Onorien barely noticed Arris, if at all, his attention elsewhere. Blood pooled on the floor beneath Onorien, forming a wide spot around the fading shimmering robe; small foamy blood bubbles popped from Onorien’s mouth. Whatever concerns Onorien had, they were not with the immediate world.
Arris glanced back at the crumbling foyer area, the night sky exposed, ceiling collapsing in as the light beam swayed and increased in size and intensity. That exit was gone to him. He sprinted down the hallway and turned into the display room, past the artifacts and collectibles and directly to the door. It was still held fast.
Arris swore under his breath. He took several steps backward, centered himself on one of the windows, and heaved the black blade at it. It shattered as if it were made out of sugar glass, a phony plate glass window for a Hollywood stunt man to crash through. This would have surprised Arris were it not for the increasingly loud snapping and crackling that was rippling down the hallway toward him like someone working their way down the keyboard of a xylophone tuned to the key of destruction. Arris darted to the window and clambered quickly through it, dropped onto the balcony and then flipped over the railing to the grass below, wasting no time considering his situation.
The sword was only a few feet away from him, buried half-way into the grass by the blade, the small green jewel glowing furiously. Arris ignored it, scanning the landscape nearby for natives lying in wait. There was nothing. Anybody who had been around was now long gone, likely fleeing at full-sprint through the jungle.
Arris turned and looked back at the mansion. It glowed from within with ghostly light, the windows lit up in the colors of the rainbow as if for a Christmas show. But it was also being eaten alive by the light, the mansion giving its life to the beam with hideous shrieks as the structure collapsed from within and evaporated.
Across the lawn he saw Nereika stumbling toward the jungle, moving slowly, her hands clasped over her stomach wound. Arris felt bad for a moment for having shot her before remembering that she was still a threat capable of … whatever it was she was capable of. And then Arris watched Nereika collapse to her knees and roll on to her side, wrapping her arms around her knees and letting loose with inconsolable sobs of grief. Arris re-scanned the jungle line at the edge of the grass before crouch-walking his way slowly across the lawn toward Nereika.