And on the oncoming monster came! The ground shook. Trees fell to this side and that. A patch in the blue leaves darkened—and then the hideous thing crashed into the clearing. It reared up, its many legs clawing at the air, its bizarre squealing roar making the leaves around them tremble.
Rick’s eyes widened as he stared up at it: at the dripping fangs, the hairy legs, the thrashing, snake-like tail. He had always thought of himself as a brave guy, a tough guy. He’d stared down charging linebackers and calmly thrown a long pass even as they swarmed toward him, ready to bury him under the turf. But now he knew: That was nothing. This was fear. Real fear. It turned his muscles to water. He felt that if he had to stare at this thing for another second, his mind would simply break apart with the horror of it.
But what happened next happened fast. At almost the same moment the beast came crashing into the clearing, the sparkling man made his move. With one gossamer hand, he reached out toward the glowing diamond—the portal point—beside him. The diamond began to pulse and brighten. It sparked—and a line of snapping, purple energy began to crackle out of it and flow into the man’s outstretched fingers. The man himself seemed to become more substantial, more solid, as if he were filling up with the diamond’s power.
The spider-beast reared and roared. An orifice in its midsection opened as it prepared to spit out its web again.
But before it could, the sparkling man thrust out his other arm toward the creature. His curled fingers straightened as his fist became an open hand. And from his fingertips there shot a hot, blinding flash of purple light. Instantaneously, the light expanded into a searing wedge. Rick, squinting through the glare of it, saw it hit the beast head-on.
There was a shivering, electric explosion. There was a loud, wet bursting noise. A splatter of gluey white flew over Rick’s head. Gobs of the stuff smacked into the trees and dripped thickly down from the leaves all around him.
Then the purple flash faded. The woods came back into view. At first, Rick was dazed and couldn’t see what had happened. Then he did see. He saw the spider-beast—it was still there. But it was lying on its back now, clearly wounded, its midsection dripping goo, its hairy legs clawing weakly at the air, its slimy tail thrashing back and forth.
Still breathing hard, Rick panted, “It’s not dead.”
The sparkling man staggered to a tree and leaned against it weakly. He seemed somehow dimmer than before, his glow more faint. He shook his head. It seemed to take a lot of effort. “No,” he said. “It’ll recharge in a few minutes. It’ll be just as strong as it was before.”
“Well, hit it again, man! Kill it!”
The sparkling man’s eyes closed and he took a breath. “Can’t. Too weak. Every time I do that it costs me energy. You have to finish it. Finish it before you go, or it’ll come back and kill me.”
Rick glanced at the spider-snake lying on its back, fighting to recover. All he wanted was to get out of here—like, right now—but when he glanced over at the portal point, he saw with a fresh jolt of fear that it had shrunk almost to nothing. The sparkling man had drawn so much energy out of it that he had nearly drained it away. It was now little more than a purple dot floating in the air, too small for Rick to get through. He glanced at his palm. The time was now at 42:37. He still had time to get back to the first portal—but he didn’t want to wait around too long.
He turned back to the sparkling man, who was still leaning weakly against the tree.
“What do I have to do?” he said.
The sparkling man made a weak gesture with his head. “Go to the lake. Call Mariel. Tell her Favian said we need help. That’s me: Favian. Tell her.”
Rick looked in the direction of the sparkling man’s—Favian’s—gesture. He saw a narrow trail through the blue trees and caught glimpses of silver water twinkling beyond.
“I’ll be right back,” Rick said.
Favian let out a tired sigh and said, “Hurry. We don’t have much time before it’s back on its feet.”
Rick didn’t need to be told twice. He hurried. Still panting from his run through the woods, he ran as fast as he could down the little trail. A few moments later, he reached the edge of a lake.
At least it looked like a lake. It was flat and had a watery quality about it, but it was silver and opaque, as if it were made of some sort of metal, mercury or something like it. It spread out a great distance, bordered on every side by trees. The silver water rippled and changed, catching the colors of the blue leaves at the edge of it and the yellow sky above. The colors blended with the soft white mist that hung over its surface everywhere.
Rick looked all around, at the nearby trees and out over the mercurial water, but he didn’t see anyone nearby. Still, he did what the sparkling man had told him.
“Mariel?” he said—quietly at first, because he felt kind of silly talking to no one. And then, when there was no answer, he said more loudly, “Mariel!”
The word echoed over the water and faded away. The forest was quiet. Nothing happened. Rick glanced nervously over his shoulder. Through the trees, he could see into the clearing. He caught glimpses of the spider-snake thrashing on the forest floor in there, trying to right itself. Its movements were getting stronger. Its grunts of pain and frustration were growing louder. The thing was recharging, recovering, as Favian had said it would.
He turned back to the lake, impatient. “Come on, come . . . ,” he began to say.
And then she was there.
Rick couldn’t tell—it was impossible to tell—whether Mariel grew up out of the water or the water rose up and took the shape of Mariel. In any case, she rose up in front of him, silver and rippling and changeable—and more beautiful than anything he had ever seen. The sight of her—of her long, liquid flowing hair, of her high cheeks and compassionate eyes, of her warm expression and her full, graceful figure robed in rippling mercury—struck Rick to the heart. He forgot the spider-snake. He forgot the time. He forgot the danger. He stood and stared at her, drinking her in with his eyes. He knew right then and there that he would never forget this moment, never forget this vision before him.
“I’m Mariel,” she said down at him. Her voice was ghostly and echoic like Favian’s, but it had a lilting musical quality to it that made Rick’s heart ache.
It took him a second before he recovered his wits enough to answer her. “I’m Rick . . . Rick Dial,” he said. “Favian told me to call you. He blasted the spider-snake-thing, whatever it is, but it’s still alive and he’s not strong enough to finish it so I . . .”
Afterward, there was some confusion in Rick’s mind as to what exactly happened then. As he was still trying to get the words out, Mariel lifted one silvery, liquid arm in his direction. The next thing he knew, there was a sword in his hand. Had she given it to him? He didn’t know. It was just there, suddenly, gripped in his fist. It wasn’t much of a sword—as he couldn’t help noticing when he glanced down at it. It was just a rude blade of rusted iron with a hilt of copper, green with verdigris, and molded into a face of some kind. Rick thought if he tried to stab anything with this thing—especially if he tried to stab that creature back there—the blade would snap in two.
The feminine spirit hovering above him seemed to read his mind. “It’ll be strong enough,” she told him. “Your spirit has power here—power over material things, once you learn to use it. Strike with your spirit and the sword will be strong enough.”
Rick didn’t really understand what she was saying—and he doubted this sword would be strong enough to strike at anything—but somehow, the strength of her presence made it hard for him to argue with her.
He nodded dubiously and said, “Okay. I’ll try. Thanks.”
He had to tear his eyes away from her, but he did it. And, carrying the rusted sword, he hurried back through the trail to the clearing.
Everything was changing there. The portal point had begun to grow back. It had gone from being a little dot to being a pulsing, floating diamond again. It
still wasn’t big enough for Rick to get through, but it was getting larger every second.
Favian, likewise, seemed to have regained some of his strength. Some of his color and sparkle had returned to him and he was able to stand up.
But the spider-snake was also growing more powerful, and quickly.
Its tail was lashing back and forth ferociously, and its legs were clawing viciously at the air. Its great body thrashed once, twice, as it tried ever more fiercely to turn itself over. Its squealing roar was rising again, and the trees around the clearing were beginning to quake as if in fear of its return. Another few seconds, and the thing would work itself upright—and go back on the rampage, killing Rick and Favian both.
Rick was scared to go near the beast, but this was no time to hesitate. He knew, if he even thought about it too much, he would lose his nerve and it would all be over.
One more look at his sword—that rusty old relic—didn’t encourage him much. But Mariel’s rich, lilting voice seemed to come to him through the blade, as if she were somehow part of its rusty metal.
Strike with your spirit and the sword will be strong enough.
Whatever that means, Rick thought.
But her voice gave him courage. He drew a breath and stepped toward the spider-snake on shaking legs.
It saw him approaching and raged. Its segmented legs bicycled harder in the air. Its tail pounded the ground so that the forest shook. Rick swallowed the disgust that rose in his throat as the putrid smell of the creature surrounded him. He fought down the fear rising in his belly.
Do it, he told himself. Do it fast! Do it now!
He stepped close to the thrashing giant’s head, out of the way of its tail and legs. He was inches away from its bulging eyes and the stare of blank hatred and hunger that made him quail inside.
He was losing his nerve. He had to strike fast. He drew up his spirit like a great breath of air. He gripped the sword tightly in his fist. He felt the strength of the weapon growing somehow, as if the force of his own heart-power were pulsing through his arm into the iron.
Then, with a sudden cry, he lifted the weapon over his head and brought it down with all his might, plunging it into the beast’s throat.
The cry the spider-snake made was the stuff of nightmares. It was a shriek of rage that seemed to mushroom up out of the clearing to fill the sky. The spider-snake’s whole enormous body bucked—and Rick lost his grip on the sword’s molded hilt and was hurled backward, his arms pinwheeling, until he smacked into the trunk of a tree.
Dazed, he stared, appalled, as the wounded creature found the strength in its agony to turn over and stand.
The spider-snake looked at Rick with huge, hate-filled eyes and bared its dripping fangs. Rick stood helplessly pinned against the tree, waiting for it to rush at him.
But then the beast gave one final shuddering groan. Its legs folded under it. Its great body settled to the ground. Rick stared in horrified wonder as purple-white electric flashes crisscrossed through the thing’s form, sparking and popping and throwing off brief gouts of purple flame. Rick had to squint against the glare as the spider-snake’s entire body seemed transformed into a knot of crackling energy.
Then the energy faded. Died. The air was clear. The spider-snake was gone.
Only Rick’s iron sword remained, lying rusted and unimpressive on a bed of blue leaves.
13. WORDS WITH FRIENDS
“SEE? THAT WASN’T so hard,” Favian said.
Rick looked at the sparkling man and they both laughed.
“Easy-peasy,” Rick said.
Moving unsteadily away from the tree, he stuck out his hand. Favian—also looking weak and shaken—put his own sparkling hand in Rick’s. It felt to Rick like he was shaking hands with an electric wire. It tingled on his palm.
This was the first steady look he’d had at Favian. The sparkling man was younger than he had thought, only a few years older than he was himself. He was thin, almost gangly, with an open, innocent-looking face, his hair sheared so close to the scalp it was barely visible. His eyes were big and gentle and anxious, and his mouth quirked upward in a strangely worried little smile. Close-up, Rick could see that the man’s sparkly quality came from the fact that his body was made out of tiny particles of light constantly shifting, coming together and drifting apart so that he solidified and then grew transparent and almost insubstantial and then became solid again, a ceaseless motion that made him seem to float and twinkle where he stood.
He was looking a little stronger now than he had before. He nodded toward the lake trail.
“Come on,” he said.
It wasn’t easy to follow his flitting figure, but Rick knew the way and soon they were both back beside the metallic water.
“Mariel,” Favian called in his soft, echoing whisper of a voice.
Rick looked toward the silver lake, eager to see her rise again.
Nothing happened.
“It cost her energy to come up—to give you the sword. The same way it cost me to use the power from the portal. We’ve each only got so much energy and each time we use it, a little more is gone. We can never replenish it completely.”
Rick glanced at him. “But that means . . .”
“We’re fading, yes. We’re dying, Mariel and I. We haven’t got very much time left.”
“Who . . . who are you?” Rick asked. “How did you get here?”
Favian turned his gentle, anxious eyes on him. “I don’t know. We’re just here somehow.”
“Well . . . you had to come here somehow. Did Kurodar create you?”
But before Favian could answer, a new voice said firmly, “No!”
Rick turned and, with a little hitch in his heart, he saw Mariel again.
She had risen back up out of the water. If she was weaker than before, Rick couldn’t see any sign of it. To him, she looked just as beautiful and impressive as the first time. He gazed up at her strong but gentle features, and caught himself wondering what it would feel like to touch the metallic surface of her cheek.
“Kurodar can create security programs—lifeless bots like the spider-snake,” she said. “But Favian and I—we have spirits. He can’t create those. Kurodar only thinks he’s God.”
Rick nodded. “Okay. So then, how did you get here?”
Mariel and Favian exchanged a sad look with each other. Clearly, they had discussed this many times.
“We don’t know,” she told Rick. “We only know we’re here—and that we’re dying—quickly.”
“Actually, we were kind of hoping . . . ,” Favian began. “At least, I was hoping . . . Well, we’ve always both sort of hoped . . .”
Rick waited for him to finish.
But it was Mariel who said, “We’ve always hoped that someone might come for us. Someone who knew where we belonged. Someone who could take us away from here, before the end came.”
“That’s why when I saw you, I tried to warn you,” Favian added. “That’s why I tried to get you into the safety of the woods before the guardian bot came after you. I was hoping—Mariel and I were both hoping—that you might be the one to help us.”
Rick opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He hardly knew what to say. “I would help you if I knew how. But . . . you said you can’t come through the portal . . .”
Favian shook his head. “We’ve tried. It’s closed to us. We don’t even know what’s on the other side, but anything would be better than this.”
“And I don’t know any other way out,” said Rick. He thought it over. Nothing very spectacular came to him. He said, “Well, look, I was sent here for a purpose. Kurodar is about to launch a new attack on my world. I’m supposed to locate his outpost and report back. When I do go back, I’ll tell them about you and see what I can do.”
Again, Mariel and Favian exchanged a look—a hopeful one this time. It made Rick feel a little nauseous to think they would be waiting for him, depending on him. He had no idea whether he could do anything for them or no
t.
“Meanwhile, we can help you,” said Mariel.
“Yes,” said Favian. “We don’t know what Kurodar is up to . . .”
“. . . but we know he’s up to something,” Mariel finished the sentence for him. “And yes, he’s been building a new fortress.”
“I think I saw it,” said Rick. “That dark building off in the distance.”
Favian nodded. “He only started it a little while ago. There’s never been anything like it here before. We don’t know what he’s going to use it for, but it seems to be almost done. If you want, I know how to get you there.”
Rick glanced at his palm, at the time: 29:07. He shook his head. “It’s too far. My time would run out before we reached it.”
“There’s even more beyond it,” Mariel said in her musical, resonant voice. “A Golden City, a haunted city of ghosts and creatures and dark passageways. That’s the center of this place. That’s where its real secrets lie. But it’s too well guarded. We can’t get in.”
Rick ran his fingers up through his hair. “Okay,” he said. “That’s all I need for now. I’ll go back and tell them I saw the outpost and maybe . . . maybe they’ll know a way to help you.”
“We haven’t got long,” said Favian. His anxious face seemed more anxious still. “We don’t know how much time, but not much.”
“Look, I’ll do what I can,” said Rick—it sounded lame even to him.
“I just wish you could take us back now,” Favian said. “You don’t know what it’s like here. The creatures always hunting us, and at night . . .” His voice trailed off.
Rick nodded sympathetically—but helplessly. He wished he knew of a way to help these . . . these people or spirits or whatever they were.
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