pain. Several ribs felt broken. Red foam flecked her lips as she drew
great, shuddering breaths. Her energy was almost spent. She would
have to use all that remained to heal herself and make good her
escape. The fury that she felt was boundless. So close! So close! As
she drew on her last remaining energy to heal the damage to her
ruined body, she knew there would not be enough remaining to
effect the spell that would reawaken the volcano. Already, the
rumblings beneath her were decreasing in intensity. But there were
still the hikers, fleeing panic-stricken down the trails winding up
the slopes, many of them fallen, lying injured, trampled by those
who had run over them in their mad plunge down the trails. As she
felt her strength returning to her, she thought that it would be a
simple matter to reach out to them, drain them of their life force
and gain the necessary energy to fuel the spell, take those who are
closest first, then use the power she would gain from them to reach
out farther, to the throngs stampeding down the trails…
And then she saw something glowing in the sky above her.
“No!” she cried out, blanching with fear. ‘Wo. ’“
A shaft of light came down, enveloping her, and she screamed in
agony as it bathed her in its magic aura. Her skin blistered and
burst, her blood boiled, her hair erupted into flame. Her eyes were
cooked out of their sockets and her flesh melted from her bones. In
seconds, there was nothing left of her but a steaming, viscous pool
upon the ground.
The earth gradually ceased to tremble. The conjured clouds began
to dissipate. The wind slowly died down as the glowing object in the
sky descended to the summit of the mountain. There was a blinding
flash of light. Wyrdrune and Kira stood facing each other on the
mountaintop, looking drained and tired. The light slowly faded from
their runestones.
Kira stared at Wyrdrune, bewildered. “What happened?
How—how could we have done it without Modred?”
Wyrdrune smiled. “We didn’t, ” he said. He touched his chest.
“Modred’s here.”
“But… how? I don’t understand…”
“Kanno took him by surprise, ” said Wyrdrune. “But the