Fiery pain filled Dennis' eyes. He swung into the center of it, judging where the head must be from where the tongue pulsed within his grip. He felt his sword strike, but in his spasm of hysterical strength, he couldn't be sure whether the blade bit, glanced off, or flew from his hand.
He didn't feel the floor when he fell back on it, but salt water spattered his cheeks through the helmet visor. Rakastava was roaring like an earthquake through its two remaining throats.
The stump of the third neck spouted like an orange-lit fountain.
Dennis rose to his knees. He hadn't lost his grip on his sword. His thighs clicked together in their armor. The feel of his overstretched muscles relaxing gave him a feeling of success greater even than seeing one of Rakastava's heads on the coping before him.
Rakastava was sliding its body backwards. Its two remaining heads were high, but the third neck trailed limp in the water and the third head was Dennis' prize.
"One is off, but two are on, human," Rakastava's main head called as the creature backed into darkness. "I will return for the princess—and for you."
The sea boiled. Dennis braced himself to receive Rakastava's rush and vengeance. The water surged instead—breast-high as the youth knelt and staggering in its impact, but only water and the creature's real farewell as it dived to whatever depths it called home.
Dennis waited on his knees and left hand while his body gasped its breath back. His eyes were focused on his sword.
The blade still smoothly reflected the cavern's light. No nicks or scratches marred the pallid metal, despite the battering it had taken in the fight.
Neither salt water nor Rakastava's glowing blood beaded on the flats. The star-metal sword was as perfect as it had remained through the millennia before it came into Dennis' hands.
"Oh..." the youth whispered.
Aria's motion was a white shimmer where water pooled in the low spots of the stone floor. Dennis turned and tried to stand—then decided that he'd stay where he was instead. He balanced on one foot and one knee with his left hand near enough the ground for a third point of contact if he became that dizzy.
"Are you all right?" she asked as she knelt beside him. She touched his shoulder with the fingers of one hand, but the metal's unearthly feel made her flinch away.
"Better than he is," Dennis grunted. He prodded the severed head with his sword-point.
The eyes were dead black now, and the mane had lost much of its violet fire. Dennis leaned forward and ran his fingers through the seeming hair. It rustled like glass against his gauntlet.
"Are you really Gannon?" the princess asked. Her hands framed Dennis' face as she started to raise the visor of his helmet.
He stood up suddenly, pulling away from her touch. He slammed his sword into its sheath, his motion driving Aria back a step.
The underground sea had grown as still as volcanic glass. On its surface Dennis could see the reflection of something that wasn't there—the mirror in Malbawn's hut, and Chester waiting at the edge of it.
He stepped toward the coping.
"Wait!" Aria called. Her slim, smooth hand was pale on the armored elbow.
Dennis turned. He wanted to clasp her; but there was nothing in that for him except the thought, and nothing for her beyond pressure from a slick, grim casing of star-metal.
"Give me your ring," he said, wondering for how long the visor and the cavernous echoes of this underworld would hide his voice from the princess.
She obeyed without hesitation, twisting the ring off her little finger to put it in Dennis' metal palm. It was a circle of carven crystal which matched her earrings and complemented the triple pendant between Aria's breasts.
"Now will you—" she said; but Dennis, hoping that he understood what he saw, stepped back toward the reflection—
And into Malbawn's hut, where Chester's quick support kept him from falling as his boots hit the floor.
"There are men who trust their moment," said the robot, "and for whom it goes well forever, Dennis."
"Just get me out of this suit, Chester," the youth said. He could hear the metal-to-metal whisper of Chester already beginning to loosen the catches of the black armor.
The mirror was only a mirror again. Dennis decided he liked it that way.
At least for the moment.
CHAPTER 46
Aria gasped. The water didn't tremble when the man in armor stepped into it. He and the rectangular shimmer—reflection, she would have said, but there was nothing to be reflected—disappeared as suddenly as if they'd never existed.
But Rakastava's head, larger than that of a horse, lay at her feet. The neck-stump was still oozing blood.
She bent to touch the head. The scales were hard and as slick as the armor of the hero who'd left the grisly trophy behind when he vanished.