No Choice

It's now or never, then, Carola told herself, knowing that escaping was no longer an option. She focused her entire concentration on the conduit, knowing that she only had a few seconds to play with and that therefore she need no longer worry about trying to hold off the animates.

To break the conduit would cause a magical explosion that, whilst it would undoubtedly destroy Vaeren and all his unholy creations, would also destroy the four of them. Suppose instead she tried to guide its energy into herself and imprison it within the Pyramid? She had no idea if that was even possible, or what it might do to her if it worked. But if it worked then, even if it killed her, the others might survive, and it ought to put an end to Vaeren and his creatures.

She attempted mentally to open a channel between the conduit and the Pyramid. The pulsing sphere of light deformed, as if it was being strongly pulled towards her. Cigar-shaped, it began to stream towards her. Then it was as if it burrowed through her clothes into her midriff, though there was no physical sign of its passage. She moaned and collapsed, just as Vaeren and his animates, without any flashy special effects, simply vanished.

"What happened?" Belinda asked. "Is she all right?"

Jarlath bent over Carola. He thought that he knew what she had done, and what a risk she had taken in order to save them. He felt for a pulse.

1. "She's alive," he said. "But what condition she'll be in when she comes round, I can't say."
2. "There's no pulse," he said, despair in his voice.
3. Even as he searched for the right point on her inner wrist, Carola began to transform.

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