But then time stood still.
*
Time stood still.
Kalus looked into the face of the man he was prepared to kill. A
hideous change had come over it. His heart wrenched inside him, and the
blow never fell. Sylviana gasped as well, and struggled for the breath
to plead mercy. But there was no need, as both finally understood the
words of the Spirit.
There before him, where a human form had been, lay the contorted figure
of a demon, a face twisted and insane. A man possessed. But not by
some Bible-black devil, or mythological spirit of Evil. By the more
real, the more horrible.
The demon, the reality, of Fear.
Slowly Kalus lowered his sword, sick with pity and remorse, as Sylviana
hid her face against the stone.
More slowly still, some semblance of its original shape returned to the
red terror of William's face. And as terrible to him as his own
countenance had been to Kalus, were the words that his enemy now spoke,
who should have killed him.
'Forgive me,' said the man-child sorrowfully. 'I didn't
understand.'
As if struck by a hammer, William fell back. Something inside him tried
to laugh, but was drowned instead by anguished tears, and a groan of
pain that twisted his soul like a rag. The terrible voice continued as
the cub, knowing nothing yet of hatred and violence, but only an
instinctive compassion, came closer and licked his face.
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