The Villagers fell back as Galantyne's men took control, racing to stop their flights, and to chase the largely emboldened Shadow Eaters, now racing away as their numbers decreased. Galantyne ordered women and children to their homes. In less than an hour, the village had been vanquished, its inhabitants rounded into a few homes and Galantyne commanded Talisman to appear. As the great blue dragon exited the mountain tunnel, astonished gasps of fear and anguish rang through the assembled.

"If I leave this immediate vicinity Galantyne, the healing process will begin. Not enough of your people have escaped the fortress or the undersea domes, not enough of your people have revoked their kai." Talisman reminded as he lumbered gracefully. "Not to mention your sister has not liberated the captured inside the bowl."

"Galantyne!" A shout was heard across the village square and Galantyne turned to see Talisman, followed closely by a short man with gray hair and a red face.

"Dmitri!" He yelled running toward his Uncle to grab him in a sound embrace. "I heard about Belakane, a tragedy... a tragedy!"

"Yes! She died valiantly, like she lived, Gal. You are fighting a war, there is no time to waste. Wendar has control of your fortress and is not performing the evacuation as you planned I am told. Kara is in Auditorium."

Galantyne turned to several of his men. "You must go back and free the fortress people. How much time do we have?"

Talisman bared his fangs. "Not long, I fear. Even now the Cleansing is beginning under the mountain."

"I thought only you could affect its completion." Galantyne pushed Dmitri ahead of him to the edge of the seashore. They stood looking over the waves and spray. Dmitri heard the conversation with the dragon in his Zalez as Galantyne spoke to him.

"Only I can prepare the humans for it, but it is inevitable that it will happen." Talisman offered. "If I leave the tunnel it will be the catalyst. I will go back."

"Dmitri, you must get as many people out of the fortress as will." Galantyne grabbed his Uncle's shoulders, shaking his frame violently. Dmitri gripped his hands and pushed them off.

His mouth set in a grim line. "I told your sister I would help her. The task she is given is too great for her."

Galantyne stepped back, his eyes searching Dmitri's. "Too great for Kara?" His tone was incredulous. He reached out with his mind and touched the parameters of hers, sensing the concentration she exerted to locate life and sentience within the interior of Auditorium. "Sister!"

"Galantyne!" His stomach tightened convulsively as he viewed and felt what she did.

"Are there any worth saving? Time is short. We must be moving to higher ground quickly."

"Short?" Her reply was astonished. "I understood Talisman had control--."

"The planet is in control, Talisman is a harbinger, a warning, a catalyst, but he cannot stop the Cleansing. We must depart and revoke or we will perish." Galantyne's understanding had obviously increased with his connection to Talisman.

"Galantyne, I need Dmitri to help me. I cannot do this alone!"

Galantyne's answer was short. "I cannot spare him. Wendar has turned on me. The fortress must be evacuated, and Dmitri is the only one to do it. You will have to do the best you can. Get out of the bowl and get to higher ground in the hills above the swamps."

"The hills? No! The sea is where we revoke, only the sea can claim the kai." She was frantic now as she glanced from creature to creature, wondering what shred of humanity was left or could be salvaged. How was she to get them to the sea?

"Bring the sea to them." Talisman caught the gist of her concern. In her mind, she saw the tunnels under the fortress filling with sea water, and then spewing into Auditorium from the bottom of the bowl.

"How will this be done?" She whispered inside and began to walk toward the base of the inner river in the center of Auditorium. "There is a core, Talisman?"

"Yes, Kara. You must direct it. Inside is a channel that must be moved by hand, a channel that will close off all inner waters and bring them here to the bowl. That will effectively fill your needs."

Kara began to slip out of her cloak, in seconds she was standing beside the headwaters of the pool, filthy and befouled with human excrement and waste, including pieces of the dead. Tears stung her eyes. "If I do this, Talisman, it isn't likely I will have breath to make it back."

"You will meld with the mountain and come to the surface that way." Galantyne said firmly.

Kara began to pump her lungs with air, feeling the recent restrictions and wounds now healed. "Is this the only way?"

"It is the only way fast enough." Talisman replied calmly. "I cannot reach the core fast enough, and Galantyne is needed here to move his people to the shore and then to the hills. If you want to save them, Kara, you must hurry! I cannot hold it off much longer."

Kara looked around at the pitiful array of humanity, half dead, half alive, those who had served valiantly inside the mountain just like herself, for sixteen years some of them. They didn't deserve to be left behind, to become what the planet would make of them should she fail. Her heart beating frantically she seized what courage she had and dove head first into the headwaters, pushing and pulling with all her might and strength, using the rocks and crags to pull against the rushing current.

*****

Ondrea felt immersed. Her mind and heart felt a bursting need to defend and she twirled in circles until finally, she could stand it no more. "Mathilde! Demor! We must go south to help them."

"South is where Talisman is performing the Cleanse. We cannot go close to it. You must return to Valdemar and--"

"Yes! Yes! Revoke kai. How many Valdemarians actually have kai, Mathilde?"

"I don't know!" Mathilde dropped the herbs she'd been collecting. "What is it now? What is happening?"

Ondrea reached out again and felt Jerrika winging her way toward them from far away. She felt the collective pains of the Aerie as they fought Quildor's army. As tuned in as she was to Jerrika, the girl read her frontal lobes and the projection she'd just received from Kahlest. 

Death, destruction. 

Jerrika floundered and turned back, projecting with all her might into the Zalez at her control. 

"No, Jerrika! You cannot help them! Come to me!"

"They need me, Mother!" Jerrika raced back to the scene of the Aerie's ambush. 

Ondrea also felt Korlon who had just reached Valdemar.

"No Korlon! No! Don't go to them! Help those in Valdemar! You must take those with kai to the north sea and revoke your kai."

"I must get to Jerrika!" He yelled back along the Zalez wavelengths and turning, began to run blindly.

"NO! Korlon, stop! You must tell them to revoke their kai before it is too late. Please listen to me. If you love your people, get any who have kai to the north sea. Do what I say."

Korlon turned. He was sensing a link to so many at once, so many people he loved and cared for including....

Blinded by grief and fear he held his head in both hands, doubled over in pain and burning anguish. "Kara." 

As if he could see through her eyes he knew she was inside the mountain, and he knew the mountain was beginning the Cleanse. Her concentration was fixed, she couldn't feel him reaching out to her, but he could feel where her only other thoughts were and he realized his bond to her was severed.

Kara thought only of Rion.

Pain engulfed him and he fell to the ground. He held his head as it threatened to burst. The calling ring fell from his finger and rolled in the dust. His honor call to guardianship dissolved into fluid pain as he severed the link, sensing that she had chosen someone else.

Freed from his oath, Korlon wanted to die. She'd been his from birth, his from childhood.

And now she was no longer. Rage engulfed him and he swore to kill Rion Etrusia when he found him.

He stood up and glanced around, white hot blinders on. Ondrea's mind voice was far away and a whisper. His only link to Zalez was the one focused thought he could find. 

Kill Rion. Kill Rion Etrusia.

*******