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“You know what Vahul planned for me. I had to do something. You think it would have been better to die for that demon?”

“I died for that demon,” says Lal. “If you had not fought him, he would still be in his prison beneath Susal-ur-Bellan where the Verilissia bound him.”

His mother and father seem to melt away. Time bends. The world shifts. Harok is a young man. He has seen sixteen turns. He is strong and full of the fizzing energy of vengeance. He is in the cavern beneath Susal-ur-Bellan. He is shaking and bloody from the trials, but he burns with what he plans to do.

Harok swallows bile. Even in this abieum fuelled hallucination, he can taste it.

Diazuul is before him. A great and fearsome demon, clearly. No God, as the Blood Priests claim. He is as tall as three men. As wide as two. His body is that of a man but his face is monstrous. A beast. A strange purple smoke surrounds him. The stench makes Harok’s eyes water.

Harok searches the pit. The blade must be here.

Diazuul looks down, “What are you doing, human?”

Harok doesn’t answer. It’s dark in the pit. He fumbles on his hands and knees, scraping at the loose packed dirt. Harok’s fingers close around something. A metal cylinder. A handle. The hilt of a sword. Demonica.

“I come to kill you, demon,” Harok says, not allowing his voice to shake.

Diazuul’s strange, monstrous face twists into something that could be amusement. “I am your God, you Solwen wretch. Are you playing heretic?”

Harok shakes his head. “You are no God. Our Gods are the spirits of this forest. The beasts, the trees, the earth. For two hundred years you have twisted our people into worshipping you instead, turning their backs on the old Gods and giving you our people to feed upon.” Harok grasps the jewelled hilt of the sword in both hands

Diazuul still looks amused, as if he is listening to the ravings of a confused child. “Your people give me their lives willingly. It is a great honour for a Solwen to have his body joined to mine. Your own father welcomed being chosen as a sacrifice.” His voice sounds like hissing steam. “Don’t you want to join him? You must miss him. He misses you.”

Harok swallows, standing up with the sword in his hand. “My father was a coward. I am not. I will destroy you and take my rightful place as the Solwen Irgo. I will never let the Solwen pay tribute to you again.”

Diazuul makes a chuckling sound like a low deep rumble. Clearly, he sees Harok as nothing more than a mild inconvenience. “You will not leave this cavern alive. You cannot kill me.”

Harok holds out the dagger. Its blade seems to glow, pale purple. He knew it as soon as he saw it: the blade is made to kill a demon.

The fight is long. Drawn out and exhausting. Harok takes several wounds from Diazuul’s jaws and claws. Sweat is dripping from his body and he is close to dropping from sheer exhaustion, when he finally thrusts the blade into Diazuul’s chest. Blinding orange light flashes out of the demon’s body. A loud screaming sound rips the air of the cavern apart.

Harok realises he is the one screaming. Screaming as the orange light rushes towards him, blinding him, then taking him.

He hears the demon’s voice saying, “You thought you could kill me, Solwen wretch. You have freed me.” The voice comes not from Diazuul’s fallen body, but from inside Harok’s own.

Diazuul’s body lies on the floor of the cavern. But Diazuul is not gone. Diazuul’s spirit is inside him. Trying to take control of him, but disorientated inside him. He may only have moments. He must act now, while he can.

None must know, he thinks. None must know Diazuul is not truly slain. He summons the last of his strength and climbs from the pit with the demon’s body on his back. He emerges into a shocked Sacred Hall. He throws the demon’s corpse into the firepit and announces his triumph. Diazuul was a demon. And Diazuul is slain. The Solwen stare at him, but there can be no doubt what he has done. And the sight of what Diazuul truly is has stunned the room.

Even Irgo Vahul looks horrified. His personal guard are too shocked to even react as Harok charges across the Sacred Hall to take his uncle’s head with Demonica.

As Irgo Vahul falls dead, a cry goes up. A cry of triumph for the new Irgo. Irgo Harok. But when Harok looks around the hall, many faces are wary. Many are shocked by what Harok has done. And when Harok meets his mother’s eye, he knows she sees the truth.

He has not killed that demon. He has become him.

Harok leans his head back against the stone behind him and roars up at the night sky.

Harok can do nothing. Nothing but roar his agony into the night again. Diazuul will take control of his body and all men will suffer. And it will be his fault. He freed Diazuul. All down to his foolish, careless rage.

Harok can feel it. All these overwhelming visions are sent, not from his own mind, but the mind of the demon. He feels loose and dreamy. He is finally losing control. Diazuul will take his mind and he will never get it back. He tries to fight, for his life, for himself, but trying to pull away from the demon inside him causes searing pain. He can feel it, like slimy tentacles siding inside his mind.

He cries out in the dark grove, fighting the chains that hold him and the demon twining itself around him from the inside.

He is lost. He has fought this thing for years. But he cannot fight it a moment more. He screams and screams…

…It’s then that he realises he can feel his kushir.

All this time he has not even been able to see him in the dark. But now he can feel Suskara moving. He looks down. In the glow from the distant torches he can see Suskara is wriggling out of the ropes that hold him. He has almost got out of the ones around his wrists. As Harok watches, Suskara manages to free himself. He pulls away the ropes around his body and gets to his feet. His bare legs are shaking.