Fast as he could, Parry closed the ravaged memory cells and opened the current one to the surface, recreating the deep knowledge well that had served as the demon's pen.

Styak's answer was an almost lazy swipe at the wall, little kitten claws easily tearing a fresh rent.

"I've gotten the hang of it," the demon offered, not moving through the fissure.

"Stop that!" Parry fought a wave of panic, then mentally repaired the rip.

Another flash of claws and a fresh one opened right up.

He grabbed the cat by the scruff, holding tight.

"There we go. You've got me now. I can't go rooting through your memories. All you have to do is stay here, holding me. Forever."

Parry closed the well, standing now on the vast surface of his memories, one hand on the kitten-shaped parasite he'd brought into his own mind. Like a real cat, the scruffing made it dangle, claws out but limbs not moving.

"I'm going to put you down now," the boy said, cautiously. "We'll have a little chat."

The instant Styak hit the surface, it swiped and dove down into whatever memory cell was just beneath it.

"HEY!"

Parry dropped to his knees and stuffed his arm to the shoulder, feeling around--there was a fluff of tail and a ripping sound and it was gone.

"Dammit!"

He chased, the little thief managing four more cells before Parry got hold of it again, this time hauling it back to the surface by a rear leg.

"Are you chewing? Stop chewing. Spit it out! Out!" He shook, but only heard the horrible sound of the thing swallowing.

"You've been to Jungstown," the cat offered, tongue rolling as if savoring the memory. "You were an older man with a flaming sword. I approve of all the murder. The house you knocked down, there were children in there. If I saw them, you saw them. Sound familiar?"

"What? No! No, I..." Quick, when were you at Jungstown? He'd been hundreds of times, as a human, an elf, a gryphon--wait, flaming sword? He called up a memory of approaching Jungstown at the head of an elite squad of fighters working for the Prince of Strossburgh. It was a diversion to let his mage corps slip in undetected--

--and he remembered the end of the mission, exhausted, in the bowels of the town hall, wrapping bandages around his leg. What he didn't remember was everything in between.

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"You ate it. I can't remember." More shaking. "You cough that right back up. Now."

The demon endured the treatment, no swearing, no taunting, just a smile. "Come into my mind and get it, if you dare. I'll give you a nice shape, maybe a mushroom. You'll have no problem tearing through my memories. Mushrooms are mighty and fierce, with sharp claws."

Parry fought with his own mind, trying to bridge the memory gap, but it was no use: that experience was gone. His greatest weapon, the combined lifetimes of trial and error, the vast bank he could draw down upon--mixed up and locked off as so much of it was when he reincarnated--suddenly under attack from the inside, getting eaten away by this...this...!

"Good idea," Parry smiled. "Let's give you a fresh shape, something even more innocuous. A slime, maybe."

"Try it," nodded the insufferably smug creature. "You'll have to put me down, leave your own mind-space, redo the entire Ritual of the Second Step by yourself in the middle of the night, while blind. Go on, I'll just have a little snack while you're setting up. I wonder how deep and how far I'll get...?"

Parry knew how it felt to be trapped. How many thousands of times had be been captured, imprisoned, left to rot in some lordling's oubliette, or wandering in a vast wasteland after a banishment or a failed teleport? He was trapped in this entire game, life after life, over and over. But this was a first: trapped in his own mind? Intolerable.

"You're not worth it. I'll find some other source of magic power. I'm kicking you out." It wasn't even a question, he couldn't let this thing worm its way through his lives, doing untold damage.

"Alright."

That stopped him cold.

"You'll just leave?"

Silence from the kitten, who didn't appear to mind being dangled upside down by the leg.

Parry felt a cold shiver down his immaterial spine. "You've gotten a foothold in our world from being bound to me. If I release you, you'll slaughter us in our sleep."

How did the damnable thing manage to shrug like that?

Standing on the edifice of his own thoughts, Parry could only fight back waves of panic and try to find a solution. There was only one.

He lifted the demon up to eye level. "I have to destroy you. I don't want to. It means damaging my own soul. Badly, since you're tied into how I draw out magic power. I might be reduced to having no magic at all. But I'll do it."

Styak didn't cower. "Now we get to it. Yes, destroy me if you like, and in doing seal away your own magic and half your soul with it. You would, too, wouldn't you? I've seen what you can do. "Lord of Bronze Parry," "Devil Magus Parry," "Titan Parry." Hundreds of Parry lives with one thing in common: nothing stands between you and power."

"So why aren't you afraid for your life? This world is vast and its treasures almost infinite. I can think of ten spells and twenty magic items to repair my soul once I've finished you off. This slows me down, but it won't stop me."

The kitten crossed its arms in a disturbing way no actual cat ever would. "You won't harm me, not if you truly wish to escape all this."

There was no weather in this mental place, but Parry was certain he felt a foreboding wind.

"Your plan is very good. Starting with shaper magic, but using it that way--it's a stroke of genius. You'll require decades, but it might even work. Your plan to destroy the Creator."

"Plan? What plan, I can't remember any..."

Understanding dawned on Parry like an ill omen.

"Of course you can't," smiled the demon. "I ate it."