But five seconds later the emergency lights flickered into life, dimly illuminating the hallways and several of the key rooms. In three of these key rooms identical displays lit up. Each was labeled Time Remaining Battery Reserve, though they were commonly called the doomsday clocks. The displays were counting down. At the moment each of them read 3:59:53.
Timothy stood, saying, “I’ve got to—” but his mouth chopped shut, for emerging from the shadowy hallway and passing through the solid glass doors, in the dimness there came floating a glowing sphere of plasma, the globe perhaps a foot in diameter, the energy sputtering and crackling and sizzling, though neither Timothy nor anyone else in the room could hear it, temporarily deaf as they were.
“My God,” exclaimed Greyson, his voice unheard, “it’s ball lightning.”
Across the room floated the globe; athwart its path stood the gimbaled rigs, the hemisynched alpha team completely unaware in their witch’s cradles.
“Lord Vishnu, protect them,” moaned Alya.
As if heeding her prayer, the crackling globe angled rightward then leftward to pass by the rigs and float toward the inert holovid.
“Jesus,” muttered Timothy, suddenly realizing that Avery had gone dark.
As it touched the holovid, the ball detonated silently in a coruscating blast and disappeared altogether, leaving bright afterimages in the eyes of those watching.
“Wa!” cried one of the medtechs, and Timothy realized that he could hear again, though his ears yet rang.
“Does anyone have connection to Avery?” shouted Timothy, his voice sounding tinny to those in the room.
When Toni Adkins slammed into the rail, all the air was driven from her lungs, and she crashed backward onto the floor. Pelting rain fell on her as she desperately struggled to breathe but could not, struggled to inhale even one breath but failed. Spots swam before her eyes, and she bled from her nose and ears. Frantic, she tried and tried but breath simply would not come, and her mind raced a million miles an hour, her only thought What a bloody wretched way to die, and rain fell on her face. And just as she knew her life was over, Ghhuuuhhhhh! she sucked in a long, sobbing breath. Crying hoarsely, her lungs now heaving, she lay in darkness, rain falling down, the shattered room about her faintly illuminated by an emergency light shining in from the hallway. Weeping, she rolled over and got to her hands and knees. Before her, Mark Perry struggled to his feet. He reached down and helped her up as well. Turning, they both saw Jim Langford lying on his back amid the ruins of the shattered table, the tech not breathing at all.
Toni stumbled to him and dropped to her knees, placing her head on his chest. No heartbeat? She could not tell for she could not hear. She touched two fingers to his carotid artery, feeling for a pulse. There was none.
Quickly, she raised the back of his neck and opened his mouth to check that his air passage was clear. It was. Pinching his nose shut, she sealed his mouth with hers and filled his lungs with a breath, then she placed the heel of a hand on his sternum and her other hand on top, and drove down hard five times, then gave him another breath. Five more shoves. Another breath. “Goddammit, Mark, help me!” Though muffled, he heard her voice.
But it was Drew Meyer who dropped to his knees across from her. “You take over the heart,” shouted Toni. “I’ll do the breathing.”
One, two, three, four, five . . . breathe . . . one, two, three, four, five . . . breathe . . .
A moment later, Henry Stein joined them. He rolled back one of Jim’s eyelids and shined a penlight into the pupil. No reaction. But in the rubble at the edge of the beam of his small light Stein glimpsed a charred fragment of bone. He held out a hand to stop Drew and Toni altogether, and he raised Jim’s head. The back of the tech’s skull was gone.
“I have!” called several voices, among them Alya’s. She added, “My console is still powered and Avery seems to be functioning, though some of my readouts are dark.”
Timothy turned to Greyson. “John, check on Toni and the others. See if they are all right. Tell her that Avery seems to be working on backup power, though the main holovid is gone. Get Stein in here. He and his medtechs have got to extract the alpha team.”
As Greyson hurried through the glass doors and into the corridor, Timothy stepped to Alya’s console.
“We’ve got to get to mission control,” said Toni, her eyes looking everywhere but at Jim Langford. “Power is out. The building damaged. And six people are in rigs.”
Following Toni’s lead, they stumbled across the wreckage of the conference room and through the splintered door and out to the hallway. Mark started for the elevators, but Toni grabbed his arm—”They’re not working, Mark. No power”—and they headed for the stairs. On the way down through the shadows they met John Greyson coming up.
Timothy leaned down and keyed Alya’s microphone. “Avery?”
Silence answered.
Timothy then moved to another working console. “Avery?”
Again there was no reply.
Timothy began moving from console to console, some working, others not, and at each, whether or not there seemed to be power, he keyed mikes and called for Avery, but the AI did not respond.
As Timothy keyed the final mike, Toni, Greyson, Stein, Meyer, and Perry came through the glass doors. “Avery?” Timothy called, but only dead air answered.
“Status,” demanded Toni.
Timothy stepped forward in the dim light. “Power’s out. Avery’s on backup. Some of the consoles are down. The main holovid is out. And we cannot contact Avery.”
Toni gasped. “Is he—?”
“He seems to be working from what I can see,” interjected Timothy. “But the channels in and out apparently are down. We can probably bring them back on-line by rebooting.”
A look of relief washed over Toni’s face. Then she turned toward the technicians at the consoles and called out, “Listen to me, everyone. I need status reports from all sections: damage, injuries, anyone in need of medical aid. Straightaway, hop to.” She beckoned to one of the techs standing at hand. “Michael, in particular find out why the overhead lights aren’t back on. I mean, it appears as if we are operating on battery reserves alone. Surely the backup generator should be up and running by now.” Toni glanced at the wall display—3:40:12—three hours, forty minutes, twelve seconds remaining before the voltage from self-regulating cells would catastrophically collapse. She keyed her digital watch into the countdown mode and synchronized it with the doomsday clock and pressed a button. And as the hundredths and tenths began to fly by, the seconds peeling off, she turned to face the rigs dimly seen in deep shadows. “Henry, get those people out of there.”
But before Stein could move—”Oh my God, my God!” cried one of the medtechs, looking up horrified.
“What is it?” demanded Stein.
The medtech did not answer, but frantically keyed in commands on her display-local minicompad, all the while cursing under her breath.
Stein stepped to his own console to find it dark. “Damn!” He then moved over to the medtech’s position and looked. Frowning, he leaned forward, one hand on the console, and murmured something. Again the medtech’s fingers flew over keys.
Toni’s voice cracked through the air: “Henry?”
The medtech gritted her teeth, then glanced up at Stein and asked, “What next?”
“Switch to backup,” said Stein.
The tech keyed the command.
“Henry,” demanded Toni. “What the hell is going on?”
Stein glanced up at Toni but looked straight through her and then gazed back down at the console, his face eerily lit by the glow of the display, intense concentration in his stare.
It was the medtech who answered Toni’s question. “The alpha team, Doctor Adkins, their brainwaves have gone flat.”
25
Wards
(Itheria)
Lyssa felt someone behind propping her up. Hands covered her eyes. She tried to pull away, but Kane hissed i
n her ear, “Be still.” His voice seemed muffled.
Lyssa relaxed, “Wh-what happened?” Her own voice sounded deadened, too.
Arton called out: “Kane is setting your eyes and ears to rights again.”
Moments later she could see and hear perfectly—more than perfectly, for even by lantern light colors seemed sharper, more intense, and hues she had never seen before sprang to the eye. Her hearing, too, was more acute and sounds that heretofore would go unnoticed instead came to the ear. Yet it wasn’t only sight and sound that seemed enhanced, but all of her senses as well—vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and the state of her entire being—all perceptions were honed to a keenness never before experienced.
It was as if she and the entire world had been born anew and had become more . . . present.
Arik helped her to her feet and she could smell the scent of him—leather and salt and maleness. He embraced her and softly whispered, “I love you.” And she held onto him fiercely.
Together they watched by lantern light as Arton led the nearly blind Kane to Rith, the black bard groggily coming ’round. Pon Barius yet lay unconscious on rain-soaked ground, Ky kneeling at his side.
Overhead, stars shone down through a clear sky, though ringed all about on the horizon stood a wall of clouds. Shattered trees littered the landscape, all felled outward from the point of detonation.
The air was filled with the odors of upturned earth and wetness and shattered pines and roots and the tang of lightning as well as other smells. Lyssa looked up at Arik and repeated her question: “What happened? . . . I mean, what by the seven hells were those lights? Those blasts?”
“I don’t know, love,” replied Arik. “All I know is—”
A thrashing sounded from the darkness.
“Wha—?” Lyssa groped for her saber. It was not at her hip but lay on the ground where the lean-to had been. As she jumped forward to snatch it up, Arton sprang for his crossbow. Ky’s black blade seemed to leap into her own hand.
Again came the sounds of flailing, as if some large beast floundered in the dark. A squealing grunt rang out.
“The horses,” snapped Arik. “It’s the horses.”
“Arda,” exclaimed Ky. “I had forgotten all about them.”
“We’ve got to see how they fare,” said Arik, catching up a lantern. “Lyssa, come with me.”
Amid the uprooted trees and shattered trunks they found alive five horses and two mules, all yet tethered to the felled wood. Of the five horses, two were conscious and on their feet, and three lay stunned on the ground, one with a broken foreleg, splintered bone showing. Both mules were awake, though only one was afoot; the other lay on its side on the wet earth, pine boughs pressing the animal down. One horse lay dead beneath a fallen pine, its back crushed. One horse and one mule were missing.
As he stepped to the horse with the shattered leg, a look of pain crossed Arik’s features. He took out his dagger and slit Redlegs’ throat then quickly looked away. Crimson poured out and a sweetish iron tang seemed to fill the air, and Lyssa gasped and stepped back from it. Horses, too, snorted and skitted at the smell of blood, and the trapped mule squealed and floundered.
“Looks like the eye of a cyclone,” said Rith as she scanned the wall of clouds all ’round. After a moment she added, “But it’s not spinning . . . although it is closing up and bringing rain with it. We’d better make another lean-to.”
“I’ll help,” said Arton.
Ky turned to Pon Barius. “Master, will you watch over Kane?” She gestured at the sightless, deaf warrior-healer. “His vision will return soon, his hearing, too, but until then he may need aid. I am going to help with the rebuilding of our camp.”
The ancient syldari nodded abstractly, as if lost in thought, and Ky joined Arton and Rith.
Rain pattered down from above, for the great hole had closed and the storm had returned.
“Damnation,” growled Arton, “I wish my horse hadn’t fled.”
“Better fled than dead,” said Ky. “At least there’s a chance that he’ll be found, whereas mine will never run again, crushed as she was”—she cast a swift glance at Arik, the warrior with his head down—”nor will Redlegs.”
“I’m sorry, Arik,” said Kane, peering with dim vision at the flaxen-haired warrior. “Someday I may discover how to attune my art to animals, but right now people are all I can heal.”
The stunned horses had recovered and the mule had been freed, and all remaining animals had been gathered and moved to the opposite side of the camp, away from Redlegs’ corpse.
Silence fell among the Foxes, and for a long while no one spoke. At last Arik turned to Pon Barius. “What were those lights, those blasts? Who sent them? The DemonQueen?”
Slowly Pon Barius shook his head but remained silent.
Rith looked at the others. “Perhaps it was Arda Himself. He may be displeased with us.”
“Perhaps,” growled Kane, “perhaps it was the Nameless One, the Dark God.”
Again silence fell upon them all. Finally Ky put a hand on the old syldari’s arm. “Surely, master, you have some idea.”
Pon Barius took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “Never have I seen such. At first I thought it might have been Horax. He is a dark wizard and foul, and he would think nothing of visiting such widespread destruction upon all living things just to slay me. But there is no way he could know where lies the red gem; too, he has not the power for such—such devastation.
“As for Atraxia, perhaps she has the power, yet she cannot know where we are—or so I believe.
“As to the Dark God . . . why would the Nameless One risk Arda’s wrath with such a vile deed?
“And as for Arda Himself . . . surely He knows what it is we do.
“Nay, none of those seem likely to have visited such a calamity upon the land.” Again Pon Barius fell silent.
“But, master,” protested Ky, “if not those, then who or what?”
Pon Barius sighed. “Oh, child, perhaps this calamity came from beyond the bounds of the planes themselves, from Outside, as it were.”
“Outside?” Rith looked wide-eyed at the mage.
Pon Barius nodded. “Haven’t you ever wondered what lies beyond? I mean, look about you and ask yourself: Is this all there is? Or is there something else? Some actuality beyond what we see? I have often pondered over whether or not reality has limits, bounds, and if so, what might lie past those bounds, something beyond the planes of existence, something I call the Outside.”
Arton snorted in disbelief. “How can that be? There is nothing beyond the planes.”
“Oh?” snapped Pon Barius. “And what makes you say that?”
“Why, sir, the planes go on forever,” replied Arton, sweeping his hand toward the sky. “And since they go on forever, how can there be a so-called Outside?”
“Ha, my friend,” retorted Pon Barius, “so you believe that it’s turtles all the way down.”
“Huh?” grunted Arton. “What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing,” snapped the mage. And he wrapped his cloak about himself and lay down and said no more.
Never had sunrise seemed so bright nor colors more intense.
“I tell you,” rumbled Kane, “this is none of my doing. My healing cannot sharpen the senses beyond what they were.”
“Then what do you attribute it to?” asked Ky. “I mean, the world seems so utterly splendid, as if everything were somehow more, more . . .”
“More real?” supplied Rith. “I mean, that’s how it seems to me, no matter whether we attribute it to Kane or—”
“Pah, I say we blame it on the gods and leave it at that,” said Arton.
Arik looked at Pon Barius. “How does it seem to you, wizard? Are colors brighter, fragrances stronger, sounds more intense, touch more sensitive, tastes more—?”
“Not that I notice,” interjected the ancient syldari.
“See?” declared Kane. “That proves it wasn’t me. I he
aled him, too, and he is not affected.”
“Perhaps it is because we survived a great catastrophe,” said Rith, gesturing at the blasted landscape, the wide forest completely destroyed, not a tree left standing as far as the eye could see. Rith took a deep breath, inhaling the morning. “In spite of this devastation, perhaps the world seems a brighter place because we are alive and glad of it.”
Ky glanced at the others and then at Rith and shook her head, unconvinced.
They broke camp and headed for the village of Arkol, some two days north. Ky and Pon Barius now rode on one of the mules together, Arton on the other one. Arik rode the steed they had purchased in Stahlholt, and Kane, Lyssa, and Rith rode their own mounts.
“I don’t see why I have to ride this tall mule while he gets to ride my horse,” muttered Pon Barius under his breath, all the while glaring at Arik.
“He weighs twice as much as you or I, master,” whispered Ky. “In fact, more. For him to ride with one of us would burden an animal unnecessarily.”
“But we could have both ridden my horse,” hissed the wizard, “and he could have ridden the mule.”
“Indeed,” replied Ky. “But it is as Arik said: if it comes to a fight with drakka or anyone else, then it is better that he be on horseback and we on a mule.”
“Bah!” grumped the elder, continuing to mutter as across the blasted land they fared, making their way ’round fallen trees and over splintered logs, the going excruciatingly slow. And many times the Foxes had to dismount and lead the steeds afoot, though Pon Barius always rode. After several times of walking the steeds over and around barriers and jams, backtracking occasionally as well, Pon Barius’s muttering ceased.
As the sun passed overhead, they found the remains of a clearing and stopped for the midday meal. Rith came and sat down next to the ancient syldari. “Tell me about the overthrow of the DemonQueen.”
Pon Barius cocked an eye at her. “Not much to tell, really.”
Shadowtrap: A Black Foxes Adventure Page 22
