…..Excalibur slid smoothly into the wood, sinking right up to the hilt without resistance. For a long moment nothing happened, and then the Yggdrasill began to moan. The sound was like that of an animal in pain: beginning as a deep grumbling, it quickly rose to a high-pitched whimpering. Where the hilt of the sword protruded from the tree, a blue stain appeared. Like dripping ink, it flowed down the tree and seeped into the ground, the oily blue light ran along the veins and seams of wood. Yggdrasill's cries grew higher and higher, until they were almost beyond human hearing. The surviving Torc Allta fell to the ground, writhing in pain, clutching at their ears; birdmen whirled in confusion and the cat-people began to hiss and howl in unison.

The blue stain raced around the tree, coating everything in a thin veneer of glittering ice crystals that reflected the light. Blue-black and purple-green rainbows shimmered in the air.

The oily stain shot up the length of the tree and out along the branches, turning everything it touched to faceted crystals. Even the fire was not immune to it. Flames froze, fire caught in ornate and intricate patterns, then spider webbed, like ice on the surface of a pond, and dissolved to sparkling dust. Where the blue stain touched the leaves, they hardened and broke away from the branches. They did not spiral to the ground: they fell and shattered with tiny tinkling sounds, while the branches, now solid piece of ice, ripped away from the trunk of the tree and crashed to the earth. Dee threw himself to one side to avoid being impaled by a three-foot length of frozen branch. Catching hold of Excalibur's hilt, he dragged the stone blade free of the ancient tree and ran for cover.

The Yggdrasill was dying. Huge slabs of bark sheared off, like icebergs breaking away from an ice cap, and crashed to the ground, littering the beautiful Shadowrealm landscape with shards of razor-sharp ice.

Keeping his distance and watching for falling branches, Dee raced around the tree; he needed to see Hekate.

The Goddess with Three Faces was dying.

Standing quite still before the crumbling Yggdrasill, Hekate was flickering through her three faces-young, mature and old-in heartbeats. The change was happening so fast that her flesh had no time to adapt and she was caught between phases: young eyes in an old faces, a girl's head on a woman's body, a woman's body with a child's arms. Her ever-changing dress had lost all color and was the same solid black as her skin.

Dee stood beside the Morrigan and they watched in silence. Bastet rejoined them, and together the three observed Hekate and Yggdrasill's last moments.

The World tree was now almost entirely blue, covered with a sheath of ice. Frozen roots had burst through the ground, destroying the perfect symmetry of the earth, cutting think gouges in the soil. Huge holes had speared in the massive trunk, revealing the circular rooms within, which were warped and stained with the blue ice.

Hekate's transformation slowed. The changes were taking longer to materialize because now the blue stain was slowly creeping up her body, hardening her skin, turning it to ice crystals.

…..What remained of the Yggdrasill was now a solid block of ice. Hekate too, was completely covered beneath a frozen sheet, though behind the blue crystals, her butter-colored eyes were bright and alive. The top of the tree began to melt, dirty water running down the length of the bark, cutting deep grooves into it.

…..Howling his rage, Dr. John Dee spun around and flung Excalibur at the Yggdrasill. The stone blade struck the ancient World Tree, which tolled with a solemn sound of a great bell. The single note, high-pitched and serene, hung vibrating on the air…and then the Yggdrasill began to crack. Long fractures and tears ran the height of the tree. They started small, but widened as the raced upward in ragged patterns. Within moments the entire tree was covered in the crazed zigzagging.

Then the Yggdrasill shattered and came crashing down on the ice statue of Hekate, crushing it to dust.