Mindwar

by Andrew Klavan

  But before Rick could think about it too much, something else caught his eye. Out to the right of the forest, beyond the vast splashes of vivid color, he could just make out a structure of some sort.

  He slowed to a walk, then stopped, squinting for a clearer view. Far in the distance, there was a tower or fort, or a castle maybe, standing black and imposing against the yellow sky.

  The outpost! That had to be it! And there was something—some things—moving over it. Black forms circling lazily in the air above the structure’s central spire. Were they birds? Maybe. But for him to see them at this distance, they must be awfully huge birds!

  What should I do now? he wondered. He’d spotted the outpost—so was his mission complete? Should he turn back? Go back up the hill to the portal point and report his findings to Miss Ferris? Or should he continue down to the woods and talk to the beckoning man, find out what he knew?

  He hesitated another moment, trying to come to a decision . . .

  And as he stood there thinking, he felt something shift beneath his feet. He nearly stumbled. He straightened, alert.

  What was that?

  Even as he wondered, it happened again. A faint wave went through the ground beneath him. He heard a soft rumble that quickly rose and faded away, as if something had passed by directly underneath him.

  It was over in a moment. Rick waited, but whatever it was, it seemed to be gone. He looked to the beckoning man—the sparkling man—and saw he was waving his arm even faster, harder than before. What was he trying to say?

  Without warning, another quake struck the earth beneath him. Stronger this time. The scarlet ground surged, hoisted him up so fast and hard he almost fell right over. The rumble rose to a growl, then faded to a scrabbling noise as the earth subsided and steadied and flattened out.

  And then Rick understood. The sparkling man wasn’t beckoning him—he was trying to warn him! Trying to get him to hurry up, to come in out of the open into the trees because . . .

  Well, because why? Rick didn’t know, but he thought he’d better hurry and get out of there before he found out.

  His decision was made. He started running toward the blue trees, toward the sparkling figure standing in front of them. He got about three steps—and then he heard the rumble, coming from a distance this time. He looked over his shoulder. He saw the ground hoisting up, saw the rise of it rushing toward him like a solid wave. Before he could react, before he could take another step, the rumble grew louder and the surge came up directly underneath him. The shock was sharp, fast. He was thrown two steps to his right—then he tripped and toppled over onto the spongy ground.

  He started to push back up to his feet, but even as his hand pressed into the red-gold turf, there was a loud shuddering, ripping noise. Frozen where he was, Rick stared as a black chasm began to open up in the ground in front of him.

  It was an astonishing sight. It was as if the surface of this strange new world were being torn apart. As Rick watched, openmouthed, the crack in the earth spread toward him quickly, the noise growing louder, the black rift shooting at him across the open space, threatening to swallow him if he didn’t get out of the way—if he didn’t start moving, right now.

  Rick rolled, trying to dodge the oncoming crevice. He felt the whole world shuddering around him, heard the scrabbling rumble filling the air. With an agonized rending noise, the earth broke apart right beneath him. He just managed to roll to the edge of it, keeping out of the way of the widening black chasm.

  And then the world shook roughly and he was thrown backward. He spilled over the rim of the break and plunged into the blackness.

  His arms flailed desperately. He caught hold of the broken edge of the earth with one hand. He clung to it. Hung from it, his feet dangling in the air. He had no idea how far down the chasm went below him—it was too dark to see. If he lost his hold, he might fall and fall forever.

  He hung there, his hand grasping the quivering ground, his legs swinging free in the pit. He could feel his fingers slipping off the surface. He had to bring his other hand around, get a better grip . . .

  No. There was no chance. The earth shook again. He lost his hold and fell.

  Rick had a moment of sickening helplessness and confusion as he tumbled down. He didn’t know where the bottom was or when or what or how he’d hit when he got there. Then, with a jolt, his feet touched ground. A dull pain shot through his ankle. His knees buckled. He fell and rolled across what felt like dirt.

  Almost at once, he hit hard against the wall of the crevasse. The blow jarred him to his bones. For a second or two, he lay still, stunned. Then, with a groan, he pushed off the ground, climbed to his feet. Looked around.

  He was standing at the bottom of the long chasm. The fissure traveled off into distant darkness on either side of him, he couldn’t tell how far. He looked up. At least it wasn’t very deep. With a little effort, he thought he ought to be able to climb the wall and get a grip on the surface, pull himself back up.

  He was about to try it, when the earth began shaking again, quivering and bouncing beneath him even more violently than it had before. Pebbles and dust started falling from the surface of the earth above him, pattering down on his head. The air began to fill with noise again, that slithering, scrabbling, rushing noise. What in the world . . . ?

  Rick turned toward the sound. He froze, openmouthed. His stomach went sour and his eyes went wide. He wanted to cry out, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t make a sound. He couldn’t even move. He was rooted to the spot.

  He could not believe—no one could have believed—the horror that was rushing toward him.

  11. THE THING

  HE SAW ITS fangs first, enormous daggers dripping some sort of viscous goo. He saw its eyes then, two bulging dimpled mounds like the eyes of a fly. He saw a whirl of hairy, spidery legs flashing over the ground, propelling the beast straight at him—and a great leathery tail whipping behind, giving it extra speed.

  For another long second, Rick stood in frozen disbelief. His mind simply could not comprehend what he was seeing: the grotesque face of this impossible onrushing death.

  Then his athlete’s reflexes kicked in. He turned and ran.

  He dashed along the floor of the chasm as fast as he could, faster than he’d ever gone over a football field. It wasn’t fast enough. When he looked behind him, the hairy, drooling spider-snake thing was clawing its way toward him at top speed, getting closer to him with every second. It would only be moments before it would overtake him, before it would have him in those dripping fangs.

  He had to think—and fast. He’d seen stuff like this before, hadn’t he? Monsters like this? Sure he had. In video games! That’s why Jonathan Mars had chosen him for this mission—because he’d fought plenty of bizarre creatures like this—and beaten them, too. Of course, in video games, you had a lot of advantages. You could do things that defied the laws of physics. You could run along walls. You could double-jump in midair. Most important, you could come back to life if you got killed! None of that stuff was true here. Here, he was going to have to use his brains, outsmart this beast somehow, and he was going to have to do it in one try, because he wouldn’t get a second chance.

  He had to get out of this crevasse—that was the first thing. It was his only hope of getting away. As he ran, he eyed the rim of the earth above him. He might be able to leap up there and grab the edge, climb out. He might. With a grunt, he put on an extra burst of speed. He could feel the earth shaking under his sneakers even as he ran. He could feel the wind of the spidery legs behind him. The beast was so close now, there was no room for error. If he leapt and missed—if he leapt and could not pull himself up—he’d be devoured.

  The creature made a noise behind him—so close behind him, it made Rick’s whole body feel weak and hollow with terror. It was a noise of eagerness and hunger, an inhuman, squealing growl.

  Fear gave Rick the extra strength he needed. Running, he jumped. He reached for the surface of the earth.
He grabbed it. He saw the beast out of the corner of his eye, enormous as it charged, its hairy legs reaching for him, its great tail whipping, its dripping mouth opened wide.

  Rick strained to pull himself up. He threw his legs to the side, hoping to vault out of the chasm. Something touched him, something awful, coarse, and damp—something hungry. Rick couldn’t help himself—he screamed.

  And then he was up—up and over. Out of the chasm and rolling across the scarlet-orange ground and into a bed of flowers whose beautiful pinks and violets and pastel greens seemed crazily out of place.

  He leapt to his feet. He looked around him. He saw the man—the sparkling man—beckoning to him wildly—shouting something—what was he saying?

  “The woods! Get to the woods!”

  Of course. The woods. That was what the sparkling man had been trying to tell him from the start. He had to get into the forest. He might be able to lose this creature among the trees. It was his best chance—his only chance—of getting away.

  He looked back toward the chasm.

  For a moment, he thought he had made a clean escape. He thought the awful thing would stay in its tunnel below the earth.

  No such luck. A second later, the first of its hairy legs came questing up out of the hole, searching for purchase. The next moment, the beast arose and Rick saw the fangs, the bulging eyes, the hairy, squirmy body in the aboveground light as the thing began to climb up out of the fissure.

  It was a nightmare. A nightmare. Only real.

  Rick dashed for the forest.

  The sparkling man had stopped waving and gesturing now. He was standing stock-still, staring at the spider-snake that had risen fully into sight. Rick was close enough to see the look on the sparkling man’s face now—a look of absolute terror. As Rick ran toward him, the sparkling man turned on his heels and dashed toward the forest. A second later, he was out of sight among the trees.

  Rick hurried to join him. The blue forest loomed tall before him as he raced across the golden grass. When he looked back over his shoulder, he saw the creature make the rest of its way up out of the chasm onto the surface of the scarlet plain. He caught a glimpse of the twisting, slithering rear portion of its body, the snake-like tail snapping back and forth. The full sight of the thing turned his stomach. He wanted nothing more than to be back at home, back in his dark room, on his sofa, with his harmless games, safe. He was so, so sorry he had agreed to come here.

  The beast spotted him. It began to propel itself toward him over the ground. Clawing with its legs, squirming with its tail, it was unbelievably fast. In an instant, it had closed the distance between them, and Rick could already hear it making that hungry, eager, squealing growl again as it charged after him.

  Another cry of fear escaped from Rick—but the next moment, he reached the tree line and rocketed into the forest. He dodged between the green-brown trunks of the trees, beneath their aqua leaves. The trunks were close together, he noticed. That might be good. Maybe they were close enough to block the creature, or at least slow it down.

  He looked back just as the beast reached the edge of the forest behind him. The thing didn’t slow at all. It simply smashed into the base of the trees full force. Rick heard a loud cracking sound. The monster had simply knocked a tree over. Rick looked up and saw the tree toppling. Its enormous blue crown was plunging down toward his head, threatening to pin him, maybe even crush him.

  Rick dodged to the side—and stumbled. He fell to the ground. The tree crashed to the earth beside him, its branches whipping at his back.

  But he was unhurt. He leapt to his feet again. To his horror, he saw the spidery thing push toward him, shearing away two more trees so they crashed off to the left and right, leaving only stumps standing.

  Gasping for breath, beginning to lose strength, Rick stared as the beast reared up. Several of its many legs pawed the air. It roared, the white goo dripping from its fangs.

  Rick started to turn, started to run—but before he could, the spider-snake made an awful noise, a disgusting, razzling cough. Some putrid fluid came spitting out of its midsection. It sailed across the forest space between them. Before Rick could even think to move, the stuff splashed over his legs and solidified, wrapping itself around him.

  A web. Something like a web. A powerful white thread that extended from the creature’s underside. It tied up Rick’s legs—and linked him to the beast. With a yank, the spider-snake whipped Rick off his feet and began gathering the web up, dragging Rick across the earth toward its open mouth, its dripping fangs.

  Rick let out a mindless roar of fury and fear. He struggled to get free, but it was no use. The web was unbreakable. When he twisted his body around and grabbed at it, its sticky surface stung his hands and threatened to capture them as well. The forest floor scraped against Rick’s back and shoulders as the beast reeled him in, as it reared up against the blue leaves, opening its mouth even wider to receive him.

  As Rick’s brain kicked into gear again, he looked desperately for a weapon, for anything he could fight with. There was nothing. There was only one of the trees that the creature had knocked down. It lay on its side to the right of him. As the spider-snake dragged him toward its mouth, Rick reached out and grabbed one of the tree’s branches.

  He got hold of a thick one. He held on to it fast. The creature pulled him. For a second, Rick was able to hold the branch and pull back, resisting, trying with all his might to wriggle free of the web.

  But then the branch snapped. It came away in his hand. He was hurtling over the earth again, only yards away from the creature’s fangs.

  But he was still holding the branch—the broken branch, its end sharp and jagged. He used his powerful core muscles to sit up as he was pulled along. He drove the end of the branch into the web around his legs. It punched a hole through the fiber, but the web held. Rick gritted his teeth and used the branch to stab and rip at the goo again and again.

  It was no good. The web tore—it weakened—but it wouldn’t release him.

  The spider-snake reared up even higher against the trees. Rick cried out as he was lifted off the ground. He dangled upside down as the beast’s hairy legs surrounded him. A smell more sickening than any he had ever smelled engulfed him like a fog and made him gag. The creature’s mouth yawned open above him, its fangs dripping down over him. The beast pulled him upward relentlessly.

  Then the web broke. Rick had damaged and torn it with the branch just enough—and now the cut substance gave way to his weight.

  Rick dropped through the air. He hit the ground hard, shoulder first. The jolt brought his teeth clamping together. But he didn’t let it stop him. He didn’t pause. He rolled. He jumped to his feet. The creature—startled to have lost its prey just at the moment of satisfaction—let out a shriek of frustration, its legs churning the air above Rick’s head, its slithering tail whipping the forest floor behind it.

  Rick seized the moment. He kicked off the last of the sticky web—and darted away.

  But he was losing strength now, losing speed, running out of wind. He stumbled as he ran, barely able to keep his feet. The beast, on the other hand, was just as eager as it had been at first. It recovered from its rage. It roared and began to crash through the trees behind him. Rick heard the trunks tearing and the branches cracking as the trees toppled down. Gasping for breath, he turned to see the untiring spider-snake coming on again, crashing, roaring, squealing.

  And then, above the noise, a voice.

  “Hey!”

  He turned. He saw the man—the strangely sparkling, shifting, half-transparent man who had beckoned to him earlier. He saw him peeking out from behind a thick aqua tree.

  The man beckoned again. He shouted, “This way! Hurry!”

  Rick ran toward him.

  12. IRON SWORD

  THE AIR OF the forest filled with the squealing roar of the charging spider-snake and the crackling swish of the falling trees. The sparkling man rushed away through the forest. Rick rushed af
ter him. The man moved with a weirdly swift darting motion that barely seemed a motion at all. He seemed instead to flash from place to place like light. One moment, he was right in front of Rick and Rick was running toward him; the next moment, he was gone, a few yards this way or that, and Rick had to spot him, then adjust his course midflight to follow.

  They went deeper and deeper into the blue woods. When Rick looked back over his shoulder, he saw the furious spider-snake thing coming after him, moving even faster now as it broke a pathway through the woods. Rick, meanwhile, was almost out of strength. He looked forward—and for a second, his heart seemed to drop in his chest.

  Where was the sparkling man? He’d darted away out of sight. He was gone.

  No, there he is. Rick spotted the hazy twinkle of him through some branches. As the noise of the beast grew louder behind him, he shifted course and stumbled wearily toward the spot.

  At last, he broke through some branches and came into a small clearing. He let out a cry of relief. The sparkling man was waiting for him there—and next to him, there was a glowing purple diamond floating in midair.

  Another portal point! Another way out! If Rick could just will himself through it, he’d be saved.

  “Quick! Stand behind me,” said the sparkling man. His voice was as strange and ghostly as the look of him. It was a soft, hollow, echoic sound, like a whisper made of wind. Somehow Rick could hear it clearly over the crashing and roaring that filled the woods. “Hurry!” said the sparkling man.

  Rick pointed at the floating diamond. “But I can get out that way.”

  “You can,” said the man. “I can’t. And if you leave now, that creature will destroy me. Get behind me, and we both have a chance.”

  Rick hesitated only a second. He didn’t know who this guy was, but he had tried to warn him about the beast and had shown him which way to run. He seemed to be a friend—and Rick wasn’t going to leave him alone here to be devoured by that awful thing. Scared as he was—desperate to get out of this place as he was—this guy seemed to be on his side, and he would not let a teammate down. He did as he was asked: he moved around in back of the sparkling man, putting him between himself and the oncoming monster.