Glaeken closed his eyes and tried to sense what was happening. He stood perfectly still, listening, feeling.
Warmth.
Light…there was light above. Not visible here, but he sensed it. Light and warmth, seeping into the earth above the cavern. And behind…
He turned and looked down the passageway. Where there had been perfect darkness, there was now the faintest glow. An illusion? Or the harbinger of a tiny dawn?
Glaeken turned back to his ancient enemy.
"What's happening upstairs, Rasalom? Tell me!"
But now it was Rasalom's turn to be silent.
Sylvia watched the scene from a second-floor window. The noise, the press of people had begun to frighten Jeffy so she'd brought him inside.
The cone of light had returned to noontime brightness and was widening steadily now, creeping uptown and downtown along the street, invading the Park. The crowd, too, was swelling steadily, the light and the noise attracting thousands more. The Manhattan mix was there, red, yellow, Central African ebony to Norwegian white and every shade between.
The chant Carol had started still reverberated loud and clear, but here and there in the crowd Sylvia noticed pockets of people singing and dancing. A couple of ghetto blasters had appeared and different kinds of music, from rap to salsa, were each attracting their own fans. A couple of guys were singing "Happy Together." She guessed that was just as effective. You didn't have to proclaim your lack of fear when you were singing and dancing. How could you sing and dance if you were afraid? And from directly below her window, uncertain doo-wop harmonies drifted up as a rag-tag group tried to find a comfortable key for "The Closer You Are."
Sylvia thought of Alan then and how he'd loved the oldies and suddenly she was crying.
Oh, Alan. My God, how I miss you. You belong here, not me. You loved people so much more than I. I should be dead and you should be here.
Alan…after he'd pulled out of the coma he'd been left in by the Dat-tay-vao, she'd come to think of him as indestructible. An indisputable assumption: Alan would be around forever. She'd never even considered the possibility of life without him. And now he was gone—no body, no grave, no trace, just gone—and she hadn't even had a chance to say goodbye.
She hugged Jeffy closer. It was all so damn unfair.
For a while she had blamed Glaeken, but she knew now that he, too, was paying a terrible price. She'd seen it in his eyes as he'd picked up the hilt and told her to get Jeffy clear—the anger, the frustration, the vulnerability, the weary resignation. All in a single glance. The weight of the responsibility he once more was reluctantly shouldering had struck her like a blow. She'd instantly regretted the all angry things she'd said to him.
And now maybe he was gone too.
She watched the arc of light edging through the Park. It was well into the Sheep Meadow now, almost to the rim of the hole. Did that mean they were winning, or was this just a false hope?
Sylvia closed her eyes and hugged Jeffy tighter.
If you're still alive down there Glaeken, please know that you're in our thoughts. If there's anything you can do, do it. Get him, Glaeken. Don't let him get away with what he's done to us. GET HIM!
Yes, there was light down the tunnel. Glaeken was sure of it now. Growing steadily. And Rasalom…Rasalom was thrashing about in his amniotic sack.
What was happening up on the surface? The weapon was here, useless, encased in hardened fluid from the sack. What in the name of anything could exert such a disturbing effect on Rasalom?
Suddenly a thunderous rumble from the tunnel behind him. The support shuddered beneath Glaeken's feet. He twisted and saw the growing glow disappear as the roof of the tunnel collapsed, choking the passage with rubble. As the tunnel mouth belched a cloud of dust, Rasalom's voice returned.
"Once again you've chosen a vexing group of friends, Glaeken."
A warm glow of pride lit within him, along with a glimmer of—did he dare?—hope.
"They're a tough bunch. What have they done?"
"Nothing that will matter in the long run, but for the present they've created an annoyance, an inconvenience."
"What?"
"They've enlarged the pinhole in the night-cover made by your puny little weapon."
Glaeken steadied himself, choked down the shout of triumph that surged against his vocal cords. He maintained a calm exterior.
"How?" he said.
"How is irrelevant. Their success is irrelevant. The entire world is in darkness. A single cone of sunlight, no matter how bright, is laughably insignificant."
Glaeken sensed the weight of all that Rasalom had left unsaid.
"Sunlight, Rasalom? Since when have you been afraid of sunlight?"
"I am afraid of nothing, Glaeken. I am master of this sphere. It fears me."
"It's not sunlight, is it, Rasalom. It's another kind of light. Light from your enemy. And it comes at a time and place that's more than 'inconvenient,' doesn't it? It's shining directly above your little nest, and it has arrived at a time when you're vulnerable, before your new form has matured."
"Nonsense, Glaeken. Pure wishful thinking on your part. When my gestation is through, and that is only a matter of hours now, I shall personally plug that hole in my perfect night. Then you will see how 'vulnerable' I am."
Glaeken noticed a growing warmth at his back. He twisted again toward the rubble-strewn tunnel. Something was happening there. Something he'd never dreamed. The light was working into the rubble, determinedly worming its way through, as if it had a mind of its own.
And then he saw it. A gleaming pinpoint, a tiny bead no larger than a grain of sand, glowing amid the rubble, growing bigger, growing brighter.
"Don't allow yourself to hope, Glaeken. It cannot harm me."
Yet Glaeken did allow himself to hope, could not help but hope when he saw the bead brighten suddenly and shoot out toward the pit in a narrow beam of brilliance, like a needle-thin blue-white laser streaming toward Rasalom. But it came up short against the support under Glaeken's feet, spraying and splashing like water against a stone wall.
The beam of light persisted, though. Like a living thing with a will of its own, it split, one half sliding upward, the other down around the support. The light crept to the top just inches ahead of Glaeken's trapped feet. As soon as it crested the support it raced downward to rejoin its other half. They fused and once again shot out toward Rasalom's amniotic sack.
But the beam did not strike the sack. Instead it flashed toward the weapon, igniting the exposed pommel of the hilt. The pommel blazed with blinding fire, and dimly, through the encrustations, Glaeken could see bolts of light flashing along the length of its blade.
Rasalom howled in Glaeken's mind as he writhed and thrashed within his sack. Glaeken had a feeling that this time it was no act.
The weapon began to vibrate, the encrustations began to crack and fall away like an old skin, and suddenly the weapon was free, blazing with white light.
Another beam of radiance broke through the rubble and flashed across the cavern. It too found the weapon and added its power to it.
As Rasalom's howl rose to a shriek, Glaeken felt the tendrils wrapped around his legs begin to soften, their hold on him weaken. He bent and tore at them, straining to pull free. There was no time to lose. Rasalom's thrashings were shaking the weapon within the wound it had made. The beam of light stayed with it, moving whenever it did, but if the weapon slipped loose it would fall into the pit. And then Rasalom's victory would be assured.
With a final surge, Glaeken yanked his legs free and leapt to the central disk where the four arched supports fused. He dropped to his belly, hung precariously over the edge, and reached for the weapon.