A Time and a Place

by Joe Mahoney

  Sarah had kept on walking. Her soldiers followed her obediently.

  Doctor Ramsingh turned her glassy eyes to me. “The salt,” she said, shaking her head ruefully. “Don’t you understand? It’s all mixed up with the sugar!” She burst into tears: raw, choking sobs at the tragedy of getting the salt mixed up with the sugar.

  “I’ll catch up,” Humphrey told me. “Go find out what this is all about.”

  I hobbled after Sarah and the others as fast as I could. Three men rushed past me attending to another man writhing on a gurney. The corridor here was full of people flat on their backs. Others sat against the walls, moaning, their heads in their hands.

  I caught up to Sarah and her soldiers at the end of the corridor. She was standing with Rainer before a set of double doors. Ominously, many of the sounds I was hearing were coming from behind those doors. A terrible unease crept through me. My thoughts were like mush.

  Sarah was holding both of Rainer’s hands. They were staring into one another’s eyes. Something about the play of shadows around Rainer’s face made him appear younger for an instant. Armed with his British accent and a full head of hair he had probably possessed formidable charm once. Maybe he still did.

  Prompted by these feelings, along with an increasing sense of disorientation, I pushed my way through the throng of soldiers. Stripped of reason by an irrational and all-consuming jealousy, I grabbed Rainer by the shoulder. “What do you think you’re—”

  In one swift motion Rainer neatly removed my arm from his shoulder and twisted it into an unbearable position. He only hung on for a heartbeat but it was long enough to make his point—a rather eloquent statement about personal space, I would say. When he let go I lost my balance, and when I fell, it was straight through the double doors.

  XVI

  Scary Monsters

  Thus far I had thought of Ansalar as a cramped, claustrophobic place, and maybe parts of it were, but not this part. Behind the double doors was a spacious laboratory. But the most remarkable thing about this laboratory was not its size, which although large was no bigger than your average banquet hall. No, the most remarkable thing about this laboratory was the thing inside it.

  I would say that it was like something out of my worst nightmare except that no human unconscious could ever dream up anything like this. Even the maddest amongst us could only aspire to tangible insanity like this. Looking straight at the thing, I could not quite comprehend what I was seeing. Seconds after looking away I would not have been capable of drawing what I had seen. It was as though, unable to deal with what my senses were transmitting, the rational centre of my brain had simply shut down and refused to register anything else. Whether what I was seeing was what I actually saw or that’s simply how my intellect chose to interpret it I couldn’t say. Either way the impressions I was left with shook me to the very core of my being.

  I perceived colours almost too bright to look at, purples and yellow and a hideous orange. I perceived oozing and pulsating in places no creature should ever ooze and pulsate. There were fangs that bit and eyes that never shut on tentacles that never stopped writhing, tangled like spaghetti that was alive and that hungered for you rather than the other way around. I perceived coarse bits of hair sticking out willy-nilly in patches over the thing’s sickening, bloated hide. It dripped madness, its mere presence slobbering insanity over every inch of my fragile psyche, leaving a residue of mental mucous that infiltrated my brain and forced me to seriously consider the folly of remaining alive.

  An instant before insanity irrevocably consumed me the creature abruptly disappeared from sight. Someone helped me up. I clambered to my feet, wide-eyed and raving, but the sense of utter hopelessness that had filled me began mercifully to dissipate into a numb awareness of my surroundings.

  The lighting in the lab was dim and red—except for a few emergency lights every light had been smashed. Chairs were torn apart, desks destroyed, and shards of glass from ill-fated scientific apparatus littered the floor. Gaping holes in the walls revealed adjacent rooms. Paper and other debris covered everything. The monster I had seen had been thoroughly destructive. At the mere thought of it, I drew back in fear, but scanning the room I saw no sign of it.

  Six or seven Casa Terra soldiers were in the room with me, fully alert with their weapons drawn. They’d taken up positions before a miniature version of the gate that hung suspended in the air in the centre of the room.

  Rainer and Sarah were standing beside me. Schmitz was there too, holding in the crook of one arm a small, furry animal that looked like a cross between a rabbit and a kangaroo. Its physiognomy suggested that it might have come from C’Mell, though I didn’t recognize the species. I surmised it must have come through the gate with the monster. Considering the destruction the lab had endured it was a wonder it had survived. For some strange reason Schmitz was holding its long ears back in a position that looked painful for the animal. It was whimpering slightly.

  There were a number of men and women in the room curled up into fetal positions, others banging their heads against the walls, all of them exhibiting clear signs of psychological trauma. One poor woman looked like she was trying to lick her way through the wall, while the man next to her hopped in slow circles, flapping his arms. Casa Terra medical personnel were circulating amongst these people doing what they could to help, and leading the more biddable away.

  Abruptly I realized that I was still talking, though I had no idea what I was saying. I stopped mid-sentence and wiped from my eyes tears that I hadn’t known were there. I was thoroughly embarrassed to have been caught crying, especially in front of Sarah. Worse, I had no idea what I was crying about.

  “I’m sorry, I seem to have lost my train of thought,” I said.

  “Something about raccoons,” Sarah said. “How sad they make you. You weren’t making much sense, I’m afraid. But don’t feel bad, Barnabus—almost everyone who sees a raver reacts the same way.”

  “A raver?”

  “We believe they’re related to Necronians in some way, maybe genetically engineered. They prey on their victims’ fears and desires, relaying them back to the victim in a kind of telepathic feedback loop until they’re so exaggerated the victim either goes mad or kills himself. We should be safe now that Schmitz has taken care of it, though I imagine you can probably still feel the effects a bit.”

  The latter was an understatement. Emotionally I was a basket case, consumed by irrational fears and desires, three in particular.

  One: I found myself absolutely consumed with jealousy toward Rainer. His mere presence infuriated me. Seeing him looking at Sarah provoked paroxysms of rage within me—it was all I could do not to reach out and strangle him.

  Two: although I had always been wary of Schmitz, being in the same room with him now felt like being penned up with a wolverine. Fearing a deadly attack any instant, I did my best not to take my eyes off the man, but was torn between watching him and making sure that Rainer kept his filthy paws off Sarah.

  But as powerful as these two emotions were, they paled in comparison to the third: an almost overwhelming desire to step forward, take Sarah in my arms, and kiss her right on the lips.

  “Are you okay, Barnabus?” she asked.

  Her voice, fresh as a buttercup, drew me one step closer to her.

  “I think so,” I said. “Sort of.”

  “You were lucky—you were only exposed for a few seconds.” She motioned toward the victims huddled against the walls. “All of these people were working in here when the raver came through the gate. They tore the place apart trying to get away. Many may never recover. Some tried to kill themselves. At least one was successful.”

  “Best get that gate closed before the thing comes back,” I suggested, rather insincerely, because although it was true that we were not safe until somebody closed the gate, really the remark had been a bid to impress Sarah by demonstrat
ing leadership. In the grip of my heightened emotions I fancied that by taking control of the situation I might win her over.

  Unfortunately, there were at least three problems with this scenario. First, I did not control this version of the gate—something else did. I could feel it at the edge of my consciousness, a malevolent presence lurking on the other side of the gate. Conceivably I could close the gate, but first I would have to deal with whomever—or whatever—was controlling it.

  Second, I knew for a fact that Sarah didn’t like me that way.

  Third, I had made at least one inaccurate assumption.

  Schmitz cleared his throat. “It’s not gone.”

  I flinched at the sound of his voice. “What did you say?”

  “I said it’s not gone. I have it right here.” The animal in his arms had wide eyes and looked frightened.

  “That’s the monster? But that isn’t anything like what I saw.”

  “What you saw had nothing to do with reality,” Rainer said. “You saw what the raver wanted you to see, felt what it wanted you to feel.”

  The sound of Rainer’s voice infuriated me. I felt my hands ball up into fists. “Oh yeah? Well your face makes me angry.”

  Rainer elevated his eyebrows.

  I returned my attention to Schmitz lest he take advantage of my brief inattention to launch a broadside. But he merely cradled the cuddly little monster in his arms.

  “Doesn’t look like much, does it?” he said. “Look—see? This is how you get it to stop projecting—you hold its two dominant tentacles back, like so.”

  I shook my head, unable to see any tentacles.

  “Of course, you’re probably still under its influence.” He yanked the creature’s ears back even further. The animal squealed in protest.

  I was immediately suspicious. “How were you able to deal with this thing when it drove everyone else crazy?”

  “He’s immune to ravers,” Rainer said.

  “Immune to—how?”

  “Let’s just say I’ve met ravers before,” Schmitz said. “They had their way with me and ever since then I’ve been immune to their—”

  Something struck me hard in the face. I gasped in pain and stumbled backward, holding my nose. Whatever it was, it had come out of nowhere.

  “Oh dear,” Sarah said.

  It struck me again, this time in the mouth, a blow that would almost certainly leave me with a fat lip. I stared wildly around for my assailant. Had Schmitz attacked me? No, he hadn’t budged. Neither had Rainer. Had some other infernal beast come through gate? If so, where was it? Why wasn’t anyone else being attacked? I braced myself for the next blow but it was no use. A wallop came almost instantly, catching me a glancing blow in the chin. My inability to defend myself from this invisible assailant was maddening, and brought yet more tears to my eyes.

  “Barnabus!” Sarah sounded upset. “Barnabus, stop!”

  Now she was attacking me as well—had the presence of the raver driven her mad? I struggled with her until I realized that she was clinging to my right arm. My fist was halfway to my face. She was trying to stop me from hitting myself. Once I realized this, the compulsion to hit myself vanished, and Sarah let go.

  “Thanks,” I said as I stood hunched over holding on to my face, most of which hurt. My face was as red as my fat lip, I’m sure—I could not have been more mortified by the peculiar, disturbing behaviour I had exhibited.

  Rainer spoke. “I think it’s time you put that thing out of its misery, Harold.”

  Schmitz placed the creature’s head in the crook of one arm. It made plaintive noises and began to struggle violently.

  “Wait!” I said, straightening up. “Is that necessary? Maybe we can—” but I didn’t know what we could. The critter was cute but unquestionably dangerous.

  Schmitz grinned and tightened his grip. He twisted and I heard a faint snap. The animal’s eyes bugged out in a most curious fashion, like a character in a cartoon, leaving me to wonder if I’d really seen it or just imagined it. The instant the creature went limp the outsized emotions I’d been grappling with vanished, replaced with a lightness of being so profound that it made me stumble. Some of the remaining victims along the wall ceased their disturbing behaviour and looked up in surprise.

  Schmitz tossed the lifeless creature to the ground. I stared in disgust at the thing at his feet. It bore no resemblance at all to the adorable animal he’d held in his arms. This, I presumed, was its true form. It was nowhere near as monstrous as the image it had projected into my mind, yet it was still utterly grotesque. A yellow, putrid blob, with tentacles instead of ears, and a sickening amount of pus dripping from a gaping hole in its face, this thing more closely resembled the Necronians I was familiar with.

  “Yuck,” I said, with feeling.

  For the first time since waking up in Ansalar, I felt right in the head. Of course, no sooner did I think that than I remembered travelling to alien worlds, and through time, and being trapped in the minds of an alien cat and a seagull. A tiny pit began to form in my stomach as I entertained the possibility yet again that somewhere along the way I had lost my mind.

  I pushed the notion firmly aside. Although a healthy scepticism concerning my state of mind was probably a good thing, despair was not an option. There was simply too much to do. No matter how loony they appeared, these crazy cards were the only ones I had been dealt, and there was nothing for it but to play them.

  Now that the raver was dead its victims allowed themselves to be ushered out of the lab without any fuss. The miniature gate, which led to some place grey (a rock, a wall, or perhaps nowhere at all), still hung suspended in the middle of the room. Medical personnel gave it a wide berth as they escorted the last of the deranged away.

  Although several heavily armed soldiers remained in the lab with us, the presence of the gate in our midst made me nervous. Another raver or worse could pop out of it any second. Schmitz, Rainer, and Sarah did not seem unduly concerned. They knew the future. Presumably if a threat had been imminent we would not be standing there. Still, I saw no reason to take any chances.

  Deadly serious about it this time, I said, “We’ve got to close that gate.”

  Nobody budged. I wondered why until I realized that of the four of us, I was the only one capable of doing so.

  “Right,” I said.

  The two-dimensional gate was almost invisible from where I was standing. I kicked a Bunsen burner aside and made my way between two halves of a severed credenza to get a better look at it. A closer inspection revealed that it was no different than my gate. Probably because it was my gate: just a different incarnation, from another point in the timeline.

  “I can’t just close it from this side,” I called back to the others. “If I do the Necronians will just open it again somewhere else. To close it for good I’m going to have to close it from the other side.” In case that hadn’t been clear, I added, “The Necronian side.”

  This would be suicide, I thought, but didn’t say so, hoping instead that it would be obvious, and that we would all quickly agree on that fact and mutually come up with an infinitely more sensible solution.

  Sarah stepped around the shattered credenza to join me. “You’ll have no trouble closing the gate on the other side, Barnabus.”

  My heart sank. “Sebastian told you that?”

  “We’ve always known that it would come to this. That one day you would save Ansalar.”

  “Although we didn’t always believe it,” Rainer admitted, joining us.

  “It will happen, Barnabus,” Sarah said. “Everything Sebastian has told us so far has come true. According to him you will close the gate and save Ansalar—perhaps even the entire Earth. Everything that’s happened so far has led to this moment.”

  I stared into the nothingness of the gate. Probably she was telling the truth—at least what she percei
ved to be the truth. I could accept that Sebastian knew the future. I had once possessed knowledge of the future myself, after all. At that precise moment, however, I wasn’t even sure how to get through this version of the gate, let alone save anything.

  “What else does Sebastian say is going to happen?” I asked. “Just out of curiosity.”

  Rainer pulled a wristwatch out of his pocket, a mostly chrome affair with a handsome leather strap. I recognized the portable version of Sebastian I’d given to the cabbie, Jack Poirier. Schmitz was wearing a similar unit, I observed.

  Rainer strapped his version of Sebastian onto his wrist.

  “Hello, Mr. Wildebear,” it said.

  I nodded. “Sebastian.”

  “Tell Mr. Wildebear what you know,” Rainer instructed. “Everything that’s going to happen to him over the next little while.”

  “Certainly.” Sebastian exhibited none of the reluctance he’d displayed earlier when I’d asked him pretty much the same question. “Mr. Wildebear, you will achieve great success after a brief journey. In the short term you will be captured by the enemy—”

  I looked at Rainer and Sarah in alarm.

  “—during which you will not be harmed much.”

  “Much?”

  “You will be rescued. An attempt to return home will be successful, sort of. An old friend will require your assistance. A flashlight will prevent serious injury.”

  I leaned forward to make sure I’d heard that correctly. “I won’t be injured?”

  “Not much, no.”

  “Not much?” I cried.

  “You will find the flashlight in the second drawer from the top in your kitchen,” Sebastian concluded.

  I mulled this over. “Will I be able to help my friend?”

  “I know only that you will try.”

  I stared at the others in dismay.

  Rainer cleared his throat. “Now then. That doesn’t sound so bad, does it?”