Mercedes Lackey - Winds Of Fury

:No, Chosen!: There was an equine scream and a flurry of hoofbeats. Cymry loomed up out of the darkness and rushed into Falconsbane. Mornelithe stumbled forward, face gone blank with surprise.

To meet Nyara, standing with Need braced, ready for him.

They had expected a combat, with Firesong taking on Falconsbane's magic, and Nyara striking at a moment of distraction.

Cymry evidently had other ideas.

She continued her rush right into the tent, and shoved the Adept right up onto the blade, impaling him on its full length.

Somehow, Nyara held steady, under the double impact of his body and the surprise that their clever foe had been so incredibly stupid.

Mornelithe gathered his power, instinctively grasping after the one thing he still controlled.

The witch-horse danced backward, neighing with triumph.

Nyara braced herself against him, but even so, she staggered back. He was half again her weight, after all. The force of the shove had carried him halfway up the blade; he stared stupidly at her, face-to-face. Pain took him as a triumphant conqueror, and death beckoned. His eyes flitted to the blade as his power ran away along with his own life-force and his red, red blood, flowing into the ground before him.

His magics failed, aborted by the trauma to his body.

His power was draining away, and so was his life. This body was dying, very quickly.

He could use what was left to have revenge on them - or he could escape and get his revenge another time.

He chose as he had always chosen, laughing in spite of the terrible pain that wracked this latest body he had stolen.

An'desha felt Falconsbane gather the last of his energies, and leap -

- and now, completely in control, he stared down with his own eyes. Pain seized him as a dog would seize a rag doll, and shook him, and he screamed as his vision failed and darkness came down around him - darkness, and despair -

But as the darkness descended, he saw light -

The Moonpaths! It was the old woman, standing on the Moonpaths, with a black abyss between him and her. She held out a hand to him.

"Here!" she said. "To me!"

He hesitated.

"Do you trust your Goddess?" she said. "Jump to me!"

A thousand thoughts flitted through his mind, but uppermost was that this must also be an Avatar of the Goddess, one that had cloaked Herself in the seeming of an old woman - yes, that made sense, for how else could he have spoken with Her? No human woman could have touched his mind on the Moonpaths!

- yes, and wasn't the last face of the Goddess that of the Crone? She who gave life and death?

Wasn't She the Goddess?

He must trust Her!

He leapt; She caught and held him - And She clung to him, and held him out of the abyss even as it opened up under his feet.

Skif caught the crumpling body, lowering it to the ground far more gently than he would have if he hadn't seen mat ghost of a frightened child looking out of the eyes just before the body fell. Nyara's eyes were closed, her face a wooden mask of concentration.

:Hold onto him, son. I'll be leeching a lot of your energy for this. Keep him steady. Nyara is going to have to pull me out a hair at a time.:

He stared at the wound; at the ashen face of what had been Falconsbane. Surely, Need could not save anything this time!

:Hush, fool. I have to Heal it all in my wake, but I can do it. I've Healed worse, once, and I wasn't even awake at the time. 'Course, I did have help.:

He had to close his eyes; a wave of dizziness came over him and did not pass, but only got worse. It felt like that moment, years ago, when he and Cymry had gotten washed over that cliff, and fell, and fell -

He was going to die like this, falling forever!

Panic -

:Chosen - touch me - :

It was Cymry; he caught her presence and held her, even as he was holding Falconsbane -

:An'desha, Chosen. Never Falconsbane again. Don't worry, I can hold you forever, if I must. My strength is yours. Take whatever is there for your own. With you always.:

The dizziness steadied, ebbed, faded. He opened his eyes.

Nyara stood beside him, leaning on the blade, panting as if she had just run for miles. There was no sign of the wound except the dark slit in An'desha's shirt, and the blood soaking into the ground. The chest rose and fell with full, even breaths, and under his hand the pulse was strong and steady. And even as he stared down at the miracle in his arms, the eyes opened, and looked up into his.

Innocent. Vulnerable. Terrified.

And no more Falconsbane's eyes than Nyara's were.

An'desha looked up into the face of the stranger, the one who had been making shadow-gryphons with his fingers, and who now held him carefully, with no sign of the hatred he must feel toward Falconsbane. He looked over at Nyara, who leaned heavily and wearily on a sword but took a moment to smile encouragingly.

They did know who and what he was!

And he looked at the sword. Which, he now realized, was the old woman.

:You lied to me!: he wailed, as he started to shake, still held in the terror of near-death.

:I never told you I was your Goddess,: came the tart reply :I only asked if you trusted Her.:

Firesong was hot on Falconsbane's trail, flying through the spirit-realms, a silver falcon. The traces faded with preternatural speed, and Firesong poured even more of his own life into tracing Falconsbane back to the little pocket of the Nether Planes where he had made his hiding place, his place of refuge, where death and time could not touch him. Through the swirling colors and chaos of the paths of power, he followed the spark that was Falconsbane, until he watched it dive into a pocket of blackness, an opening into a greater darkness. Small wonder he had not gone mad when trapped in the Gate's greater Void! He had practice, after all, in coping with such things.

Falconsbane reached the shelter of his refuge, fled inside, and sealed it up from within. If you had not seen the rabbit dive into its warren, you would never have noticed it. Clever, clever Falconsbane, to have seen that the Void held all in stasis, and to realize that in the shifting swirls of the paths of power, no one would ever notice a little flaw, a seam, where none should be.

But Firesong did know. And what was more, he knew how to get into it.

Death was about to keep a long-overdue appointment with Mornelithe Falconsbane.

He paused for a moment, then allowed himself a grim smile. He had told Elspeth and Darkwind that there would be a sign when it was time to attack Ancar. And here was all that energy, so much, in such a tiny and compressed package. Granted, it was blood and death energy, and too tainted for a Healing Adept to actually use. But it would be a shame to get rid of Falconsbane and allow it all to go to waste, drifting back into the currents of energy and fading away....

And fire purified. Wasn't that why his use-name was "Firesong?"

So it was, and it was time to sing. He seized the shelter in fiery hands - talons - of energy.

As he tore open the walls Falconsbane had built, he sensed an instant of surprise, followed by pure panic.

But that was all he allowed time for.

In passion, he took on the aspect of his firebird, and used every last bit of his powers to sink talonlike fingers and sharp, silvery-white beak into Falconsbane, shelter and all, tearing them into motes and ribbons and sparks, flinging them across the sky of Hardorn in a burst of fireworks that would be seen for leagues -

Every mote, every ribbon, every spark, he personally and completely purified with his own soul's fire while he sang in triumphant ecstasy. He wiped it all clean of every sickening memory, every jot of personality, and scattered it far and wide into the bitter night air.