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Ista had a vision of a strange, dimensionless void, the picture leaked, perhaps, from His mind to hers: a roiling pool of demon energy, without form, without personas, without minds or wills or song or speech or memories or any gift of higher order—the Bastard’s hell. Reservoir of pure destruction. Spilling from that pool into the world of matter, a thin controlled flow. Returning to it, an erratic stream. Balancing the life of the world exactly midway between the hot death that is chaos and the chill death that is stasis. She realized at last why the concatenation of Joen’s demons had made her edgy, on a level separate from their direct threat to Porifors. Was it possible that such a vortex of disorder might create its own rip between the two realms, one that even the gods might be hard-pressed to mend again? So much divine attention in one small place . . .

Some human attention now would gratify Me greatly, the Voice murmured. It did not, Ista noticed, either confirm or deny her guess. Bring me in the rest of my little brethren, sweet Ista, as swiftly as you may. It will no doubt take practice before it comes easily.

So therefore my first trial is a dozen at once? The pain flaring in her stomach felt as though she had been forced to swallow molten lead. Along with that sickening, twisted thing?

Well, said the Voice affably, there is this; if you survive this, no other demon astray in the realm of matter should pose too onerous a challenge to you hereafter . . .

Ista considered a wealth of objections starting with What do you mean, if? but abandoned the impulse. Starting an argument with this Presence was likely to do nothing but spin her in endless circles till she was dizzy, and make Him laugh.

You will not abandon me again? she asked suspiciously.

I did not abandon you before. . . . nor you Me, as I have marked. Persistent Ista.

She turned her second sight outward again. Trying to see the god with it had been as futile as trying to see the back of her own head. Joen’s mouth was open, her eyes rolling back, her body slumping. Somewhere under Ista’s breastbone, the first burst of pain was diminishing, as the god drew the ancient demon and its clawing mistress back into His realm. Following after it, but now running to her and not to Joen, a dozen tangled, writhing cords of light jerked and yanked, as the demons fettered upon them tried to flee the feared presence of their god. The human bodies in which they were lodged were only just beginning to move under their riders’ frantic lashings.

One at a time or all together? Ista reached out with her spirit hands and plucked one cord at random, and slid her light-palms along it to the demon within one of Joen’s attendant women. This one was well cultivated, with parts of three or four different souls whirling within it. The white soul-fire of the living host was more readily discernible, and she combed it back toward the woman, imperfectly. Ista swallowed the demon. The woman’s back arched, and she began to collapse. The demon passed through into the god’s hands more easily this time, almost immediately.

These cords. I recognize them. I pulled Arhys safe to shore last night with something very like one.

They were stolen from Us, long ago. The demon could not have created them, you know. The Voice was edged with wrath, though only the faintest reflection of it glimmered through to Ista, else she would have been crushed flat.

Ista reached for another cord, repeating the gesture of plucking and combing. It was a man, one of the officers; his mouth opened on a beginning scream. I’m not getting it all sorted, she worried. I’m not getting it right.

You are brilliant, the Voice reassured her.

It is imperfect.

So are all things trapped in time. You are brilliant, nonetheless. How fortunate for Us that We thirst for glorious souls rather than faultless ones, or We should be parched indeed, and most lonely in Our perfect righteousness. Carry on imperfectly, shining Ista.

Another, then, and another. The