It was not so much that the blackness around them began to break: it was more that something was advancing toward the gating teams, slowly and pleasurably, which made the darkness look horribly less dark by comparison. There was fire in it, but not the kind that gave any light: and many sorts of night which had at one time or another fallen over London, but not the kind with stars. The smoke of the Great Fire was there, and the blackness of the Plague: the fire-shot smoke of the destruction which had fallen from the sky in the second World War, and the eye-smarting thick gray smoke from the burning thatch of the most ancient settlement by the already-oxbowed river. But most of all Rhiow was reminded of the billowing blackness in the uprising mushroom cloud of an atomic explosion … and it occurred to her that, even now, there were atomic weapons stationed in a few places within the ring of the M25 in London. They were supposed to be safe at defense establishments … but when the Lone Power Itself was walking, how safe could anything be?
Slowly the dark shape stalked toward them. It was feline: it was sa'Rrahh indeed, in the fullness of Her fury, the Mistress of the Unmastered Fire, intent on their destruction. And they were totally unprepared. Defiance indeed, Rhiow thought. What now?
The light from behind her was at least getting a little stronger. The Lone One's influence was damping down every other wizardly power but Its own as It advanced slowly on them: but Siffha'h's new-found strength had not yet settled into channels where even sa'Rrahh could easily muzzle them. She was feeding Arhu power, and Arhu was making light, if nothing else: and in that light, Rhiow looked over at Huff, and said, It's now or never, cousin. Do what you can –
He looked at Rhiow, and stepped forward. "Auhlae," Huff cried, "I don't want her! Do you hear me? I never wanted her. You're all I want. This is all for nothing. Cast it out, or everything we've worked for all this time will be destroyed!"
Rhiow was desperately trying to assemble wizardry after wizardry in her mind, but it was no use: they were all being damped, every structure collapsing as she began to build it – and sa'Rrahh drew closer, the terrible feline shape towering over them in the darkness now, the size of a house, growing seemingly bigger by the second, filling the whole field of vision with that deadly dark burning. "We've worked for? Laughter again.
It hasn't been worth anything anyway. When this is all over, the gates will be destroyed, and we won't have to do that kind of work any more. We can settle down and just be wizards again –Huff took a long breath. "I will not be the kind of wizard that serves what you serve," he cried: "and I will not be the mate to that kind of wizard either!"
And he launched himself straight at sa'Rrahh's throat.
One great paw lifted and slapped him aside as if he were nothing. Rhiow, flinching, heard the bones crack: saw the body fly past her to come down hard on the seamed concrete which was all that was left of the real world.
Sa'Rrahh looked down at Huff's body, put her whiskers forward, and smiled …
… and the smile twisted strangely. The lips wrinkled. From inside the burning eyes above them, just for a moment, something that might have been Auhlae once looked out: enraged … betrayed. She screamed, a yowling roar that drove Rhiow crouching down to try to escape it: a terrible squall of betrayal and loss –
