Half an hour later – and as much as they could keep up appearances to avoid pandemonium – the companions and staff of the Holy Convent searched the grounds, in the end not only confirming the orphan girl Fanita’s absence, but Sister Ulsruvula’s as well. (When they could, Val’ha and Ma’teus related privately to their journeymates the incident with Dop-splythe and the unknown listener.) "Zeus save us," said Matriarch Crulee-ana after they completed their probe of the immediate area. The Matriarch coddled several infants in her arms, and received the reports from Val’ha and Brother Lawrence with few questions. "Zeus and Gelfar come to us this night, Ulsruvula and Fanita."

"Oh, no!" Quigley pointed out the sitting-room windows to a light over and behind the communal hill. Atop the Old Church, a beacon pulsed five times and ceased back into the blackness; Val’ha’s heart sank upon seeing the shade of the light, and Quigley remonstrated the High Matriarch: "You did not tell us the glow was opaline."

"I did not think it important."

"It is very important, lady Abbess – it marks the presence of Xorus, God of Black Magic."

"OH!" Crulee-ana and her assistants flew about the room like maddened doves before the companions were able to quell their frightened recriminations. The Matriarch gave the babies to two of her nuns and when they had left, said, "Go now – find out what is going on up there, please!"

"We have seen the path down into the vampire’s crevasse."

"I will lead you, at least as far as the cliff’s edge," offered Brother Lawrence to Quigley, and with that they departed the abbey in the waning, cold dusk as, candle by candle, the orphans, refugees and Holy Convent staff retired. The chasm went east and west into the trees of Bylikaegra Forest, Val’ha saw when they had gone around the commune hill. A hard-packed dirt path, its narrow band of end-grasses populated with dandelions, Azimq’haadrian tigerlilies and purple susans, descended into the bottomless crevasse and came up, highlighted by the Night Moon, on the other side, zigzagging Holy Hill to the darkened Old Church. "Here is where I leave you. May the sentinel eyes of Sigrid go with you."

A brisk breeze from deep in the abyss made Val’ha pull her cowl over her head for warmth. She had left Heinghold’s mirror at the stable with their supplies and mounts, and she regretted that decision now. The Baroness and Tarl-Cabot had the presence of mind to bring their bows and quivers of arrows, at least; Pivrax had taken one of Ma’teus’ silver daggers to fashion his javelin into a pikestaff (the two of them also bearing torches from the Abbess), and Quigley led the others with his swords drawn. After an hour’s descent their path leveled out onto a large outcropping. "Step lively, ladies and gentle Men." A cold gust blew Porcie’s hair over his shoulders. "Mind your flames."

It came upon them suddenly under the moonglow: A flat-roof, single-story clay building with no windows stretched into the void so that the journeymates could not see its corners. After several minutes’ search along the wall, to their surprise they found a single steel door with well-tended geranium shrubs and a top-heavy Lemoyan knocker. The door would not budge, and after studying the centerpiece and geraniums the Baroness said, "Our only alternative," and pulled and dropped the knocker.

A scream, as thin as the moonsliver and so high the Humans almost did not hear it, streaked through the air above their heads; a scuffling noise sounded from behind the Lemoyan door and it scraped its way open to reveal the face of a charwoman so ghastly she made Val’ha recoil despite herself. The harridan’s age was a forgotten, violent history, with dozens of moles on her leathery neck and several scars across her cheeks. She wore a red and white checked dress and swatches of dirty cloth around her shoulders and sunken waistline, and her hair was thin atop her brown-spotted pate. "Whatcher want, then?"

Val’ha moved quickly to stop the Baroness from doing away with the old Woman by a hand on Val Tress’ sword as she reached for it. "We wish to see the vampire."

"That what ya want, then? To see his lordship, Asmodeus? Sapphires then! Want sapphires!"

The companions were taken aback by the charwoman’s demand and several of them patted their pants. Ma’teus frowned, handed Val’ha her torch, drew from around her neck a sapphire suspended on a black cord and gave it to the crone, who smacked her lips and dropped the jewel down her sagged breasts, scuffled the door open further and waved them in. There was no furniture, no paintings, nothing in the room but six Lemoyan doors on the opposite wall. Before the journeymates could do or say anything else, the charwoman went to the sixth door, touched it and vanished from sight; not knowing what else to do, Val’ha tried to open it but could not, so she knocked instead. "Perhaps we should try the other doors…" began Sir Quigley, but the sixth door opened to reveal – again – the charwoman.

"Come ye did, right then!"

Val’ha breathed to steady her nerves. "We wish to see the vampire, Lord Asmodeus, who lives – resides here."

"Rubies! Want rubies! Rubies now!" Amid cries of exasperation, Porcie handed over a silver band inlaid with rubies, a gift from his mother that he wore around his smallest right finger. The charwoman took with a greedy cluck, stuffed it down her breasts after the sapphire and brought them into a room with seven doors.

"This could go on all night," said Baroness Val Tress when the old Woman repeated her previous maneuvers, this time gesturing toward the seventh door; the Baroness reached for her boot, withdrew a silver dagger and flung it across the room into the charwoman’s throat. She cried out in silence, grabbed her sides and disappeared, leaving the dagger to clank onto the stone floor. "I am sorry to all of you, but my patience with this apparition had run its course," the Baroness said, retrieving her weapon.

"S-s-seemmmss un-f-fetterrred-d-d b-b-by t-t-trappss-s," said Pivrax, inspecting the doorjamb and knob.

The next room was empty but for a white-stone coffin atop a pedestal. The casket lid began to slide open until it was perpendicular to its base. "I have a silver knife," Ma’teus whispered.

"Silver works only on wer’betes and ghosts, foolish Woman!

"But, Baroness, I thought…"

"Think twice! Vampires may change form like the were-creatures, but they are not living – their kin are the skeletons and corpses we saw in Moncrovia! We shall need a stake of wood!"

"Th-ph-thattss r-r-ight-t-t." Lord Asmodeus sat up in his coffin, so gaunt his cheeks hung in tatters, his ash-white, stringy hair almost invisible against his skullbone. His eyes had rolled up into his head to reveal black veins, and over his crumbling, black-stained billow of a shirt hung a large brass key at the end of a chain. Flesh hung from between Asmodeus’ teeth, well over an inch long, pocked with decay but for four footlong fangs, which somehow avoided gnashing into each other. The vampire adjusted his eyes and hissed, stood in the sarcophagus and started sprouting expansive hole-ridden batwings. "H-h-herrre itt g-g-g-goes."

Pivrax pitched his javelin and twirled it around in his fingers, ending with the wooden portion forward, stretched back and let it fly across the room; it penetrated the vampire’s chest so violently, he clutched at the air, flapped his wings once, fell backward out of the coffin, knocking over the lid, and screamed as he was crushed under the lid’s weight. By the time the companions reached the other side of the sarcophagus, there was an explosive pop; in a cloud of ashes, Asmodeus was gone.

"Good blow, Lord Pivrax!" the others hailed. The Baroness ran her hand around the inner vault of the casket, finding nothing, but when Porcie and Tarl-Cabot lifted the lid back into place, underneath were the brass key, Porcie’s ring and Ma’teus’ corded sapphire. As soon as Val’ha picked them up, the sarcophagus, the room and the entire lair vanished and the journeymates found itself once more on the cold outcropping of the nocturnal chasm. With the Vampire’s Key as their bellwether, Val’ha led the way to the slope of the Old Church.

**

At the top of Holy Hill, the Old Church awaited its collapse back into Terra. Another long, high scream crawled across the star-dotted sky, and opaline light poured from several openings too crumbled to be gables or windows on the western side of the church’s upper level. With only a crescent of moonlight, Ma’teus torched several of her tinder-candles to life so the companions could split into smaller groups. Lavender and red bougainvillea splashed out over the bottom level of the church, obscuring most of what still stood, while behind the prickly bushes ivy climbed toward the roof. Through the flora, of the carved stone foundations and walls had tumbled into heaps. So flimsy did the structure appear, Val’ha wondered if it was only prayer and the plants binding the Old Church together. Accompanying her, Pivrax poked his pikestaff into some of the low-lying shrubbery while Val’ha checked for a path or footprints. He nodded toward Xorus’ light. "Wh-what d-d-do you th-ph-think-k-ksss happen-en-ning up-ph-p th-there?"

"I am uncertain, Master Pivrax, but I do not think the two screams that we have heard are coming from the Old Church."

"Wh-who arre th-theyy, th-thenn, mi-mi-milady?"

"Please do not misunderstand me, it is likely that Fanita and Sister Ulsruvula are up there – but even when we were mid-cliff, I sensed the cries were coming from the heavens, I felt the Song of Terra in both screams."

"Wh-what-t-t d-d-does itt m-m-meann? Ach!" Pivrax shook and sucked on his thumb, pulling out a bougainvillea thorn.

"Are you hurt?"

"It-tss st-stanched-d. W-we Gr-grey Tr-tr-trolls h-heal qu-qu-qui-fast-t – it-t all-most m-m-makess up-ph-p forr th-ph-the p-p-painn an-and-d-diffic-c-ch-cullt-ty w-we h-have in-n sp-speaking-ing-g y-yourr t-th-tongue."

"I was not aware of that! I have always assumed that you were shy."

"Huh-ha, huh-ha! Sh-shyn-ness iss n-nott why I d-donn-nott t-talk as-s m-m-much-ch as-z-s otherrs, n-nor iss p-painn, r-really, mi-millad-dy – inn tr-truth-th, w-we V-vu-vu-vuss onnly sp-speakk iff we-eve ss-som-meth-ph-thing-g t-to say. N-n-no, t-timid-id-it-ity w-would n-not h-have s-serrved-d m-my r-rise t-to K-king-g’s ch-chamberl-lainn."

"King Percivale’s was evident, as was his heartbreak at your departure."

"F-f-fearr f-for y-yourr d-dr-dreamm itt m-might-t inn-n-deed h-have b-been v-v-vision-n in-st-stead-d. At-at th-the l-leasst, f-f-fearr f-forr K-king-g wh-whenn I amm-m n-nott th-ph-therre t-to c-count-terr th-the b-b-bet-trayerr H-h-high Wiz-izardress-s H-h-heemst-strress-ss."

Val’ha was so moved by Pivrax’ adoration for his King – and the sense of longing in his voice that mirrored her own desire to return where she never could again – she stopped her search, her neck suddenly hurting. "I think," she struggled to say against the lump in her throat, "that if King Percivale yet lives, he is most wary of Heemstress’ counsel, Lord Pivrax."

"And iff sh-she n-now s-serves P-princess Arrd-d-dannla and-d P-p-prince J-j-joel-ll?"

Val’ha beckoned the others to regroup when, at the southwest corner of the Old Church, she stumbled upon a pile of rubble and a clearing in the overgrown flora and, to their wonderment and gratification, a hole in the wall. "It-t ap-p-ph-pearss w-we sh-shall nott n-need V-v-vammpirre’s K-key afft-t-terr all."

"Indeed." The Baroness blew out her tinder-candle and spoke in hushed words. "I shall remain out here, with another – we must still look for other exits. Give me the Vampire’s Key, lady Elf, it may prove useful." Val’ha did so and Val Tress glanced around to each of her fellows, her eyes finally resting on Ma’teus, to whom she returned the candle and took her torch. "You will accompany me out here as the others keep appointment with our bidding." With more command than request, Baroness Val Tress compelled Ma’teus to stand aside with her as the others, Quigley’s swords first, slid through the opening in the wall. "Good luck to you all."

"Zeus’ blessing to each of you, dear sister, gentle Men," were Ma’teus’ last words before Pivrax hunched his seven-foot frame into the crack and her torchlight floated off.

Like a blast of musty air, the evil inside the Old Church and corruption of the Song’s drone hit all of Val’ha’s senses at once, and she knocked into Sir Quigley. "They are here – they are alive. There are others upstairs." Val’ha’s eyes had closed in an emerald haze, and she held Quigley’s arm to keep from falling over, her head spinning dizzily and her body cold and hollow as if she had not eaten for many days.

"Lady Val’ha, your green-light! You are glowing!" the Men called to her.

As her green-light faded slowly, Val’ha regained her composure enough to stand on her own. Her journeymates’ eyes bulged out of their heads, concerned and curious. She took a moment to collect and recollect the imprints that had formed in her mind. "I saw their spirits, their outlines…there was a girl, and a Woman – they were trapped. There were many others – three I light-circled, perhaps another score only their eyes."

"Let us praise Ariadne that you travel with us," said Sir Porcie. The small room they were in was devoid of any furniture, wood slats poked out through the walls and ceiling, and the floor was covered with an inch of dust but for a deeply worn rut that went under a doorway on the north wall; beyond it was a narrow room with beautiful eagle carvings atop the far door. They followed the worn path through portals right, forward, south – a maze of empty rooms, circling inward like a snail until they were at the center of the Old Church. A smell of dried blood filled their breath and caused Val’ha’s insides to roil. From one of the shadowy corners a figure moved, dashing through an open exit at the far end of the room. He was unkempt and hairy, though he seemed to Val’ha both vaguely familiar and dressed in what looked like it had once been the finery of a nobleman – tarnished rings, a ravaged cape, leather boots and silken garb. So quickly did he jump up and depart, none of the companions had the presence of mind to follow, but Porcie identified him. "Frippe! That was Lord Frippe!"

"Lady Frippe’s troth, who Gregarcantz said went mad after her death, tearing up rosebushes and brandishing a knife?" Tarl-Cabot said.

"More like a scared rabbit," said Quigley. "Can we assume he was bolting to escape?" He tightened his fists around his swords and led the others to where Lord Frippe had fled.

Though it was another empty room with another exit, there was a staircase leading to an opening in the ceiling. Ascending the steps, the companions heard muffled noises – footsteps, syncopated pounding and crackling – and kept silent amid their growing anxiety and Pivrax’ flame. They entered a long, second-story hallway that led east and opened upon another empty room, this one cloistered with the dark openings Val’ha had seen from Holy Hill. Peering out, they saw Ma’teus’ fireglow against her and the Baroness’ faces as they studied a bush some distance away from the Old Church, while far to their right, barely visible, Lord Frippe scrambled down the path into the vampire’s crevasse. They found a locked door which Quigley broke open with his left sword to reveal, across a sea of eagle feathers ("Culmination of demons," described Tarl-Cabot), millions of them wall to wall and three feet thick, a closed door, behind it the rumble of someone speaking loudly, and opaline streaming through the cracks. The journeymates waded through the bird feathers and creaked open the last door after Pivrax doused his torch.

"Room of flies, room of feathers, room of waste, room of blood, room of fire!" canted the coven’s black-hooded leader in the opaline chamber, embraced within Xorus’ light-circle like two others in dark robes and headcoverings that showed only their eyes. The leader’s voice reminded Val’ha of Xorus, low, deep and terrible, like the Song he corrupted. "We join for you this pentacle of offering, the five oracles of your demonic grace, Dark God Almighty!"

"SO BE IT!" cried the other hooded figures in addition to over twenty Zeusan brothers and sisters, all of whom moved stiffly in their white habits, though Val’ha could not detect any blankness in their expressions for the opaline light that emanated from their eyes. The possessed clerics repeated their approval five times and formed a circle around a large tinpot of oil that lay beneath a wide section of missing roof.

There were two other doors the companions spotted from their position in the feathered room and, just at the edge of their vision, Sister Ulsruvula and Fanita, hands tied behind their backs and gags and blindfolds wrapped around their heads, but otherwise unharmed. "Circ’Axorn!" proclaimed the leader. Val’ha recognized the words of her own language – ‘Circle of Xorus’ – and almost bolted with her scimitar into the coven room before Quigley and Porcie pulled her back, for after her experience with the Terr’dean coven at Val Tress Hall, Val’ha was determined to interfere with the Circ’Axorn’s plans for Fanita and Ulsruvula.

"Let us wait a moment," Porcie said, "and see what occultness unfolds." Val’ha realized he was right, and her concentrated her attention on the rituals being enacted before her.

The Circ’Axorn leader levitated off the floor several inches, her light-circle oscillating into ocean blue, pearl white and back into opaline. The clerics took hold of each other’s hands and began to sway and hum in concert with the Song. The leader cast a handful of black dust into the oil, which flared into a brilliant red blaze, crackled and spit out of its tinpot. "Black dust of tomb! Blood of blind child! Venom of toad and lung of a mule! Flesh from a madman and hair from a grave, bile of ox have we brought to this stew!" When the circle had repeated her concoction of philters five times, they stopped moving and she descended back to the floor, drawing the opaline light from the eyes of the possessed Zeusans and the circles of the other two veiled agents. "Bring me the child, and the Woman who sent those who would interfere on their foolish errand." Two brothers forced Fanita and Ulsruvula to their feet and dragged them across the room until they stood between the light-circled leader and the tinpot. "Regret harbors within us that we do not have the spirits of the mercenaries to offer you, Lord Master, but through their deaths, Lord Asmodeus who ruled this land in your name long ago and rules still the night, lives."

"All that live must feed off the living," chanted the Zeusans five times. As the flames and drops of oil licked, flew and frothed at the closed Circ’Axorn, the leader raised her arms; when her vestments slid past her hands, Val’ha saw the brass ring she had seen…she flashed back through the morning’s events.

"Men! The leader is Matriarch Crulee-ana!"

"She sent us to the vampire – Lord Asmodeus – on false errand, to be his prey," Quigley whispered. "Accursed Abbess."

Still holding her arms aloft, Crulee-ana cocked her head toward Sister Ulsruvula. "Stupid, useless girl, reciting the false legend of the Vampire’s Key! You – all of you! – were afraid enough to believe you could not enter this building without the contention of Lord Asmodeus, wise enough to avoid him all these years until the outlaws who slew the King arrived…but it is done, he has feasted and they are no more."

"She is quite certain of herself," murmured Sir Porcie. "Let us prove her guile."

The Abbess skullbucked Ulsruvula, snapping her neck and flipping her backward to the floor, her head barely missing the boiling tinpot. Fanita tried to cry out from beneath her gag, but continued to stand her ground against the opaline Matriarch. "If you are at one with me, rise toward me, smoke and flame! If you are not at one with me, rise athwart me, smoke and flame, either to right or left!" The blaze pointed its ruby edges in the Abbess’ direction until she snapped her fingers and allowed it to return to its haphazard firing. "NOW BRING TO ME," she continued, nodding toward the shorter of her two assistants, "the hallowed Sword that Sister A’gren discovered upon these grounds!" Like a kerchief caught in the wind, the keeping-sack that held Dop-splythe jerked itself from the crumpled body of Sister Ulsruvula and danced its way into Matriarch Crulee-ana’s hands. She squeezed the bag, her eyes slavering over her treasure, and opened it upside down.

The Diamond Sword, echoing back the red flame before it, pounded onto the floor. Sister A’gren and her compeer lifted Dop-splythe from both ends in front of Crulee-ana, who bent her head, mouthing the words on the Sword several times over, as if in practice to herself. "Our time grows near," said Tarl-Cabot

Crulee-ana removed her headcovering; A’gren and Brother Lawrence copied her and lofted the Excited Sword higher. "AXORN CIRC’VITAE FLU’IDE!

"I conjure you through the circle of flies: I conjure you through the circle of feathers, the circle of waste, the circle of blood and the most glorious of these, THE FIRE OF TERR’DES! With the permission of my LORD, AXORN of Black Divinity and Magic, I captivate the Book of Fear and conjure the Eight in your eternal Name – Aruba called X, Ipi called X, Frederick called X…"

"She is summoning the powers of the Swords for Dop-splythe’s spell!" Tarl-Cabot said harshly, but Val’ha gripped his wrist and he appeared to understand that she desired strongly to hear the sacrament of Steinman’s Diamond Sword.

"…Gar called X, Bufacopa called X, Snofi called X, Da called X, and Arn called X – that you attach yourselves to me and surrender this Sword unto me so I may use it according to my desire; that I find shelter under the shadow of our Dark Lord in his glorious Name, the mighty and awe-inspiring X, and these twenty-four agents of his Church, you shall deliver unto me the secrets and mysteries of this Sword from above and below so that my wish be fulfilled and my words hearkened unto, and my prayers received through the conjuration with the ineffable name of LORD AXORN, GOD OF GLORY in this world!" Crundin began to pull violently against Tarl-Cabot’s thigh, as if to tear out of its sheath and make toward its brother.

Whenever one Sword shook, the other rattled; as Tarl-Cabot struggled to simply hold onto Crundin, Dop-splythe turned redhot, so much so that Lawrence and A’gren flitted it between them, yipping in pain. Matriarch Crulee-ana bent to take the blade, her flesh immune from the Sword. "It is time to move!" Tarl-Cabot dominated Crundin and pushed past his companions. "Good day, witch!" The Abbess sent her unwitting followers scattering toward all corners of the room. "Quigley, Porcie – block the innocents!" The knights split east and west, fending off the brothers and sisters, who grabbed knives and pieces of timber.

Val’ha and Pivrax followed Tarl-Cabot as he barreled toward the three coven leaders and Fanita did her best to scramble away from the immediate turmoil. "YOU!" The power of its sibling Swords penetrated Dop-splythe, bringing near-blinding light. The Night Moon’s crown had filled out to become an opaline circle. "Get him!" Crulee-ana pushed Sister A’gren toward Tarl-Cabot, but with Ulsruvula beginning to stir at her feet, A’gren toppled over her into the boiling flames, without even a second to scream her demise. The High Matriarch pointed Dop-splythe at Lawrence, filling his eyes with opaline and directing him, corpselike, toward Tarl-Cabot, who was so intent upon the Abbess he did not notice his own peril. Val’ha, her blood tingling, focused her green-light through her scimitar, sending three emerald beams at Lawrence’s chest and knocking him back so powerfully he hit one of the far walls, where a peg penetrated the back of his neck and he flopped like a gruesome, charred limp puppet until he was dead.

Crulee-ana brought Dop-splythe’s light to bear upon Tarl-Cabot, who froze in his pursuit; Val’ha saw him begin to move more slowly. "Ah! That is it," soothed the Abbess, lowering her Sword slightly as she stepped toward the knight.

"HA!" Tarl-Cabot plunged Crundin through the light-circle and Crulee-ana’s middle. Her blood darkened the front of her robe; she let go of Dop-splythe with one hand, which she used to touch the Sword running through her.

"You – is one of them…" she began, spitting blood. Tarl-Cabot pulled his red-stained weapon back through the Abbess’ body, pushed her roughly back and dragged Ulsruvula to safety before fetching Dop-splythe, but in those precious seconds as Crulee-ana pointed the Diamond Sword into the floor and used its crutch to lower herself into a crouching position.

She stroked her brass ring. "Val’ha!" Tarl-Cabot yelled, "She has a wish-ring! STOP HER!"