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"The flyers are too weak to travel so far," the priestess cried suddenly with vehemence.

The two priests shifted uneasily. The priestess's habit of arguing with herself frightened all her people who witnessed it.

"They only need to fly away," the priestess answered herself with a cooler tone of voice. "It matters not if they return."

The Mouth of Moander glared at her reflection on the dark surface of the pool of water. A female saurial with pearly white scales glared back up at her with disgust. Before Moander had possessed her, her name had been Coral, and she had served the goddess of luck. Then she had protected all her people, but now, because she had been too weak to resist Moander, there was no evil the god could not force her to perpetrate on even the smallest or most innocent saurial.

For the moment, Moander had loosened its hold on her mind, as it always did after having used the priestess's body to cast a powerful spell such as scrying.

Coral fought against the control of the Darkbringer so strongly that the god was forced to withdraw so their battle of wills did not use so much energy that the tendrils of possession controlling the priestess were destroyed.

Moander lurked in the back of Coral's consciousness, though, ready to pounce on her thoughts should she try to act against the god. In the meantime, the god savored with a cruel delight the anguish and horror Coral felt at every action it forced her to perform. Most especially, the Darkbringer enjoyed controlling the priestess and forcing her to speak aloud its evil thoughts. Unable or unwilling to keep her emotional outbursts in check, Coral always argued aloud with what the god had made her say. Hence the priestess appeared to be arguing with herself.

None of Coral's people understood what was really happening. Although all the members of her tribe who had been captured by Moander were infected with its tendrils of possession, most were only controlled physically. The Darkbringer had no need to control the minds of ordinary saurials; however, the god had magically shackled the thoughts of any spell-casting saurials it caught. The ordinary saurials thought the priestess had turned evil and insane, while the spell-casters, who had been enchanted to love the Darkbringer, thought the priestess was merely insane.

"If Grypht cannot be captured," Moander said, addressing the priests through Coral's mouth, "he must not be left alive. He might yet find allies to interfere with our plans. He searches now for Champion, the paladin whom people of this world call Dragonbait. If our servants discover Champion, however, they must bring him to me alive. In order to enslave the servant Alias to the master's will, Champion must be sacrificed with special ceremony. Mine will be the hand that destroys the paladin."

"No!" Coral shouted with anguish. "I want no part of his destruction! "

The priests shook their heads disapprovingly.

With a complete sense of hopelessness, Coral envied Kyre her death. It was horrible enough to Coral that she was forced to slaughter sacrifice after sacrifice to further strengthen Moander's new body. She didn't wish to live to arrange the conquest of Grypht or the Darkbringer's reunion with Akabar, but most especially the priestess would rather die than spill the blood of her former lover. "Lady Luck," she called out to the goddess she had once served,

"please let me die!"

Moander's tendrils of possession used the priestess's mouth to argue with herself. "No," Coral was forced to say. "I have something to live for: vengeance. Champion's insults cannot be forgiven. I must see him humbled. "

As the priestess spoke these words, the scent of roses and baked bread and mint all wafted from the glands at her throat. She felt anger and grief and shame, for she was not able to argue with Moander's words. She had struggled to forgive the paladin for leaving her, but she had never really succeeded, and imagining him humbled was a source of perverse pleasure to her. Unfortunately this