Stormgod’s bolts prevented the demon-fire from shifting its location. “They will
fight until the demon accepts annihilation.”
The prince was unable to look away from the awesome spectacle. Armed with
Shupansea’s explanations he could see the flame shrinking each time it launched
a missile against the lightning. He stayed Shupansea’s hand when she tried to
close the shutters.
“The end is inevitable,” she assured him, holding him tightly.
A fine powder blew through the window. The Beysa protected herself but tears
flowed freely from Kadakithis’s eyes.
“I want to see if there’s a beginning as well.”
“The beginning is here,” she reminded him, closing the .shutters and leading him
back to the bed.
PILLAR OF FIRE
Janet Morris
Death was riding the feral wind that blew in off Sanctuary’s harbor-even
Tempus’s Tr6s horse could smell it on the sooty breeze as horse and rider picked
their way down Wideway to the wharf and the emperor’s barge made fast there.
The Tr6s danced and snorted, its hooves sending up sparks from ancient cobbles
that seemed, in the dusky air, to have lives of their own. The sparks whirled
round the Tros’s legs like insects swarming; they darted hither and thither on
smoky gusts drawn seaward from the pillar of fire blazing between the heavens
and the Peres house uptown; they skittered along Tempus’s clothing like dust
motes from hell, stinging when they touched his bare arms and legs; they lighted
upon the Tros’s distended nostrils and that horse, wiser than many human
inhabitants of this accursed thieves’ world, blew bellowing breaths to keep from