They rode hard through the scrubby flat lands, the sun hot and heavy in the sky, the air shimmering. The road was barely marked, but because they knew their direction and the ground was level it didn't matter. Their steeds sweated in the rapacious heat, their flanks glistening; their riders were little better off, their white cotton sudreh merely blunting the sun.

Eventually they stopped. The older of the two drew a circle in the ground, and passed his hand across the sandy soil, and sang the chant of water. Soon enough, the earth gave up its bounty, and the water bubbled up to the surface, cold and clear as remorse.

They all drank; then the two magi prayed; and then they sat, the sun low in the sky, and ate and debated what to do next while the horses cropped the stubbly grass.

'It's going East,' said Aoshnar. He was the older, and his beard was grey and wispy, and it shivered in the evening breeze.

Dravasp nodded. He looked out where the sky was drained of colour and the stars were appearing like rain in the dust. 'East are the mountains; and beyond that, the deep desert,' he said. 'It could not survive the desert any more than we would.'

'That is so. It must either turn, or die.'

They had been chasing this daeva for six days, riding south east from the shimmering city of Lest. They were exhausted: but the thing needed to be killed, and there was no one else. It too would be weakened as it fled, but it was still a powerful devil, and the fight would be difficult.

Dravasp was afraid. He had glimpsed the thing when it had escaped the sorcerer's den, a boiling cloud of brilliant orange smoke with eyes like the fire pits of Teth. It had stared at him and laughed, before streaming into the sky, leaving the stink of sulphur and despair. Although the journey was hard, he dreaded its conclusion.

Aoshnar stood. 'We need to leave.'

Dravasp heard the silence, smelt the fragrance of the evening blooming plants, saw the calm of the horses. He took a deep breath in, enjoying the stillness.

Then he imagined the daeva unchecked on the world; and he exhaled, and then he stood too.

Aoshnar nodded approvingly.

'Good. We're close. This ends soon.'

# # #

The horses were faster in the cooler evening. They cut across the land like a knife through silk, the leagues disappearing under their hooves. Dravasp felt the joy of the animal, allowed to run as it pleased in the crisp air, and he smiled.

They passed a village, some way away, but it wasn't where they were headed; and then finally, as the dark was almost total, they saw a lonely farm, huddled down against the feet of the mountain.

It had a single hearth light, an orange blaze visible across the great plain. The night was young but nevertheless absolute, the moon an evil yellow crescent that refused to provide enough illumination to travel. So, given it was in the right direction, they headed there, their horses going cautiously across the dark ground.

The farm was not much, just a wood and mud hut on the edge of humanity, far from any road. There was a wheel for pulling water from the ground, or saqiyah; a stable; small fields of low crops; and a goat, tied to a post, which watched them with curious eyes.

They dismounted.

'I'll see to the horses,' said Aoshnar. 'You go and speak to the people inside.'

Dravasp nodded, and handed him the reins of his horse; then he walked to the rough wooden door, and knocked.

There was a sudden commotion inside. The door was flung open, and a man stood, holding up a talisman to ward away evil. Behind him was an older man, shrieking insensibly. Both had only one eye, although the older was missing the right, and the younger the left.

'Back, daeva, back to the hell you came from!', shouted the man with the talisman.

Dravasp held up his hands. 'Peace, brother. I'm no more a devil than you. We're just two travellers who are looking for rest and food. We can pay you in coin for both.'

The man squinted at him.

'You don't look like a devil, it's true. But then a devil would say that.'

'Let me sing from the Gathas. No daeva could stand to hold them in its mouth.'

'Go on, then.'

And so Dravasp sang the first Gatha; and his voice was low and lilting, and it sounded like a river on a hot day, deep and slow and yet full of darting life. And the man nodded, and stood aside, and Dravasp ducked into the hut.

It was the poorest place Dravasp had ever been in, and he was no stranger to poverty. The whole hut was just a single room, with a tiny fire that they were cooking on; the smoke curled out of the windcatcher, but still filled the place and made Dravasp's eyes sting. There were two palettes where the two men slept, little more than heaps of rags; piles of tools and other things in the corners; and not much else. The floor was bare, uneven earth, and the ribs of the house showed through gashes, where the walls had been damaged and not repaired.

They were cooking a soup, warming it in a black kettle. The smell filled Dravasp's nose with longing whenever the old man lifted the lid to stir it. Not sure what else to do, and not wishing to be rude, he sat on the floor, cross legged, and tried to talk with the one-eyed man and his one-eyed son.

They were not used to company. The older one muttered endlessly, mumbling inaudible coils of words that meant nothing; the younger one constantly chastised him, calling him an old fool and a lazy dog. They interrupted each other, and laughed at jokes he didn't understand, and spat and shouted.

But Dravasp had been taught to believe in good thoughts, good words and good deeds; and so he tried to ask them questions and smile with them and put them at their ease.

They told him that they were farmers, eking out a living here on the edge of the plane. They were afraid of everything, from bandits to devils to the emperor's men. They were keen for him to stay; they looked at his travel-stained clothes, and said that they hadn't seen such finery and that he must be a mighty lord and he would bless their home.

Dravasp smiled, and nodded, and said a word here and there; and he wondered where Aoshnar was.

Eventually, Aoshnar ducked in. He nodded gravely to the two men. 'Thank you for your hospitality,' he said. He sat down next to Dravasp.

'I have seen to the horses. Shall we wash before we eat?', he asked.

The old man and the young man ignored him, bickering over some trivia. Then, the younger one took a wooden bowl from some pile, and opened the kettle lid. The rich smell filled the little hut.

'Soup, fine gentlemen?', he asked.

'What sort of soup is it?', asked Aoshnar, reaching into a pouch.

'It's chicken soup,' replied the one-eyed man.

Aoshnar suddenly stood up, and threw a handful of haoma seeds onto the fire. They started popping, and their sweet, warm smoke curled around the kettle; and then, suddenly, everything changed.

The empty eye sockets of the two men started glowing with a red, baleful light. They shuddered, and then collapsed onto each other, their limbs thrashing and twisting in hideous ways. The hut stated falling upwards, dissolving into dust chunks at a time, collapsing like a pile of sticks blown away in the wind. There was a flash of lightning, and the men exploded into orange smoke, forming one body; the red eye sockets sprang up; and suddenly Dravasp was face to face with the daeva again, surrounded by the ancient ruins of a farm, under an evil yellow crescent moon. And he was very afraid.

But Aoshnar was still standing at the fire; and he began the song of exorcism, the prayer to banish the devils. As he sang, he threw more haoma seeds onto the fire.

The daeva howled, and arced up into the air. Dravasp regained his wits, scrambled to his feet, and threw a spell of binding at the demon; the thin magical line hooked into the boiling orange fumes, and suddenly Dravasp was struggling to stay still as the evil thing tried to pull away.

And still Aoshnar sang.

The devil screamed, and plunged down around the two magi; it whispered dreams of corruption to them, and writhed around them showing them visions of the things that man desire. Dravasp was rocked as the binding spell pulled him hither and thither, and he whispered the Gathas to keep his mind clean.

And still Aoshnar sang.

Finally the devil roared with rage, and attacked them, and Dravasp was forced to push it back with all the magic he could muster, as it spewed unbearable heat at them, and it's sharp claws raked the air around them.

And then, suddenly, Aoshnar finished.

There was a pop, as gentle as the sound of a candle snuffed out. The devil instantly became nothing but smoke, stinking sulphurous smoke that made Dravasp retch, but mere smoke nonetheless. It started dissipating in the gentle night breeze.

'Are you hurt?', asked Aoshnar.

'No, I'm not. Are you?'

'I'm unharmed.'

The two magi sat down, exhausted. The farm buildings were gone, mere stubs of wood where they had been; the saqiyah was a ruin; the goat was just bones. The whole thing had been a lie, conjured by the daeva.

'That was close,' said Dravasp. 'I'm sure it would have murdered us as we slept. How did you know? I had no idea such illusion was possible.'

Aoshnar nodded.

'It was not easy. I walked around the place; I heard the desert foxes bark and yap in the mountains. I saw the goat, I saw the crops. They all seemed as real to me as they were to you.

'However, I saw no coop, or hen house. I saw no chicken, rooster, hen, or chick. I saw no eggs.

'And yet when I came into the house, they were serving chicken soup.'