“Maila!”

Mistress Jek clenched her fist around a rock that she was passing to Floridiana for stamping. Its sharp edges bit into her skin, and blood seeped out between her fingers.

Ugh! Now she’d gone and hurt herself!

A voice was shouting above my head. No, right next to my head. It was too loud, too insistent. I whirled and glared.

Sir Gil hastily held me away from his face. “Emissary! Please! You’re sure they’re not in there! Absolutely sure?” Terrible hope and dread mingled in his eyes.

Floridiana huffed, frustrated that he hadn’t just taken her word for it.

I met his eyes, gave a firm nod, and stated, Yes. I am absolutely, positively, categorically certain that they are not in there. There is nothing in his stomach but acid.

“What if he kept their souls inside himself?” Overhearing us, Captain Rock inserted himself into the discussion at the worst possible moment, with the worst possible idea.

Floridiana raked him with a sneer, happy to have a target. “Oh, yeah, sure, of course a demon can do that.”

Mistress Jek dropped the rock, hitched up her skirts, and ran for the river.

“Oh, by the Jade Emperor!” gasped Yulus. “She’s going to get herself killed!”

“Stars in Heaven, save me from these idiotic humans!” fumed Nagi. “What does she think she can do?”

Yulus writhed on his throne, his scales gouging scratches across the back. “We have to save her, we have to save her.”

“No!” Nagi planted herself in front of him. “No, Your Majesty! It’s almost over! We’ve managed to stay out of it this long – don’t ruin it at the last minute.”

Yulus struggled to focus, to remember why he and Nagi had agreed that it was so important for the water court to stay neutral in this fight against Lord Silurus. Something about hedging their bets, right? Because they hadn’t believed that Densissimus Imber’s coalition could win, and when it failed – as all previous attempts had failed – then they could swear to Lord Silurus that they had not been part of it, and there was absolutely no need for him to ravage the whole length of Black Sand Creek.

Except, against all odds, the coalition was winning. It was winning!

Nagi was speaking rapidly, as if she feared Yulus would deviate from their plan. “Per your treaty with Baron Claymouth, his vassals are allowed to use our river for fishing and recreation, and we are not responsible for any deaths, accidental or otherwise, that happen in our fief. That – ” her tongue flicked out towards the vision, where the mother of the little girl with the flute was sprinting towards the ice – “is definitely happening in our fief. It is covered under the treaty.”

Yulus hesitated. “Yes, but….”

“When Lord Silurus turns the tables on them, do you want him to retaliate against us? Do you want him to destroy this river again? You remember what he did last time, right?”

Nagi was trembling now, not from fear, but rage. The last time a mage had challenged Lord Silurus, Yulus had backed her. But the mage had lost, as every challenger before her had, and after the demon had shredded her, he had proceeded to swim up to the head of the river and spew out wave after wave of stomach acid. It had poisoned the whole river, killing off plants, mortal fish, shrimp, crabs, oysters, weaker spirits. It had even flowed out to sea and polluted the waters near the shore. (The ensuing meeting with the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea had not been – pleasant.)

Nagi had been a young water snake spirit at the time. She’d wriggled into the guards’ barracks through a crevice and survived, but the rest of her family had died.

“Your Majesty, there is no winning against Lord Silurus! There is only coexisting with him! We need to focus on preserving this fief when King Densissimus Imber fails!”

She was right. She was right, of course. Time and time again, Yulus had watched heroes come to challenge the demon. Time and time again, he had watched them die in every gruesome way he could imagine, and even more that he couldn’t and hadn’t wanted to.

Gritting his teeth, Yulus forced himself to sit still. Maybe this coalition was doomed too, but it had come closer than anyone else to defeating Lord Silurus. The least he could do was bear witness to their courage as they died.

Mistress Jek shot past confused rock macaque soldiers, who made half-hearted attempts to grab her while looking at Captain Rock for instructions.

Stop her! I yelled, nearly drowned out by Floridiana’s, “No! Vanny! Come back! I didn’t mean it!”

The mage raced after Mistress Jek, shouting, “Stop! Stop! I was being sarcastic! Her soul went up to Heaven! It’s already reincarnated! This is a trick! It’s not her!”

Mistress Jek didn’t slow. “But what if it is!”

Cursing, Floridiana skidded to a stop, inked her seal, and pressed it to her forehead. Hardened skin rippled out from the red stamp to armor her body. She started running again, more clumsily than before.

Strip– I started to call for the duck before I remembered that – no, not thinking about that. Instead, I pointed a foreleg at Mistress Jek. Sir Gil, after her!

He didn’t need further urging. He dumped me on his horse’s neck, leaped into the saddle, and galloped for the river.

Over the rush of the wind and the pounding hoofbeats, he yelled, “What’s the plan?”

Plan?

Stopping her!

“Yes, but how’re we doing that?”

Uh….

Grab her, sling her over your horse, and ride away!

“Got it!”

We caught up to and then passed Floridiana. But we still couldn’t catch Mistress Jek before she reached the edge of the ice.

Yulus watched the mother slow when she hit the river. Her boots weren’t made for gripping ice, which was slick in some patches, and uneven in others where smashing whiskers and acorns and rocks had torn it up. Also, it was now full dark, and humans couldn’t see well at night, he knew.

As if someone else had realized that, a pair of greenish lights appeared on the ice, tracing a path for her to follow.

The mother stumbled and nearly fell, over and over, as magically-hardened rocks whizzed past her. One nearly struck her in the neck. Startled, she tripped over broken ice. A nearby rock macaque seized the back of her tunic and dumped her back on her feet.

“Hey!” he shouted to the other soldiers. “Watch out for the human!”

Yulus could tell that the rock macaques were running out of energy. They grunted to acknowledge the warning, but they were concentrating their remaining strength on killing the demon, not on not killing the human who was walking into their line of fire.

The mother was within striking range of the demon’s whiskers now.

“Why aren’t they stopping her? The rock macaques are right there. Why aren’t they grabbing her or something?”

Yulus found himself gnawing on his claws. He forced himself to clench them on his armrests instead. They pierced the wood.

Nagi, too, was tense and stiff. “I don’t know, but if this doesn’t end soon, a lot of our people who are trapped in the ice are going to freeze or suffocate.”

Whump!

A whisker smashed down not four feet from Mistress Jek. The impact rocked the ice and threw her off her feet. She pushed herself back up, wincing.

Lord Magnissimus was on Lord Silurus’ other side. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but I heard rending and chewing, and the catfish thrashed and thrashed again, his whiskers crushing soldiers who were too tired to dodge.

Our horse reached the river, and Sir Gil dismounted. He picked me up from where I’d tangled myself into the mane.

Hey! What are you doing?

“Ground’s too rough. He’ll fall.”

I squirmed in his grasp. We’ll be too slow! We’ll be too late!

On cue, another whisker slammed onto the ice, making Mistress Jek stagger. She was in front of all the rock macaques now, making her grim way forward.

All of a sudden, Floridiana skidded to a halt next to us. She yelled back up the riverbank, “Den! Have Master Gravitas light our way!”

A second later, a pair of green lights appeared on the ice before us, distorting as they swept over lumps of ice and fallen rock macaques. Sir Gil and Floridiana half-walked, half-trotted, moving as fast as they could without slipping.

In a minor miracle, Lord Silurus hadn’t noticed Mistress Jek yet, but that was about to change.

Cupping her hands around her mouth, she screamed, “DEMON! MURDERER! GIVE ME BACK MY DAUGHTER!”

One giant, bloodshot eyeball rotated until it fixed on her. “Mama? Mama!” cried the little girl’s voice. “They’re hurting me! Tell them to stop hurting me!”

“It’s not her!” Floridiana tried to call, but her voice came out as a dry rasp.

She inked her seal, but her hand shook as she pressed it to her throat, and the stamp didn’t glow. She tried calling out again, but again her voice was hoarse and broken. The battle had dragged on too long. She was drained.

She looked at her seal, then at Mistress Jek’s figure in the distance, out of reach. She dropped the seal. It dangled limply from her belt.

Sir Gil had stopped to wait for the mage. His voice when he spoke was dead and defeated. “Let’s go back. There’s nothing we can do here. Except get ourselves killed.”

Floridiana was still staring at her friend. Tears glistened in her eyes. “It’s not her,” she whispered. “It’s not her, Vanny. Why won’t you listen?”

“Mama, Mama, it hurts! Make them stop!” pleaded the little girl’s voice.

“I will, baby, I will,” promised Mistress Jek. She ran at the nearest rock macaque, waving her arms. “Stop spitting! Stop spitting!” She grabbed his arm, startling him into spraying another soldier with rocks instead.

That rock macaque dropped with a shriek, but Mistress Jek didn’t register it. She ran to the next soldier, and the next, heedless of the danger to herself. The line was falling into disarray.

“NO!” came the bellow from their captain. “IDIOTS! KEEP GOING!”

But it was too late. The damage had been done. As soon as the rock macaques stopped fighting, their exhaustion caught up to them, and they swayed or collapsed where they stood.

A whisker whistled through the air, knocking a dozen of them into one another, then looped around and lifted them up over Mistress Jek’s head. The rock macaques kicked and beat at and even bit the whisker, right up until the moment it loosened and they tumbled, still kyaw-kyawing, into the demon’s maw. Steel teeth crunched down. Green blood spattered the ice and Mistress Jek.

She screamed.

At that moment, blinding gold light enveloped me. Flicker! No! I was not leaving without seeing how this ended!

I kicked and snapped until Sir Gil yelped, “Please stop, Emissary!”

When I opened my eyes again, he and Floridiana were kneeling before the clerk.

Who had turned to gape at the scene on the ice. “What in the name of the Hundred Stars is going on here?!”

I climbed onto Sir Gil’s head. As my final act on Earth before I am summoned back to Heaven, I am ridding these people of that demon.

“You’re doing what?!”

As you can see, the battle is not going well, but the sudden summons left me with no choice but to attack now. Before we had finalized our preparations.

Both Floridiana and Sir Gil made strangled noises.

Flicker was just as horrified. “This is – Pi– what have you done now?!”

Also, the mother of Jek Taila has gone mad with grief. She is about to get herself killed.

“Oh Stars, oh Jade Emperor, I leave you here for half a day and – ” Flicker was ripping his hair out, although the handfuls that came off simply puffed into golden light that streamed back into him and reappeared on his head. “What am I going to do – I’m going to be in so much trouble – ”

“Messenger!” gasped Floridiana, although she didn’t dare lift her head without permission. “Please save my friend! She’s going to get eaten!”

Yes, please save Mistress Jek. You may be the only one capable of that.

Flicker’s gaze moved from me to Floridiana, who was hunched over and shaking, to Sir Gil, who lowered his head to the ice, and finally to Mistress Jek, who was still running from soldier to soldier and begging them not to kill her daughter.

He sighed. He looked at Mistress Jek. He looked at me.

Then he launched himself through the dark like a shooting star.