The Big Meow

Here, Siffha’h said, and a moment later Rhiow was struck by lightning again: but this time it was lightning she understood and sympathized with, a blast of sheer wizardly power that ran through her, down the cord to Dolores’s body, up the cord to the Dark Lady. All around her a skin of white fire formed, eating its way inward. She screamed –

Then vanished. Rhiow, released by the forces Siffha’h had channeled through her, fell over, unable to move.

Beside her, Dolores moaned.

“Come on,” Urruah said, the first time any of them had spoken aloud in so long. “Come on!”

Behind them, the dark gate was nearly complete. Hwaith was hanging on to the last normal hyperstring strands, trying to keep the interface from forming, yowling in pain and effort. But he couldn’t hold it. A second later he was knocked away from the gate and hurled through the air to smash into one of the larger stones. Limp, he fell at the foot of it, didn’t move.

Rhiow struggled to get to her feet, fell back again, unable. The darkness from the gate was spreading all through the cavern, now. And as the darkness started to flood out of the circle toward them, something else began to stir in the ground under their feet. A rumbling… a shaking…

The earth began to quake.

The screams of the ehhif by the door suggested that they were no longer quite so eager to linger here to meet the Great Old One. The torches fixed in the ground fell over, one by one, as the shaking got worse. Dislodged clods of earth began falling from the roof. There was no light, now, but the burning dark forming and spreading from inside the gate locus, and across the cavern, a white fire in the shape of a black and white Person, sitting still, concentrating, pouring out power. “Come on, Laurel!” Urruah was shouting in the Speech. “You know what you need to do, what you want to do!”

The noise was starting to build up in the cave as the shaking got worse, as bigger chunks of the ceiling started to fall, as the ehhif screamed and beat on the door, trapped and in terror of their lives. The earth was starting to roar as Helen had roared, the low sound of a great cat, hungry, bending over its prey, jaws opening. Rhiow, dazed and deafened, kept working to push herself to her feet. Hwaith, who’s looking after him, and what about Arhu, and Aufwi, and Helen, Urruah, you have to get them out —

But the voice that answered her was not Urruah, or Hwaith.

“In – Life’s – Name,” it said, slowly and with great effort, “and for Life’s sake – I say that I will use the Art – for nothing but – the service of that Life…”

She trailed off. The hill roared around them. “Come on,” Urruah said, and “Come on,” said Helen, “come on, cousin, you can do it, come on — !”

Dolores’s body with Laurel’s spirit in it was gasping for air. “Come on, Sif, push it,” Urruah was saying, “Helen, quick, her oxygen levels, I’ll hold that bleeding – “

“I will guard growth – and ease – ease pain – I will fight to preserve – what grows – lives well in its own – own way…”

She trailed off again. The ground under them all shook. The dark from the gate was getting closer, and Rhiow could feel it, a cold that burned worse than vacuum, because at least vacuum was in the real world and had a temperature, and this had nothing, was nothing, Nothing Itself, coming for them as it had wanted to forever –

Rhiow pushed herself up onto her forefeet, all she could manage. “Laurel! Come on!”

“Change no – no object or – creature unless its growth and life – or – or – “

“ – the system!”

“The system of which it is part – are threatened – “ A long, long pause. And then a last gasp.

“Laurel!”

The ceiling was starting to come apart above them, now. The shimmer of a forcefield that Urruah had erected was holding the downfalling chunks away for the moment, but it wouldn’t last: the cold blackness from the gate was eating at the edges of it. Not until I’m on my feet, Rhiow thought, and hauled her hind legs under her, and pushed herself up, and wobbled, and fell down, and pushed herself up again. I am a Person, and if I die here I’ll do it standing up before the Queen as befits one of Her children –

“ – To these ends – in the practice of my Art – I will put aside fear for courage – “ Another gasp, a long pause. “—And death for Life – “

The ceiling came down on them, stopping the ehhifs’ screams. The forcefield held, but it was buckling. Sif’s light was going out. Around them, the walls of the cavern were flowing like water, running downhill toward them –

“ – when it is right to do so – “

Something pushed itself against Rhiow, supporting her in the dark. She leaned on it, pushing herself straighter. Across the circle, Sif’s light was dimming, going out. Rhiow glanced to see what she was leaning on: caught a last glimpse of bronze eyes before the light went out and the earth’s roaring all around them drowned out everything else.

“Until Universe’s end — !”

It was almost a cry of triumph.

And then everything happened at once.