shield way

I raised the blasting rod to point at the ceiling above, deeply shadowed but still barely visible. It was a natural cavern roof. The floor might have been carved and polished smooth to host the Erlking's hall, but stalactites the size of city buses hung from the ceiling like some behemoth's grim teeth. I checked to be sure that Susan was on the far side of the circle, as far away as possible from what I was about to bring down.
Then I hurled my fear and rage at the base of a great stone fang that was almost directly overhead, and put almost everything I had left into it.
Blue-white fire screamed through the blasting rod, so intense that the rune-carved implement itself exploded into a cloud of glowing splinters. It hit the far- above stalactite with a thunderous concussion. Beside me, the Ick rose up and reached for my skull with one enormous hand.
I threw up my hands, hissed, "Aparturum," and, with the last of my will, ripped open the veil between the Erlking's hall and the material world, tearing open a circular opening maybe four feet across - and floating three feet off the ground and parallel to the floor, oriented so that its entry point was on its upper side. Then I curled up into a fetal position beneath that opening and tried to cover my head with my arms.
Tons and tons of stone tumbled down with slow, deadly grace. The Devourer's heartbeat redoubled its pace. Then there was an incredible noise, and the whole world was blotted away.
I lay there on my side for several moments, not daring to move. Stone fell for a while, maybe a couple of minutes, before the sounds of falling rocks slowly died away, like the pops from a pan of popcorn just before it starts to burn. Only, you know, rockier.
Only then did I allow myself to lift my head and look around.
I lay in a perfectly circular four-foot-across tomb that was maybe five feet deep. The sides of the tomb were perfectly smooth, though I could see from all the cracks and crevices that they were made from many mismatched pieces of rock, ranging from one the size of my fist to a boulder half as big as a car.
Above me, the open Way glowed slightly. All the stone that would have fallen on me had instead plunged through the open Way and back into the material world.
I took a deep breath and closed it again. I hoped that no one was hanging around wherever it was that Way emptied out. Maybe in the FBI cafeteria? No way to know, except to go through and look. I didn't want to face the collateral damage of something like that.
My sane brain pointed out that there was every chance that we weren't talking about falling stones at all. As matter from the spirit world, they would transform to simple ectoplasm when they reached the material world, unless ongoing energy was provided in order to preserve their solidity. I certainly hadn't been trying to pump any energy into the stones as they hit the Way. So odds were that I just dumped several dozen tons of slime onto a random spot in the FBI building - and slime that would evaporate within moments. It would grossly reduce the chances of inflicting injuries on some hapless FBI staffer.
I decided that my sanity and I could live with that.
I closed the Way with a wave of my hand and an effort of will, and slowly stood up. As I did, I realized that I felt a bit creaky, and that I was shaking with fatigue. But what I didn't feel was . . . pain.


Changes Chapter 37, Page 386-388