The demons exploded into a fit of protests, complaints and conjecture. Suddenly everyone had something to say. Some were making wild accusations. Others were defending themselves, then accusing whomever occurred to them first. Tension took hold of everyone present. They instinctively began to group themselves with the members of their own clan. Several demons brought out their wings.

  “That’s enough!” roared Tanon. The voices quickly dissolved. “Barons, control your demons or I will! If anyone who is not a Baron speaks without being asked to speak, he will wish he had never gotten out of Hell.”

  The threat served its purpose. The Barons ordered silence and then joined Tanon at the edge of the activation rune. Tanon was clearly livid. No one had seen him like this since the War. Each and every demon in attendance noticed that he had been about to bring out his wings, something he never did hastily. Any time he’d ever unfolded them, someone had died.

  “This is the work of the Elder,” stated Urkast to the circle of Barons, though everyone could hear what he’d said. “We should reconsider our attack.”

  “We’ll do nothing of the kind,” objected Elnis. “I have no intention of going back to the Hole. You can do whatever you want, Urkast. My clan is going ahead with this.”

  “And how do you plan to do that? I see no way to attack the Nest if we can’t get to it. Either we open a portal or there is no way to conquer the Threshold. If any of you know some other way to get into the First Sphere, now would be the time to say so.”

  “There is no other way,” hissed Dast. “We must rethink this. We must have done something wrong.”

  “I agree with Dast,” Stil chimed in. His gentle voice somewhat reduced the tension hanging in the air. “We must find a solution. Giving up is not an option. We have to think this through and not just plunge in headfirst.”

  “But time is of the essence,” Dast reminded them. “We have less than twenty-four hours, and the portal will take at least one hour to open. If we postpone, it won’t work, and we’ll have to wait another three centuries. That gives the angels too much time to regroup. We have the element of surprise and we cannot waste it.”

  “Are you sure we won’t be able to do it if it doesn’t happen by the end of the day today?” asked Elnis.

  Tanon shifted uncomfortably. He was following the conversation but for the moment he was not participating. He was not given to speculating; he preferred to speak only when he had something concrete to say. Zibon and Cryn were locked in their usual state of silence, but the rest of the Barons were used to not counting on their input during deliberations.

  “Entirely sure,” explained Dast. “For a portal to be capable of allowing an army to pass through, it has to be incredibly large. It is only possible when the spheres of the Nest are lined up in a particular way. It’s now or never.”

  “Then it is clear we must come up with some way to open the portal in the next few hours,” said Stil, his face showing his concentration. “Our legions are prepared, waiting for the order to attack.”

  “Let’s rule out the Elder,” suggested Elnis. “He hasn’t come back. Of that we can be sure.” He shot an angry look at Urkast when he saw him getting ready to refute that point. “If he had returned, we would know it. After all, the Favored One has not come back.”

  “That is no guarantee.” Urkast could not contain himself. “We cannot be sure that the same thing has happened to both of them. Just one of them could return, or at least one could return before the other.”

  “Stop worrying about the Elder, Urkast.” Stil placed one of his white wings on Elnis’s arm to keep him from causing a confrontation with another retort. Of all the Barons, Stil was the one who best controlled his emotions and was therefore the most diplomatic. The tone of his voice was always patient and judicious. But whenever he sounded angry and out of control, the consequences were much the same as when Tanon unfolded his wings. “The Wave destroyed the three planes and both the Elder and the Favored One disappeared—or left. Doesn’t that seem like a curious coincidence to you? We don’t know where they are but we can be sure they’re in the same place. If one hasn’t returned, neither has the other. Let’s focus on what we can resolve.”

  “Let’s assume the pillars of the portal are not the cause of the problem, especially since checking them would take a long time,” said Elnis, thinking out loud. “There are only two elements we could check here: the activation rune and the seal.”

  “And we don’t have a Traveler here right now,” underscored Urkast, deliberately overlooking Dast, who was a Traveler. “The ones who came out of the Hole are expecting to light the Fog from their various locations.”

  “We are wasting precious time!” bellowed Tanon. “We won’t get far like this. Let’s find out what’s gone wrong right now.” He turned and walked over to Urkast’s personal entourage. “You!” he said, pointing at the one closest to him. “Go to the rune right now and put the seal in place again.”

  The demon did not move. He was frozen in place at the thought of carrying out the command. His eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped a little, but he was unable to utter a single word.

  The blow was brutal.

  Tanon had not hesitated. He’d moved quickly and took off the disobedient demon’s head with one violent thrust of his powerful fist. The severed head thudded to the floor and rolled until it hit the wall with a muffled thump. The decapitated body managed to stay standing for a few seconds, then finally collapsed. The gape-mouthed demons around it took a step back. Tanon’s eyes shone red with rage.

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  “That was one of my best guards!” protested Urkast. No one else dared to speak.

  “You!” Tanon pointed at the guard who was just behind the cadaver, ignoring the other Baron’s protest. “You already know what the order is. Correct?”

  “Are you crazy, Tanon?” Urkast approached him. “I will not allow you to eliminate my people one by one.”

  “I’ve made it abundantly clear that I do not intend to waste more time,” he said, facing Urkast. You’re always bragging about how your clan is the biggest, so it shouldn’t bother you that I’m making use of your vast resources.” Urkast just stood there, Tanon’s gaze daring him to question him; he said nothing. “Well?” Tanon snapped, turning back to the guard he’d selected.

  The demon took one last look at Urkast, his eyes begging for an intervention, but none came. He seemed for a moment to be weighing his options and, even though he wasn’t convinced it was a good idea, he decided to try his luck with the seal since confronting Tanon was sure and certain death. He slowly stepped around the headless cadaver and approached the activation rune. The rest of the Barons left the circle. The demon picked the seal up off the floor and stood there quietly looking at the rune, his eyes unfocused.

  Tanon started toward him with his fists clenched.

  The demon placed the seal in its place, and the scene repeated itself.

  A few seconds after the pile of ash had doubled in size, the same putrid odor again inundated the room followed by a silence that was much more disturbing than the one that had hung in the room after the first attempt.

  A wave of powerlessness washed over the demons, horrified as they watched their hopes vanishing. Since the Wave had made it possible for them to escape Hell, they had overcome their internal differences to work together on their ambitious plan. The thought of vengeance boiled up in their minds with the force of a volcano, but they’d discovered an even greater motivation that propelled them forward: they were in no way willing to return to their prison. If they’d had a choice, they would have preferred to die fighting trying to conquer the Threshold rather than to see all their hopes buried under a mountain of stinking ash.

  “Dast!” bellowed Tanon, enraged. “This is your fault.” Without giving anyone a chance to react, Tanon clutched Dast’s throat and lifted him in the air. “You were the one who designed the portal. You assured us that if we waited for the opportune moment we could get an army into the Nest before the angels could even unfold their wings.” As he spoke, he shook the demon’s thin body, causing his enormous eyes to pop even further out of their sockets. “You are the one who failed and you are going to pay the consequences.”

  “Tanon! Control yourself!” Stil grabbed the arm with which the seventh Baron was holding Dast up and tried to stop him. No one else intervened. “We need him. Only he can fix it. If you kill him, there will be no solution.”

  Tanon wasn’t listening to him. His fury was consuming him, equally clouding his judgment and his vision. Dast was kicking defenselessly, struck by the overwhelming certainty that his immortal existence would soon be coming to an end.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure that Dast can fix it,” said a voice from above them. “Actually, none of you can.”

  The demons looked at one another in surprise, then looked to see who had made the comment. A few looked up toward the ceiling, others simply looked around in confusion. A few others, apparently oblivious to all else, were still absorbed with watching the struggling Baron.

  Dast fell heavily on the floor when Tanon released him. He looked around the room, studying the faces of the surprised demons.

  “Who said that?” he growled.

  They all looked at one other in silence, waiting for someone to answer.

  “It was I,” announced the same voice.

  A silhouette gracefully descended to the floor in the corner of the room, supported by two splendid white wings. The demons turned to see who the anonymous figure was. He came out of the shadows and slowly walked into the light as he tucked his wings away. He was tall, though not as tall as Urkast, and rather thin. His face was covered by a hood. The demons stepped back to make a pathway for him to the center of the room where the Barons stood.

  “Who are you?” asked Tanon. “And why are you hiding your identity?

  “Because it is not relevant,” replied the unknown visitor. “I have come to help you. I can open the portal . . . if we can come to an accord.”

  “Show yourself,” ordered Tanon, unruffled. “You are not a Fallen, so you’re in a rather delicate situation.”

  “I will reveal myself. As you’ve noted, I am completely at your mercy, alone and surrounded by the most powerful of the Fallen. And I am unarmed, though a weapon would not help me much in any case.”

  Dast stood up and curiously contemplated the stranger. Everyone was listening to him intently. Looking around, Dast noticed that Nilia had her rusty old daggers in her hands. They weren’t glowing and showed no color but Dast knew this did not detract from their lethalness. He tried to catch her attention so he could make some kind of face at her in an attempt to warn her not to do anything rash.

  The analysis the hooded visitor had made of his own situation seemed too exact to Dast. No doubt he was gambling with his life and feared that Tanon would split him in two right then and there. And that was exactly what gave an intriguing credibility to his words. He truly must have been capable of fixing the portal since, otherwise, this was nothing more than a suicide mission. Dast wished Tanon would just let the man speak.

  The stranger pulled back his hood to reveal a serenely beautiful face. His hair was brown and short, and he had a distinguished goatee that framed his mouth. His eyes were an intense violet. Dast recognized him immediately. In spite of not having seen him since before the War, his eyes were unmistakable, and now that he’d identified him he also recognized the voice that was forever etched in his memory. His hopes of hearing what he had to say vanished the moment Sirian’s face was exposed. Tanon was going to kill him without a second thought.

  “You!” he shouted. You dare to show your face here?”

  No one would have expected any other reaction from Tanon. Certainly, Sirian himself must have thought it inevitable.

  Tanon struck him violently. There was no way he could have avoided it. Sirian shot back like a projectile, smashing into the wall at the back of the room, which cracked open from the impact. As he’d skidded across the room on his back, he’d knocked down several demons who weren’t fast enough to get out of the way. The only thing that had saved his life was that Tanon had not spread his wings.

  “Tanon! That’s enough!” Stil stepped in front of him. “We should listen to him. We lose nothing by doing so. I want him dead as much as you, but it’s more important to get the portal opened. If he doesn’t do what he says he will do, we’ll kill him in the most merciless way we can possibly imagine.”

  Stil’s words had had their intended effect. Tanon stopped and seemed to be reconsidering. His jaw was tightly clenched, evidence of the Herculean effort the powerful Baron was making to control himself.

  “I can do it . . . the portal . . .,” said Sirian weakly. He was still on the floor, trying to pull himself up. “But before I do, we have to come to an agreement . . . and then if you’re not interested, you can let Tanon finish what he started.”