Clea turned and surveyed the throne room. Her mother wouldn’t be down for long, so whatever she was going to do to get Ardina and the rest of her team out of here, she had to do now.
To her surprise, the translucent spirit of Agatha Harkness suddenly appeared beside Holly and Margali, her dimension-hopping strength seemingly restored. Clea wondered how the shade had managed to regain her power so quickly. Or did Umar’s barrier spell not affect the dead and how they traveled between dimensions?
Or was Agatha simply far more powerful and cunning than she let on? That was a truly unsettling thought, given the old woman’s temperament.
With a dismissive gesture, Agatha raised a wall of arcane blue fire between the women and the demons harrying them. Clea understood immediately that the blood that had covered both her companions must have been mostly Holly’s. Agatha had told Holly she would come if the young witch were in dire need, but she wouldn’t have appeared for anything less than a grievous wound.
But now that there were five witches here, Clea realized how she could rescue Ardina and the others.
Still in Ardina’s body, she hurried down the dais stairs. She couldn’t break Umar’s hold on Ardina’s mind, but she was able to make the golden woman kneel and cast a quick binding spell on her before exiting her form and re-entering her own. The spell would only last until Umar noticed and dispelled it, but Clea hoped that would be long enough.
Once back in her own body, Clea wasted no time summoning the others.
Gather around Ardina! We need Agatha, too. Hurry! We don’t have much time.
She did not have a mental link with Agatha, but she trusted Margali to pass on her message. She rushed over to Elizabeth, who was still leaning heavily against the pillar, though the Coronet of Power was about her brow once more.
“Remind me never to make Goldilocks mad again,” Elizabeth said weakly, as Clea approached.
“I’d start by never calling her ‘Goldilocks’ again,” Clea replied, putting her arm around Elizabeth’s shoulders to help bear some of the Tsuut’ina woman’s weight. “Come on. It’s time to go home.”
As she did so, Elizabeth looked around quickly and saw Agatha hovering behind Holly and Margali as they limped toward Ardina’s spellbound form. She froze.
“Why is she here?” she demanded. Then, as she came to the same realization Clea had about what Agatha’s appearance must mean for Holly, her shoulders slumped and she added angrily, “And why didn’t she come sooner?”
Clea didn’t know, and she didn’t even try to answer. She imagined Elizabeth didn’t really expect her to.
The other three sorceresses reached Ardina before she and Elizabeth did. Agatha had called up more walls of arcane fire to cut off attacks from the demons who were now streaming in through the Grand Throne Room’s two side entrances. Judging from how pale Holly was and how annoyed Margali looked, Agatha was the only one of the trio currently capable of casting spells. It was only as she and Elizabeth reached the others that she saw the gravity of Holly’s wound.
There was more than one reason to hurry now.
“Everyone, place one hand on Ardina’s head.” The woman formed of the Power Cosmic normally towered over all of them, her height topping six feet, which was why Clea had taken recourse to having her kneel before binding her. “Our hands need to be touching each other’s, as well.”
She placed her right hand on Ardina’s head, and Elizabeth followed suit. Clea saw that her hand had been maimed and burned at some point in between when they defeated the G’uranthic Guardian and now. That small victory already seemed like it had happened several lifetimes ago.
Margali was next, her green skin crusted red and black with blood. She shoved what was left of her staff through her belt and used her other hand to raise one of Holly’s and hold it in place; the pink-haired witch was conscious, but too weak and tired to follow Clea’s instructions on her own.
Agatha was last, her ghostly hand placed atop all the rest. Her touch would have been imperceptible if not for its bone-chilling cold.
The old witch looked at Clea, raising an eyebrow. “The Pentagram of Farallah? Interesting choice.”
Clea didn’t respond. She was actually modifying that spell, which was, at its core, a simple mass teleportation incantation. By itself, it wouldn’t be enough to break through Umar’s barrier. So she was going to have to give it a little oomph.
A little bit of each witch’s lifeforce. In Holly’s case, a very little bit.
She wasn’t sure how well the spell would work with Agatha being dead, but obviously there was some sort of force keeping her around, so Clea hoped the spell would tap into that.
There was, of course, only one way to find out.
“By all who were, who are, who will ever be,
Those of life and those of love, I say unto thee…”
As she spoke, a stream of silver flashed out from her forehead to Margali’s, then from hers to Agatha’s, from Agatha’s to Elizabeth’s, and from Elizabeth’s to Holly’s before returning to Clea’s, leaving an argent pentagram flaming in the air between them.
Thus connected to each of the others, Clea felt their lifeforces, their essences. She gathered them for the second part of the spell.
And then Umar appeared above the dais, fury blazing so hot in her eyes that Clea could feel it from where she stood. Her mother raised her arms, a spell on her lips. No doubt a fatal one.
Clea realized in that fraught instant that, by channeling the combined might of the other witches, and with Umar unable to take advantage of Ardina’s extra power boost for at least a few more moments, she could do the one thing she’d never been able to accomplish before.
She could destroy Umar and free the Dark Dimension from her tyranny forever. Free its people.
Perhaps even free herself.
Holly groaned softly, and the sound brought Clea back to reality. If she did what she imagined doing, she would be no better than Umar, no matter how much good she wrought. Good ends could never justify evil means, and hijacking her sisters in sorcery like that, using their lifeforces without their permission for a goal they had not agreed upon, would be nothing short of betrayal. And betrayal was one of the worst sorts of evil, as she had good cause to know.
No, she would complete this mission, get her friends back home, and cede the Dark Dimension to Umar.
For now.
But she would be back. She and her rebels would regroup and continue their fight. They may not have won today, but they had dealt Umar a serious blow – to her ego, if nothing else. That had to count for something.
“By the Fangs of Farallah, we do implore,
Ye grant us passage through thy door!”
Instantly, they were elsewhere. Warm sun kissed their skin while a soft breeze caressed it. Waves lapped soft sand nearby.
The Parringtons’ private beach.
“Cheese and crackers!” exclaimed a familiar voice in surprise. “Talk about making an entrance!”