Her voice was low and clear, vibrant with energy. Just to hear her made Desiderata straighten her back.

The woman bent, a hand on Desiderata’s head and another on her back.

All of Desiderata’s pains fell away, leaving her only the ache of knowing how near to term her pregnancy was.

The pools of black became palpable, and manifested.

“Tar, you hypocrite!” said the dark voice.

“Ash, you try me.” The woman moved a hand.

“You interfere as freely as I do,” Ash said.

The woman interposed herself between Desiderata and the pool of darkness. “No,” she said. “I obey the ancient law, and you break it.”

Ash laughed, and nothing about the laugh was like a laugh save the outward sound. “The law is for the weak, and I am strong.”

The woman raised her arms. “I, too, am strong. But I obey the law. If you flout it, it will punish you. Stronger immortals than you—”

“Spare me your mythology,” Ash said. “I will have the child. Now you have interfered directly, breaking the compact. Now you are as much a law-breaker as I.”

“Spare me your immaturity. I did not strike the first blow, or the tenth. And you know—you must know—how tangled has become this skein.” She brought her arms together.

“So tangled that only I can follow it. Come, entangle yourself, and I will destroy you, too.” Ash’s voice grew in strength.

“Can you?” Tar asked.

“Enough that I know that this one will die by your hand.” Ash’s laughter was like the cries of souls in torment. “And the child either will never be born, or will be mine from birth, by the actions of your people.”

Even as he spoke, he grew, and as he grew, his assault on Desiderata’s mind became more intense, until it was like a barrage of trebuchets.

Had she not prepared…

But she had. Her golden wall of power accepted blow after blow.

The woman spoke again, even though by now she was surrounded by darkness.

“If you continue to waste your strength on mortals, you will in time teach them to fight you. Look—even now, this daughter of mine has built a wall you cannot easily breach. What if she teaches it to others?” She sighed. “Are you so sure that you can survive what is to come?”

“Survive?” Ash asked. “I will triumph.”

The blackness filled the room.

His power in the real was something against which Desiderata had no defence, and she was losing the will to breathe.

The woman was no longer visible. Desiderata had time to wonder what she was hearing—whether this apparent conversation between Satan and the Virgin was occurring in the real or in the aethereal. Or somewhere else.

Or just inside her head.

One of the golden bricks in her wall of solitude shifted. The shift was minute, but terrifying.

Ash chuckled, like blood running over a stone.