her before stirred again.
Hasai danced in close, striking with Skadhwe. (I can't—) Segnbora whispered in mind. Her resistance made the mdeihei guiding her body miss the stroke. Her other-self slipped out of range, whirling to come at her on her weak side. The mdeikei spun Segnbora about too, so that the face-off stood again as it had. Down in Segnbora's mind a word unraveled itself from her sorcery and slithered away like a serpent of light, followed by another, and another. Herewiss turned away, and Freelorn, and. Lang— (Sdahaf)
"Yes!" she said aloud. This wasn't her Maiden, not the Lady of the White Hunt, defender of life and growth. This was just her own body occupied by an indweller as committed to stag-nation as Hasai was to doing and being.
The mdeihei felt her resolve and leaped again. The other Segnbora, perhaps thinking Segnbora wouldn't kill or hurt her, was slow about
retreating. A second later she danced back with a cry. Red showed high up on her arm, pumping fast.
Segnbora flinched. She had felt nothing, no bite of sword into flesh at all.
"If you kill Me, you're killing part of yourself!" the other cried, sounding afraid for the first time.
Hasai pressed in, following his advantage. Segnbora felt tears coming, but didn't argue as she patched the spell again. Only a moment later did she realize what she was going to have to do. It would have been easiest to let Hasai win the fight, but she refused to allow him sole responsibility for that. The spell would hold for a second. She moaned out loud, took back her muscles, slid in and struck with Skadhwe at the Charriselm being raised against her.
With no more feeling than if it had been cutting air, the shadowblade sheared effortlessly through Charriselm and then downward to take off her otherself s arm at the elbow. The thick sound that the arm made in striking the floor, like so much dead meat, turned Segnbora's stomach. The agony in the other's eyes was beyond words.
Segnbora would gladly have dropped Skadhwe, but it seemed to be holding her hand closed about it. Her otherself struggled to her feet, and reached down to work the broken Charriselm out of the severed hand. She lifted the useless sword left-handed, and faced Segnbora with tears streaming down her face.
"Why couldn't you have stayed?" the other Segnbora screamed at her. "Why couldn't you just let it happen! You always wanted—" Segnbora swung Skadhwe again, and felt nothing as her otherself s head — so much silver in its hair! — went rolling away across the crystal floor, trailing red. The slender trunk
dropped, pumping out what seemed too much blood for so slight a frame. One more body. That's all it is. One more body. Oh, Goddess help me—!
Time was short. The sorcery was unraveling, assaulted by her revulsion at what she had done.
Quickly Segnbora lurched toward the doors, aware of Ef-maer off to one side, of Herewiss and Freelorn drifting away. The doors were sheer, without any latch, and fitted so closely together that a thin knifeblade couldn't have been pushed between them. There was no hope of swinging open their massive weight. Unless, perhaps. .
She raised Skadhwe over her head and struck down, a great hewing blow. The sword sank half its depth into the crys-tal, as if into air. Again she struck, and a shard of the thick glass peeled away and shattered on the floor. Again, and again—
A great prism-slice the size of an ordinary doorway leaned out toward her, slow as a dream, and fell. It smashed thunder-ously right at her
file:///G|/rah/Diane%20Duane%20-%20Tales%20Of%20The%20Five%2002%20-%20The%20Door%20Into%20Shadow.htm (86 of 155) note 12