Shadowtrap: A Black Foxes Adventure

by Dennis L McKiernan

  “And two more,” added Arik, his finger stabbing left and left, “there and there.”

  Toward the hillock the lights bobbed in the glowing mist, four soft halos blooming.

  And still there sounded a heavy swash of something immense stirring through swamp water, and the horses and mules skitted and shied and stamped in fright.

  “Whatever it is, I think we’d better ride,” said Arik.

  Swiftly the Foxes caught up the animals and mounted. Lyssa in the lead spurred down and away, Rith immediately after. As Arton started forward, a great billow of water rolled forth as something monstrous down in the swamp surged to the hillock’s base. Arton’s horse reared up and back and fell, the thief leaping clear at the last moment.

  “To me!” cried Arik, leaning down and hooking out an arm as he galloped toward the unhorsed man; Arton reached out and snagged it to swing up behind the warrior. But at that very instant a huge, hideous tentacle with a glowing ball of light on its tip lashed out from the fog and snared Arton by a leg, wrenching him free from Arik’s grasp.

  Down the hillock Arton was hauled, dragged on his back toward the churning water, the thief shrieking and flailing and trying desperately to reach one of the long-knives stashed in his boot.

  Hearing his cries, both Lyssa and Rith wheeled about and spurred cross-slope, while Arik leapt from his horse and ran toward Arton, the warrior drawing his silvered falchion as he scrambled down the hill.

  Nearly at water’s brink, Arton managed to free a long-knife, and he slashed its keen edge into the hideous arm. The tentacle whipped free, and in rage the monstrous creature lashed at the water. Arton scrambled to his feet and turned to flee, but another dreadful tentacle—its light pulsing red—whipped ’round his waist and raised him up into the air and smashed him to the ground, stunning him, and his blade was lost to his grasp.

  Arik scurried to the water’s edge, Rith and Lyssa now afoot right behind, but just as they arrived a second massive lighted tentacle lashed ’round Arton’s waist and together they whipped him up into the glowing mist and wrenched him in two, ripping him asunder, viscera and blood and intestines flying wide. A monstrous mouth opened in the water below, but in that very moment—

  “Yaaaahhh . . . !” Kane came flying through the air to land feet-first upon the unseen creature’s bulk, and with a reverse two-handed grip and all his might he drove his spear downward, the silver point of the lance stabbing through water and hide and cartilage to pierce deeply into the monster’s brain.

  Zzzzt . . . ! With a shower of sparks every light on the tips of the tentacles seemed to explode simultaneously, and the monstrous arms fell limp, Arton’s remains falling, his pelvis and legs splashing down in water, his gutted torso landing at Lyssa’s feet, his dead eyes wide in terror.

  32

  Fatality

  (Coburn Facility)

  “What th—?” Timothy Rendell jerked back as ICs popped and sizzled, sparks flying. “Damn!” Quickly he pulled the smoking interface board from the socket. Turning to Drew Meyer, he held out the smoldering plug-in. “Drew, what could cause—?”

  “I don’t know,” said Meyer. “Perhaps a power surge.”

  “On battery backup?” asked Sheila Baxter, disbelief in her eyes.

  “What kind of emergency?” demanded Stein, irritated.

  “Arthur Coburn’s vital signs have gone flat—no pulse, no brainwaves, no respiration,” replied Alya, the tension in her voice crackling through the comband.

  “What?” exclaimed Mark Perry. “Arthur? Something’s wrong with Arthur?”

  But Stein was already on his feet and moving swiftly toward the door, the doctor calling out, “Grace, Alvin, stat! Emergency on six!”

  The two medtechs abandoned their consoles and rushed after him.

  Mark Perry glanced at John Greyson, then ran after Stein as well, the lawyer followed by Toni Adkins.

  Greyson also turned to go, but cast one last glimpse at the holoscreen and, frowning, stepped to it and peered intently. “Henry!” he called, looking toward the door while pointing at the display, but Stein was already gone.

  Greyson sat down at the console and waited.

  Billy Clay accepted the board from Drew Meyer and turned it over and back again, examining it closely in the light of his helmet lamp. Finally he looked up. “It could have been a defective chip.”

  “But we checked each of them,” protested Sheila. “Besides, it’s highly unlikely that a single defective chip would blow all the others.”

  “You are right, Sheila,” said Drew. “I still think it’s most likely that a surge destroyed the board, even though we are on battery reserve.”

  “What could cause a surge like that?” asked Billy. “I mean, Avery’s regulators feed all the power to these jacks.”

  Timothy’s eyes widened in surprise then narrowed in suspicion, and he turned and looked at shadow-wrapped Avery looming in the nitrogen cold.

  “Heart needle!” barked Stein as he unzipped the front of Coburn’s suit, the man still strapped in his rig. “Three CCs of rinthium. And someone get the defibrillator. Alvin, pull his helmet off and start an ambu going.”

  Quickly, Alvin Johnston removed the VR helmet. “Holy—!” Coburn’s eyes were wide open and filled with terror. They were filled with blood as well. A small trickle of scarlet leaked from his nose, and his lips seeped crimson, too. Medtech Grace Willoby shined a light into first one staring pupil and then the other. “They’re unreactive, Doctor Stein.”

  Alvin Johnston clapped a mask over Coburn’s nose and mouth and began counting seconds and pumping air into Coburn’s lungs. “Where’s that heart needle?” snapped Stein.

  A medtech finished assembling the hypo, and he swiftly punched the needle into an ampoule and drew down the rinthium, then placed the syringe in Stein’s waiting hand. Stein held it up to the light and squeezed off the air bubble, then, fingers finding the space between the fourth and fifth ribs, he stabbed the long needle directly into Coburn’s heart and pressed the plunger home. Jerking the needle out, he called, “Where’s the goddamn defib?” and he placed the heel of a hand at the base of Coburn’s sternum, his other hand on top, and began CPR compression.

  And as Arthur Coburn lay there, his frightened bloody eyes staring at infinity, Stein pumped hard on his chest while Alvin counted aloud and squeezed the ambu bag every six compressions.

  The glass doors banged open and a medtech raced into the control center, pushing a defibrillator on a cart ahead of him.

  “Charge to two hundred,” barked Stein, grabbing up the defib paddles and holding them out while Grace squeezed contact cream on one. Stein wiped the paddles together in a circular motion to spread the cream over the surfaces, then slapped them down onto Coburn’s chest. “Clear!” called Stein, and when all stepped away, he triggered the shock.

  “No pulse!” barked Grace, peering at the rig’s readout.

  “Two hundred fifty,” Stein ordered, then “Clear!” Once more he triggered the paddles, Coburn’s body arching up and flopping back as the charge jolted through.

  “No pulse!”

  “Come on, you son of a bitch,” growled Stein. “Three hundred! . . . Clear!”

  Again came the jolt; again, no pulse.

  “Three sixty! . . . Clear!”

  Five more times he tried it, Coburn’s body flopping disjointedly like a string-entangled puppet.

  Stein frowned in puzzlement and triggered the defibrillator once more, this time watching the body arch and fall. He set the paddles aside, then ran his hands beneath Coburn’s suit and along the spine. His eyes widened. He probed a bit more then stepped back. “You can stop now, Alvin. He’s dead.”

  Alvin looked questioningly at Doctor Stein, then down at the doctor’s hands. They were covered with blood.

  Stunned, Mark Perry looked on, whispering, “Oh shit . . . Oh shit . . . Oh shit . . .”

  “Disconnect him from the rig, and get him out of the suit,” said Stein.
<
br />   As medtechs responded, Toni’s comband beeped. “Adkins here,” she said, her voice shaking.

  “It’s me, Toni,” came Greyson’s voice. “Something you ought to know. Henry, too, if he’s free.”

  “Just a minute, John.” Toni stepped to Stein. “Henry, John is on channel four. He says there’s something we ought to know.”

  Stein keyed his comband. “What is it, John?” The habitual sneer was gone from his voice.

  “I’m down here at the console. Arthur Coburn’s mental pattern is gone. It was gone even as you left here.”

  Stein glanced over at the medtechs extracting the body from the rig. “He’s dead, John.”

  “Dead? What killed him?”

  “I don’t know . . . yet.”

  “Jesus!” exclaimed one of the medtechs, lifting Coburn’s body out of the witch’s cradle. “It feels like his back is broken, and look, there’s blood ’round his waist.” They placed the corpse on the floor.

  Stein keyed off his comband and moved to Coburn’s side and squatted. After a moment’s examination he looked up. “Get the others out of the rigs.”

  “But, Doctor,” protested Grace Willoby, “what about their minds? Their mental patterns are trapped in Avery.”

  “Goddamn it, Grace,” snarled Stein, “Coburn’s dead of an AI malfunction. Now get the others out, stat!”

  The medtechs moved to the next rig to begin extracting Alice Maxon from her witches cradle.

  33

  Disappearance

  (Itheria)

  Lyssa looked down in horror at Arton’s mangled torso, his dead eyes staring up at her in terror. Turning, she stumbled away in the lucent fog to lean against the trunk of a moss-laden black cypress, vomit rising in her throat and spewing outward.

  Kane wrenched his spear free from the monster’s corpse and leaped down from its flaccid body to wade ashore.

  Rith knelt weeping next to Arton’s remains and gently closed his eyes, and Arik stood and stared out into the luminous night, his features stony, the set of his jaw grim.

  Now Kane saw dead Arton. And the big man spun and faced northwest, his visage twisted with rage. “Horax! You bastard! You’ll pay for this, you son of a bitch!” he shouted into the night, but the glowing mist did not answer and neither did Horax.

  And late night descended upon them all, silent but for Lyssa retching somewhere nearby in the grasp of the moonlit fog.

  But of a sudden in midretch—abrupt silence.

  Arik snapped his head ’round. “Lyssa?”

  No answer.

  The warrior brought his sword to guard and ran to the place where he judged she had stood, Kane on his heels, Rith coming after.

  All they found was a malformed black cypress that twisted up out of the clutching mire.

  Of Lyssa there was no sign.

  “Lyssa!” cried Arik. “Lyssa!” shouted Kane. “Lyssa!” called Rith.

  But only fog-wrapped silence answered.

  34

  Crisis

  (Coburn Facility)

  As the medtechs began unplugging Alice Maxon from Avery, Grace Willoby monitored the display on the gimbaled rig. “It looks to me as if she’s in a deep coma,” Grace murmured to Medtech Alvin Johnston, “vegetative state and all. And with her mind trapped in Avery, who knows if she’ll ever come out of it.”

  Alvin grunted in response but otherwise made no reply as he unjacked the primary bundle of fiberoptics.

  At that instant, Alice Maxon’s body began convulsing.

  “Doctor!” called Grace. “She’s going into shock. Her heart’s fibrillating. Her respiration has failed. She’s having some kind of seizure. Jeeze! Her whole autonomous system has crashed!”

  As Stein sprang to Alice’s side, Toni Adkin’s comband beeped.

  “What is it?” snapped Toni.

  “Greyson here,” came the response. “Alice Maxon’s mental pattern has disappeared.”

  “We unplugged her,” replied Toni.

  “What?” Greyson exclaimed. “But her identity, her spirit, her immortal soul was in the machine!”

  “What are you saying, John?”

  “You’ve cut the silver cord. You’ve disconnected her body from her very essence. Plug her back in before it’s too late!” cried Greyson.

  “Clear!” barked Stein, the defibrillator paddles in hand.

  “Wait!” shouted Toni, but her call came too late as Stein triggered the jolt.

  “No pulse!” cried Grace.

  “Goddamn it! I said wait!” shouted Toni.

  Stein turned toward her, anger in his eyes. “Keep out of this!” he snapped. “Otherwise she’ll die.”

  “Listen to me, Henry. Plug her back into Avery. I think that connection was the only thing keeping her alive.”

  Without waiting for Doctor Stein’s orders, Alvin picked up the primary fiberoptic bundle and jacked it home.

  Anxiously, Toni looked at Grace Willoby as the medtech punched compad buttons on the cradle monitor.

  “I’ve got a heartbeat,” crowed Grace, “faint but growing! Respiration, too. And her brainstem’s working . . . but nothing above.”

  Toni keyed her comband. “John? Have you got a mental pattern?”

  There was no reply.

  “John?”

  35

  Shade

  (Itheria)

  Lyssa! Lyssa! Voices calling, Arik, Rith, and Kane probed through the glowing mist, weapons drawn, lanterns lit—Lyssa!—yet there came no answer. Still they persisted, wading through water and muck and among the twisted trees. And as they searched, Orbis set and dawn came to the Drasp.

  The trio extinguished their lanterns but continued calling and searching, yet no trace of the missing ranger did they find, for they were hunting in a swamp where tracks disappeared even as they were being made and where every other sign of passage was all but undetectable in the clutter and debris of the mire. At last, realizing that further search was futile, they wearily turned back toward the hillock.

  “I’ll see to the horses,” said Arik, his face bleak.

  “I’ll help you,” said Rith.

  “Me, I’m going to prepare Arton’s remains for burial,” muttered Kane.

  They slogged through an ankle-deep slurry of water and mud and finally came to the broad mound. By this time the sun had burned away much of the fog, and they could see several horses and two mules huddled together upon the crest. Rith said, “Looks as if they’ve herded up, but I only see, um . . . eight altogether. Two animals are missing.”

  Arik gestured. “I’ll sweep ’round low to the right; Rith, go on up to the animals, soothe them, tether them; Kane—”

  “I’m heading left where Arton fell,” said the big man. “If I find any steeds, I’ll round them up as I go.”

  When Arik had circled three-quarters of the way around the base of the hillock, he found Kane kneeling on the ground and staring out into the mire. Neither man had found either a horse or a mule.

  As Arik drew near, Kane stood. “Arton’s gone, his body’s missing,” growled the big man. “Damned swamp monsters.”

  Arik glanced out at the quag, with its tendrils of mist vanishing. And then he realized—there was no sign of the slain creature, either.

  Together, Arik and Kane turned and trudged to the top of the hill.

  As the trio sat and ate jerky and swigged water, Rith said, “Somehow Horax has taken Lyssa—spirited her away.”

  Kane slammed a fist into palm. “That bastard will answer for this, too.”

  Arik looked up at Rith and slowly shook his head. At last he said, “I hope you are right, Rith—that it was indeed Horax who took her and not some thing of the Drasp instead.”

  “Seven hells, Arik,” growled Kane, “it had to be Horax. If some swamp monster had tried to seize her, she would have fought it. We would have heard. No, Arik, it was arcane magic that spirited her away and not some lurking creature.”

  “I agree with Kane,” said Rith.


  Glumly, Arik nodded.

  “Regardless,” gritted Kane, “we’ve got to go on to Horax’s hold, wherever that might be.”

  “Swamp center,” said Rith. “But just how we get there now that our guide is gone, well . . .”

  Arik glanced at the early morning sun. “Northwesterly. That’s the course she set and the one we will follow.”

  “It won’t be easy finding paths through this mire without her aid,” said Kane. “We’ll just have to slog through.”

  “But first we rest,” said Rith, yawning. “We’ve had no sleep for a day and a night.”

  Arik looked at the bard, and muscles in his jaw clenched, but he said, “You are right. It would not do to push on, weary as we are.” He glanced at the sky. “Midafternoon we’ll press forward. Till then we take equal watches. I’ll go first; you two sleep.”

  While Kane and Rith slept, Arik fed a ration of grain to the horses and mules. And three at a time he unladed them and curried out the knots and tangles made by saddles and frames. Of the animals, two were missing—one horse and one mule—fled from the monster during the attack.

  Kane stood the next watch, and he led the animals down to the edge of the water and found a place free of scum where they each took long drinks.

  Rith, last, made a small smokeless fire and cooked a pot of beans, and when midafternoon came ’round they all had a spare but warm meal.

  And then they made ready and set forth.

  Sweat runneled down the trio’s faces, stinging eyes, dripping from noses, leaking down necks and under leathers, joining the seep ebbing beneath the sodden underpadding galling their bodies. A buzzing cloud of gnats and mosquitoes and biting flies and other blood-mad insects swirled about their faces and swarmed upon any exposed flesh, crawling into eyes and mouths and ears, biting, puncturing, stinging, sucking. Muttering and cursing, swiping and swatting and slapping, Kane and Arik and Rith sloshed onward through the mire, alternately walking and riding. All about, grey moss dangled from gnarled trees twisting up out of the muck, the long tendrils reaching down, clutching, as if to strangle any who fell victim to their grasp. A vaporous steam rose up from the morass, and foul-smelling gases bubbled forth from the slimy quag sucking at their boots. Leeches clung to them and their horses and mules, bloating themselves with dark blood, their swollen bodies dropping off as they became sated. To each side and behind they could hear wallowings and splashings, as if creatures unknown followed their track. But they came upon firmer land often enough to leave these unseen things behind as deeper and deeper into these foul environs pressed the three of them. And Arik flinched and started at every swirl in the murky waters, unable to entirely displace his fear of such, though the farther he went the less apprehensive he seemed.