Whatever it was, they were tearing the world apart! They struggled against one another, Tarrin's brilliant blade crashing into some kind of rod of utter darkness in Val's shadowy hands, and every collision between those two weapons sent out a shockwave of power that was shaking the very earth itself. She could feel the power exchanged between those blows, and she could also somehow sense that what she could see was only a fraction of the true struggle going on between them. The shaking of the earth was only a part of what was happening, though. Images and shapes floated transparently in the air around them, like some delusions of reality, and magical streamers of light and energy cascaded down from the air to hit the ground. When they struck, sometimes they exploded, sometimes they just disappeared, but sometimes they did bizarre things. One streamer hit a stone in the floor and changed it into a puddle of water, another hit and transformed a small piece of rock fallen from the ceiling into a sparrow, which then frantically rose into the air and flew towards the large passage that led outside. Jesmind rolled wildly aside each time one of those dangerous motes of light drifted towards her, then managed to regain her feet as the shaking of the earth subsided by a small amount, enough for her to stand.
Clutching Jasana to her, she was momentarily stunned and confused by what was going on. She woodenly saw that six-armed Demoness come down the platform with the naked human female secured firmly in the grasp of her six arms, keeping her prize, and the human woman actually clutched to the Demoness like a child, willing to accept even her aid if it got her to safety. The other Demons were right behind her. They were fleeing from the battle, and the looks of terror on their faces were sincere and obvious. One of the pig-headed ones squealed in sudden fright and tried to dive aside, but it was too late to avoid a massive blast of fire that billowed forth from the combatants high above that crashed into it. She clearly saw the silhouette of its body evaporate, outlined by the furious fire, wavering away to nothing and leaving not even ash behind when the fire splashed into the floor and winked out of existence quickly. Jesmind looked up to see Tarrin raking Val with a column of fire that emanated from his outstretched paw, his braid and tail and those wings all covered in angry red fire stretched out behind him, as if bracing him for the attack. Val had blocked the fire with his black rod, and the remnants of the fiery attack were raining down on those below.
Tarrin had told her to run. Now she understood how good an idea that was! They were going to get killed if they stayed in there!
Gathering up Jasana, Jesmind turned and raced towards that archway, her terror and desperate concern to get her daughter out alive consuming her, giving her great strength and speed. She sprinted past the six-armed Demoness, and the creature made no move to attack her or hinder her. In this, they were all united by their powerful instinct of self-preservation, and there were no enemies anymore. She flinched away and nearly fell down when a shadow of absolute blackness raced over her head, leaving her chilled to the bone in its wake. That wave of utter blackness struck the wall over the archway, and instantly covered every part of the stone that it touched in a thick layer of crystal clear ice. Tarrin and the god Val were completely consumed in their battle with each other, and the power that was flying around them was indiscriminate and deadly. They had to get away!
Almost flying through the archway, Jesmind entered the long tunnel that would lead them back outside. The columns lining the wide gallery were shuddering and swaying alarmingly, and stones and dust were dropping down out of the ceiling like rain, concealing the passage and reducing her vision. But she ran on wildly, recklessly, consumed with the need to get her daughter out alive. She jumped over a boulder-sized stone that had fallen out of the ceiling, and raced underneath one of those huge pillars as it broke free of its anchors and toppled out into the gallery, racing under it literally as it fell, and the deafening sound of its impact behind them shivering her fur, a palpable force against her skin.
Insane. This was insane! What had happened? How had Tarrin managed to face off against Val? He was fighting a god, and he seemed to be holding his own? Why was he doing it? Why? All he had to do was get away! If he had that much power, he could just run away, and take the Firestaff with him! He didn't have to fight! He couldn't win! Val was a god!
Jesmind screamed when a huge fissure opened up in the stone beneath her feet, making her leap aside to avoid falling into it. Hot light poured up from the base of that longspan-deep chasm in the earth, and Jesmind realized that the power those two were giving off was tearing the very earth apart as they battled! More fissures crisscrossed the floor, and the land began to shift crazily as some blocks of stone-capped earth rose up and others fell, an insane obstacle course of shifting sections of floor that ground and crushed against one another. Those fissures went up under the columns and snaked up the walls, and she saw with some serious terror that some were being shattered by the forces being exerted against them, and others were beginning to tear free as the ground dropped out from beneath them, tear free where they would begin to fall. The walls were crumbling, as massive stones began toppling out from them to strike the pillars, and larger and larger stones began to rain down from the ceiling.
Sprinting forward because she had no other choice, Jesmind relied on her inhuman agility to navigate the wildly shifting floor, loping from platform to platform as fast as she could possibly go. She glanced back when she heard a deafening tearing sound, an awful tearing of rock, and she glanced back just in time to see that six-armed Demoness get crushed under thousands of tons of rock as the walls and ceiling collapsed on top of her. She and that human she was carrying were certainly dead, and the Demons behind her, if they weren't dead, were trapped. But she felt little satisfaction in seeing that hated bitch die. At that moment, their own survival was in serious doubt.
Moving with renewed terror-induced motivation at seeing the walls collapse behind her, Jesmind surged forward, taking greater and greater risks, keeping her eyes peeled for any large stones that appeared out of the dust ahead and above them, dust so thick that she could barely see more than ten spans ahead of her. She clutched Jasana to her with one arm, the little girl clinging frantically to her mother as the Were-cat danced along uneven patches of rubble-strewn ground, evaded flying rocks that rained down from the ceiling, and jumped high to clear the massive pillars that had already fallen to the floor ahead of them. The noise was deafening, tearing and exploding rock all around her, and the dust coated her nose and throat and made breathing more and more difficult. But to her eternal relief, the strange light that lit the gallery had not failed, lighting their way and providing Jesmind with just enough light with which to avoid the lethal stones that rained from above and see enough of the floor and debris on it to set her feet without having them slide out from under her.
A thunderous detonation shook the entire world, it seemed to her, shaking everything so badly that Jesmind and Jasana were spilled to the ground. She barely heard the snapping of stone and saw the shadow appear out of the dust, and wildly rolled to the side as one of the huge pillars toppled down on top of her. She rolled up against a huge stone that had already fallen to the floor, and the massive black shadow of the falling pillar suddenly consumed all the light. She flinched, covering Jasana with her own body as the pillar crashed to the ground, and then she screamed in agony when something crushed her left leg. She looked back to see that the stone by them had stopped the pillar's fall and kept it from killing them, but the pillar had broken, and the very edge of its end had landed on her left foot. She realized she could cut off the foot with the Cat's Claws, but they would leave a permanent injury, and she would have no chance of getting Jasana out alive with only one foot. And she would only slow Jasana down as she tried to get out alive herself. Grimly, she realized that there was only one choice to make.