Sensing her approach, Gorgrog backed away from the Fairy Queen and turned to confront the newcomer. Kendra rushed at him, demons blurring by at either side, Vasilis shining like a white sun. The demon stood many times taller than Kendra, but she jumped before reaching him, gliding up so that she was almost level with his head as their swords clashed explosively.
The impact sent Gorgrog staggering backwards amid a coruscating shower of sparks, a white-edged notch in his monstrous sword. Kendra landed lightly, Vasilis humming in her hand. Behind the Demon King, Kendra noticed the Fairy-Queen chopping at one of the black chains dangling from his belt, attempting to free a dehydrated corpse from its tether.
The Demon King was entirely focused on Kendra, eyes squinted against the brightness of Vasilis. The surrounding demons cowered back. Kendra stood her ground, and the Demon King charged her. Guided by an impulse from Vasilis, rather than try to meet his blade with hers, Kendra stepped aside as he swung his sword in an enormous overhand sweep. The blade plunged deep into the ground beside her. Springing forward, Kendra hacked at his leg. Flashing brilliantly, her shining blade sliced through fur and flesh like light through shadow.
With pure white flames running wildly up his leg and side, Gorgrog collapsed heavily. Kendra leapt forward, and
Vasilis glared like lightning as she slashed him with a fatal stroke.
As she backed away from the blazing form of Gorgrog, Kendra realized that the demon horde had grown tranquil. The astrids and fairies around her began to fly away. From the mass of stunned demons came a dark warrior who looked like a slightly smaller version of Gorgrog. His antlers branched more like those of a moose, and he wielded a great battle-ax.
"Orogoro," the Fairy Queen said, now standing beside Kendra, a withered brown corpse cradled in her arms.
The huge demon rushed forward to claim the crown from the burning form of his father. While Orogoro reached for the crown, face contorted in pain from the searing white flames, the astrid captain Gilgarol landed behind him and, with a mighty stroke of his longsword, slashed off one of his huge feet. Orogoro wailed in anguish.
"Away," the Fairy Queen cried, flying skyward, the corpse still in her arms.
Crelang and Rostimus alighted beside Kendra.
"Well done," Crelang said.
"We have orders to take you away," Rostimus added respectfully.
"Let's go," Kendra said. With the fall of the Demon King, and with Bracken out of danger, her euphoria had abated. She saw Bracken, Warren, and Vanessa being carried away by other astrids.
Rostimus picked her up and took to the skies. Crelang glided at their side. A flying demon belched fire at them, and Crelang pierced its neck with a javelin. No other enemies harassed them. The entire demon army seemed confused. Kendra began to hear voices crying, "Dragons! Dragons are coming! Dragons from the west!"
Rostimus brought Kendra to the top of a wide ridge behind and to one side of the shrine. Many of the other creatures of light already awaited them. From the high vantage point, Kendra looked out to sea, where at least twenty dragons were speeding toward Shoreless Isle. Kendra watched for a long moment, wondering if the dragons might make the difference. She had slain the Demon King, but a vast host of demons remained.
"Do you need healing?" Rostimus asked.
Kendra patted herself. "I don't think so." She studied the crowd around her, searching for familiar faces. "Have you noticed any of my friends?"
Rostimus and Crelang guided Kendra to Trask, Newel, and Doren. She asked if they had seen Seth, and Doren pointed her in the right direction.
Kendra found her brother seated beside Bracken. Both had already been revived by the Sands of Sanctity. Seth rose excitedly when she approached.
"I watched you with the binoculars," he gushed. "I think Vasilis may like you even more than me! After you took the sword, I remembered that Morisant hinted the sword might take to you. I couldn't believe you did it!"
Kendra hugged her brother tightly, relieved that he seemed all right. Then she turned to Bracken, and they embraced desperately.
"None have ever seen a blade shine so brightly," Bracken said into her ear, making no attempt to hide his awe. "What you did was impossible. Not in our most farfetched fantasies did we hope to slay Gorgrog."
Kendra released the embrace, feeling pleased and embarrassed. "What happens now?"
"Now we pray our plan works," Bracken said, brow furrowed.
Behind Seth and Bracken, Kendra saw the Fairy Queen seated beside an older gentleman with a frail build. She held his hand and spoke softly to him, but he sat motionless, wearing a vacant expression.
"Who is that with the Fairy Queen?" Kendra asked.
"My father," Bracken said softly.
"What?" Kendra exclaimed. "I thought he was dead!"
"None of us actually saw him die," Bracken explained. "We assumed he had been destroyed. As we fought Gorgrog, Mother sensed his presence, but she hardly recognized him. When Mother and I recovered him, at first we thought he had been changed into one of the undead. But then we realized that he was cocooned in powerful demonic spells that kept him alive, conscious and feeling, but on the brink of death. Gorgrog had been wearing him as a trophy, dragging him around Zzyzx for centuries. I can't imagine my father's suffering. The Sands of Sanctity brought him back physically, though he has not aged well, and there is no sign of his horns. He's catatonic."
"How terrible," Kendra said. "Is there hope he'll recover?"
"There is always hope," Bracken said. "Unicorns are among the most skilled healers, and Father had a resilient spirit. Time will tell. Mother swears he seemed to smile when Gorgrog fell."
Kendra, Seth, and Bracken watched from the ridge as a multitude of flying demons rose up to engage the oncoming dragons. The dragons attacked without reservation, lightning flashing from their jaws, or glaring bursts of flame, or seething streams of acid. At their lead flew Celebrant, scales gleaming like platinum. He looked to be everything Raxtus had described--enormous, agile, powerful. Whenever his teeth or claws struck, demons plunged from the sky.
A trio of dragons skimmed low across the mass of earth-bound demons, drenching them with fire. From the midst of the demons, the gigantic Brogo threw his morning star, knocking one of the dragons from the sky.
Celebrant and three other dragons--the smallest of the foursome had to be Raxtus--swooped to the rescue. While the other three dragons defended their fallen comrade and helped him get back into the air, Celebrant opened his mouth and released a blinding blast of white energy at Brogo. The energy split open his mask and knocked the colossal brute to the ground. Tucking his wings, Celebrant rammed the titanic demon, raking and biting ferociously. When Celebrant returned to the sky, Brogo lay crisscrossed with deep lacerations and had lost an arm.
Elsewhere, the final team of astrids defending the shrine turned and fled, wings flashing. Orogoro hobbled near the front of the demonic host, using his battle-ax as a crutch.
Following his lead, the demon horde began pouring into the pool and vanishing.
"Oh, no!" Kendra exclaimed.
"This is part of the plan," Bracken said, watching in grim silence. "I ordered our forces to withdraw."
The Fairy Queen came up beside them. "The demons have always dreamed of conquering my realm. It is a kingdom of light and purity. Nothing will please them more than to ravage it."
"Wait," Seth said. "You hoped this would happen?"
"Mother destroyed all of her other shrines," Bracken said. "She has evacuated all of her people along with what talismans and energy she could bring. Her kingdom is now empty and has a single gateway."
Kendra watched the demons flood into the shrine. "Out of one prison and into another," she realized.
"If all goes as planned," Bracken confirmed.
"We have good reason to hope," the Fairy Queen said. "Their leaders are going. The others will follow. It will take some time for them to discover how completely I have sealed off my realm."
The dragons stopped attacking, content to circle over the demonic exodus, casting menacing shadows. As she regarded the dragons, once again Kendra picked out the smaller form of Raxtus darting among the larger creatures. Even without further violence, the threat of the many dragons overhead seemed to hurry the demons along.
For more than three hours, Kendra and her friends anxiously observed the procession of demons exiting the rift in the dome and entering a new realm through the shrine. The sheer quantity of demons left Kendra astonished. The others had been right. There was no way they could have defeated these demons in combat. For every demon they killed, a thousand more would have emerged.
"Don't they know it's a trap?" Kendra finally asked Bracken.
"They must know something is wrong," Bracken said. "They march into a realm they have dreamed of possessing since the dawn of time. But the realm is empty, undefended. It was handed to them with only token resistance. As we speak, they are tearing it apart. The smart ones know it's too good to be true. But their king has fallen, and his heir is injured. The sun is high. They don't want to face Vasilis. They don't want to face the dragons, especially Celebrant. They don't want to fight the unicorns, or the astrids, or the other fairy folk. And they probably are bewildered by the increased atmosphere of unbelief in the world. When many of these demons departed this world, they were universally feared. Now, most of humanity considers their existence a joke."
"They could have overcome all of this," the Fairy Queen said. "They could easily have destroyed this world. But providing access to my realm offered them a tempting, effortless option. They seem to have taken the bait."
"So you will lose your realm," Kendra said.
"It is no longer my realm," the Fairy Queen asserted. "It will become the new demon prison."
As the last demonic stragglers arrived at the shrine, a long gold and red dragon came gliding toward the ridge on two sets of wings. Seeing his lion's head, complete with a crimson mane, Kendra recognized the dragon as Camarat from Wyrmroost. At his side flew Raxtus. Kendra took Seth's hand as the dragons landed near them, and she saw that Agad sat astride Camarat in an elaborate saddle. Camarat crouched low as the wizard dismounted.
"Raxtus!" Kendra shouted as the dragon came near. "You brought reinforcements!"
"I did!" the dragon replied. "I even helped in the combat!"
Seth nodded toward Agad, who was walking away from Camarat. "I thought dragons didn't allow riders!" he said. Camarat spread his wings and returned to the sky.
"We make exceptions on occasion," Raxtus said. "Camarat and Agad are brothers."
"How did you convince the dragons to help?" Kendra asked.
"Agad promised to make Celebrant caretaker of Wyrmroost after all of this is over. The dragons of Wyrmroost have dreamed of governing themselves for centuries. Plus, I told my father how Navarog had vowed that the demon horde would slay him. I think that helped. He let me fly to battle with him for the first time!"
Agad came forward and knelt before the Fairy Queen. All eyes watched the wizard. "You have made an enormous sacrifice," he uttered reverently.
"It was necessary," the Fairy Queen replied. "My realm would have withered and died if the demons had claimed this world. Can you lock them inside?"
"If I may have use of the five artifacts, these noble dragons who accompany me have agreed to help me bind your last shrine much more securely than Zzyzx. I have had centuries to consider all that I wish I had done long ago. Now I can implement those improvements."
"What say you?" the Fairy Queen asked, turning to Bracken.
"You mean my horn?" Bracken asked. "By all means, use it as you used it before. I'm accustomed to this mortal shape. Seal those fiends away for as long as you are able."
Agad nodded pensively. "The former prison lasted for millennia. This new prison will endure far longer."
"What will you do?" Kendra asked the Fairy Queen. "Where will you go?"
"We will inherit a new home," the Fairy Queen said, regarding Agad.
"I will remove the bindings placed on Zzyzx," Agad said. "There is actually three times the space inside of Zzyzx as you had in your former kingdom."
"You'll live in the demon prison!" Seth exclaimed.
The Fairy Queen smiled. "Creators have many advantages over destroyers. It takes much more talent to build something beautiful than it does to tear it down. Before long, the demons will render my former realm as ugly as Zzyzx. But they will never re-create what they have spoiled. Conversely, with time and effort, one day Zzyzx will become as lovely as my former realm."
"More beautiful," Bracken promised. "We'll have more space to work with. And we'll have an eager force of workers. Considering the peril, our casualties are minimal. Two dozen fairies, eight astrids, two unicorns, a few others. The Sands of Sanctity are quickly restoring the wounded."
"You'll join me?" the Fairy Queen asked her son hopefully, tears in her eyes.
"Of course," Bracken said. "I love a challenge. I'll help supervise the rebuilding."
Kendra felt a heavy weight on her heart. Did that mean she would never see Bracken again? It sure sounded like it.
Agad bowed to the Fairy Queen. "You are most wise, your majesty. Some imagine the difference between heaven and hell to be a matter of geography. Not so. The difference is much more evident in the individuals who dwell there."
"We have much yet to accomplish," the Fairy Queen said. "Grant Agad his artifacts and let us be about our respective duties."