Wings Over Talera - Charles Allen Gramlich [87]
Blinded, I thought. I hoped it was permanent.
But I wasn’t going to trust in Vohanna’s blindness. I staggered to my feet, teetering for a moment on legs that felt like spindles. The flames from the explosion of the milkstones were spattering away like the dying embers of fireworks. The cannons had fallen silent, or else my ears were deaf to them. But the pyramid itself was still moving, adrift on vagrant currents of wind. How long would its engines keep it aloft before the last erg of toir’in-or energy drained away?
The same burst of power that had ripped out the wall of the sphere behind Vohanna had also torn a gaping hole in the basaltic outer skin of the pyramid. That rent was big enough to drive a team of horses through, and on the other side of it winked the emerald sky of Talera. Lifting Bryce in my arms, I stumbled toward the open air, wanting it, hoping for something, hoping at least that the fresh, clean breeze would start to revive my brother, who only seemed to be slipping deeper into coma.
Behind me, I heard more glass shatter and glanced over my shoulder. Somehow, Vohanna had put out the flames eating at her and was now smashing the crystal panel that covered one of the wall niches. A body stood there, one of the few left undamaged after the destruction of the matrix. It was a hybrid—gargoyle and Amazon. Nearly eight feet tall it stood, with blazing red hair that flowed to its waist, with two arms and two legs that were hideously corded with muscle. Its skin was dusky gray. Its face was pocked with scars and knobbed with the bony protrusions of short horns. Yet, its lips were female and full, its breasts cupped in gold beneath the silver links of chainmail.
I had almost reached the opening in the wall, limping with Bryce cradled across my chest, but now I froze as a new horror blasted my already dazed mind. I saw Vohanna move against the gargoyle’s body, saw her wings beating at its ribs. Then the suddenly stilled form of the witch fluttered to the ground as the other body stiffened and stirred. Sable eyes opened. A fanged mouth bellowed rage as one massive hand grasped a battle-axe and used it to bash a way out of the coffin/box that now seemed far too small for its owner’s bulk.
I’d just discovered the secret of all Vohanna’s forms. Here in this place she kept the bodies that she inhabited at will, the bodies that lived only because her mind told them to live. The sight galvanized me as few others could have at that moment.
I whirled and rushed toward the opening in the outer wall. Better to fling Bryce out of the pyramid, to let him shatter on the earth below, than to give Vohanna a second chance to own him. From behind me came a series of bestial growls and one quick glance showed that the gargoyled Vohanna had leapt to the floor of the sphere and was coming fast, the axe like a sharp cross of black light in her fists.
Then there was nowhere else to run and the torn wall was before me, its edges ragged with broken masonry. Through it I saw groups of bird riders whipping by above and below, some of them nearly close enough to touch.
I pivoted to face the witch of Talera in her savage new form. She was almost upon me when the mass of the pyramid stuttered and I thought we were going down. But Vohanna went rigid in mid-stride and in the next moment the huge ship caught itself and plowed on. Was it luck, or some heroic mental effort of the sorceress? Either way, I didn’t think it mattered. Luck or sorcery, time was leaching away. How much longer could the pyramid stay aloft? And if I fought Vohanna here the battle would be long. I doubted we’d live to see who’d win.
Bryce and I had thrown away our sword scabbards before our fight below. But the scabbard-hooks were still on our belts. I snapped the empty hooks on Bryce’s belt through my own, binding us together before I stepped to the very edge of the wall and counted for a heartbeat. Then I threw us both