And best yet, he doesn't even have to seek Glaeken out. The idiot is coming to him. How convenient.
It shall end as it began—in a cavern.
Glaeken stood in the dark on the rim of the hole and looked down into deeper darkness.
Somewhere down there, Rasalom waited. Glaeken could feel him, sense him, smell his stink. He would not be hard to find.
But he had to hurry. A rude, insistent urgency crowded against his back, nudging him forward. In spite of it, he turned and stared back at the cone of brilliance that pinned his apartment house like a prop on a stage, at the worm of light that had trailed him from the cone. Because of it, the night things had avoided him on his trek to this spot. He almost wished they hadn't. He wished something had challenged him, blocked his path. He hungered to hurt something—to slash, cut, maim, crush under his heel, destroy.
I was free! he thought. Free!
And now he was caught again, trapped once more in the service of—what? The power he'd served had no name, had never presented a physical manifestation of itself. It was just there—and it wanted him here.
The rage seething and boiling within him was beyond anything he had ever experienced in all his many years. It was a living thing, like a berserk warrior, wild, deranged, psychotic, slavering for an object—anyone, anything on which to vent the steam of its pent-up fury. His whole body trembled as the beast within howled to be let loose.
Save it, he told himself. Save it for Rasalom.
He was sure he'd need it then. All of it.
He turned back to the pit and swung the weapon. Damn the power, but it felt good to feel good, to have his muscles and joints feel so strong and lithe, to be able to fling his arms freely in all directions, to twist and bend without stiffness and stabs of pain.
And the weapon—he hated to admit how right it felt in his grasp, but a deeper part of him remembered and responded to the heavy feel of the hilt clutched tight against his palms and fingers. The warrior in him smelled blood.
No more time to waste.
He slipped the weapon through the back of his belt, lowered himself over the edge, and began his descent.
WNEW-FM
JO: All right, man. We've had confirmation. A few other good people have CB'd in to tell us that yes, there is some heavy light coming out of the sky on Central Park West up near the Sheep Meadow.
FREDDY: Yeah, and if you remember, that's near where the first of those nasty holes opened up. We don't know if there's a connection so you might want to be careful, but a lot of the folks who've contacted us say they're going to try to get over to it to check it out.
JO: We'll keep you informed. As long as we've got juice for the generator, we'll be here. So keep us on.
Carol pointed into the dark blob that was Central Park. The thread of light that wove through the blackness there had not lengthened in the past few minutes.
"Glaeken must have stopped moving," she said. "Do you think something's wrong?"
"I don't think we'll see it move any further," Bill said. "It looks like it's gone as far as the hole. He's probably out of sight now, moving down."
"I hope the light's still following him."
Carol glanced down at the sidewalks below in time to see a battered car skid to a halt against the curb. It was covered—smothered—with night things, but they slipped away when the car lurched to a stop on the edge of the light. The door flew open and half a dozen people—a man, two women, and three kids—tumbled out. They began to run for the door of the building but slowed to a stop as they realized they were no longer being pursued. They looked up at the light, spread their arms, laughed, and began to embrace each other.
Another car suddenly flew out of the darkness and bounded over the curb before it came to a stop. Another group of people jumped out. They were greeted with cheers by the first and they all embraced.
"I don't know if I like this," Jack said.
"They're coming to the light," Carol said.
"Yeah," Jack said, shaking his head. "And that could be trouble. Maybe I ought to get downstairs. You coming, Ba?"
The big Oriental stood behind Sylvia and Jeffy. He shook his head.
"Okay," Jack said. "I understand. But we might need you later." He waved and trotted for the stairs.
"I don't think there's anything to worry about, do you?" Carol said to Bill. "I mean, I think we should share the light."
"I do too," Bill said. "Jack's just being Jack. He doesn't like surprises."
Carol looked down again. More people had reached the light, some apparently on foot from neighboring buildings. She noticed something.
"Bill?" she said. "Remember when we first looked down? Wasn't the light just to the edge of the sidewalk?"
Bill shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't notice."
Carol stared down at the rim of shadow the encircled the building. It was now a couple of feet beyond the curb on the asphalt of the street.
Glaeken found the mouth of the lateral passage a hundred or so feet down the western wall. A dozen feet across, it was the only break in the wall of the hole. Glaeken swung inward and landed on his feet. He pulled the weapon free of the back of his belt and started walking. He needed no signpost to tell him that Rasalom lay ahead. He knew.
The light followed, filling the tunnel behind him, stretching his shadow far ahead, sending dark things scuttling and slithering and fluttering out of the way.
He pushed on, not running, but moving swiftly with quick, long strides. The sense of urgency was still at his back, propelling him forward. He swung the blade back and forth, splashing the air ahead of him with bright arcs of light, then waded through them.
But as he progressed deeper and further along the tunnel, he noticed a dimming of the light. He turned and looked back along his path. The light seemed as thick and bright as before back there, but down here it was attenuated, diluted, tainted…
It could only mean he was nearing his goal, the heart of the darkness.
Not much further on, the light loosened its embrace and pulled free of him; it hung back, deserting him, abandoning him to penetrate the beckoning blackness of the tunnel ahead alone.
Glaeken kept moving, slower now, stepping more carefully. Only the blade was glowing now, and that faintly, struggling against the thickening blackness that devoured its light. Soon its light failed too. Glaeken stood in a featureless black limbo, cold, silent, expectant. The darkness was complete. Victorious.
And then, as he knew it would, came the voice, the hated voice, speaking into his mind.
"Welcome, Glaeken. Welcome to a place where your light cannot go. My place. A place of no light. Remind you of anyplace from the past?"
Glaeken refused to reply.
"Keep walking, Glaeken. I won't stop you. There's light of sorts ahead. A different light, a kind I choose to allow here. No tricks, I promise. I want you here. I've been waiting for you. The Change is almost complete. I want you to marvel at my new form. I want you to be the first to see me. I want to be the very last thing you see."
Glaeken felt his palms dampen. He was in Rasalom's country now, where he made all the rules. Tightening his grip on the hilt, he stepped forward into the black.
WNEW-FM:
JO: Okay. We've had somebody CB us from right inside the beam of light over on Central Park West and they say it's the real thing. Bright, warm, and the bugs won't go near it. Nobody knows how long it'll last, but it's there now and these folks think it might be there to stay.
FREDDY: So look, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna make this loop and set it going, then we're outta here. We're heading there ourselves. We'll have a message on the tape, then we'll follow it with a Travelin' Wilburys song, and the whole deal will play over and over.
JO: And here's the message: Get to the light. Get over to Central Park West any way you can and get into the light. Get moving and good luck. And while you're gettin' there, here's some appropriate traveling music. See you there, man.
; Cue: "Heading for the Light"
Dim light ahead, oozing around the next bend in the passage.
Unhealthy light. A sickly, wan, greasy glow, purulent green, clinging to the tunnel walls like grime, casting no shadows. There was no hope to be found in that light, no succor from the night, merely a confirmation of the dark's superiority.
As Glaeken moved toward the feeble glow, the air grew colder; a bitter, acrid odor stung his nostrils. He rounded the bend and stopped.
In the center of a huge granite cavern, a hundred feet across, Rasalom's new form hung suspended over a softly glowing abyss. Four gleaming ebon pillars reached from the corners of the chamber, arching across the chasm of the abyss to fuse over its center. A huge sack, bulging, pendulous, nearly the size of a small warehouse, hung suspended from that central fusion. Glaeken could make out no details of the shape that floated within the inky amnion of the sack. He didn't need to see Rasalom to know that it was he, undergoing the final stage of his transformation.
"Welcome to my uterus, Glaeken."
Glaeken did not reply. Instead, he leapt upon the nearest support where it sprang from the wall and strode along its upper surface toward the center where Rasalom hung in his amniotic sack.
"Glaeken, wait! Stop!" Rasalom's voice took on a panicky edge in his head. "What are you doing?"
Glaeken kept moving toward the center, the weapon raised before him.
"There's no need for this, Glaeken! I'm so close! You'll ruin everything!"
Glaeken had progressed to within a dozen feet of the sack when the surface of the support suddenly softened and erupted in hundreds of fine tendrils that wrapped around his ankles, snaring them, encasing them in a squirming mass, then recrystallized to rock-like hardness. He pulled and strained at them but his feet were locked down to the support. He chopped at them with the blade but he remained trapped like a fly on a pest strip.
He stared down at the sack hanging within spitting distance below him. A huge eye rolled against the inner surface of the membrane and stopped to stare back at him.
"That is quite far enough," Rasalom said.
"Perhaps you're right," Glaeken said.
He shifted his grip on the hilt and raised the weapon over his shoulder like a spear, its point directed at the eye. Rasalom's voice screamed in his brain.
"No! Glaeken, wait! I can help you!"
"No deals, Rasalom."
He reared back to hurl the weapon.
"I can make her whole again!'
Glaeken hesitated. He couldn't help it.
"Whole again? Who?"
"Your woman. That Hungarian Jewess who stole your heart. I can give her back her mind—and make her young again."
"No. You can't. Not even the Dat-tay-vao—"
"I'm far more powerful than that puny elemental. This is my world now, Glaeken. When I complete the change I can do whatever I wish. I will be making the rules here, Glaeken. All the rules. And if I say the woman called Magda shall be thirty again and sound of mind and body forever—forever—then so it shall be"
Magda…alert, young, healthy, sane …the vision of the two of them together as they used to be…
He shook it off.
"No. Not in this world."
"It doesn't have to be this world. You can have your own corner of the globe, your own island, your own archipelago. All to yourselves. You can even take some of your friends. The sun will shine there forever. You can live on in idyllic splendor."
"While the rest of the world…?"
"Is mine. All you have to do is acknowledge me as master of this sphere and drop your weapon into the abyss. After that I shall see to all your comforts."
For a heartbeat he actually considered it. The realization rocked Glaeken. Did he want Magda back that much? And Magda—she'd never forgive him. He'd have to live on with her abhorrence, her loathing of him.
He tightened his grip on the weapon.
"No deals."
Putting all his arm and as much of his foot-locked body as he could behind it, Glaeken hurled the weapon at the sack. The huge eye ducked away as Rasalom's voice screamed in his mind.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The point of the blade pierced the membrane of the sack, penetrated about a foot, then stopped, quivering. Rasalom's voice became a howl of pain as inky fluid spurted out around the blade, coating it, congealing around it, sealing the wound and encasing the weapon until the entire blade and all but the pommel of the hilt were mired in a hardening tarry mass.
And then Rasalom's howl of pain segued into a peal of laughter. The single huge eye once again pressed against the inner surface of the membrane and regarded him coldly.
"Ah, Glaeken. Noble to the end. Just as well, I suppose. You probably knew you'd never see the tropical idyll I promised you. But did you truly think you could hurt me? Here in the heart of my domain, in the seat of my power? Your arrogance is insufferable at times. It is too late to harm me, Glaeken. It has been too late for a long time."
Glaeken tried once more to pull his feet free but they would not budge. He took a deep breath and stood quietly, waiting, listening to the hated voice in his mind.
"You knew it was too late, Glaeken. You must have known all along. Yet knowing it was useless, still you took up the weapon and came to me instead of waiting for me to come to you. I don't understand that. Can you explain your madness, your arrogance? We have some time. Speak."
"If the answer is not apparent to you," Glaeken said, "no amount of talking will make you understand. Where do we go from here?"
"We wait. I'm almost ready. At the undawn I will be complete. When I emerge from my chrysalis I shall leave you here and move to the surface where I shall deal with your little circle of allies. And as I gut them I shall let you see it all through my eyes. And as for your wife, I shall keep my promise to you: I will restore her youth and her mind before she dies—after all, we wouldn't want her to die without knowing exactly what is happening. And when all that is done, I'll return for you. And then the fun shall truly begin."
Glaeken said nothing. There was no use in asking for mercy for himself or the others—there was no mercy to be had. So he closed his eyes and willed his insides to stone to inure them from the sick fear coiling through him.
"And while we wait, I believe I'll close that tiny wound in my perfect night. Too many people are taking undue pleasure in it. Imagine their fear when it starts to fade and they realize that they are naked prey to all the night things encircling them. Yes, I like that idea. I should have thought of the pinhole myself. Allow a little cone of light through here and there about the world, let the locals run to it like moths to a flame, let it shine long enough to lift hopes, and then douse it. Thank you, Glaeken. You've given me a new game."
"Look at them all," Bill said. "Must be thousands down there."
Carol had returned with the others to the living room of Glaeken's apartment and now she gazed down through the broken windows at the crowd below, listening to the noise floating up as each new arrival was greeted with cheers and hugs. It was a good sound, the noise of people taking a break from unrelenting fear. Some of the more daring revelers were following the channel of light that wound into the Park—but not very many and not very far.
"It's the radio," Jack said. "The only station in town still on is playing a message sending everybody here."
Suddenly it was quiet below.
"What happened?" Bill said.
Carol's heart thudded with alarm and she clutched his arm.
"I think the light just dimmed. Tell me I'm wrong, Bill. Tell me I'm wrong!
Bill glanced at her, then back out the windows.
"No…I'm afraid you're right. Look—it just dimmed a little more!"
"It's Glaeken's fault," said a familiar voice.
They all turned. Nick was still sitting on the couch where they'd left him, still facing the dead fireplace.
"Glaeken has lost. Rasalom is ascendant."
"Glaeken is…de
ad?" It was Sylvia, stepping forward, hovering over Nick.
Carol was surprised at her concern. She'd thought Sylvia blamed Glaeken for Jeffy's condition.
"Not yet," Nick said. "But soon. We'll die. Then he'll die. Slowly."
Carol heard a new sound well up from the crowd outside—murmurs of fear, wails of panic. She turned back to the window and had the sudden impression that their cries of despair seemed to chase the light. She watched with growing dread as it faded from midday glare to twilight glow.
They're afraid again.
"Afraid!" she cried. "Maybe that's it." Suddenly she knew what had to be done—or thought she knew. "Bill, Jack, everybody—downstairs. Now!"
She didn't wait to explain and she didn't wait for the elevator. Filled with a growing excitement and a desperate urgency, she galloped down the dizzying flights to the ground floor, dashed through the lobby, and out into the crowd on the twilit sidewalk.
Bill was right behind her, then Jack. Ba brought up the rear, carry Jeffy and guiding Sylvia through the restless, panicky people. Carol led them to the edge of the fading light, right to the shadow border facing the Park, then grabbed Bill's hand in her right and took a stranger's—a frightened looking black woman's—in her left.
"I won't be afraid anymore!" Carol shouted at the huge outer darkness that tried to stare her down. She squeezed the woman's hand. "Say it," she told her. "I won't be afraid anymore! Grab somebody's hand and say it as loud as you can." She turned to Bill. "Shout it, Bill. Mean it. Take a hand and get them to say it!"
Bill stared at her. "What's this—?"
"Just do it. Please! There's not much time."
Bill shrugged and grabbed someone's hand and began repeating the phrase. She noticed that the black woman to her left had taken a young man's hand and was repeating the phrase to him. Carol turned and saw a very grim Jack standing behind her, his arms folded across his chest. Sylvia was beside him, equally stone faced.
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