“I know you think this will stop me,” said the Librarian. “I assure that it won’t. I am

going to have my way.”

“All I have to do is run out the clock,” said Ray. “After that, it doesn’t matter. You

will still be the loser. How does it feel to keep missing the brass ring? How does it

feel to be a loooossssser?”

“How does it feel to be eaten alive?,” asked the Librarian. She made a set of

complicated gestures. Letters knocked her blue cube apart long enough for something

that looked like a dog to spring to life outside of her cell. It charged Ray with a

frothing mouth and burning eyes in a shaggy head.

The wolf dog’s head exploded before it could cover the ground between it and Ray.

The body fell over silently.

“You don’t get to win,” said Ray.

The Librarian growled. She blasted out of the cube. She reached for Ray with both

hands. He fended off the glowing appendages, glad that he had asked for better

response time. She was a blur and getting faster. He struggled to keep up.

Then she was punching another blue cube and almost cracking it before it jumped

back into shape.

Ray kicked the cube away to give himself more room to move. If she had hit him with

one of those glowing hands, she might have ended the fight for him right there.

“Lamp, how are we doing?,” asked Ray. He didn’t want to run out of energy in the

middle of this fight, but knew it was possible. He didn’t have a reserve of spell stones

to dump out for his own use.

Three quarter charged.

“Let me know if we have to run before we can’t do anything,” thought Ray.

Affirmative. The tone was more watchful than he was used to from the flame. He

supposed this was the first fight he could get killed if he lost.

If he went down, what happened to the lamp, and the arm it was built into? Did it

cease to exist? Would Woad call it back? Could he call it back? Could the Librarian

use it to further her aims?

He certainly didn’t want to find out by dying.

The Librarian got her breathing under control. She looked up at the sky. She put both

of her hands together. He didn’t like the look of that.

“I have had enough of you and your friends getting in my way,” said the Librarian.

She closed her eyes. Orange letters danced around her like a swarm of bees. “It’s time

you understand your place in the new order of things.”

The letters blasted through the cube, turning into angry sparks of light. Ray raised his

arm, calling for multiple shields as he backed up. Some of the bees split away to

attack other targets not on the battlefield. Explosions rocked his shields and sent him

flying. The flame died out momentarily as he rolled across the ground.

“You have cost me a huge amount of resources and time,” said the Librarian. “I’m

going to take that arm of yours and send the rest of you to the underworld where you

belong.”

Ray felt the flame running through his body as it repaired the damage he had taken

as he looked up at the Librarian. He forced a smile to hold her back for the second he

needed.

“Goodbye,” said Ray.

“Lamp, reverse gravity on target as much as you can,” thought Ray.

Blue flame blasted the Librarian straight into the dome overhead. She impacted hard,

but he knew her shield had protected her from most of the damage.

“Lamp, accelerate her fall the same way,” thought Ray. “Then make sure Johnny Mac

is all right. The secondary goal is to keep him alive.”

Affirmative. Blue flame pulled the enemy into the ground with the speed of a comet.

A crater formed when her shield hit the square at high speed. A blue cube formed

around her as she tried to pick herself up. She settled for feeble darts that didn’t go

through the blue box.

Another line of flame leaped from the metal arm, locating Johnny Mac. A check

pushed back a damage report to the lamp. The boy was almost dead. Power boiled

down the line and the mess became someone who might live after things were settled.

The lamp formed a bunker from the nearby debris to give Johnny Mac a place while

the fighting was going on. It was the best it could do in the face of the enemy.

Ray rubbed his face with his normal hand. It had been a long time since he had been

in a real fight. He didn’t like that the Librarian was still trying to get up to deal with

him.

He would have just taken the fall and been done with it.

“Lamp, repeat dome bounce,” said Ray. “We can’t let her get back on her feet to kill

us.”

Affirmative. The Librarian hit the dome again with a spat of angry letters at the

impact. Then she hit the ground a few feet over from the first impact site. Her

protection became visible once more to keep her from dying.

Another blue cube wrapped around her to hold her in place.

How much more of this could she take? He had wrecked her twice in a row. She had

to be close to being knocked out. He needed to help dismantle the rest of this before

it actually went to work while he was still fighting.

Ray felt energy filling the courtyard. He looked around. What was she doing? He

decided that he needed to find a way through her shield and put a bullet in her head.

She wasn’t going to stop until he was dead. He didn’t want to kill her, but that was

the decision he was going to have to make.

And he knew if it came down to someone trying to be a villainess and risking her

world, and his family, the decision was already made.

He wasn’t going to let his family be hurt by someone trying to turn living entropy into

a power source.

The stone under Ray’s feet came to life, imbued with orange letters. It wrapped

around him like a giant hand. It pushed on his protective bubble, trying to crush him

into paste.

The Librarian got to her feet, snapping the blue cube around her with a gesture. She

smiled at her helpless enemy. She looked up at the sky above her dome. She still had

time to perform the spell.

And she had time to kill this meddler once and for all.

“How does it feel?,” she asked. She straightened her black robe. Dirt and drops of

blood fell off.

“How does what feel?,” said Ray.

“How does it feel to get in the way of your better and lose horribly?,” asked the

Librarian.

“I don’t know,” said Ray. “How does it feel to be blind?”

“What?,” said the Librarian.

Blue light filled her vision. Thunder drowned out any other sound. She closed her

hand to close the stone crusher on her enemy.

Something smashed against her, and her shield took the impact. She hunkered down

behind her magic wall. Energy worked on bringing her vision and hearing back. She

had to deal with this pest without any more gloating.

Ray directed the remains of the crusher into his enemy, flinging a storm of stone and

dirt against her protection. He buried her for the moment.

How much time did he have left? The clock still turned over in the corner of his eye,

but he knew that was for the passing of the third night. How long could he hold out?

Maybe he should keep bouncing her off the dome until she couldn’t fight any more.

It seemed the least energy using method he had at his disposal. The university could

plant trees in the craters to cover them up.

If someone had told him he would be in a real wizard duel, he would have asked them

to quit drinking.

Orange letters formed into a trio of burning giants with the heads of horses and plate

armor of stone. The Librarian stood in the middle of their triangle, crocheting

symbols to give them a rudimentary intelligence.

Ray shook his head at her persistence. She was still coming despite everything. He

flexed his metal hand. He could beat her if he was just as persistent.

Neither side expected the rain of rifle grenades falling out of the sky. The enemy

group blew up from the surprise attack.

“Lamp, dome strike,” said Ray. “Bounce her until the situation changes.”

Affirmative. Blue flame threw the Librarian into the air. Then it slammed her into the

ground. Then it threw her back in the air.

Ray stepped back from the improvised Looney Tunes body slam. He didn’t have

anything to worry about until she learned how to fly. Even then, the gravity pull

would keep her from doing anything but avoiding the inside of her lid.

The flame’s grip broke as Ray watched. He shouldn’t have thought about her learning

how to fly. Then he realized she hadn’t learned how to fly. She had learned how to

increase her body mass. And she was falling right on top of him.

He threw himself clear as she blasted the ground like a cannonball.

He needed better ideas if he wanted to stop her.