Suddenly, a Junazhi appeared next to Anna and Lamb’s still forms. Something told O’Malley that they were in danger. He pointed the relic and fired. The alien disintegrated.
“Tell them to retrieve my friends now, or I will destroy everything here.” To prove his point, he pointed the relic at a rack of brain canisters and destroyed it.
More Junazhi appeared, and O’Malley destroyed another. Their stalks and Bierce’s attachment flashed furiously for several moments while the priest directed the device from one of the aliens to another. A Junazhi appeared next to the Kovacs cylinder, took hold of it, and then all the aliens disappeared.
“Kovacs’ mind has been returned to his brain,” Bierce said. “They will retrieve your companions.”
O’Malley was inwardly relieved, but he suspected that something was still amiss.
“And bring them back here,” he said, “alive and intact.”
◆
“We need to get to the top of the tower,” Lamb said, repeating a voice that he heard in his head.
“This way,” Khan-Tral said, taking a staff from a fallen guard. As he turned, Anna noted the smoking, black wound in his back.
“You need medical attention,” she said, gesturing urgently to Lamb.
“It is but a flesh wound,” the warrior said with gritted teeth, and then pointed the staff at an ornate double-door and fired a beam at one of the guards emerging from it. The Pointee dropped, and the ones behind it stopped and lowered their spears.
“Come,” the swordsman cried and ran toward a tapestry behind the throne. Anna took Brian’s hand and dragged him toward the door.
Lamb yelled and another burst shot from the baton, felling the rest of the newcomers. He turned toward a group that had been approaching from behind, and they stopped in their tracks, their cloven hooves scoring the tiles. He backed away toward Anna and Khan-Tral.
The warrior tore off the tapestry to reveal a solid wall. Anna seemed to know where the discolored stone that opened the door was and pushed it. A section of the wall opened toward her.
Khan-Tral pointed his spear toward the oncoming guards as Lamb followed Anna through the door. Then he went through. Anna stepped on a certain stone in a circular stairway leading up. The door closed, and Khan-Tral rammed the staff into the crack at the bottom of the door, which was visible from that side, and jammed it in place.
Running up the steps two and three at a time, Anna stabbed a waiting Pointee guard at a landing and shoved it aside. Lamb followed with a smack in its forehead from the baton. The guard fell to the ground.
They continued up the steps. Lamb fired a blast, narrowly missing Anna, to roast several goat-men at the top of the stairway who were poised to fire. Khan-Tral ran past the other two. The wounded guards were in no condition to stop him from scanning a hallway that ran perpendicular to the stairway entrance. He fired his spear in one direction, and then stabbed an oncoming guard charging in from the other direction.
Anna, Brian, and Lamb caught up to him. Lamb fired the baton at a dozen Pointees advancing from the direction Khan-Tral had shot in, while the warrior drew Nightbane.
Anna threw another fusillade of blades toward the guards blocking the portal across the hallway, which led outside. She did not realize until she had thrown them that her bandoleer was emptied. All she had left were the two in her wrist sheaths.
◆
“Why can’t the Junazhi just appear and bring them back?” O’Malley said anxiously.
“The Junazhi cannot materialize in the realm of Brian Teplow’s imagination. They must use an access point that he has provided. They are en route to retrieve your friends.”
◆
Anna, Brian, Lamb, and Khan-Tral crossed an open courtyard. Brian was not athletic, and Anna and Lamb held him by the arms to keep him moving. The Pointee guards there were in a state of confusion, running in all directions, some colliding with others. Several were fighting. Some used their spears, while others just butted their horned heads. The human trio avoided confrontation, but Lamb blasted the path ahead of them to keep it clear. They ran toward the entrance of the central tower.
Suddenly, fresh bolts started striking all around them. Goat-man guards on the walls were firing their spears into the courtyard, striking their peers in an attempt to hit the fleeing trio. They took cover behind a stone well. Lamb blasted the guards on the wall who could still see them as the well was rapidly demolished by the barrage from the walls.
Then they heard screeching, and shadows fell across the keep as scores of the flying Draunskur dove in and attacked the guards on the walls. The defenders in the courtyard took cover and started firing at the aerial threat.
Khan-Tral threw the gasping Brian over his shoulder and sprinted with Anna and Lamb for the open door to the tower. Once inside, they kept moving, leaping up the circular stairway and ignoring whatever might be inside the tower. They guards they encountered were firing their spears through the open windows. Anna and Lamb ran past, but Khan-Tral paused long enough to push the guards out.
When they reached the trapdoor to the roof of the tower, Anna and Lamb stopped to catch their breath and waited for Khan-Tral to catch up. After a moment, they started to worry, but Brian Teplow stumbled up the steps, breathing heavily.
“Where is Khan-Tral?” Anna asked.
“He’s- holding them off,” Teplow wheezed out. Lamb pulled Brian’s arm over his shoulder and lifted him to his feet.
Anna climbed the short ladder, slid the bolts from the trapdoor, and flung it open. The orange-red sky was turning cloudy and a malevolent purple. Blue bolts of lightning flashed among the clouds.
She climbed onto the roof and then lowered a hand to help pull Brian up. Lamb followed and they sat against the crenellations.
“We should close the hatch,” Lamb said.
“What about Khan-Tral?” Anna asked.
“He’s not coming,” Brian said in resignation. “He holds them off so we can escape. That’s how I would have written the story.”
Anna wanted to protest, but she knew the swordsman would not be coming with them. That was not part of the deal with Junazhi.
Lamb closed the hatch. There were no bolts on this side.
“What happens now?” Anna asked.
“We wait, I guess,” Lamb replied.
◆
All around, the flyers dove and slashed at the goat-men. From their vantage, Anna could see the former shot out of the sky by the blasts, and the latter drawn up and dropped from high above them
The blue-tinged lightning grew closer and more frequent. She wondered if being on the top of a tower in a lightning storm was a good idea. Perhaps they should have waited inside.
Suddenly, there was a distant buzzing sound. As it grew closer, that familiar feeling of dread appeared and increased. She peered over the wall of the tower and saw three long, gnarled, bulbous bodies flying toward them. As they became more distinct, the numerous stalks on their heads and the five pairs of legs identified them as Junazhi.
“Our ride is here,” Anna said with an ironic smile. She helped the reluctant Brian to his feet. He turned pale when he saw them.
“I’m not going anywhere with them,” he said.
“Everything will be fine,” Anna said calmly. “We have made an arrangement with them. We traded Kovacs for you, and we will be taking you home to your mother as soon as we get back.”
Teplow glanced from Anna to Lamb to the approaching Junazhi. He sighed loudly, gave a tentative smile, and said, “Perhaps flying through space with my brain is a can won’t be so bad.”
The Junazhi reached the top of the tower, and in a single, fluid motion, each one grabbed a member of the trio under the arms gently but firmly with their six legs and flew off. Anna felt a pinch as a finger from the alien’s front claws pierced into each of her ears, then her vision was fixed downward and she was in a state of complete relaxation and comfort.
They went up the slopes and beyond the snow-capped Gro
aning Slopes of Woe into the purple-pink sky high above the Endless Barrens of None. The plain turned into frozen tundra, and at the first sign of snow, the flight turned upward into the night sky and then everything went black.
Chapter 28
July 17, 1929
O’Malley relaxed slightly when he saw Anna, Lamb, and Brian Teplow collected from the tower by the Junazhi. They appeared to fly off rapidly into space, and then the image went blank.
“What happened?” he said anxiously. They were so close.
“Doctor Lamb has fallen unconscious. Perhaps from lack of oxygen.”
“The Junazhi know that they need oxygen to breathe, right?”
“Of course they do. But at that altitude, the air must be quite thin.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” O’Malley conceded, but then added, “but I expect them to be here, alive and intact, any time now.”
“I don’t know how long a journey between dimensions takes, but the Junazhi have no concept of psychological manipulation. They will not delay to prolong your distress.”
Suddenly, the inert forms of Anna and the doctor faded away. O’Malley leapt to where they had been, but only the blankets remained. He pointed the relic at another shelf.
“Have the Junazhi betrayed them?” he said through gritted teeth. “I want to know what happened. Now!”
Bierce’s attachment flashed for an extended period. A Junazhi appeared and O’Malley saw its stalks flash in conversation with the device.
“The Junazhi have not deceived you. There can only be one incarnation of a being in a given dimension. That is why they could not just appear in the other realm. They exist simultaneously across all dimensions and so could not duplicate themselves there.”
“So what happened to Harry and Anna?”
“The disappearance of their physical forms means that they have already passed into this dimension. They will return soon.”
◆
The wait seemed endless. O’Malley was tempted to destroy more of the racks, but realized that that would not actually accomplish anything. Bierce did not seem to know any more than he did.
Eventually, his stress overcame him, because he was awakened by a gentle touch on the cheek. He opened his eyes and Anna smiled down at him. She wore the leather garments he had seen on the screen, and had a pair of knives strapped to her forearms.
“That’s a new look for you,” he said groggily with a smile. Anna pulled him to his feet for a hug.
“Good to see that our ordeal was not too taxing on you,” Lamb said, noting the priest’s weariness, but also the china tea set and a plate bearing pastry crumbs on the table next to the Bierce device.
“I was afraid you would not return!” O’Malley replied earnestly, hurriedly releasing Anna. “I destroyed several of those creatures and the rack that used to be over there!” He indicated the empty space on the far end of the side wall.
“Relax, Sean,” Lamb said with a smile, clapping the Father on the back. “I was just toying with you.” Lamb embraced him. “I’m glad to see that you are well.”
“This is Brian Teplow,” Anna said, introducing the short, sandy-haired, young man. “Brian, this is Father Sean O’Malley, who has been working with us to find you.”
“Um,” Teplow seemed disoriented, “nice to meet you, Father?” O’Malley guided him to the chair he had been sitting in and poured a cup of tea.
“Drink this,” the priest said, handing Teplow the cup.
“It needs sugar,” Brian said after he took a sip. O’Malley gave him a spoon and the sugar bowl. “So what made you want to come and look for me?”
“We can talk about that on our way back to the city,” Anna said.
Suddenly, half a dozen Junazhi appeared. Their head stalks flashed in strobing patterns as if synchronized.
“The Junazhi cannot allow you to leave,” the Bierce device said. “The agreement was for you to make contact with Mr. Teplow in exchange for restoring Kovacs’ mind to his brain. The terms of that agreement have been successfully completed.”
“They said nothing of keeping us here,” Anna snapped. “We did as they asked, and now we are leaving. By their leave or not!”
The aliens approached to surround the group. O’Malley pointed the relic and disintegrated one of them.
Unnoticed by anyone, Lamb had pulled the golden baton from his quiver while the others were talking with Teplow. Now he pointed it toward the bulk of the approaching Junazhi, and his blast incinerated four of them.
Three more appeared, spaced out to be prevent Lamb from hitting more than one of them.
O’Malley turned the relic on the racks of brain cylinders and started shooting them. At the same time, Anna dove onto Brian, pushing the chair over backward and depositing them on the floor behind it.
One by one, the priest disintegrated the shelves and their contents while Lamb fired and destroyed the aliens. Finally, new Junazhi stopped appearing.
The basement chamber smelled of burnt meat, dust, and something indescribable and unpleasant. Somewhere along the way, Billy had been caught in the crossfire, and lay in a barely recognizable charred hulk on the floor.
“It is time to go,” Anna said. She glanced around at the carnage, and then led Brian out the door and up the stairs. Lamb followed, still keeping the baton at the ready.
O’Malley took a moment to collect his thoughts. He turned back to the Bierce device.
“What would you like me to do?” he asked the cylinder.
“This existence has its benefits,” the staccato monotone said, “Believe it or not, I am content with my current state. As for the others, I cannot say. For all the minds that you destroyed, I see no reason to leave those on the shelves. Without any of the sensory attachments, they have no interaction with the world around them.”
O’Malley nodded, took a moment to collect their possessions, and then disintegrated the final rack of brain cylinders.
“Farewell, Mr. Bierce.
Chapter 29
August 2, 1929
“I know you are there,” Anna said. She was reclining in a chaise lounge on the patio of Dr. Feldman’s house outside Westerberg. She wore a light, yellow sun dress with a floral pattern.
The intruder continued to approach, attempting to be sneaky. In a flash, Anna threw a pen, a teaspoon, and a butter knife at him. Then she opened her eyes to see Sean O’Malley grinning with an impressed expression, rubbing his forehead where the projectiles had hit him.
“You seem to have retained the abilities Brian ascribed to you in Siashutara,” the Father said, taking a seat beside her in a neighboring chair.
“So it would appear,” she said introspectively. In the two weeks since they had returned Brian Teplow to his mother in Brooklyn, Anna and Lamb had been staying at Feldman’s estate. O’Malley had been busy pursuing church business.
Unlike the priest, the trustees had not yet made their determination regarding Anna and Lamb’s positions with the Reister University, even though the Longborough affair was now old news.
◆
Following a long hike along the path next to the telephone lines, Anna, Lamb, O’Malley, and Teplow arrived at a road. There, they hitched a ride back to Chatham with a farmer. O’Malley explained his companions’ odd attire by saying that they were lost circus performers. From there, O’Malley purchased train tickets for them and they returned to the city.
On the train, Anna told Brian about the request Jason Longborough had asked them to perform, including all the supernatural details. Brian listened to the story with rapt interest.
“Mr. Longborough’s wife told us that he had been extremely stressed for some time,” Anna said, “but that he came to see you in the city, and whatever transpired between you seemed to calm him.”
“She said he was a changed man,” O’Malley added.
“Would you mind telling us about that conversation?” Lamb asked.
“I think I owe it to you,” Brian said. “It’s the
least I can do.” He took a deep breath and collected his thoughts.
“Jason came to see me in late April or early May. He had the gold box you spoke of with him.” Teplow thought for a moment. “He told me that he and some college friends had dabbled in the occult when he was younger, and that they had released something evil into the world.” Brian shuddered.
“He asked me to see what I could get from the box. When I took hold of it, I believe I told him that all his preparations were complete and the pieces were in place. Or something to that effect.”
“What did you see?” Anna asked.
“I saw from Utgarda’s perspective, the giant version, winged figures flying across the horizon over the Endless Plains of None. I could tell that they were the solution to his worries.” He grew serious.
“What else?” O’Malley said with anticipation.
“I saw that I would go through an unpleasant trial, but that I would come through. I didn’t tell Longborough that. The look of relief on the old man’s face was powerful.”
“That’s all?” Lamb said with surprise and indignation, and then. “I’m sorry.”
“That was it,” Teplow said with a nod. “We only met for half an hour or so.”
◆
Anna and O’Malley joined Feldman and Lamb on a wide expanse of lawn. Various targets had been set up at different distances, and Lamb had been shooting at them with a number of weapons, some of which the librarian had acquired on loan from museums or collectors he knew.
“Your abilities are astounding,” Feldman said, looking through a pair of binoculars at a paper bullseye swinging in the light breeze from a tree perhaps 300 yards away. “Even with a moving target, you hit it square in the center.”
Lamb shrugged when he saw the two approaching and set the crossbow down on a table next to a variety of bows, spears, a blowgun, and other more-exotic devices.
The Other Realm Page 17
