"We'd best flee now."
"What do you care, spirit? You can't be harmed. I'll not flee. I say this tower will stand against the dawn."
Below him, stones and masonry raining into a courtyard, a wall gave way, revealing the interiors of several chambers. Jack heard the cries of his servitors and several rushed across the courtyard. There came another shaking of the ground and the tower itself swayed slightly.
Jack faced the pink-skied east once more. "The Key That Was Lost, Kolwynia, is lost again," he said. "This time forever."
For he had tried a simple spell and it had failed.
He heard a roaring, as of waters unlocked, and a far portion of the citadel burst and was scattered.
"If you will not flee, then what of the girl who stands by your side?"
Jack turned toward Evene, having almost forgotten her presence. He saw that a curious look had come onto her face.
At first, he was unable to fathom her expression; and when she spoke, he noted that the timbre of her voice had changed.
"What is happening, Jack?"
As she spoke, he felt her body stiffen and sway slightly away from him. He immediately relaxed his arm to accommodate her movement.
In an instant, it filled his mind. With the slipping away of his magical powers, the spell he had laid upon her so long ago was coming undone. As the dawn spread over the troubled world, her mind cleared proportionately.
He began to speak, hoping to occupy her full attention, to keep her from suddenly considering her changing condition.
"It is my doing," he stated. "The seven listed in the Red Book of Ells would not cooperate in maintaining the Shield against the outer cold, so I slew them. I was mistaken, however, in considering them expendable. Though I had thought I could manage it, I proved incapable of performing the feat on my own. There was but one alternative. I destroyed the Great Machine which maintained the world as it was. Now, we darksiders, drawing our legends from that near-incomprehensible thing called science, say it is a Machine that drives the world. The daysiders, equally superstitious, see the world's core as filled with fire elementals and molten minerals. Who is to say who is correct and who, incorrect? Philosophers on both sides have often speculated that the world of the senses is an illusion. It does not really matter to me. Whatever the reality from which we appear to be permanently isolated, I journeyed to the world's center and effected a catastrophe there. You see its results all about you now. Because of my actions, the world is beginning to rotate. There will no longer be a darkside and a lightside. Rather, there will be both darkness and light in succession in all portions of the world. The darkness, I feel, will always hold in some form the things we have held, and science will doubtless prevail in the light"
That is, he added mentally, if the world is not destroyed.
He wondered, at that moment, what it was like in the lands of light-back at the university- to have evening come on, then darkness, to see the stars. Would Poindexter think it an elaborate semester's end prank?
"This way," he went on, "there will be no need to shield against the cold or the heat. The warmth of the star about which we move will be distributed rather than concentrated. I-"
"Jack of Evil!" she cried, backing quickly away from him.
From the corner of his eye, he saw that a blazing orange arc had appeared above the horizon.
As its rays fell upon them, the tower trembled, quaked, began to rock violently. He heard the sound of falling stones within the tower itself, felt through his boots the vibrations of their dislodgment... . And Evene crouched, and her eyes were wide and wild behind the masses of her now freed hair, which the wind whipped past them ...
... And he saw that in her right hand she held a dagger.
He licked his lips and backed away.
"Evene," he said. "Please listen to me. I can take that toy away from you, but I don't want to hurt you. I've hurt you enough. Put it away, please. I'll try to make-"
She sprang at him then, and he reached for her wrist, missed, stepped to the side.
The blade went by; her arms and shoulder followed. He seized her shoulders.
"Jack of Evil!" she said again; and she slashed at his hand, cutting it.
As his grip weakened, she broke free and was upon him, thrusting for his throat.
He blocked her wrist with his left forearm and pushed her away with his right hand. He glimpsed her face as he did so, and there were flecks of foam at the corners of her mouth; lines of blood crossed her chin from where she had bitten her lip.
She stumbled back against the balustrade and it gave way, almost soundlessly.
He lunged toward her, but arrived only in time to see her billowing skirts as she fell toward the courtyard below. Her scream was brief.
He drew back when the tower's shifting threatened to topple him, also.
The sun was now half-risen.
"Jack! You've got to leave! The place is falling apart!"
"It doesn't matter," he said.
But he turned and headed toward the stair-well.
It searched the corridors, after having entered the citadel through a gaping hole in its northern wall. It left the bodies where they fell, whenever it had to slay. At one point, a section of roofing fell upon it. It dug its way out and continued on.
It crouched behind rubble as brigades of water-bearers rushed by to quench flames; it concealed itself in niches, and behind hangings, furniture, doors; it glided like a ghost and slithered like a reptile.
It picked its way through the debris until it located the trail once more.
High, high it led, and winding ...
There would it go.
The sky split by the light, the broken balustrade so clear in his mind, the flower of her skirts blooming behind his eyes, her spittle and blood the ink of his indictment, the thunder of the tortured land a form of silence by virtue of its monotony, the shattered stones sharpened by dawn's shadowy clarity, the winds a dirge, the movements of the decaying tower an almost soothing thing now. Jack came to the head of the stairwell and saw it ascending.
He drew his blade and waited, as there was no other way down.
Strange, he thought, how the instinct to survive prevails, no matter what.
He held the point of his blade steady as the Borshin sprang up the final steps and attacked.
It pierced the creature's left shoulder, but did not halt it. The blade was torn from his grasp, as the Borshin struck him, knocked him over backward, leaped for him.
He rolled to the side and managed to achieve a crouched position before the creature attacked him again. His blade was still in its shoulder, gleaming in the light; no blood lay upon it, but a thick, brownish fluid was oozing slightly about the edges of the wound.
He managed to dodge the second onslaught and strike it with both hands, but the blows had no apparent effect. It felt as if he were striking a pudding that would not splatter.
Twice more, he succeeded in evading its attack, kicking its leg once in the process and jabbing the back of its head with his elbow as it passed.
Next, it caught him loosely, but he jostled the blade within its shoulder and escaped with a torn tunic.
Crouching, circling, attempting to keep as much distance as possible between them, he scooped up two pieces of masonry and leaped backward. It would have had him then, save for his leap. It turned with great speed, and he hurled one of his new found weapons, missing.
Then, before he could recover from his throwing stance, it was upon him, bearing him over backward.
He struck it about the head with his remaining weapon, until it was dashed from his hand. His chest was being crushed, and the creature's face was so near his own that he wanted to scream, would have screamed, had he the breath.
"It is unfortunate that you did not choose properly," he heard his soul saying.
Then the creature's one hand came to the back of his neck and the other to his head. They began a twisting motion.