Timothy Zahn - Triplet

"Reality, is it? That's what you want, Ravagin; reality?" Saban strode across the room to a desk and yanked open a drawer. "Then take a look. This is reality—and after a century of trying and failing, I'm the one who found the key." He reached into the drawer and pulled out a sheaf of papers. "Feast your eyes, Ravagin, and let your gut devour itself with envy."

The papers were too far away for Ravagin to make out any real details, but he already know what was there. Circuit diagrams. Mechanical layouts. Logic circuits, electrofluid control/decision algorithms, structural data—the secret technological magic of Shamsheer, ready to be memorized and taken across the telefold to the Twenty Worlds. "Impressive," he murmured.

" 'Impressive'; that's all you can say?" Saban gloated. "The complete—complete—circuit diagrams for a Dreya's Womb and a sky-plane, and 'impressive' is the best you can come up with? No mention of the sheer possibilities these papers contain?—nothing about the wealth, the fame and power?

Your sour grapes are showing, Ravagin. Shamsheer is forever open to us now. Or, rather, open to me now."

He ended on a screech of triumph. "Oh, you found a key, all right," Ravagin bit out. "And I suppose Faust thought he was pretty clever, too, after he'd made his bargain with the devil. Did it ever occur to you that in having your pet demon trace out all this circuitry that he would pick up a hell of a lot of knowledge along the way as to how the stuff worked? And how he could bend it to his own ends?"

"His ends are defined for him by me—"

"No!" Ravagin snapped, patience breaking at last. "You're nothing but one of his tools, Saban—a damn stupid fool who let petty greed get the better of you. Just look at yourself—he's halfway to controlling you already. All right, fine; you've got your precious diagrams, and you're a big hero. So quit while you're ahead and help me get rid of him before it's too late."

"With so much of Shamsheer's magic left to uncover?" Saban snorted his contempt. "What sort of fool do you take me for?"

Ravagin sighed. "One who's going to get nothing but a footnote as the man who nearly brought destruction to Shamsheer before he was stopped."

Saban started to speak... and suddenly closed his mouth as the words seemed to register. "What do you mean, stopped?" he bit out coldly. "You can't stop us, not if you had five lives to do it in."

Ravagin stared at the man, an icy chill running up his back. We—the same word with the same inflection to it that Melentha had used... and like Melentha, it sealed away forever the last chance that Saban really was a relatively innocent dupe in schemes that had gone beyond him. Between occupational frustration with Shamsheer's elusive technology and the demon's steady emotional erosion, Saban was lost. Ravagin had hoped against hope that he could yet bring the other back, could turn him into an ally.

Now, instead, he would have to kill him.

"I won't need five lives to stop you," he told Saban, an almost infinite sadness welling up deep in his soul. "All I need to do that little chore is already on its way here. From Karyx."

Saban froze. "From...? What do you mean?"

"Just what I said. Since I'm not sure how to deal with your demon, I'm bringing someone here who will. His name is Gartanis; I'd imagine your demon has heard of him."

The whisper at the edges of Ravagin's mind abruptly seemed to increase in intensity. "Yes, I see that he has," he said. "Good. Then perhaps you'll be able to persuade him that he might as well give up now and return peacefully to Karyx. And from there to the fourth world."

Saban inhaled; a shuddering, rasping sound. "You're bluffing," he all but whispered. "You're here—

Gartanis is on Karyx—and between you and him are a thousand spirits to call on."

"Karyx spirits? Certainly... but I don't need to go to Karyx. Gartanis is already on his way here."

"Impossible. Across the telefold—" Saban bit at his lip.

"Across the telefold you can only communicate verbally?" Ravagin offered. "Don't worry, you're not giving away any state secrets; I know how you did it. A simple personalized invocation spell, with the name of your new spiritual master inserted into the proper place in the middle—"

"Astaroth is not my master—!" Abruptly, Saban gasped and doubled over, clutching at his stomach...

and when he straightened up again he no longer looked human.

Ravagin felt his mouth go dry. The last bit of information he'd needed, tricked out of Saban as he'd hoped to do. But the price for that name was looking like it might be high indeed. "So; Astaroth, is it? You ready to give up and go back to Karyx now, Astaroth?"

"You cannot escape."

Within him, Ravagin's stomach tightened into a knot. Saban's mouth had moved... but the words had seemed to come from all around Ravagin. The memory of his battle with the parasite spirit flashed back, and for a brief, horrible moment he wondered if this sudden burst of unreality meant the demon had somehow taken control of his mind. Then the true explanation caught up with him and he began to breathe again. "Nice trick, Astaroth," he said as conversationally as he could manage. "So you've learned how to work a house's voice synthesizer, have you?"

"I will destroy you," the voice continued as if Ravagin hadn't spoken. "You and the female human will both die."

"I don't think so," Ravagin shook his head. "For starters, Danae—the female human, as you call her

—is already out of your reach. Or hadn't I mentioned that she's the one who went into Karyx to bring Gartanis here? I doubt she'll have any trouble persuading him to come for such a—"

And without warning Saban snatched his watchblade from its hilt. "The human Ravagin!" the demon screamed the knife's target to it in a voice that no human vocal cords could possibly have produced.

Saban's arm cocked backward over his shoulder to throw—

And as his backswing reached its furthest point the scorpion glove whip lashed out to strike him squarely on the wrist. There was the sharp crack of breaking bone and the knife clattered to the floor behind him. The walls screamed again in fury; without uttering a sound of his own, Saban lowered his head and charged.

As, simultaneously, the walls abruptly burst into flame.

Ravagin snarled a curse, sidestepping and throwing a kick into Saban's torso. In a single heartbeat whatever control he'd had in the situation had been snatched from him... and if he died now he would have no one to blame but himself. Saban had to be killed—Ravagin had suspected that for weeks, known it for minutes—and yet he'd hesitated, unable to strike the man down in cold blood. And now his scruples were going to cost him dearly.

Him, and possibly Danae, too. If he died here, she would soon be following.

And with that thought the last shreds of hesitation vanished. Saban, chillingly oblivious to the flames threatening to bring his house down around him, had halted his mad rush, turning back to the attack with hands curled into talons aimed at Ravagin's face... and the scorpion glove lashed out one more time to wrap itself around the other's neck.

A single convulsive jerk, and it was over.

The demon couldn't cry out his fury through Saban, of course, with the man's neck broken; perhaps because the necessary circuitry was already ablaze he couldn't use the house's voice synthesizer, either. Whatever the reason, there was no sound as Saban collapsed to the floor except the increasing roar of the flames, and for Ravagin the silence was more unnerving than any further screams of hatred could possibly have been. Pausing only long enough to snatch the watchblade from the smoldering carpet and jam it into his belt, he scrambled back to the window, snatching up a chair and hurling it ahead of him in a single motion. The glass shattered; taking a long step, he dived headfirst through the gap into the blessed coolness outside.