her.
âGot it. Thank you,â she offered, but he had already turned away again, picking up into a light sprint with lithe grace across the now-deserted courtyard.
Holding the white ball in one hand, she hesitated a moment, then gave it a soft rap with a knuckle. It started glowing dimly, like a translucent glass ceiling cover wrapped around a lightbulb. Except it was a smooth sphere, with no openings for a battery or a lightbulb. The surface was smooth and glassy, but it weighed more like lightweight plastic than glass would, and yet felt solid instead of like a hollow sphere. It was a comfortable weight in the hand, actually. Even comforting, because it felt just solid and heavy enough to make a good throwing weapon.
Not that she was going to throw away her only source of light. That would require her to step outside the chalked circle to retrieve it. Since she was alone, and nothing was happening yet, Kelly experimented with the globe. After several tries, she figured out that it had roughly eight levels of light: from nightlight dim to blindingly white. The lattermost, she discovered when she smashed it as hard as she could with her fist, almost dropping it.
Hitting it twice rapidly after that left her blinking from the sudden darkness, big spots dancing in front of her eyes in an afterglow image.
As she blinked, adjusting her eyes, her ears picked up buzzing, rustling, even hissing sounds. Rapping medium-hard on the sphere, Kelly held it up over her head, turning to look at the outer wall behind her, where the noises were coming from. Things moved through the night, mostly small and fluttery, some larger and scuttly. A snake slithered past no farther than a yard from her feet, making her carefully scoot closer to the center of the chalk-mark. It was striped somewhat like a harmless garter variety, but Kelly had no idea what kinds of snakes in this world were the ones best to be avoided. Better to be safe than sorryâ¦
She felt sorry for the serpent, since it was probably going to get charred when it got to the center of the castleâbut then something fist-sized and black surged out of the shadows, grabbed the snake in way too many limbs, and tussled with it until the curling, writhing serpent went limp. It was all she could do to keep from twitching back out of the chalk circle as the mekhawhatchamacallit slurped up the snake like it was a piece of oversized spaghetti.
It paused for a moment, tensed, and dropped something small and black and multilegged out of its back end, and then scuttled onward, vanishing out of the reach of the light within moments. Its offspring immediately pounced on the nearest beetle, devoured it almost too fast to see what it was eating, then raced on as well, following the ragged course of its parent.
At least everything was swerving away from her by a good two feet beyond the chalk circle she stood in, proof that Saberâs repulsion spell was working.
Amazing. Iâm standing on another planet, in another version of reality, another whole dimension, with a glowing magical ball in my hands, a warding spell around me, and gobbly things are eating snakes and insects on their way to a magic-made immolation on every sideâ¦Justâ¦amazing.
It was a miracle she was taking it so calmly. Relatively. Her shadow kept shaking from the trembling of her hands, as they held the globe, and her breath hitched unsteadily as three more of those black things scuttled on by. They were remarkably fast and remarkably ugly.
The largest was the size of her head and froze her in place as it eyed her; it headed deliberately her way, then swerved at the two-foot-from-the-circle mark. It remained focused on her, too, sidestepping to keep her in view with several tiny, dark red eyes, before pausing for a long, disturbing moment on the side of the repulsion field closest to the massive castle. Finally, it moved on its way. Driven off by the protective magic the man Saber had cast around
âGot it. Thank you,â she offered, but he had already turned away again, picking up into a light sprint with lithe grace across the now-deserted courtyard.
Holding the white ball in one hand, she hesitated a moment, then gave it a soft rap with a knuckle. It started glowing dimly, like a translucent glass ceiling cover wrapped around a lightbulb. Except it was a smooth sphere, with no openings for a battery or a lightbulb. The surface was smooth and glassy, but it weighed more like lightweight plastic than glass would, and yet felt solid instead of like a hollow sphere. It was a comfortable weight in the hand, actually. Even comforting, because it felt just solid and heavy enough to make a good throwing weapon.
Not that she was going to throw away her only source of light. That would require her to step outside the chalked circle to retrieve it. Since she was alone, and nothing was happening yet, Kelly experimented with the globe. After several tries, she figured out that it had roughly eight levels of light: from nightlight dim to blindingly white. The lattermost, she discovered when she smashed it as hard as she could with her fist, almost dropping it.
Hitting it twice rapidly after that left her blinking from the sudden darkness, big spots dancing in front of her eyes in an afterglow image.
As she blinked, adjusting her eyes, her ears picked up buzzing, rustling, even hissing sounds. Rapping medium-hard on the sphere, Kelly held it up over her head, turning to look at the outer wall behind her, where the noises were coming from. Things moved through the night, mostly small and fluttery, some larger and scuttly. A snake slithered past no farther than a yard from her feet, making her carefully scoot closer to the center of the chalk-mark. It was striped somewhat like a harmless garter variety, but Kelly had no idea what kinds of snakes in this world were the ones best to be avoided. Better to be safe than sorryâ¦
She felt sorry for the serpent, since it was probably going to get charred when it got to the center of the castleâbut then something fist-sized and black surged out of the shadows, grabbed the snake in way too many limbs, and tussled with it until the curling, writhing serpent went limp. It was all she could do to keep from twitching back out of the chalk circle as the mekhawhatchamacallit slurped up the snake like it was a piece of oversized spaghetti.
It paused for a moment, tensed, and dropped something small and black and multilegged out of its back end, and then scuttled onward, vanishing out of the reach of the light within moments. Its offspring immediately pounced on the nearest beetle, devoured it almost too fast to see what it was eating, then raced on as well, following the ragged course of its parent.
At least everything was swerving away from her by a good two feet beyond the chalk circle she stood in, proof that Saberâs repulsion spell was working.
Amazing. Iâm standing on another planet, in another version of reality, another whole dimension, with a glowing magical ball in my hands, a warding spell around me, and gobbly things are eating snakes and insects on their way to a magic-made immolation on every sideâ¦Justâ¦amazing.
It was a miracle she was taking it so calmly. Relatively. Her shadow kept shaking from the trembling of her hands, as they held the globe, and her breath hitched unsteadily as three more of those black things scuttled on by. They were remarkably fast and remarkably ugly.
The largest was the size of her head and froze her in place as it eyed her; it headed deliberately her way, then swerved at the two-foot-from-the-circle mark. It remained focused on her, too, sidestepping to keep her in view with several tiny, dark red eyes, before pausing for a long, disturbing moment on the side of the repulsion field closest to the massive castle. Finally, it moved on its way. Driven off by the protective magic the man Saber had cast around
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