A fireball careened overhead. The small group looked at it with a strange nonchalance, not flinching even when it exploded in a small ravine nearby, showering dust and sparks everywhere and filling the air with the tang of hot metal.
      "They'll be up there then," said one, a women dressed in black fatigues. She didn't seem to have any feet, as if there was nothing but uncertainty where she should have met the ground.
      "Ayuh." A man with long hair answered. "I think the rest of our lot are coming on from the back." He had stubble and an infectious grin.
      "Gods know why they want to protect the bloody thing. Nothing but trouble round Rifts." The woman kicked a rock with one insubstantial foot and grimaced up at the rocky terrain as another gob of flame screamed down, missing their position by only a few metres.
      "Do they even know we've been called in?" another pondered.
      "Dunno, Ananis." The woman shrugged. "You'd have thought they'd have worked it out by now. Dragon's bunch has been in for a scout already. They'd have been hard pressed to miss them."
      "Incoming." A tall woman with long, blonde hair pointed across the tiny canyon to a reptilian form clambering with hostile intent down the rock face. There were more behind it.
      "Something to do at last," said a third woman, younger than the blonde. There was a predatory gleam in her eye.
      "This is becoming tedious," the first woman said. "You two have your fun, I'm fed up waiting. The rest of you coming?"
      "Why in the Hell not?" said the man with the grin.
      Two women stayed behind and began to wreak carnage on the reptiles surging over the canyon wall. The other woman and the two men began to climb the cliff face towards the source of the fireballs. About halfway up the woman seemed to become bored and let go. She did not fall, but began to ascend faster, the uncertainty extending further up her legs as far as her knees. The long-haired man gave a whoop of delight and leapt upwards, speeding past her. The third increased the pace of his ascent until he seemed to be gliding over the rock.
      They reached the top within a few seconds of each other, their faces showing some of the excitement of the chase. Ahead of them was more rock, an inclining terrain dotted with strangely shaped boulders and massive cracks. There was dust everywhere, turning the sky the same colour as the ground, hiding the sun in a haze of particles. There was an area some way distant, where there was an uncomfortable area of intensity, a place that could not be viewed without the threat of extreme mental disturbance.
      These three were already as disturbed as they were ever likely to get and looked fearlessly across the treacherous landscape at the Rift they had been sent to help close.
      "That's it?" asked Ananis in some disbelief. He had not seen a Rift before.
      "That's it," replied the other man, whose name was Nathan. It didn't suit him.
      "Pesky bloody things," said the woman, who had no name and many. She turned her head slowly, scanning the landscape with more than just her eyes. "Pain in the bloody arse. Bad enough when it's just a mapped one playing up. I hate it when someone manages to make a new one."
      Something small came screaming through the air towards them. The woman reached out one hand with lightning speed yet apparent laziness, plucking it out of the air before it could impact on Ananis, its intended target. She looked at her hand curiously with inhuman eyes made of onyx. The thing within buzzed intermittently and furiously in her fist.
      "Construct," she said dispassionately, and crushed it. "I'm getting bored. Time to end this. Call in the troops."
      They moved forwards across the hazardous terrain. The two women they had left at the bottom of the cliff quickly caught up with them. Slightly out of breath but bright-eyed and grinning. They were dirty and disreputable.
      "Man, that was fun," said the younger.
      "I think Rachael has developed a taste for lizard," said the other, Sally.
      "I guess someone has to," Nathan said, intercepting a running attack from something man-sized that appeared vaguely like a cross between a scorpion and a lemur, dumping it on the ground and crushing its chest with one blow.
      Soon they were all fighting, grim, businesslike, with no evidence of regret, fear, remorse or pleasure, with no apparent feeling at all. Attackers of many strange forms appeared from between the boulders and set about trying to prevent them reaching the Rift. The word passed amongst them from their cousins on the far side of the Rift; clear the area for Dragon. They sensed the arrival of reinforcements, Tiger and his elite warriors dropping in from the Borders, pinpointing the target location using signals and reverb from those already on the ground. By the time they were within the outermost regions of the area affected by the Rift almost a third of the forces that could be mustered by the Families were involved.
      "If you want to get back to your own, Nathe, we can manage from here," said the woman in black, allowing a lifeless body to drop from her grasp.
      "Little cousin, they are doing just fine and you are two men down. By the time I got over there it would be practically over anyway." He grinned and ripped the throat out of something that appeared vaguely humanoid but didn't smell it. "Besides, more meat here."
      "Nothing edible though," the woman replied, returning the grin. "Okay, people, Dragon's brood needs a clear space to get those great clumsy bodies of theirs into, and we all know they share a single brain cell between them, so let's make sure we give them plenty of room. It's time to step up the pressure and stop doing this the hard way. If you've been saving any constructs for a rainy day, you might as well use them now."
      "Service with a smile," Rachael said with no humour. "Ananis, now you're going to see something not many do. Stick close to her and keep the weeds off. She'll protect you from anything you can't handle but your job is to handle the dross and give her space to work. I have some toys to play with."
      They were barely 100m from the centre of the Rift. The woman in black closed her eyes and seemed to root the uncertainty of her feet into the very ground. She began to shimmer with the same pattern as the Rift itself, as if she were weaving herself within it. Soon, although still clearly visible, she was as difficult to watch as the Rift was, a shadow in a heat haze. As her companions released scores of semi-organic machines in as many different shapes and sizes, the structure of the Rift began to ripple and form shapes and shadows of its own. The swarm of strange beasts attacking them hesitated, uncertain, aware that something was wrong but not sure what. They discovered just what when the Rift energy coalesced around them and swallowed them whole, crushing the life out of them. Some tried to run, only to meet one of the constructs, or to be enveloped in a sudden mass of hazy energy.
      After some period of confusion, whatever intelligence was directing the teeming hordes deduced the source of the sudden carnage and directed the beasts to attack her. Leaving their constructs to perform the work of picking off stragglers, the others surrounded the woman to allow her to complete her task. Energetic links told them that the rest of their forces were winning out in other areas and so far there were few injuries, and those slight.
      There was a sound from above, the slow beat of massive wings. Glistening red and orange, tails thick and sinuous, three dragons appeared in the sky. They flew low, scouring the baked earth with flame, clearing away the last few remnants from the area around the Rift.
      " 'Kay Boss," Ananis said to the woman. "The clean-up crew has arrived."
The woman dropped out of the Rift pattern, face now so pale as to be almost translucent, black eyes burning deep within. She staggered against him and he held on to her.
      "We're the clean-up crew, 'Nis." She said, almost panting. "They're the dinner guests. We've just tidied up for them."
      They stood and watched, dusty and tired and sore, as the three dragons stood around the very centre of the Rift. One reached down into the energetic fissure until only his hindquarters could be seen. The ground reverberated with a sudden high-pitched squealing that had the more sensitive of them clutching at their heads. The other two dragons followed suit, and the very earth seemed to become made of alien voices in pain and terror.
      Finally the dragons reappeared from within the Rift. There was a long pause, and then a boulder nearby seemed to give birth to a humanoid form. The woman in black turned away, unwilling to see it, but the figure looked across at her, a featureless face in an insubstantial form. Apparently involuntarily, the woman walked towards it across the scorched and writhing earth. The figure placed one hand high up on her back, at the base of her neck, and they walked together into the Rift. The squealing had stopped and there was nothing but silence, no movement, no sound, save for the unbearable shimmering of the Rift itself.
      The ground began to tremble, to solidify, as sugar will settle and harden when shaken. The shimmering of the Rift began to shrink, to draw in, an energetic sphincter muscle contracting. Finally, with a sound like a hurricane being forced into a box, the Rift closed.
      The woman stood alone where the anomaly had been. Around her, clusters of her cousins were preparing to leave, checking for further orders, attending to minor injuries. She stood there for some time, as if frozen, or trapped, and then her knees gave way and she collapsed.
      "Shit." Sally began to run. "Don't do this. Not now." In seconds she was on her knees at the woman's side. She was alive; Sally didn't need to check for a pulse to tell. She had merely run out of steam, drained her power. Sally picked her up, cradled her, feeling the coldness of her skin. "Come on, come on," she whispered." Wake up, it's time to go. You can't stay here."
      She looked as a shadow passed over them. "Hey Phil."
      "Hi. She out of it?"
      "Uh-huh. Goddamn Wyrm Core. He could have done that himself. He didn't need her."
      "No, but be grateful. She did her job, bought herself some time. Get her out of here, Sal. Take her home. We're finished here. Tiger has gone already, half of mine have shipped out. The dragons left almost as soon as the Wyrm appeared. Snake's people have done all the patching. Save for this one, of course. Panther and I will cover for the next day or so."
      "Thanks Phil. I'll see you later, maybe, at the Sanctuary."
      "I'll look out for you."
      He walked away, was joined by a young male lion, and then he and the rest of his Group were gone. Sally nodded to Rachael and Ananis, standing nearby with concern on their faces and then they left too, shimmering away to Elsewhere as if they had been no more than illusions.
      The breeze returned, creating dust devils that danced and cavorted amongst dead and dying creatures already desiccating in the dry desert air. The bodies began to fragment. They did not belong there any more than those they had fought had. They cracked, flaked and crumbled, becoming motes of spontaneously combusting dust, tiny specks of light.
      Then there was nothing but dust and rock and sky, and if they had memories they kept them silently.

     "Do you play?" she said.
      "Of course, my dear. Doesn't everyone?"