, as the memories flickered in her head. "And you should have seen the look on Vormav's face, when he killed the Marquis."

Elidibus laughed again. "Yes, I can imagine. He does not think highly of mere mortals. Funny, given he's come to recruit one."

"I don't think anyone would use the word "mere mortal" to describe you," Vormav remarked.

Elidibus chuckled. "Perhaps. Perhaps not." He looked around them. Loffrey remained asleep: Cletienne's eyelids were fluttering. "Your comrades need rest. I imagine you do, too."

"And we'll be safe?" Vormav asked.

"Of course we will," Alma said at once. "He's not going to attack us if he can't make a proper hunt of it."

Vormav arched his bushy eyebrows. "She's sharp, this one!" Elidibus guffawed. "And she's right. You will have plenty of warning, should I choose to make you my prey."

Vormav nodded slowly, and left the room. Alma made no move to follow. Instead, she slumped down upon the worn stone table, and closed her eyes.

It was a strange few days that followed—in the misty light of the walls, she had even less sense of how much time was passing, moment to moment and day to day, than she'd had in her descent through Labyrinthos. Strange as Elidibus was, he seemed excited to have them, and to show them the strange life he'd woven for himself here.

He had met Vormav some months after he'd first raised the lighthouse (once used to mark the path for Ydoran airships) from the oceans depths, and before he'd reactivated its defenses. In those days, the Deep had been even more untamed, ruled by stronger monsters than now stalked its reaches. Elidibus had slain most of those monsters on his way down to Pandemonium (and left the fiends she and Cletienne had faced behind him, to guard the Deep proper).

Conquering Labyrinthos was one thing: mastering Pandemonium was quite another. The magics of this place were powerful, and subtle: they had been attuned to specific people, in the same way Ultima was specifcally attuned to people like her. Even after the decade he'd spent down here, Elidibus had not fully unlocked these magics. But an Archmage could learn enough to achieve his ends.

"But what is an Archmage?" Alma asked. "And please, don't give me the whole...leash...contract...spiel."

Elidibus laughed, and answered, "It means many things, and awarding the title is as much a matter of politics as anything else." He paused, with a wry glance at Cletienne, where he stood farther down in the arc they'd made before the fractal curtain of distorted space and time. "But it requires real talent, too. The idea is that the one you name "Archmage" could work any magic. Maybe not easily...maybe not without great cost...but if you gave them a spell to work, they would work it."

"And you have," Vormav said.

"And I have," Elidibus agreed.

There was much of Pandemonium that Elidibus could not explore—the older laboratories, certain archives, the private secrets of the Wardens and Magistratres who had run this place in the Empire's golden age. But Pandemonium had been built to research its subjects, so their cells were easier to reach. And while Elidibus could not use all the powers of this place, he gained enough control to release its subjects, and on his terms.

So he had spent his years. He would spend months studying the prisoners of Pandemonium, taking weekly trips higher into the Deep to hunt lesser creatures and find food and supplies. Then the day would come when he would choose his prey, and release them. The nature of the prey determined how he hunted. Once, when he had loosed a great zu from the depths, he had helped it reach the highest floors, only to hunt it upon the great plains; scant months ago, he had loosed a great dragon from the bowels of the pit, given it a single day's headstart before chasing it through the Deep. His favorite hunt was what he called a proto-Lucavi, which he had unleashed and set upon in the same moment: their contest had scarred Pandemonium itself, and torn fresh caverns into the Deep. Its enormous bones lay out front, where their fight had finally ended.

"Lucavi have only ever been created through the locus of auracite," Elidibus explained, pacing the stone cell where the proto-Lucavi had once been kept. "But the Ydorans tried other ways. This creature, Humbaba, was one such attempt. They built a magic framework, the same kind you use to forge an Eidolon, and instead bound revevant souls together. Quite mad, of course. Lucavi are united by choice: these souls were stitched together. All that was left was rage and pain."

"You used what you learned to make the fiends?" Vormav asked, from his place near the rippling portal. The dimensions of the cell were strange: one entire wall was a rippling fractal to match the entrance to Pandemonium, while the others were a dull grey stone. Light occasionally sparkled on that dull grey stone—the magic in the microrunes etched throughout the cell.

"I did not make the fiends," Elidibus said shortly. "But I did find them here, and move them to protect the Deep."

"You didn't set them free?" Alma asked.

Elidibus shook his head. "What had been done to them was horror enough. I would not deny them the purpose of their last battle. And they were not strong enough to satiate me."

Alma shook her head in turn, and looked up. The cell was wide and long enough—perhaps four yalms by six—but it was taller by far, so tall she could barely make out the distant ceiling. She wondered what this Humbaba might have looked like. She wondered what it had felt, fused together from disparate souls by Ydoran madness. So much horror here.

And there was laughter.

Laughter, loud and sharp and terribly familiar: laughter that flared in her consciousness the same way the Marquis' scream had. She jerked her head up, and she was not alone. From his place leaning against the wall, Vormav's brow was furrowed, though she thought she spied a trace of excitement in his grey eyes.

"A new Lucavi!" Elidibus exclaimed. His teeth were bared in a savage grin.

Vormav blinked. "You can sense them?"

Elidibus nodded. "Not as well as you, I think...but I know when one is born, now that I know what to look for. Who's the new addition?"

"Odds are," Vormav said. "It runs in her family.

Alma's head snapped towards Vormav. "What the fuck does that mean?"

Vormav shrugged. "Most of the Stones now lie in Ramza's hands. To keep the peace, I had to put one in Dycedarg's, too."

Alma stared at him. "You..." Rage bloomed in your heart. "You didn't tell me."

Vormav gave her a dismissive look. "Why would I?"

Alma almost flung herself upon him. But what would be the point? Even if she'd had Cletienne's staff in her hand, she could not beat him.

So she stared at Vormav for a long time. This ancient captor, who meant for her to become a mindless horror worse than any of the things that haunted the Deep. He had turned one of her brothers into a Lucavi, to aid his mad ambitions. To bring Ultima back to life.

She stared at Vormav. Vormav did not look back at her. So Alma looked away from Vormav, and towards Elidibus. She had laid the groundwork over their days of talking. And she was angry enough to act at last.

"Kill him," Alma said.

Elidibus arched his thick eyebrows. "You think I'll take orders from you?"

"You've never killed a Lucavi before," Alma said. "You said so yourself."

Vormav remained against his wall. The trace of excitement in his grey eyes was gone.

Elidibus' eyes moved slowly between the two of them. The grin on his wrinkled face was slighter, more thoughtful. "I already know I can beat him. What sport is there in such a contest?"

"It'll be different, if he's fighting for his life," Alma said. "And he's not alone. He's got an Archmage and a Time Mage with. You're telling me they couldn't give you a fight worth having?"

Vormav had gone utterly still.

"Let's say I take you up on your invitation," Elidibus said. "I kill your captors. You're still trapped down here with me."

"I prefer you to them," Alma said. "Besides...with Cletienne's staff, I bet I can make it to the surface."

"If I let you."

"You'll let me. I'm your only chance of getting to fight Ultima. And until then, I'm not worth your time."

Elidibus considered her for a long time. Vormav had uncrossed his arms, and lowered his hands to his sides. One hand almost touched the hilt of his sword.

And then there was screaming.

It was like the Marquis' scream had been—a sound that was also light, reaching out from some distant place. Somewhere, in the place where Alma cast spells from, she could make out a blue-green light, throbbing and flickering like a candle in a gust of wind. That scream was agony, and desperation, and disbelief. And now that she knew what she was listening for, she heard the familiar voice buried in that scream. She heard Dycedarg.

Then the light went out, and the scream went with it.

"You must be joking!" roared Vormav.

Alma's head snapped back towards him. He had left his wall, and was staring up at the distant ceiling. His grey eyes were blazing with rage: golden light and terrible shadow burned inside his figure, roiling like stormclouds. "Why did you not flee, you...you...!" He slammed his fist against the wall he'd been standing on: gusts from the force of his blow sent her greasy hair whipping around her face, and left a spiderweb of cracks running out from the crater his fist left behind.

"Who?"

Alma's head snapped back around. Elidibus has his eyes lifted towards the ceiling, as though in prayer. The look on his face was a solemn as a child in the pews of the church, eyes sparkling with wonder.

"Who do you think?" Vormav replied.

A smile began to spread across Elidibus' aged and solemn face. There was a terrible, earnest delight in that smile, as bright as a child when receiving a Saint's Day gift they truly want. But there was Lucavi darkness in that smile, too—the savage bloodthirstiness she'd seen on first meeting Elidibus, and when he spoke of his hunting.

"To slay a Lucavi as it is born..." Elidibus whispered. "Perhaps he is worth hunting."

Vormav's bushy eyebrows arched. "And if he is not," Vormav said. "You help me take his stolen Stones, and we bring Ultima back. Worthier hunts all around."

Elidibus nodded. "Yes. I think I could agree to those terms."

The Lucavi made from her brother was dead. The monsters she'd hoped to turn upon each other had joined forces. She was trapped again.

"Oh, Saint," Alma whispered, and closed her eyes, and thought the darkness might drown her.

Elidibus laughed. "That's funny."

Alma did not bother opening her eyes. "What?"

There was a strange silence in the room. "You haven't told her?" Elidibus asked.

Alma opened her eyes. Elidibus was staring at Vormav in disbelief. "Told me what?" she asked

Vormav did not meet either of their gazes. "It makes no difference."

"In that case, I shall tell her." Elidibus faced her again.

"Don't."

Elidibus' eyes flared briefly: she felt the power of him gust into her, so she took an involuntary step back. But the fire in his eyes was not for her: it was for Vormav. "You have my cooperation. Not my obedience."

Vormav and Elidibus locked eyes for a long time. Finally, Vormav lowered his gaze, and Elidibus looked back at her.

"It's funny," Elidibus explained. "Because the Saint you pray to is the same god Hashmalum hopes to resurrect." He smiled, not unkindly. "Saint Ajora is Ultima."