by James Axler
She recognized their voices, and noticed how inhuman they appeared. Lyta felt the force holding her in stasis release, but she remained quiet and still.
How close could those things be? Lyta felt as if she’d run for hundreds of yards.
The darkness seemed to fade, and she could see far more clearly, as if it was growing lighter. Of course, it was still the middle of the night, and there was no sun in the sky. However, the moon and stars glowed with a ferocity she’d never experienced before.
She returned her attention to the staff in her hands.
“You’re doing this—aren’t you?” she whispered.
The artifact didn’t speak, or think, but she felt it warm where she touched it. She grew calmer.
Lyta listened to Brigid surrender to the creatures; she could hear them across what must have been two hundred yards. She followed the movement as they retreated, obviously heading back toward the hole in the ground from which the odd creatures had come.
Lyta followed, staying back and trying not to make any noise. She found that it was oddly easy not to disturb the undergrowth. Her steps came much more surely now, and no twigs broke; no stems crackled as she walked through the forest. It was an eerie, unnerving silence that had come down around her, made all the more strange by the fact that she could hear almost everything around her. The universe was painted across her mind’s eye in sonar images.
No wonder she didn’t want anyone else getting a hold of you, Lyta thought toward the staff. Even so, she continued slowly, carefully. It was almost as if she were on an autopilot, aware of what was around her with uncanny hearing and vision, knowing where she had to go, but scarcely needing to concentrate. It was as if she were a puppet, but she couldn’t feel the influence of marionette strings guiding her.
Closing with the subterranean cavern entrance, she slowed to a halt. The others were prisoners, too, the giant named Grant, her distant cousin, Nathan, the snake-man, Thurpa. None of them showed any sign of distress, though the enhanced vision granted by Nehushtan allowed her to make out scuffs, bruises, torn clothing on all of them.
Brigid’s uniform was disheveled, but the creatures had only stripped her of the all-concealing hood. Grant, on the other hand, was bare chested. Sheets of muscle rippled beneath his dark pelt of chest hair. Oddly, he still had one glove on; everything else had been pulled off him.
It was the right-hand glove, and she seemed to remember that Grant was one of the pair who carried some form of high-tech forearm holster there. That was gone. Only part of the sleeve and the glove remained where it’d been shorn from him. The creatures were far from stupid, having the presence of mind to strip their prisoners of weaponry and equipment.
There was no sign of the other man, a slightly smaller but no less powerful-seeming white man who’d also had a forearm holster for the amazing folding gun that they’d stripped from Grant. His name was Kane. At that thought, Lyta felt the urge to look away from the small squad of rubbery monstrosities, and she cast her gaze in the another direction.
Her instincts kicked into gear, telling her that the ancient artifact wanted her to head that way. Lyta felt torn for a moment. This cavern, and the slope that extended downward from its mouth, was in a direct line of descent to wherever the monsters came from, and where her newfound friends were being taken.
Kane. The name repeated in her mind, beckoning her in the direction she now wanted to go, despite her observation of the underground marauders and their prisoners. As soon as the name popped up again in her brain, she began walking. The staff, just like Brigid had told her, was giving her the direction to find whoever was free, and it was the man who was built like a muscular wolf.
Lyta moved with a silent grace and purpose of movement. Once more, her footfalls were silent, coming down in just the right spots and not creating anything more than the soft rustle of a breeze on a blade of grass. Whatever magic this staff worked, it was something far beyond her experience, and she was a young woman who had an interest in learning, educating herself in the ways of science, her intellect ever reaching out for more knowledge.
The fact that she thought of the staff as “magic” stunned her. Lyta was a practical person, a believer in rational explanation rather than mythology. And, yet, magic was not so outré now that she’d not only looked a hybrid of man and cobra in the eye, but had seen the abominations who had taken Brigid and her allies captive. She closed her eyes and took a breath, trying to dispel the crazed superstitions that lurked in the darkest reaches of her intellect, but the reality of her situation was that some legends and lore had a basis in reality. This was science, but it was science that operated on an entirely different level from what she knew. She’d read about the theories of things such as time travel and concepts even beyond that—multiple universes, quantum physics—but those were terms that were so far beyond human technology that they might as well have been fiction in a novel rather than reality. And yet she was here, experiencing the stuff firsthand.
Lyta finally reached another hole, one that was large but not as big as the massive cavern that could take a group of ten easily through its entrance. This was slimmer; perhaps two people standing shoulder to shoulder would fill it completely. Even Lyta, at five foot nine inches, needed to stoop to avoid bumping her head against the entrance. She levered the artifact sideways so that she could fit its entire length through the cave.
Once more, she was surprised at how much she could see; her eyes adapted to the murk with uncanny quickness. She remembered reading that the human eye was able to see only 3 percent of the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Otherwise, the universe was invisible to people. Lyta admitted that made sense. The air she breathed was invisible, and yet it was real. It had weight, it had pressure, it had texture when she ran her hand through it at speed. It could even move of its own accord.
If air was invisible to the naked eye, there were far more things in the universe than what she could imagine. Nehushtan had granted her vision beyond the norm, and she was thankful for that, even as she walked down the corkscrew incline and emerged into the open, able to stand with the staff standing on its pointed end.
Below, in the distance, she picked up movement. She could see the glowing torch of the group who had the four newcomers prisoner. Lyta’s eyes picked them up quickly and easily. Even though they were a hundred yards distant, as she focused, she could make out details of the rubbery-skinned things who held them captive.
They were odd, hulking figures, with most of their mass in their shoulders and upper chests. They didn’t have defined separate heads like humans; rather faces were embedded in the bulbous mounds of torso between the creatures’ shoulders. Their limbs were long and slender in appearance, at least in comparison to the rest of their frames, but she could see that their arms and legs had the same thickness of a grown man’s arm. They probably also appeared more slender to Lyta by dint of their proximity to the mammoth Grant. She was surprised that their legs, translucent and slim, could hold up the rest of their bodies, but for some reason they didn’t look as if they actually had that much weight in them.
As she scanned them, there was a movement out of the corner of her eye. Lyta turned, and, as she focused her vision, the artifact zoomed her in on the man’s face. It was Kane.
He seemed to be two or three loops around the corkscrew down, which made her wonder if all the circles descending the capped “chimney” they were in were connected. Lyta concentrated, trying to pay attention to the grade of descent, to see where they would go out of sight on the far wall and where the path would emerge. It took her three minutes to figure it out, especially as she watched the prisoner group go into one entrance and then appear again lower.
There were two different paths twisting around the subterranean atrium. Looking down, she could see where both ended up on the ground floor. Lyta also noticed a small assemblage of buildings, one of which
was lit from within, occupied. She could hear whispers, but these were out of range of even her advanced hearing. She also heard the scuff of feet on the path. Lyta mentally traced, and saw that Kane was going down the same ramp she was. She needed to get to him.
Brigid had told her to do so, and, so far, the damned stick was actually pointing her in the right direction, even going so far as to shine a light in the darkness that only Lyta could see. She hurried along, taking ground-eating strides. Her feet were bare, so she didn’t have to worry about the clomp of heavy boot soles on the flagstones of the ramp. She did wonder at the slap of her steps, but those remained quiet, as well.
It took her little time to catch up with Kane. She eventually slowed to where he remained crouched at the stone railing, peering toward the mixed group of captors and prisoners in the distance. As quiet and stealthy as she was, though, her footsteps less than whispers even to the artifact-boosted hearing she possessed, Kane suddenly reached down to his belt for a knife. His movements were swift, and he whirled, facing her in an instant, gleaming steel rising toward her.
Lyta blinked, her conscious mind gone blank, and with a suddenness that stunned her, the head of the staff came down on Kane’s wrist, driving it to the flagstones at their feet. Kane grimaced, glaring blindly in the dark, but that was only for a moment. Kane stopped fighting against her and Nehushtan, and she relaxed the pressure on his arm. He turned his hand around and gripped the shaft of the artifact along with her.
His eyes went from unfocused darkness to staring at her.
“We haven’t met formally,” Lyta spoke up. “I’m Lyta K’Wonga.”
“Nathan’s cousin. A variant on Longa?”
“Yes,” Lyta returned. “The main language around here is English, but each of the tribes within the two nations have their own dialects.”
“The Longa clan have traveled some,” Kane mused.
Lyta looked down at the stick. “It might have something to do with this.”
“I figured as much. This staff has one hell of a heritage,” Kane said.
For an instant, she had a mental flash. At once, it resembled Kane—tall and powerful, dark haired with slender features—and yet his clothing was different. He wore a black leather fencing vest, a tough canvas shirt, folded-down thigh-length boots and a slouch hat. Kane’s belt was adorned with ancient pistols and a fine blade, akin to the ones that Lyta had seen fencers use, the ones with bent steel forming a protective basket for the fingers of the wielder.
In an instant, the image was gone, and she saw Kane once more in the eerie full light that apparently could only be seen by the two people holding Nehushtan.
“This isn’t the normal spectrum we’re seeing in. Our brains are translating it as the normal spectrum, but we’re probably looking at something akin to infrared or ultraviolet. The colors aren’t real,” Kane pointed out.
Lyta nodded. “So, there’s no glow giving us away.”
Kane shook his head. “By the way, my name is Kane. No first name.”
“That’s unusual,” Lyta returned.
“It’s how I was raised. When I was growing up, boys who were in the Magistrate program were stripped of their other names in order to reduce their individuality,” Kane explained. “It almost worked.”
“Almost,” Lyta repeated. “No more Magistrates?”
“No more villes utilizing Magistrates. We’re still around, and many of us are actually still protecting the communities we’ve settled into,” Kane said. “Grant is also a former Magistrate.”
“Hard to limit his individuality,” Lyta noted. “He’s a large man.”
Kane glanced to the side and saw his friend in the distance. “He’s a good man, too. We need to free my friends.”
“I know,” Lyta agreed. “I just hope this stick is enough.”
“I’m not going to rely on the staff,” Kane said. “I’ve been to this dance before. While the stick can help, I’ll rely on my wits.”
Lyta nodded.
Kane looked away again, eyeing the strange beings who held his friends prisoner. He studied them, looking for weaknesses.
Lyta felt her blood chill at the Magistrate’s intensity.
The rubbery horrors were going to pay; that much Lyta could tell. She didn’t need a magic staff to see the raw, bloody hatred in his eyes.
Chapter 9
Grant was not a man given to ebullience; indeed he was infamous for his grouchy attitude. His current frown, though, was a false mask. These rubbery little freaks with the stretchy limbs and bodies that seemed composed of balloons and gel were strong and fast, but he had swiftly come to find their weakness. He’d actually killed one of them before the elastic bastards brought him down.
Grant noticed they had amazing healing abilities and were able to regather themselves when punctured. Their skin was not very tough, and they had less than a third of the weight of a full-grown man. Even with that minimal body mass, their elongated limbs aided them and gave them superior leverage when battling him hand to hand. There were two masses of darker fluid inside of them, and, judging from the positions on their ersatz humanoid frames, they correlated to a brain and a heart.
Grant shot through those “brains” and “hearts” with the powerful Sin Eater. But despite some disruption and spreading coloration within the fluid mass forms, the creatures recovered. Grant had ripped one entirely up the middle, but the dry, stretchy flesh had closed back on itself and the masses of odd internal organs had reassembled. Even so, he could tell that the creatures had a window of vulnerability when struck in those areas. They were stunned, and that bought Grant moments to fight the others off.
Only one of them had died, never to recover from the injuries he’d inflicted. Grant picked the thing up by its torso, uprooting its “feet” pods from the ground. With a powerful surge, Grant aimed the creature at a tree trunk with a snapped branch on it.
Speared through the heart, the creature had unleashed a horrible keening wail that had made Grant’s teeth vibrate inside his skull. However, the death cry was its last issuance, and the body had burst apart and flowed into the dirt, unable to rise again.
That mortal howl, however, had pinned Grant’s feet to his position. Pseudopods and tentacles had snapped out, lashing at his arms and chest. With every ounce of his might, Grant had fought to tear himself free. Rather than breaking the grasp of the semifluid beings, his shadow suit had split.
Panels of the shadow suit had fallen away with each shrug of Grant’s mighty muscles. When his bare flesh was exposed, the creatures had seized him even more solidly. When their skin touched his, tiny grabbing needles pierced him, adhering both together, and a numbing toxin reduced his strength. Grant had pulled and tugged, fighting for as long as he could with the sedative flowing through his body. He couldn’t shake their incredible grip, a sign that the needle pricks were anchors that could not be broken even by a man as strong as Grant.
Finally, Grant was still. The toxins didn’t interfere with his ability to breathe, and his senses were clear. And he could stand; he was just unable to pull and thrash against his imprisonment. He was already putting together the truth of what these things could and could not do.
There was something with either complete transfixion by a spear, or perhaps the nature of wood, that caused these creatures to burst, incapable of reforming. Maybe it had something to do with the two major “organs” in their bodies.
Either way, he knew one weakness was there, perhaps two. He looked at Brigid. Her uniform appeared in less distress than his, but then he doubted that she had the raw bulk and strength to have caused such rending and tearing in conflict with the sticky creeps. She had tears in the shadow suit and it was missing panels and parts.
And, like him, she was without the hood and faceplate that would have made seeing in this darkness a piece of cake. A
s it was, the torch, a token that could be considered an amenity to those without night vision, actually made things worse for him and the others. The proximity of the flare at the end of the torch was enough to make all four people squint, and if it was bright enough to make them squint, then it was bright enough to make their pupils contract. And with those contracted, they couldn’t gather any of the ambient light, even if it reflected off faraway objects. There could have been a hundred of the rubbery freaks standing just outside the spill of light from the fire, but with the proximity of the torch, they were swimming in an inky sea of blackness, eyes automatically shielding themselves from the blaze on a stick.
Grant almost felt dejected about the current situation, but then a dim sliver opened in the distance. It was either a tent flap or an opening door. The weak band of brightness was immediately eclipsed by the shadow of a figure. Grant blinked, trying to accustom himself to the dim conditions, but as soon as his eyelids peeled back, the torch caused his eyes to react, and he was blind to anything ten feet from his nose.
But the very fact that someone had come out of a lit room could mean only one thing.
The prisoners were being received by the master of their current captors. Grant’s lips formed into a tight smirk. He was in store for a grand bit of self-aggrandizement, gloating and posturing by the villain or villainess of this particular hole in the ground. Grant took a deep breath and made a wish for it to be a villainess. After all, if he was going to listen to tired old boasts he’d heard a million times before, he’d prefer it from the luscious lips of a sultry queen bitch like Lilitu or the new devil slut, Neekra.
There was a husky, feminine chuckle.
“Your dreams have come true, Grant,” came the soft, silky words from the wide-hipped, long-haired woman who entered the periphery of the firelight from the torch. She drew closer to him, and Grant could see her in the flesh. Kane had described the amorphous void witch as ultimately being a curvy, full-figured female, and Grant could see the dangerous swoop of her hips and the gentle jostling of pendulous breasts, unhindered by a stitch of clothing.
