‘Then you’d better make sure they don’t, hadn’t you?’ Dark Anne took a step closer, her eyes hard. ‘Now I’m only going to say this once. Get out.’
I met her gaze and spoke clearly and slowly. ‘That’s not going to happen.’
We faced each other across the black-glass floor. ‘I could have killed you any time I wanted,’ Dark Anne said. ‘You want to make me start reconsidering that?’
‘Oh, I’m sure you could,’ I said. ‘Out there. You’re about to find that Elsewhere is a little different.’
‘This is my Elsewhere,’ Dark Anne said. ‘I created it. Everything in this place, every stone, every leaf on every tree, they’re here because I made them. You think you can face me here?’
‘You didn’t create this place,’ I said. ‘It was the real Anne who did that. And you know what? I don’t think you’re capable of changing it. If you could, you’d have done it already. All you can do is hold it together, and from what I’ve seen, you’re having trouble even managing that.’
Anger flashed across Dark Anne’s face. ‘I am the real Anne.’
‘There’s still a chance to work this out,’ I said. ‘Give her back control. Because if you don’t, then I have the feeling that when she wakes up, you are not going to like what she’s going to do to you.’
‘Wake her up?’ Dark Anne’s lip curled. ‘Come and try.’
‘Fine by me,’ I said, and strode towards her.
Dark Anne didn’t hesitate. The real Anne probably would have, would have stopped to wonder why I’d walk into arm’s reach against a life mage, but this Anne wasn’t the type to stop and think. Her hand came out, green light kindling.
I caught Dark Anne’s arm at the wrist. I felt the pressure as her spell tried to attack me, but it was no more than pressure. This might be Anne’s Elsewhere, but the closer she came to me, the harder it was for her to exert her will. It was like forcing two very powerful magnets together; the closer they came, the greater the resistance. The spell slid off, and I swung her away behind me. Dark Anne staggered, then caught her balance, looking at me in confusion.
I’d already made it to the sphere. Now that I was close enough, I could see that within it was a black stone slab. Another Anne was inside, this one dressed in white, laid out with her arms by her sides. Her chest didn’t rise or fall, but somehow I had the impression she was sleeping.
‘What the hell … ?’ Dark Anne ran at me.
I caught her wrist again without turning to look. Again her magic reached out, trying to attack me, with the same result.
‘Stop it!’ Dark Anne struggled. ‘Let go!’
‘Did you make this?’ I asked her. ‘Doesn’t seem like your style.’
‘Let GO!’
I released Dark Anne and she jumped back out of range. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ I told her, ‘but I’d like some other company.’ I wondered how tough that crystal was. Only one way to find out. A giant weapon appeared in my hands, somewhere between a scythe and a pick, glowing blue-white. The haft was about ten feet long and the curving blade was as tall as I was. In the real world I wouldn’t even have been able to lift it off the ground.
‘No!’ Dark Anne said. ‘Don’t—!’
I took an overhand swing, focusing my will into the tip of the blade.
The point struck the crystal and the sphere rang like a bell. I’d been willing the blade to cut through, and as it struck I felt my will slam into something, like a blade scraping off bone. It felt like running into a brick wall. The scythe jarred out of my hands, vanishing as it touched the floor, and I staggered back.
‘Idiot!’ Anne shouted. ‘Are you trying to get us killed?’
I started to answer, then trailed off. All of a sudden I could sense another presence in the room, something stirring. I thought I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and whirled, but there was nothing.
I turned, looking around. The great room felt hushed, waiting. I couldn’t see anything in the columns around us. Up above, the roof faded into darkness. The gloom made it hard to see, but I was sure I was being watched. I looked up, frowning. Something about the shadows around the roof felt wrong. There could be something hiding up there …
The shadows in the roof moved.
Oh. My eyes went wide. That’s not a roof.
The jinn stirred and looked down at me.
Looking at the jinn felt like something out of a dream: you have an impression, a sense, but you don’t see it, not exactly. I had a vague impression of a body, a towering shape going up and up, but it was cloaked in darkness. Or maybe not darkness; it wasn’t black, or any other colour, but something that made my eyes shy away and refuse to focus. The best comparison I can think of is what you see when you close your eyes, black and grey and specks of not-quite-light, all mixed together.
‘Just stay quiet,’ Dark Anne said, her voice low. ‘If you don’t—’
The jinn struck.
I leaped aside, jumping thirty feet to land on the other side of the sphere. For one instant I had a confused impression of two images at once, the jinn looming overhead as an incorporeal cloud and yet also swinging a blow downwards like a giant, then the strike landed. There was a ripping noise like enormous bedsheets being torn apart, and a section of floor just … vanished. All of a sudden there was a jagged twenty-foot hole. Below was nothingness – instead of the room below, I could see an endless void and distant stars.
Dark Anne staggered, putting a hand to her head. I summoned up the scythe again and struck at the sphere a second time, focusing harder. Again I felt my will slam up against the barrier, and this time a bright spike of pain went through my head.
‘Stop it!’ Dark Anne shouted. ‘Both of you!’
The jinn struck again. One of the columns was cut off at its base, the gigantic pillar toppling like a falling tree. The part of it that fell through the floor vanished; the rest crashed into the floor. The room trembled, seeming to flicker briefly in and out of existence.
I straightened up from where I’d landed on the far side of the room. I wasn’t sure why I was still alive. The amount of power the jinn had to be putting into these attacks was insane, so I didn’t know why it was having so much trouble landing a hit …
Wait. That’s it, isn’t it? The jinn was too powerful. Out in the real world, Anne could focus and direct its magic, but in here it was like a battleship trying to blow up a tuna fish.
Of course, the tuna fish isn’t going to win that battle either. I needed to get through that sphere, but how? I had the nasty feeling that if I kept attacking, I would break before it did. The dragon had told me that if I tried to sever the link between Anne and the jinn, it would destroy me. I needed a better plan.
The jinn threw some kind of attack at me that I’d never seen before; I couldn’t tell what it would do and didn’t hang around to find out. My jump took me out of range and an instant later the whole section of the room in which I’d been standing seemed to distort and vanish. Looking back at Dark Anne, I saw that she was standing in front of one of the holes in the floor, concentrating. As I watched, I saw the floor reassemble itself, the void turning back into smooth black stone.
Another attack came above, then another. Each time I managed to dodge without understanding why or how. It wasn’t my precognition that was helping me here: it was my sense of Elsewhere. Somehow I could feel the movements, like ripples in water. But those same movements gave me some sense of the jinn’s strength too, and it was terrifying. There was no way I could even think about attacking something like that.
But if I couldn’t fight this thing, what else could I do? I looked around, searching for an edge. Dark Anne was trying to split her attention between me and the damage to the room. She seemed to be trying to repair the tower, but the jinn was destroying it faster than she could patch the holes. There were gaping voids everywhere now, and beyond them I could see a strange star-filled sky that hurt my eyes. Only the sphere at the centre and the tiny patch of floor seemed to be undamaged, and that made me pause. Why would that part be untouched … ?