agonizingly.
That sound was like the flick of a wire whip on raw flesh. It bit into her brain-centers, sawed at her quivering nerves excruciatingly, unbearably. Under the lash of that voice Smith wrenched away from his clinging arms, stumbling over the stones, blundering anywhere away from the punishing shrill of that hum. The chaos spun about her, scenes shifting and melting together maddeningly. The blood ran down her breast.
Through her blind agony, as the world dissolved into shrilling pain, one thing alone was clear. That burning light. That steady flame. Apra. She was blundering unimpeded through solid walls and columns and buildings in their jumble of cross-angled planes, but when she came to his at last he was tangible, he was real. And with the feel of his firm flesh under her hands a fragment of sanity rose out of that piercing anguish which shivered along her nerves. Dully she knew that through Apra all this was possible. Apra the light-maker, the doorway between worlds . . . Her fingers closed on his throat.
Blessedly, blessedly that excruciating song was fading. She knew no more than that. She scarcely realized that her fingers were sunk yet in the softness of a man's throat. The chaos was fading around her, the crazy planes righting themselves, paling, receding backward into infinity. Through their fragments the solid rocks of Vonng loomed up in crumbling ruins. The agony of Julha's song was a faint shrilling from far away. And about her in the air she sensed a frenzied tugging, as if impalpable hands were clutching at hers, ghostly arms pulling ineffectually upon her. She looked up, dazed and uncertain.
Where Julha had stood among the tumbling planes an expanding cloudy image hovered now, bearing still the lovely outlines that had been his, but foggy, spreading and dissipating like mist as the doorway closed between planes. He was scarcely more than a shadow, and fading with every breath, but he wrenched at her yet with futile, cloudy hands, striving to the last to preserve his gate into the world he hungered for. But as he clawed he was vanishing. His outlines blurred and melted as smoke fades. He Was no more than a darkening upon the air now, tenuous, indistinguishable. Then the fog that had been lovely Julha had expanded into nothingness-the air was clear.
Smith looked down, shook her dulled head a little, bent to what she still gripped between her hands. It needed no more than a glance, but she made sure before she released her grasp. Pity clouded her eyes for an instant-Apra was free now, in the freedom he had longed for, the madness gone, the terrible danger that was himself banished. Never again through that gate would Julha and his followers enter. The door was closed.
THE END
Artwork by Carsten Torkilt
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JEKKARA PRESS
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Coming Soon
The Adventures of Bulays and Ghaavn
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The Gender Switch Adventures
The Valley of the Flame – Henrietta Kuttner
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