On his right side, where his arm had been, something waved up. A vine-like tube of wiry green flesh and sinew, split at the end into coiling tentacles, grew out of his shoulder.
The roots from his feet touched the floor and made their way between the ancient stones into the rich black earth below.
“Godamighty, I wonder if I can do that,” Bruno muttered, staring up at the magnificent moss-encrusted giant that was becoming whole again.
The network of roots that wrapped Alec’s body began to move, travel, grow. New shoots reached down from his shoulder for the forming arm and entwined it.
Alec held the new hand in front of his face; already the fingers had shape, and he had control over them. He lifted his new flesh into the sunlight. He raised his arms and flexed revitalized muscles of iron throughout his body.
The chains at his wrist and waist and legs screamed at the strain and gave way.
Pieces of chain and padlocks clanged and gonged against the rock wall and the leaning timbers. The sound echoed loudly up the rock staircase and into the corridors of the house, and the laboratory above.
Alec slipped from the hanging X of timbers and severed the root tendrils that had temporarily linked him to the earth. “Let’s go!” he rumbled. He led them to the circular stone staircase that rose to the corridors and the mansion.
Halfway up, Cable stopped him and said, “Listen!”
It came again: an awesome roaring shriek that rolled like a hurricane down to the cellars.
Alec said, petrified, “He’s taken the formula!”
They reached the top of the stairs and faced a grate of heavy iron bars. Alec tugged at them, to no avail. He braced himself and attempted to pull the entire grate out from its slot in solid rock. The rock chipped and splintered; but the grate would not move easily or quickly.
The beast that was Arcane howled again, from much closer, and now they could hear his lumbering footsteps.
Alec tugged harder at the grate. Smoke began to filter down the corridor toward them.
One of the two men in the cell down the rock corridor yelled, “Holy shit! The place is on fire! Hey, somebody, let us out!”
“We’ll be burned alive!” yelled the other.
The far end of the corridor was lighted by a fixture over the stairs leading down to it. Alec and Cable and Bruno saw that light dim, saw an enormous shadow falling in its place.
Then they saw him. He stepped into view with smoke snaking around him; he scarcely fit into the shape of the tunnel.
He had to dip to keep from bumping his boar-like head, and he lumbered from side to side smashing into the animal cages, freeing the wretched creatures by accident. The deformities danced around his gigantic canine legs. Sparks flashed where his blade struck rock and metal.
Alec had still not managed to loosen the grate; and now he was not so sure that that would be desirable.
One of the imprisoned men screamed with terror as the apparition crashed into his cage; but the collision wedged open the bars enough to release the men.
Bruno banged on Alec’s arm. “Stop! Stop! I know a way!”
The little rodent man led them back down the stone stairs. “If you can’t get out that way,” he said to Alec, “he can’t get in that way.”
Alec said soberly, “He’s a lot bigger than I am, and a lot madder.”
As if he heard—and perhaps he did—the Arcane monstrosity shrieked his cry that was neither animal nor human, but the most alarming aspects of both.
Back in their dungeon, Cable stumbled as they hurried to the far end of it. “Ignore me!” she insisted. “I’m barefoot, and I just stepped on a sharp rock; that’s all.”
Bruno pointed to a torch bracket high on the wall. “If you can reach that,” he said to Alec, “turn it.”
When Alec pulled on the bracket, there was a rumbling sound of counterweights falling, and a metal door that was set under the foundation timbers cranked open.
Alec and Cable looked at Bruno in amazement.
The little creature said, “They put it there in case a guard ever got shut in by mistake, I guess.”
Before the three could exit by the newfound door they heard the grate at the top of the stairs: it bent with a screech and the rock around it shattered loose and rattled down the stairs.
In a windowless passageway, Cable looked back briefly toward the metal door.
“I don’t know how to close it,” Bruno said.
Alec gave it one try—it bent but didn’t budge—and they left it open.
The tunnel led down. There was a hint of light from ahead; they hurried toward it. Bruno rode on Alec’s enormous shoulder like a mouse-navigator, pointing out the path at intersections with other dark tunnels.
The deafening howl of Arcane echoed around them; he had entered the tunnels through the metal door and was not far behind them.
They broke into a circular room with a vent at the top through which a little light seeped. In the center of the rock floor was a black pool of water approximately eight feet in diameter.
Another roar came from even closer. Arcane had not made the mistake of wasting time searching side corridors. He was right behind them.
The room was a dead end. There were no doors, no windows, only a small opening out of reach twenty feet above.
“He’s trapped us!” Cable said. “The little bastard can’t resist helping his old master, even after—”
“No!” said Bruno. “This is your only way out. But . . . but you have to trust me.”
“What do you have in mind?” Alec asked.
Bruno said, “This is the well of the estate. It’s fed by springs. If you swim out, you’ll come up in the swamp. Can you hold your breath?”
Terrified, Cable nodded. “If I can swim fast enough.”
“Then go!” said Bruno. “Maybe I can slow him down.”
Cable jumped into the icy water with the great green monster of the swamp.
There was another bellow from Arcane.
Bruno—too small to be noticed by the hellish Arcane—ran back along the corridor and threw himself at the beast’s spindly feet.
Arcane went sprawling.
Bruno disappeared into the shadowy tunnels with a giggle of triumph.
The swamp thing was a powerful and fast swimmer; he held Cable against him and fought his way up the current of the spring.
There was no light at first, only a direction of flow; finally a glow appeared ahead. At last the light spread around them and they kicked, their lungs about to burst, to the surface.
It was like the pool where Cable had bathed and been caught; only this one was smaller and deeper. Early morning mist obscured the wide roots of cypresses.
They pulled themselves onto the shore and collapsed.
Arcane boiled up from the pool with the force of an underwater explosion.
Now he had reached his full identity: he was truly monstrous. Eight or nine feet in height, he leapt onto the land and shook water off in a huge spray, like a wolf-god. His sword flashed in the bright sunlight, and he emitted his fearsome cry.
Alec backed to his feet and tried to shield Cable behind him.
The towering beast was upon them in a single jump. His ancient sword, gripped as in a vise by his talon-like fingers, sailed elegantly through the air.
“What’s there to gain from this?” Alec’s voice rumbled from the chest of the swamp thing. “You have what you wanted, Arcane.”
But the gruesome tower of scales and hair and talons and fangs merely snarled brainlessly, voicelessly, and circled, looking for a swift kill.
“Now comes the fun part, Arcane,” Alec said, always keeping himself between the monster and Cable, “learning to talk. You don’t have time for this silly vengeance.”
The gleaming medieval sword, an evil Excalibur, fell with incredible speed. Alec lunged to one side, hoping the sword would strike the boulder beneath him: surely no blade could endure such a destructive blow.
But with
ever-sharpening reflexes, Arcane stopped the metal millimeters before it met the stone and swerved the blade to follow the dodging giant.
The blade cut through Alec’s calf. He shouted and stumbled, but rose swiftly to his feet, wielding a boulder which he hefted into Arcane’s scaly gut. The monster stumbled back with a roar of outrage and stumbled into the water.
“Quick!” Alec said to Cable, “get out of here. Run!”
“No,” she protested, “I won’t leave—”
“I can’t concentrate,” Alec said, “with you here, and he knows it. He knows my mind is in two places at once; I don’t know whether to protect you or attack him. Now go!”
Reluctantly, she backed toward the high trees at the rim of the pool. She was horrified by the thought of being unable to help—though she knew intellectually that such an advent was impossible—and by the thought that she would not know what was happening.
Arcane raged out of the water—his coverings and appendages seemed to lift half the pool out with him—and went straight toward Cable.
Alec threw himself into the air and slammed into the monster’s side. He bounced back. Arcane was bigger and heavier and had braced himself for the blow.
A sound like a million snakes came from Arcane’s body. It was laughter. He raised the sword to chop at Cable and then altered his direction and lunged for Alec’s neck. His obscene laughter grew mightier. Alec ducked.
Too late, Alec realized that Arcane had maneuvered both of them so that they were trapped with their backs to the deep pool. Arcane’s sword flashed again.
Arcane was more powerful, but Alec was far more agile. Alec danced away from the blade. Arcane growled, a high-pitched cat-like snarl. He laughed again; evidently his animal impersonations amused him.
Suddenly Alec lost his footing on a mossy rock. He was slightly off-balance, and the blade was coming, stabbing forward.
“Alec, look out!” Cable shouted, trying to shove him out of harm’s way. Arcane’s sword struck Cable in the chest and penetrated deep. She crumpled and collapsed on the mossy rocks.
29
Arcane, too, seemed startled by the mortal wound he had inflicted. Momentarily, the two great unnatural beasts were still.
The rumble that rose was not distant thunder; it came from the swamp thing. Bottomless anger had been released. As he stood to full height—his arms raised toward the sun, his fists closing—the intellect of Alec Holland stepped aside for an awesome animal rage.
Arcane took a step backward—a grave tactical error that showed he could still experience fear. He seemed to forget for the moment that he held a sword, that he was not the elegantly dressed Arcane plotting strategy but was, rather, the artillery itself.
Alec leapt from a boulder that gave him height almost equal to Arcane’s and clutched the thing’s broad, hairy neck. The two creatures toppled to the ground. The sword fell from Arcane’s talons and splashed into a stagnant stretch of mud.
Arcane tossed Alec away with a thrust of his powerful legs and scrambled to retrieve the sword.
Stinging particles of dirt shot from the sword’s edge as Arcane swiped it again and again through the air.
Alec backed away from the pool into thicker underbrush where the sword would be more difficult to use. A wildcat snarled and bit into Alec’s leg: Alec had stepped into a nest with cubs. Instinctively, Alec ran at an angle to lead the rampaging monster away from the nest.
An explosion drummed the air; smoke was mixing with the mist of morning. Arcane seemed to hesitate a moment as he registered the meaning of the sound: it was a helicopter taking off.
The hesitation gave Alec an opportunity to grip the beast around the neck and to pull back and back and back. Arcane’s deadly fangs bit deep into Alec’s forearm. Alec screamed in pain and fell away.
His fangs, his fangs . . . now that Arcane had discovered their use, he lunged, drooling, for Alec’s neck as his talons dug into his side and abdomen.
Alec had never felt fear like this; it was immediate and desperate and overwhelming. He fell to his knees and slipped out of the monster’s grasp temporarily by somersaulting away between its legs.
Alec’s hand grabbed a cypress trunk for support. The tree was dead; it broke and came away in his giant hand. Scarcely thinking, Alec wielded it like a club and smashed it into the side of Arcane’s head.
Arcane wavered, stunned.
Alec struck again, and Arcane fell, thundered, to the ground.
Alec looked frantically for the sword but did not see it; it had been knocked away, out of sight.
The beast that was a composite of everything vicious in nature lay in a puddle of slimy mud.
Alec ran back to the pool, to Cable.
He lifted her tenderly into his ripped and shredded arms. Blood ran from the hole in her breast and crimsoned the front of her white dress with a horrible spreading stain. Alec’s eyes fogged with amber tears.
“You were right,” she said without opening her eyes, “about the swamp. It is . . . beautiful.” Her eyes flickered open for a moment, and she lifted a white hand to his cheek.
Then the hand fell.
He gasped, frantic, denying the possibility of losing her. He looked around as if there were someone who might come to help if he called. Then, his face suddenly intent, he reached with his powerful hand and pulled a wad of his own flesh from his side.
Still grimacing from the self-inflicted pain, he laid it, dripping with its peculiar golden sap, over her naked breast and forced it into her wound.
The pressure of his hand roused her, awakened a last glimmer of consciousness, and she opened her eyes to look at him.
She looked past him.
She managed to whisper, “Alec! Behind you!”
In a motion of incredible swiftness, Alec laid Cable on the ground and rolled out from under Arcane’s downward swing. The tip of the blade struck a stone and rang like a bell; its point broke off and spun through the air.
Suddenly determined, fearless at last, invincible, Swamp Thing walked directly toward the beast of Arcane.
Arcane took an involuntary step back. He stood more than two feet taller than Swamp Thing and surpassed him in weaponry; yet he was momentarily frightened. Swamp Thing looked unstoppable. He raised the sword with less certainty and lowered it with less confidence.
Swamp Thing stopped that blade-brandishing, taloned claw in mid-air and wrenched the weapon from it.
With all his might, Swamp Thing swung the blade and caught Arcane just as he was turning to retreat. The blade split him asunder from the neck to the belly.
Great coils of green veining sprang out of the vast wound, and the bubbles of brown foam released a heavy yellow fume when they burst.
The great armored body teetered. Its legs ossified and shriveled. Its eyes exploded. And the carcass fell with a crash into the water of the spring.
The water—which had been crystalline—turned the murky color of quicksand.
Swamp Thing watched the bubbles that were a sign of rapid decay. Arcane had been theatrical to the end—concerned with the appearance of the power and not efficacy itself; obsessed with the appearance of genius, not the dedication and application that supports it; preferring to terrify, rather than to cooperate. Arcane’s transformation had suited him exactly.
There were shouts in the distance, and the starting of automobiles. A voluminous plume of black smoke streaked westward—in the morning sky, like the outpouring of a smoldering volcano. A cracking explosion rattled the air and a balloon of boiling fire shot up over the trees.
Swamp Thing bent to Cable’s body. As he had done once before, he gently pushed the hair from her face. She did not stir.
He lifted her limp form, cradled it in his arms, and walked with her into the swamp.
The mist was evaporating; the little lives of the daytime were out in force, singing, chirping, croaking.
30
Swamp Thing carried her to the cathedral of cypresses and rested her on a bed
of plush moss.
Her heart still beat, tentatively, and now and again she would breathe. The compress of his flesh had quickly stopped the bleeding. But she did not awaken. Her body did not feel feverish; on the contrary, it felt cool: insufficient life coursed through it. He used Arcane’s sword to slice loose a blanket of moss, and covered her with it.
He gathered wild fruits and mushrooms for her to eat; but she would not wake up to eat them. A piece of hard cypress root made a convenient bowl; but she would not turn and drink the water from it.
He stood in the vast enclosure of lush blossoms and a circular colonnade of trees. He looked to the sky and to the earth for answers—and received only a tranquil presence for a reply.
Mid-afternoon, Cable stirred and mumbled in her sleep.
He ran to her. She called his name and cried for help—and then turned to lie still again.
Swamp Thing hurried into the swamp. Following streams and subtle landmarks, he located the trapper’s cabin. There he found Jude, still in hiding.
“Everything okay now?” he asked the mossy giant that towered over him. He looked at his battered arms and legs and said, “Man, you just can’t stay outta trouble.”
“Cable’s hurt. She’s going to need your help.”
“How ’bout the bad guys?”
Swamp Thing smiled and reported, “I don’t think there are any left.”
The deadpan Jude said, “Hate to see ’em if they look wors’n you do.” He switched off his portable radio.
“Can you bring a blanket?” Alec asked.
“I got a quilt.”
“That’s fine.”
“Food? Med’cine?” Jude asked, tossing Alec a faded, hand-made quilt. Alec stood in the doorway and effectively blocked most of the afternoon light. “I hafta pole over to the station and get some stuff. Where’s she at?”
Swamp Thing gave the boy directions and returned to the clearing at a run.
He found Cable lying very still under the blanket of moss. Her eyes were open, blinking. He lowered himself beside her.
“Hi,” he said, his voice resonant, rumbling.
She smiled. “Thanks. For whatever you did.”
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