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Again, she hit him with it full force to drive him back and away.

"Benedict!" he cried.

And this time he sent the Fire Gift at her with all his power, lunging for her as he did so, the machete raised.

She screamed. She screamed like a helpless village woman in a war, a powerless and frantic being, but as she reached for her chest with both hands, she sent the Fire Gift against him and he felt the intolerable heat just as she was feeling it, felt his body burning in unspeakable pain.

He denied the pain. He refused to be defeated, refused to freeze in panic.

He heard Benedict shouting as he sought to drive her back, Benedict's left hand on his back. It was an ugly battle cry, and he heard the same coming from his own lips.

Again, he mustered his power and aimed it at her heart, as he brought down the machete with all his physical strength sinking the blade deep into her neck.

A dreadful roar rose from her. Blood shot up out of her mouth in a horrid fountain.

"Khayman!" she roared, the blood bubbling from her lips. "Mekare!" Suddenly a whole litany of names broke from her, names of all she'd known and loved, and the great choking wail, "I am dying. I am murdered!"

Her head was falling back, her neck twisting desperately, her hands reaching up to steady her own head, the blood splashing all over her cotton robe, all over her hands, splashing on him.

He grabbed the machete with both hands and slammed it into her neck again with all his force, and this time, the head came off and flew through the air and landed on the moist earthen floor of the room.

Her headless body sank down to the ground, its hands reaching up desperately, and as it fell forward on its breasts, the hands clawed at the earth, clawed like talons.

The head lay there staring to one side, the blood flowing slowly out of it. Who knew what prayers, what pleas, what desperate entreaties, still came from her?

"Look at it, the body!" Benedict wailed. He beat on Rhosh's back with his fists. "She's crawling to it."

Rhosh charged forward, his boot crunching into the headless torso, crushing it down into the mud, and switching the machete to his left hand, he grabbed up the bleeding head by the copper hair.

Her eyes shifted and fixed him firmly as the mouth gaped, and a low whisper came from the quivering lips.

He dropped the machete. And backing up, shoving Benedict out of his path, nearly stumbling over the flailing body, he swung the head against the wall again and again, but he could not break the skull.

Suddenly he dropped the thing, dropped it into the dirt, and he was down on his hands and knees, and Benedict's boot came down right in front of him, and he saw the machete come flashing down and slice into the shining copper hair, slice through it, slice into the skull, and the blood bubbled up crimson and glittering.

The head was on fire. Benedict was blasting it. The head was in flames. He knelt there a mute witness--helpless, utterly helpless--watching the head blacken and burn, watching the hair go up in sizzling smoke and sparks.

Yes, the Fire Gift. Finally he rallied. He sent it with full fury. And the head was curling up, black, like that of a plastic doll on a burning trash heap, and the eyes gleamed white for one second before they turned black, and the head was as a lump of coal with no face, no lips. Dead and ruined.

He scrambled to his feet.

The headless body lay still. But Benedict was now blasting this too, blasting the blood that was flowing out of it, and the whole prone figure there went up in flames, the cotton robe consumed.

In a panic, Rhosh turned right and left. He stumbled backwards. Where was the other one?

Nothing stirred. No sound came from the garden enclosure.

The fire crackled and snapped and smoked. And Benedict was catching his breath in anxious musical sobs. His hand was on Rhosh's shoulder.

Rhosh stared at the darkened mass that had been her head, the head of the witch who had come to Egypt long ago with the spirit Amel, who had gone into the Mother, the head of the witch who had endured for six thousand years without ever going down into the earth to sleep, this great witch and blood drinker who had never made war on anyone except the Queen who'd torn her eyes from her and condemned her to die.

She was gone now. And he, Rhosh, had done this! He and Benedict, at his instigation.

He felt a sorrow so immense he thought he would die from the weight of it. He felt it like his very breath gathering in his chest, in his throat, threatening to suffocate him.

He ran his fingers back through his hair, tearing at his hair, pulling it suddenly in two hanks, pulling it till it hurt, and the pain sliced into his brain.

He staggered into the doorway.