sprang from the knotted muscles of their shoulders; cloaks of mist and cloud streamed from their backs, and a dozen more hands and arms reached out from the folds and billows of these clouds. Their black fingernails were the size of shields, their fingers were timber beams, their palms were courtyards.
In one of the palms of the nearer of the two giants, the one-eyed, skull-faced version of Dr. Fell stood, Telemus, his feet planted wide, one hand resting against the thumb of the giant, as if the thumb were the mast of a pitching ship. From him came the azure light that struck Quentin.
I knew Miss Daw was in the area, but I could not see her.
Behind us were enemies. Several of the hands of the giants, larger than lifeboats, were issuing from a white mist that had blotted out the roof behind us. One hand descended toward Vanity, its palm down and fingers curled like the bars of a prison gate. In the palm of another of the hands was Mr. Glum, leaning on his makeshift crutch.
The moment Glum's eyes fell on me, his face lit up with dark delight, and reality hiccuped. My wings were gone, my higher senses dimmed, and I felt the upper dimensions vanish from my memory like a dream upon waking. My winter coat and pants seemed both tighter and prettier.
Boggin was speaking as he landed. 'Well, now that that little romp is over with, we can…'
I hit the button on the disc player. Miss Daw's lovely music floated from the tiny speaker, very quiet in the wide night.
The screams of the giants were cut off in mid-shout. The hands all vanished in blazes and explosions of red sparks. Mr. Glum toppled headlong; Dr. Fell grabbed the thumb he was clutching, and he disappeared into whatever place the hands were being yanked. The clouds of mist the giants produced erupted into red sparks, turned transparent, and were gone.
Glum struck the roof tiles, slid, and grabbed on to the rain gutter with both hands. Whatever his desires were at the moment, they did not include concentrating on me. In the fourth dimension, my crystal disk shone and gave off light.
And I could see my wings again. I rotated them back into this level. Shining blue-sparkling feathers fanned out to either side of me.
Colin roared. He ran forward, snatching up Mr. Glum's hoe. He moved faster than was possible, as fast as runners desire to run, which was faster than they do run.
He shouted as he sprinted past me, 'Save them!'
He jumped to the peak of the dome in one leap.
My higher senses picked up Boggin's power beginning to radiate from him; morality and probability were warping, building up some sort of massive time-energy, as if fate itself were being wrenched from its moorings and used as a weapon in Boggin's hands.
But Colin was too quick for him. Colin clouted him over the head and shoulder with the hoe. Boggin snarled and slapped at Colin, cracking the hoe in two when Colin raised it to parry the blow.
Boggin's wings pumped furiously, and he began to rise. Colin threw himself heedlessly through the air and tackled him. Boggin began to draw in his breath, and, even from yards and yards away, I could feel the air getting cold. Colin, his legs dangling in midair as Boggin lifted off, drove the blunt end of the broken hoe-staff into the pit of Boggin's stomach. Boggin doubled over and coughed, but continued to rise, higher and higher.
I took a step, raised my wings, but looked back. Victor was not moving. He did not seem to be breathing. Vanity was sitting on the roof tiles, looking in horror at Mr. Glum's hand, which had gotten a grip on a roof ornament, and was lifting Mr. Glum into view. Quentin was looking hopeless and lost, his magic gone again, and he was still clutching his hand that the key had singed.
Damn, damn. A leader cannot abandon her people. But now I had to, one or the other. Either Colin, or the rest. Which? I had less time than it takes to take a breath to decide. As soon as Glum raised his head, I would be just a girl again. If I could have thrown something at Glum, or run down to him before he could raise his head, and pitched him off the roof to his death, I would have. But there was nothing to throw.
The giants were not the only ones with other hands. Mine looked like sparks and motes of energy when I rotated them into this time-space, and they swirled around Victor, Vanity, and Quentin; and perhaps my hands were not so strong as the giants' were, but I could negate the weight of my friends, so they were all feather-light.
I selected a very fast-moving energy path, caught it with my wings, and we all were swept off the roof at high speed. The path I took dipped down off the far side of the roof from Glum, putting the mass of the building between him and us for a moment.
I heard Boggin's voice crying out from above, 'Stop! Stop! Stop! Or you will kill us both!'
Colin, his voice wild with glee, 'No, teacher! Just you!'
I saw them outlined against the moon. They were very far away from me. There was no way I could get there, no shortcut through the fourth dimension to reach there; the distances were longer through four-space.
Boggin's three brothers were racing toward him, their wings like storms, but they were also simply too far away.
Colin was on Boggin's back, his legs around his neck. He had one hand yanking up Boggin's left wing.
With the other, he flourished the broken hoe-shaft.
Colin shouted, 'This is for every kid who hates wearing a tie!'
And he brained him. He struck the Headmaster forcefully enough to knock him limp. They both tumbled from the sky, down and down…
There were bright moonlit clouds behind them. I saw the two tumbling silhouettes. As they fell lower, only dark horizon was behind them, tree shadows, the gloom of the earth, and I saw nothing.
Or perhaps it was tears that clouded my vision.
