In that moment, she felt the power that had invaded her from the creature suddenly ebb back, and then a moment later, she was inside the creature’s strange mind, and it was trying to resist her, as she gripped it with her will and demanded that it do her bidding. They were locked together, two intelligences in fierce, internal combat, the rest of the world forgotten, all thought and senses concentrated on the battle of wills between them. One must surrender soon –

A thistle-head suddenly appeared, sticking out of the creature’s chest, the other end of the spear-shaft in Kargrin’s powerful hands. Deep inside the creature’s mind Clariel felt as if her own chest had been pierced, but it was a distant, walled-off agony. She held on tighter with both mind and body, now intent not just on stopping the thing from killing Bel, but on making it bow down to her, to obey her in all things, to become her slave … and it was slowly giving in to the pressure of her will, she could feel it weakening … Then it spoke to her, mind to mind, no longer dominant and jeering but pleading with her, begging her for mercy.

‘Help me! They will imprison me, trap me in a bottle, bind me again! You know what it is to be bound, contained against your will! Help me, sister!’

Dimly, Clariel was aware that Kargrin was weaving some sort of mighty Charter Magic spell. She could sense the Charter very close, like a great reservoir of power dammed high above, with Kargrin about to open the floodgates to let that power rush through him and his thistle-head spear, enveloping the creature in bonds it could not escape.

And once bound, Kargrin would force her – for Clariel found herself thinking of the creature not as it but she – into some less solid shape, and then contain her in a glass bottle or some vessel of pure metal, reinforced with spell after spell, all the weight of the Charter to hold the creature inside for forever and a day.

‘Help me, Clariel,’ whispered the creature, the two of them still wrapped together deep in the thing’s mind. ‘My name is Aziminil.’

Clariel let go – let everything go, her mental stranglehold, her grip on the sharp, stabbing feet, her rage – just released everything, even as Kargrin came to the final marks of his spell, an instant before he spoke the master mark. The mark that would bring everything together, combining all the thousands and thousands of marks that shone like a great galaxy of stars in the air above his head and swam the length of the thistle-head spear, striking great gouts of silver sparks wherever they touched the creature’s blood-red flesh.