Ptolemy's Gate

dark rod in his hand. "Hold on, lady," he said reasonably. "Rules are rules. You've got to take a drink from the cup before you go. It's a sort of test." He made an embarrassed gesture and looked ruefully at her. "I'm sorry."
    The old lady stopped, shrugged. "Don't be." She raised a hand. A blue light stabbed from her palm, engulfing Sam in a crackling network of bright blue force. He leaped, shuddered, danced oddly like a puppet, then fell smoking to the floor. Someone in the taproom screamed.
    A whistle sounded, shrill and impertinent. The old woman turned, her cupped hand raised and steaming. "Now then, my dear—"
    Kitty threw the silver cup into the old woman's face.
    A flash of bright green light, a hiss of scalding. The old lady snarled like a dog, clutched at her face with clawing fingers. Kitty turned her head: "George—!"
    From his pocket the landlord drew a small box, delicate and oblong. He threw it to Kitty, hard and fast, over the shouting, rising heads of the nearest men and women. She caught it in one hand, spun in a single movement to toss it at the writhing figure—
    The old lady removed her fingers from her face, which had largely disappeared. Between the neat white hair and the necklace of pearls at her throat a misshapen mass was glistening. It had no regular shape, no features. Kitty was taken aback; she hesitated. The faceless woman lifted her hand and another bright stream of sapphired light shot out, striking Kitty head-on, engulfing her in a vortex of shimmering energy. She groaned. Her teeth rattled in her skull; every bone seemed to be shaking free of its neighbors; dazzling lights blinded her. She sensed her clothes singeing on her body.
    The attack ceased; the lines of blue energy vanished; from where she had been suspended, about a meter up, Kitty fell limply to the ground.
    The old lady flexed her fingers, grunted in satisfaction, and looked around the taproom. In all directions people were fleeing, knocking over tables, sending chairs flying, colliding with each other, squealing in mortal fear; the young blond-haired man had hidden behind a barrel. Across the room she spied George Fox edging toward a chest beside the bar. Another blast—but he had launched himself desperately to the side: a section of the counter disintegrated in a heap of glass and matchwood; George Fox rolled away behind a table out of view.
    Ignoring the laments and scurryings around her, the old lady turned to leave once more. She adjusted her twinset, brushed a stray coil of gray hair from her ruined face, stepped across Sam's body, and reached for the door.
    Another whistle, shrill and impertinent, sounded above the clamor. The old lady froze with her fingers on the handle. She cocked her head and turned.
    Then Kitty, whose eyes were slightly crossed, whose clothes were streaked and torn, whose hair frizzed all about her like a mane of cotton wool, but who had struggled to her feet again regardless, tossed over the small box. As it landed at the old lady's feet, Kitty spoke a single word.
    A burst of light, searing in its intensity; a column of flame, two meters in diameter, rose from floor to ceiling. It was utterly smooth-sided, more like a pillar than a moving thing. It surrounded the old lady on all sides—she could be seen transfixed within it, like an insect within amber: gray hair, pearl necklace, blue dress, all. The pillar became solid, suddenly opaque, and the old woman was hidden within it.
    The light faded, the pillar became faint and nebulous. It vanished, leaving a perfectly circular burn mark on the floor. The old lady with the molten face was gone.
    At first the taproom of The Frog was very still: a wasteland of upturned tables, smashed chairs, wood fragments, prone bodies, and scattered dominoes. Only Kitty stood, arms poised, breathing hard, staring at the space before the door.
    Then, one by one, the members began to express their shock and fear; they moved upon the floor, they stirred, they slowly rose, they began to moan and babble. Kitty remained silent; she looked toward the ruined bar. From a distant point along it George's face emerged. He stared at Kitty wordlessly.
    She raised an eyebrow. "Well?"
    "Let them get their breath back. Then they can go. The sphere mustn't notice anything."
    With slow, stiff moments, Kitty clambered over the nearest pile of shattered wood and stepped around the body of the bartender. Pushing aside a teary gentleman who was blundering toward the exit, she