But even as she shouted, the cracks widened and chunks
of the obsidian broke loose, falling in slow motion. A
rumbling, like all the thunder ever heard, washed over the
soldiers of both armies, as bigger pieces of the tower fell;
the top of the obelisk collapsed inward with a demonic roar.
Huma, unsure of what he had done, struggled to his
feet. He was lightheaded, dizzy. He was sick to his stomach
and thought that he would pass out. The wound he had
suffered pained him greatly, and he felt his blood pumping
from his body and dripping down his side. But he ignored
the sensation, watching as the obelisk seemed to die before
him.
The Queen kicked at the flanks of her horse. It leaped
from the base of the structure, but then she turned. She
waved her arms, shouting, her words lost in the rumbling,
thundering destruction of the ominous black tower.
Lightning flashed from it, lancing upward into the clouds
that were boiling angrily above them.
A glowing ball of red appeared in front of her, trailing
sparks. It flashed upward toward the dragonlance and
exploded around it. For a moment, she believed that she had
destroyed the dragonlance and that her power would return.
But, when the glow had faded, the lance was still there,
embedded in the obelisk like an arrow through the heart of a
warrior. An arrow through the heart of her power.
The Queen turned her horse again and rode to the foot
of the giant black tower. She tried to seize the dragonlance,
but her fingers fell far short. Carefully, she slipped her feet
under her so that she could stand on the horse’s back, but
even then she could not reach the lance. Shaking with
frustration and rage, she leaped. For a moment, her fingers
curled around the shaft of the lance. Suddenly, she
screamed in pain and fell to the trembling ground.
As she fell, her horse bolted from her, fleeing from the
field, trampling the bodies of the dead. The Queen got to
her feet, holding her hands in front of her as if they had
been badly burned. She turned and stared into the deepening
of the night, her hatred stabbing out toward Huma like a
beacon at the edge of the ocean. She stepped back so that
she was leaning against the smooth surface of the obelisk,
trying to draw power from it.
Wind now swirled around the obelisk as the internal
rumbling of it built until the ground vibrated. For a moment,
nothing happened, and it seemed that the tower had healed
itself. Some of the cracks started to disappear and the icy
blue light that wrapped the structure began to fade.
Strangely, abruptly, the rumbling started again, and the
cracks reappeared and widened. The obelisk seemed to
shrink in on itself and tremble as if fighting with itself.
Then suddenly, it exploded, blowing apart in a blinding
flash of blue-white light.
The force of the concussion knocked Huma, and those
with him, from their feet. Tiny bits of obsidian rained down
on them, kicking up dust on the distant hills like the first
drops of rain after a summer drought. Stunned by all he had
seen, Huma lay staring at the clearing sky as the clouds
overhead melted away until he was staring into the
deepening of the heavens, studded with thousands of stars.
The Dark Queen, like the obsidian obelisk, was gone.
There were bits of the tower scattered all over the plain, but
nothing was left of the Queen. She had been banished when
the obelisk had exploded in fire and light.
With the silver-haired woman’s help, Huma sat up.
Before him was a smoking crater where the obelisk had
been. Around it were the bodies of his men killed by the
Queen’s army, but her soldiers, living and dead, were all
gone, washed away in the flash of light and smoke and fire
that had destroyed the obelisk and the Dark Queen’s evil
power.
Slowly, those of Huma’s men who still lived got to their
feet. They were a tired, bloodstained and mud-splattered lot
who stared at the crater. One or two of them started forward