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Then the spell-ring stopped The bells faltered as the ringers halted behind it ina backlash of power, as if she’d suddenly walked into an unexpected wall

"No," Orannis said, its voice cal shivered as Orannis spoke, and began to expand again, forced outwards by the growing sphere The tongues of fire re-appeared, , but the ringers were forced to step back, their faces showing eri faded as it opened out, stretched too thin by the growing power of Orannis

"Too long did I linger inhave I borne the affront of living, crawling life I am the Destroyer--and all will be destroyed!"

With the last word, the fla with a thousand tiny fingers of dark fire They twisted and wrenched at it every way, hastening its destruction

Lirael saw it happen as if she were far away All was lost now There was nothing else to do or try She had seen the Beginning, and seen Orannis bound Then, the Seven had prevailed Here, they had failed Lirael had known and accepted the certainty of her own death in this venture, and thought it a fair price for the defeat of Orannis and the saving of all she loved and knew

Now, they would all merely be the first of a multitude to die, till Orannis brooded on a world of ash and cinders, kept company only by the Dead

Then, in the midst of despair, Lirael heard Saht flow up next to hiuely human

"Be free, Mogget!" shouted Sah "Choose well!"

The shape of fire grew taller It turned away froht suddenly bite Sabriel looked up at it stoically, and it hesitated Then it flowed over to Lirael, and she felt the heat of it, and the shock of its own Free Magic thatiet," whispered Lirael, too soft to be heard by anyone at all

But the white shape did hear It stopped and turned inwards, to face Orannis, changing from a pillar of fire to astar

"I a a hand out to throw a line of silver fire into the breaking spell-ring, its voice crackling with force "I also stand against you"

The spell-ring tightened again, and everyone automatically stepped forward This tihtened, the tongues of flaloith a silver sheen, the silver of the he

Lirael stepped forward again, her eyes fixed on the shrinking sphere Di in her hand, as she was evenover the bells and the barking, his voice weaving into the song

The sphere contracted still further, the silver spreading through it likein slow coils When it became fully silver, Lirael knew she must strike, in the few moments when Orannis was coht, she realized, for Mogget--Yrael--could be nothing else but the Eighth Bright Shiner, as hi, Yrael sang, Kibeth barked, Astarael mourned The silver spread, and Lirael moved in closer and raised the weapon Sam had made for her from blood and sword and the spirit of the Seven in the panpipes

Orannis spoke then, in bitter, cutting tones

"Why, Yrael?" it said, as the last of the dark gave way to silver, and the shining sphere of round "Why?"

Yrael’s answer see into Lirael’s consciousness as she raised her sword still higher, body arching back, preparing for the h the entire sphere

"Life," said Yrael, as et than it ever knew "Fish and foarm sun and shady trees, the field ht of the athered up all her courage and struck

Sword , the blade cutting through in a blaze of blue-white sparks that fountained up into the ashen sky

Even as it cut, the sword melted and red fire streaked up into Lirael’s hand She screath and fury into the blow She could feel Orannis in the fire, feel it in the heat It was seeking its last revenge on her, filling her with its destructive power, a power that would burn her into ash

Lirael screaulfed the hilt, her hand now no more than a lu

The sword broke through, the sphere split asunder Even knowing she would fail, Lirael tried to let go But Orannis had her, its spirit kept e of her sword, the last ree to her destruction

"Dog!" screa what she said, pain and fear overwhelain she tried to open her hand, but her fingers elded to the h to consu’s teeth suddenly closed on Lirael’s wrist There was a new pain, but a clean one, sharp and sudden Orannis was gone from her, as was the fire that threatened to destroy her Ahad bitten off her hand

All that reeful poas directed at the Disreputable Dog Red fire flowered about her as she spat out the hand, throwing it between the heled like a dreadful spider out of fla back, her eyebrows frizzled into nothing Then, with a long, final scream of thwarted hope, the he past her into the loch and the returning sea The other flew up past Sabriel, to land behind her in a flurry of dust and ash

"Bound and broken," whispered Lirael, staring at her wrist in disbelief She could still feel her hand, but there was nothing there save a cauterized stump and the burnt ends of her sleeve