by Galen Wolf
As he entered the metal, he felt it trying to take him into itself again. It nipped at the edge of his consciousness, trying to drag him under. But once again he found the strength to resist it. He got within distance of Mehefin and drew her back. He got a handful of her white top and dragged her with him. He yanked at her long blonde hair. She came towards him like an iceberg, still face down. He reached the steps and pulled her by her hands, then got his arms under her shoulders and heaved her. She coughed and spluttered quicksilver from her mouth. He dragged her to the shore, until only her feet lay immersed in the liquid. Then he went back to check on Severan.
The giant was still alive, but deeply unconscious. Walking back to Mehefin, he grabbed her long blonde hair in his fist and pulled her head free of the ground. He could see her eyes move under the lids.
He slapped her face and her eyes flickered open. "Wakey, wakey princess."
Her head sagged and he let it drop. Her jaw head hit the ground and her head lolled left. More quicksilver ran from her mouth. He flicked her pretty nose with his forefinger and she flinched, but did not wake.
"Come on, bitch," Gaijann said. "I don't have time for this."
He let her be for a minute, sighed and walked over to Severan again. He knelt by his friend and shook his shoulder. "Severan!" he whispered in the giant's ear. "Severan! For Lady Luck's sake wake up." But the giant did not stir.
Then over his shoulder, Gaijann heard Mehefin speak. "What happened?"
Gaijann turned and saw she had got up onto her knees. She saw the giant lying still. "Severan!" She stood and made to come over but she swayed, almost stumbled, and put both hands to her head. "I dreamed I was dead."
"No, you lived."
She stepped clumsily over to where Severan lay and she knelt down again beside him. She put her hands on his shoulders. Gaijann saw the tears in her rainbow eyes. She looked questioningly at Gaijann; her hands were white as she held the giant.
Gaijann shook his head. "Like you, he's only dreaming he's dead. But if he dreams too long then he'll be gobbled up by the Library's mind and become just another bit of data."
"What can we do?"
"Talk to him."
She leaned over Severan, moving her hand to stroke his cheek. His mouth fell open and there was quicksilver in his throat. "Help me," she said.
Gaijann helped her turn him over onto his side. Severan coughed and mercury ran from his mouth to pool on the floor. His lungs spasmed and expelled more of the liquid metal.
"He went deeper than us," Gaijann said.
Mehefin looked at the assassin. Her brow creased. "Did you save me?"
He didn't answer.
"I thought you'd prefer me dead."
Gaijann shrugged."Somehow, you remind him of his dead wife. And that's probably the only thing that can call him back from where he's gone."
She turned back to the giant. She said, "How come we didn't die in the quicksilver? I saw it kill the lizards."
Gaijann shrugged. "Nothing here is ever the same. Sometimes it does one thing, sometimes another. The only truth is that the Library wants to consume us, our bodies and our minds."
Mehefin ran her hands through Severan's hair.
Gaijann watched her caress his friend. He thought this was a lot of show to put on just to convince him she really felt something for the giant. He sneered. "Don't pretend. He may care for you, but I don't buy that you care for anyone but yourself."
"I do care for him." Her attention was only for Severan. "It didn't start off that way. But I do now."
Gaijann gave a hollow laugh. "We're maybe going to die down here. And before too long. Why not cut the bullshit?"
She snapped her head round. "What's the point me telling you the truth? If you don't like what I say, you'll call me a liar anyway."
"The point is - the truth is the truth."
"You never struck me as a man with principles, Gaijann."
"More than you anyway." He turned to look back at the pool which heaved uneasily as it dreamed, then back at her. His face was hard."So? The truth?"
"So." She paused. She bowed her head. "My father paid the Kissag to be our backup bodyguard."
"I heard that."
"But they messed up. They got into a firefight with Severan and you."
"Why didn't you just come clean that they were working for your father?"
"My father likes secrets."
Her rainbow eyes were too much. He couldn't meet her stare. He glanced away."No, there's still a lot you're not telling."
"That's all I know honestly."
"And when they captured you?"
"They were trying to rescue me and my father. They didn't think you could protect us from the Library. And of course they wanted to make sure we were safe so they got paid."
She turned back to Severan. She shook him again. She bent and kissed his forehead.
His lips moved. "Oriel?" But his eyes were still closed as he struggled to escape his dream.
She put her lips to his ear. "No, it's Mehefin."
But he lapsed further into the Library's mind.
Gaijann took a step back. "We can't stay here. It'll soon be night. The dark will come and eat up what the mercury failed to digest."
"I feel dreadful," said Mehefin. "I've got a drum beating in my head."
Gaijann rubbed his eyes. "Tell someone who cares."
She looked round at the pool and up at the hole through which they fell, high above. "There's no going back that way."
"No shit."
"Do you have to be so horrible all the time?"
"To you. Yes."
And then Severan moved. Mehefin stroked his cheek and spoke his name again. His human eye opened, but there was no one looking through it. The red alien eye clicked and turned, focusing on some inner stimulus.
"He's still lost in dreams," Gaijann said.
Severan's eyes closed, but even so, he struggled and shifted himself onto his elbows. He was trying to get up. Gaijann put his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Easy, buddy. Take it easy."
With a grunt, Severan rolled onto his knees and then pushed himself up, one hand on a rock outcrop for support. Both Mehefin and Gaijann went to help. Severan's eyes half opened. He coughed and went into a spasm. Then, painfully, he stood, leaning his head against the black rock of the wall while he coughed.
"Severan?" Gaijann said. Mehefin stood by, one hand ready to reach out to Severan.
Severan threw his head back. "Fire team, come in."
"What?" said Mehefin.
"I don't know."
Then Severan looked at Gaijann. "I thought you were meeting her?" he said.
"He's delirious. He doesn't know where he is."
"The pool?"
"It's robbed him of his senses."
Mehefin looked frightened."But they'll come back?"
Gaijann leaned back against the rock wall. "How the fuck do I know?"
Severan said, "Easy Gaijann. Don't speak to the lady like that."
"Severan, do you know who I am?" said Mehefin.
"Of course, darling. You're my wife." He put his arm round Mehefin and then broke down in a fit of coughing again.
"Oh Lady Luck." Gaijann sighed and shook his head."We need Torina."
"Where is she?" said Mehefin.
"With your father. Do you know where he is?"
Mehefin shook her head. "No, none of our comms work in this place. They did at the entrance and then as we got deeper they stopped."
"Well, I'm betting he's moving towards the centre of the Library."
"Which way is that?"
Gaijann pointed down the tunnel ahead. "I've got a feeling the Library's taking us where it wants us anyway." He turned to his friend. "Need a hand?"
Severan still had his arm around Mehefin's shoulder. "No. I'm okay with Oriel."
Gaijann's mouth tightened. "Okay, follow me. Let's hope we come across Torina soon."
CHAPTER TWENTY: Torina makes friends
&nb
sp; At first Torina fled the oncoming silver tide, running from it like the Kissag did. She was faster than them and pulled ahead.
One of their non-commissioned officers started barking orders. The Kissag halted, their discipline finally kicking in. She heard the sound of small arms fire. It seemed the lizards were making a stand against what was following them. She kept running. A hundred yards down the corridor, her legs cramping, her lungs burning, she had to stop. She bent double, somehow she'd outrun the lizards.
As she stood there, her hands on her thighs, the breath wheezed in and out of her. She remembered Atorkh. Breathing more easily at last, she knelt down in prayer and asked the Queen of Disks to grant him a safe passage to the Otherworld.
In the midst of her prayers, she heard a noise behind her. It was gunfire. Her hand went to her holster, but the Kissag had taken her gun. Unlike the others she didn't carry backup weapons. Anyway, she couldn't remember ever killing anything. The Kissag had removed her helmet too and so she had no lamp to light her way. She considered her dilemma. Behind were the Kissag and the equally deadly creatures created by the silver pool, while ahead was darkness. She could still hear gunfire behind but it was more sporadic now. She guessed the Kissag were losing and once that happened, whatever killed them would come for her. She bit her knuckles in anger and despair. She had no choice but to go ahead. Ahead offered no certain escape, but behind was death: and she wasn't ready to die yet.
Torina had the wild hope that somehow she would stumble across Severan and Gaijann and they would rescue her and they would all retreat out of the Library, back to their ship and away from this cursed planet. Then she remembered about the oncoming tide of darkness. They had to escape before night came. With everything that had happened to her, she had lost track of time, but she knew that it wouldn't be long.
She suddenly recalled she had an emergency chemical light in her backpack. They were designed for providing light for battlefield surgery. She unslung the pack and searched through it, pulling out the sticks that, once twisted, emitted a soft glow for up to twelve hours. So she cracked the stick in her two hands and holding it above her head, walked on into the shadows.
As she walked, the tunnel got narrower, and it twisted always to the left. Soon it was obvious that the passage was nowhere near as wide as it had been and that the turning angle was ever more acute. The image of the whorl of a shell came to mind. If this carried on, soon the passage wouldn't be wide enough for her to walk any further and she would have to turn and face the Kissag or whatever had beaten them.
The tunnel narrowed more. It was only wide enough now for her to go a little further forward if she went shoulder first. She would then have to walk sideways, shuffling step by step. And if it got narrower, she'd be pinned.
She peered forward to try and judge whether she was just going to get herself caught there. The light was inadequate but it seemed that there was something at the end of the tunnel. She took the pack from her back to make her slimmer. Holding that in her left hand and the chemical light stick in her right, she edged to the end of the tunnel. Thankfully it didn't get narrower. At the end of the tunnel there was a hole. She stopped and peered into the darkness. There was an unpleasant taste of zinc in her mouth which she suddenly realized was the taste of her fear. The hole was big enough for her to go down, but where did it lead? And how would she get back up?
She shook her head. It was stupid to jump into a black hole. She half turned so she could look back the way she had come, the light played on the featureless walls of the narrow passage. How many of the Kissag remained? She couldn't fight them. She would have to throw herself on their mercy. She heard herself laughing unexpectedly. It sounded odd in that quiet place. Certain death versus likely death? And a whole lot worse things before they finally killed her. She shrugged, as if pretending she didn't care would make her really not care. There was no real choice.
She shuffled back towards the hole and stared down into the dark. She hoped it was either shallow enough not to injure her or deep enough to kill her instantly. Either way would be acceptable. She muttered a prayer to the Queen of Disks, then she stepped off.
Torina fell through air, expecting any minute to hit a rock floor and die, but then she landed in sand. She went into it knee deep. The light flew from her hand on the impact and lay against a rock wall, but it did not go out. She saw the chamber was small and irregular and half filled with black sand. She struggled to pull her legs up out of it and get free. Her pack lay nearby and she reached and dragged it closer to her. She crawled on her hands and knees across the chamber to pick up the light. With that in her hand, she examined the chamber.
There looked to be no way out. "Great," she said aloud: her life would end in a sealed cave. No Severan or Gaijann would come to rescue her here. She had ample water in her suit reserves and she knew it could recycle more from her waste. It could keep her alive for weeks. And she had concentrated nutrient bars in her pack - probably enough for a month. The light would run out first. Then she would go insane. She would beg for death, but her instinct would make her drink and eat as long as food and water were available.
She thought of her mother and father far away on Gii V. She wondered what they would be doing now. Sitting down to eat? Going out to tend the livestock. She thought of how they had loved her and been so proud when she went out into space. Sentiment made her weak. She brushed aside the tears and filtered smooth sand through her fingers.
Something moved.
She sat bolt upright. Once again her hand went to her empty holster, once again she cursed herself for not remembering. Then the sand erupted to her left and, a second later, also to her right. The light was poor but she could see what looked like organic creatures. She used her heels to push herself back against the rock wall away from them. The two things came up and appeared to scan with long dipping antenna like those on a moth. They didn't attack. Torina heard her own ragged breathing. She was pressed up against the rock so hard it was painful.
Then a voice spoke in her mind. Do not be afraid.
Torina spoke to the creature to her left. "Who are you?"
We are lilitu, came the telepathic communication again.
"What are you doing here?" Torina said.
We live here.
"Since when?"
Since always.
"You live in this tiny cave?"
The voice said, We come here to rest. The Library does not know we are here so it cannot send us its silver or its black. Thus we survive.
"I need to get out. Get out of this cave."
To go where?
"To find my friends."
Silence.
"Do you understand?"
Your group?
"Yes."
We understand.
"Will you help me find them?"
The pause was longer this time. Torina guessed the creatures were translating her concepts into the closest cultural ideas of what her words meant.
No, said the lilit.
"I can't stay here forever."
The black will not touch you here, neither will the silver. If you go out the silver will assimilate you; and that which is not assimilated is later dissolved by the black. The Library cleans itself of the husks it cannot digest.
Do you always remain in this cave? She stopped speaking words out loud and instead said them in her mind.
No" said the lilit.
But how to you come and go? There are no exits.
There are exits. We hide them so the silver and black do not enter. The Library does not know them.
Will you show me the exits?
No.
Torina looked around the cavern. Above was the hole through which she had descended. Maybe the lilitu could get up there somehow. Looking around the cavern she saw nothing obvious. There were drifts of sand, some bare rocks in the middle of the cave, and then around the side, the blank walls. Several large rocks were scattered near the walls. Then she noticed disturbed sand aro
und a rock at the cave wall straight ahead, some twelve feet away. Their exit could be as simple as moving a boulder in front of a hole. She got up, ducking slightly to avoid banging her head. The lilitu moved back. She looked at them more intently. If anything they resembled wood lice, or armadillos. They watched her as she walked over to the rock, her feet sinking deep in the black sand. "Is this a way out?" she said.
Yes, said the lilitu.
She began to move the rock. It was heavy but not more than she could manage.
Stay, said the lilitu.
"Why?"
Because you will be cleansed. The black comes soon.
"How long does it last?"
As long as the silver.
"And you have managed to survive here for thousands of years by hiding like that?"
Yes.
Then a thought struck her. "What do you live on?"
We do not understand.
"What do you eat?"
We consume what we find.
Then the penny dropped. They had found her. Without saying a word, Torina put her shoulder to the rock. The lilitu moved towards her, one on either side. She put her pack down so she could push better. She managed to move it slightly.
The lilitu were paying her intense attention. She pushed again. She felt a delicate touch, silky almost, on her leg through her suit. She looked. The lilit had extended some kind of feeler towards her. She pulled her leg away with a shout of disgust. The other lilit came closer. Her panic made her push harder and the rock rolled half away. She could see that there was a space. It was about three feet high. Just the right size for the lilitu. The other lilit extended its feathery legs and stroked her back with them. She pulled away. She felt a burning sensation on her leg. She saw the place where the first lilit had touched her leg was glistening. The digestive juice on the feeler was burning through her suit.
The lilit to her right had two feelers on her back. She smelled a sweet chemical stink as it began to eat through her clothes. She turned and saw that both lilitu had produced a rubbery tube like mouth and each was feeling its way towards her. She guessed the mouth would suck up the liquid mess from the holes the juices made in her flesh. She jabbed on the healing field control on her suit.
