Memories surged though him at the metal's touch. Yes, the hilt was alive. The entity that had been the Dat-tay-vao welcomed him back. The smallfolk had done their job well.
And as much as he hated to admit it, the hilt felt as if it belonged in his hands.
He turned toward the blade.
"Everybody back."
What is that?
Rasalom is disturbed by another ripple through the enveloping chaos above. Bigger. A wavelet this time.
He spreads his consciousness. It's that instrument again. And this time Glaeken himself is holding it. It's the reunion of the man and the living metal that is disturbing. No matter. A minor disturbance, and short lived.
"Too late, Glaeken!" he shouts into the subterranean dark. "Too late!"
"Don't look," Glaeken said.
But Carol had to look. As soon as Glaeken had touched the hilt the air of the living room became charged.
She'd risen and followed Bill to the far side of the sofa where they now stood with their arms wrapped around each other and watched as Glaeken poised the hilt over the butt spike.
Something was going to happen. How could she turn away?
She watched the old man set his feet, take a deep breath, then ram the hilt downward.
! ! ! ! ! ! LIGHT ! ! ! ! ! !
Light such as she had never seen or imagined, light like the hearts of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Bikinis and all the Yucca Flats bombs rolled into one, light like the Big Bang itself exploded from the hilt, engulfing Glaeken and searing the room. Hot light, cold light, new light, ancient light, it blasted through the room in a wave.
In that initial flash Carol saw Glaeken's bones silhouetted through his flesh and clothes, saw the springs and inner supports of the sofa before her, then the light was upon her and her retinae screamed and her irises spasmed and her lids clamped down tight to shut out the light but it was no use because the light would not be denied and it poured through her, suffusing each cell of each tissue in a perceptible wave of warmth as it passed.
She heard cries of wonder and astonishment from the others in the room and was startled by a deafening crash as the glass in the picture windows blew out. Gusts of night air stormed through the room as Carol fought to open her eyes against the glare.
The light was still there, more diffuse now, and splotched with purple from the afterburns on her retinae. It had stopped expanding and had begun to contract, rushing back from the edges of the room to concentrate again at the center, coalescing into a column with Glaeken at its heart. Carol had to raise a protecting arm across her face and half turn away as it consolidated and amplified its power into a narrower beam, shooting upward, burning through the ceiling, through the roof, into the blackness above. And faintly through the brilliance she could still make out the figure of a man standing in the heart of the light.
She turned to Bill. "The roof! We've got to go up on the roof!"
He blinked at her, half-dazed. "Why?"
She didn't know why exactly. A deep part of her was responding to the light, almost as if she recognized it. Whatever the reason, she felt compelled to be up there on the roof to watch this beam of light challenge the darkness.
"Never mind why." She grabbed his hand. "Let's go!" She turned to the others in the room. "Everybody—the roof! The roof!"
Rasalom writhes in his chrysalis.
What is happening? A sudden squall of light in the upper reaches of Glaeken's building.
The instrument! He's activated it!
Rasalom remains calm. The light being shed is a discomfort, a painful irritant. No more.
This is not a setback. Glaeken may be able to cause some trouble with this, but he can be no more than an inconvenience. The Change is too far along. It cannot be reversed.
Carol led the way to the roof, throwing her shoulder against the door at the top of the stairs and bursting out into the cold night air. She was vaguely aware of the hungry buzz and flutter of the night things swooping through the darkness beyond the edges of the building; she barely heard the rooftop gravel crunch under her feet, or noticed the others crowding out behind her. She was locked on the bright beam spearing into the heavens—straight and true, unwavering, a narrow tower of light shooting upward, ever upward until it pierced the sky.
And then it faded.
"It's gone," Bill said close behind her.
"No!" She pointed up. "Look. There's still a bright spot up there. Like a star."
The only star in the sky.
"Never mind the star," Jack said. "Check out the roof."
Carol wished he'd be less mundane at times but looked at the roof anyway. A smoldering hole was left where the light had burst through. She approached it cautiously and looked down through it into the living room below, afraid of what she might see there, afraid that Glaeken had been harmed somehow by the blaze of light.
There were no charred, blackened remains crumbled on the rug below. But Glaeken wasn't there either. Instead a stranger stood in his place—in Glaeken's clothes—clutching the hilt that sat upon the blade.
"Look!" Carol whispered. "Who's that?"
He was taller than Glaeken and had the old man's broad build, but this man was much younger, younger even than Sylvia. Perhaps Jack's age. And his long hair was fiery red. His shoulders and upper arms stretched the seams of the shirt he wore. Who—?
And then she caught a glimpse of his blue eyes and knew beyond all question—
"It's Glaeken!"
She felt an arm slip around her shoulder as she heard Bill's hoarse whisper beside her.
"But he's so young! He can't be more than thirty-five!"
"Right," she said as understanding grew. "The same age as when he first took up the battle."
Carol could not take her eyes off him. The way he moved as he tore the blade free of the floor and swung it before him. He was—she could find no other word for him—magnificent.
And then he looked up at them through the opening and Carol recoiled at the grim set of his mouth and the rage that flashed in his eyes. He lifted the weapon and reduced the coffee table to marble gravel and kindling with one blow, then he strode from sight. Seconds later they heard the apartment door shatter.
"He is pissed," Jack said. "And I hope it's not at us."
"No," Bill said. "It's at Rasalom. It's got to be Rasalom."
"Then I'm glad I'm not Rasalom."
Carol shivered in the cold wind and looked back up at the point of light the beam had left in the sky. It was brighter—and bigger.
"Look!" she said, pointing up. "It's growing."
"I think you're right," Bill said, squinting upward at the rapidly expanding spot. "It almost looks like—" Suddenly he was pulling her backward, away from the hole in the roof. "Run! It's coming back!"
Carol shook him off and stood waiting for the light rushing down from the heavens. It wouldn't hurt her—she knew it wouldn't hurt her. She spread her arms, waiting for it, welcoming it.
And suddenly she was bathed in light—the whole rooftop was awash in brilliant, white light. Warm, clean, almost like—
"Sunlight!"
The entire building stood in a cone of brilliance that broached the darkness from the point source far overhead, as if a pin hole had been poked into the inverted bowl of Rasalom's night and a single, daring ray of sunshine had ventured through.