"Got it," Smythe said as he scrambled for a hold. "Just don't let go yet. Wait a bit. All right... now."
Guafe gave a final upward surge, and Smythe scrambled the rest of the way, scaling the wall like a monkey.
"What do you see?" Clive called up to him.
"Nothing. I need a lantern. Pass it up to me."
He dropped the twine with which he'd rolled up the canvas, then lowered the canvas down the side of the wall. It came to just above Guafe's head. Using the twine, they tied the lantern to the canvas, and Smythe hauled it up.
"Can you see anything now?" Clive called.
"My God." Smythe said.
"What is it, man?"
Smythe shook his head. "There's no time to talk. Quick. All of you, up here!"
He lowered the canvas, bracing it on top of the wall with his weight. Clive was next, pulling himself up with handfuls of canvas. Finnbogg was next. The material of their makeshift ladder made ominous tearing sounds under the dwarf's weight. Both Clive and Smythe braced the canvas at the top of the wall until Finnbogg was in reach of Clive's hand. As the dwarf scrambled up the last few feet and took Clive's place bracing the canvas. Clive picked up the lantern to see what had alarmed his fellow soldier.
"Come on now. Guafe," Smythe was saying.
The light of the lantern wasn't strong enough to travel far. It showed the tops of the walls, running in all directions like elevated paths, but the spaces on either side of them were lost in shadow, and the paths soon disappeared into darknesses beyond the reach of the lantern. He saw nothing alarming until he turned in the direction from which they'd come.
There, he saw a huge white shape that seemed to fill the corridor.
Clive took a few steps closer, holding the lantern high. When the massive head lifted from the corridor, he almost dropped the light.
Things, the man pretending to be his brother had said. He hadn't been referring to the feral pack of creatures that had attacked them days ago. No. It had been this.
It was monstrous—a cross between an enormous snake and a slug. The flesh was pale and slimy, but scaled as well. It was from the latter that the heavy whispering sound came, as they rustled against the stone. The head was a good yard across in width, stubby and square in shape. It had large, milky-colored eyes, with a pair of antennae above each—one large feeler, and one smaller one. The mouth, when it opened its huge jaws, showed three series of barracudalike teeth.
As Clive watched, it began to undulate up from the corridor, the enormous weight of its body rising to the top of the wall, then straddling it with a huge coil of its pale body. The head moved toward him, but the monster's bulk was too much for it to balance easily on the wall, which was only a foot and a half wide.
As it lost its balance, it coiled its body to fill the corridor. Using those coils as a lever, it flexed suddenly. The stones on either side of it groaned under the pressure.
Fascinated despite himself, Clive watched the creature relax its muscles, then flex them again. This time, the walls of the corridor on either side of it collapsed under the pressure.
The stone blocks that fell on it seemed to give the creature no discomfort whatsoever. It merely shrugged them off. More of the wall fell in. and the creature began to rise, using the rubble as a ramp to slide up.
As it approached him. Clive remained spellbound, staring. There was a terrible beauty in its ugliness, in its sheer physical power.
"Sah!"
He set down the lantern and then stepped over it, moving toward the creature. The sudden urge to feel that slick hide, the muscles running underneath it, was too strong to ignore.
"Sah! Have you taken leave of your senses?"
The large milky eyes were blind, he was sure, but they impressed him with their hypnotic spell all the same. He could hear Smythe calling him, but his companion's voice was strangely distant, as though he heard it from under water, or in a dream.
At this moment, it was the creature that took up all of his attention.
Demanded it.
Would not be denied.
He stepped closer still, almost within the reach of those immense jaws, then suddenly, Smythe had a grip on his shoulder and was pulling him back. Clive protested, until he began to lose his balance. Then he was forced to look away, and the creature's blind eves no longer filled his sight. Suddenly, his will was his own again.
The monster lunged forward at being denied its prey, but Smythe had already pulled Clive out of its reach. The new wall on which the creature found itself buckled under its weight, and down it plunged once more. The walls shook at the impact this time; clouds of dust rose about them like a thick London fog.
"'Ware its gaze," Clive warned as he followed Smythe back to where the others waited. " The damn thing looks blind, but it hypnotized me all the same."
"Quick." Smythe merely said. "Take the lead, sah, and get us out of here."
Behind them, the monstrous snake was rising from the rubble once more—a huge, pale shape moving in the clouds of stone dust. Rocks ground under its weight, and the wall trembled as it once again attempted to get at them.
"Sah!" Smythe cried, as Clive continued to stand in place.
"Let me get my bearings." Clive told him.
He searched the vault of the dark cavern roof above them, looking for the reflective "moon" that had guided him earlier. When he finally had it, he set off at as brisk a walk as he dared along the narrow width of the wall's top.
They heard another rumbling crash behind them. Guafe, who was in the rear, turned. The red beams of his gaze pierced a new cloud of stone dust, to show that the monstrous snake had broken from the cul-de-sac and was now slithering along a corridor toward them.
"Let's get some walls between that monster and us." Clive said.
Ignoring his guide in the ceiling of the cavern for the moment. Clive led them off at a sharp angle. Due to the way the maze was laid out, they were soon able to put a number of walls between themselves and the creature. As they paused to catch their breath, they could hear the huge snake battering at one of those walls.
"It's fiendishly clever, really." Smythe said. "The design of this place. I mean. Obviously, we were meant to be kept trapped by that sliding wall until the creature arrived. Then, I don't doubt, it would trip some mechanism that would shift the wall back into place, allowing the creature access to where its prey was trapped."
"Only this time, its prey escaped." Guafe said.
Smythe nodded. "Exactly. And it's driven the bloody thing mad. Having its prey light out on it is something that's never happened to it before, I'll wager. Have you got your bearings again, sah?"
"I think so—yes."
With the "moon" at his left shoulder, Clive led them off. They kept up a brisk pace, for they could still hear the monster following them, battering down the walls as it made its own blundering route through the maze.
There'd be little left of the place when the monster was finished with it. Clive thought. Not that it was any of his concern. It was just that the next party faring through would have an even rougher time of it than they had.
"How are we doing?" he called back to Guafe, who was still in the rear.
"Well enough." the cyborg said. "We seem to be leaving it far behind."
"Behind?" Finnbogg asked. "Then what does Finnbogg hear over there?"
He pointed to his right.
"Echoes." Smythe began.
But Guafe was already shaking his head. With his sharper senses, he was already aware of what the others were not.
"No." he said. "It's another of the creatures. Heading our way." He pointed to their left and ahead now. "And there's a third, approaching us from that direction, as well."
"Wonderful," Clive said.
Twenty-four
Your greatest fear made real.
That's what the darkworld spirit had told her through the medium of the rogha fetish chief. How could it have known? Because here that fear was. in all its dark glory.
Annabelle swayed on the ledge. The chasm that dropped suddenly on both sides and in front worked on her acrophobia, calling her down into its black depths.
Come to me. it called. Accept your destiny. Be one with me. There is nothing to fear.
And she wanted to. She wanted to just let herself go and fall into the blackness.
Come to me. To a better place.
She needed a better place. Where she could be with her daughter and her friends, where all of this, the Dungeon, and its incomprehensible madness, was just a bad dream.
Come to me.
She wanted to. Desperately. But just as she couldn't back away, she couldn't move forward, either. She was paralyzed with fear.
Dimly, through the ghostly outline of the gateway, she could hear the shouts of the Quanians growing closer. Around her. the voices of her companions were nothing more than a babble of unintelligible sounds as they tried to get her to set foot on the narrow pathway that led across the chasm. But she couldn't do it. And there wasn't time to get out the byrr pouch.
No time to pull out a leaf.
No time to chew it.
No time.
Only the chasm, calling out to her as she swayed at its lip.
Come to me.
"Annabelle, please," Sidi said.
She tried to turn her head to tell him how she just couldn't, but she was unable to tear her gaze from the chasm. She could barely hear anything except its hypnotic voice, calling out to her.
Her throat was thick and blocked, swollen with fear. Her chest was a knot of tension, lungs desperate for air. Every muscle in her body locked tight.
"Annabelle." Sidi said. "Just take my hand."
I can't move, she wanted to tell him. but she barely formed the words in her mind. Voicing them was impossible.
Get outta here... Sidi ... all of you.... Leave me to the chasm, to its dark promise....
She wondered. Is this the darkworld? Will I become a spirit in it. if I just let myself go?
But the chasm promised more. Freedom from the Dungeon. To be reunited with Amanda. Peace.
Come to me, its dark voice whispered.
I will, Annabelle told it. But just let me move. Just give me time to think.
Because there was something wrong about the chasm's promise. How could it deliver her back to the world she'd lost? To her daughter and friends? If it was that simple....
It couldn't be that simple. Nothing ever was.
She swayed at the edge, the darkness swallowing her soul. She wanted to BE free—not just of the Dungeon, but of the chasm's dark call, as well. To BE free of the fear that paralyzed her, making her body betray her.
Just let me go, she told the darkness. Give me time to Figure out what's going on....
Then Shriek literally took matters into her own hands. She caught Annabelle with her lower arms, hugging her close to her chest, and set off at a run along the narrow pathway, using her upper arms for balance.
Sound finally escaped Annabelle s swollen throat—a raw, piercing scream tore from her lips—and finally, she could move. She struggled in Shriek's grip. The movement threatened to unbalance the alien, plunging them both into the chasm. Without missing a step. Shriek withdrew a hair spike with her upper right arm and thrust it into Annabelle's arm.
The thornlike spike broke her skin. As its potent chemical content entered Annabelle's body, mixing with her blood system and bringing relief in the form of unconsciousness, she went limp in the alien's arms. Shriek flicked the spike away into the chasm and continued to run.
Behind her, Sidi and Tomàs followed at a trot. They were a good hundred yards down the narrow path, the chasm dropping sharply on either side, when the first of the silver-suited Quanians stepped through the gateway, leveling his weapon, he fired. The red laser beam crackled in the air beside Sidi's head, coming so close that it burned some of his dark hair.
He knew, without a doubt, that the next shot would hit one of them.
The skin between the blades of his back prickled in anticipation. He chanced a glance back, saw the man aiming his weapon more carefully, and braced himself for the impact. But a second man stepped through at that moment, laying his hand on the first man's arm. The first man lowered his weapon.
The two of them looked at the escaping party, arms folded now across their chests.
Why weren't they firing? Sidi thought.
Then the answer came to him. There had to be something worse awaiting the party farther down this narrow ribbon of a path. Something that so assured the Quanians of their fate that there was no need for them to chase after the trespassers or shoot them down. They would simply stand guard to see that none of the party attempted to retreat.
Giving them a last glance, he hurried on after the others. The phosphorescent glow continued to light their surroundings. For as far as he could see, the path simply bore on ahead of them, with no destination in sight.
Finally, they had to rest. They sat straddling the path, legs dangling on either side of it, the dark of the chasm licking at the soles of their feet. Shriek continued to hold Annabelle close with her lower arms, resting the human's weight on her knees now. The alien had turned so that she sat facing the other two.
Seeing Annabelle's limp form in her arms. Sidi knew a moment's panic. Had she been hit by one of the Quanians' weapons?
"What happened to her, Shriek?" he asked.
It was necessary to inject Being Annabelle with a tranquilizer, the arachnid replied. Otherwise, she would have tumbled us both from the path.
"But is she...?"
She will be fine. Shriek assured him. She is merely sleeping. The effect of the tranquilizer will wear off soon.
Sidi's relief was almost physical.
They rested for a good fifteen minutes, before Shriek rose to her feet again.
Time to go on, she said.
Hefting Annabelle easily, she regarded the pair of them. Tomàs and Sidi arose to stand with her, and then the three of them began to trudge on once more, following the narrow path.
They were hours crossing the cavern. Annabelle was just beginning to stir as the path led them onto another ledge. The cavern face had another opening here, but it wasn't set off by the same shimmering glow as the one in Quan had been. The phosphorescence remained with them as they entered the tunnel. Well inside it. Shriek lowered herself into a sitting position. She propped Annabelle up, keeping a firm grip on her until Annabelle could sit up by herself.
"Oh, my head," Annabelle said.
She blinked slowly, trying to place her surroundings. The last thing she remembered had been the call of the chasm. She'd been about to step over the edge, into its darkness, when. . . .
"You saved my life," she told Shriek.
I'm sorry I could give you no wanting, Shriek replied.
"Well, you’re not going to hear me complaining. You i did the right thing."
Annabelle looked around. They were in a tunnel. She sat beside Shriek. Close by. Tomàs and Sidi sat as well, gazes fixed on her. But it was what lay beyond them that called up a sense of vertigo in her. She could just see the end of the tunnel, the chasm beyond it.
She shivered and turned her head quickly. "Now I know what undying thanks are," she told Shriek. "All I’ve got—they’re yours."
The alien gave Annabelle one of her odd, lopsided looks that passed for a grin on her curious features. They are accepted. Being Annabelle, she said.
Annabelle looked at the other two. "Any idea where we are?"
"We crossed the cavern," Sidi said simply. "Other than that, you know as much as we do."
"But the Quanians . . . ?"
"They seemed happy to just let us go."
Annabelle frowned. "As though there was something in here that would take care of us?" she asked, thinking aloud. "Or maybe they were just happy to see the back of us."
"Considering most of the people we’ve met down here," Sidi said, "I doubt their thoughts were charitable."
"In other words, expect the worst."
Sidi nodded. "Who knows? Maybe we’ll get a pleasant surprise."
"Right. Like a bullet with our names on it."
She rose to her feet, one hand against the wall for support, and concentrated on her body. Her headache was fading, but the pain in her leg was rising up to take its place. Otherwise, she felt pretty much in one piece.
She looked at her companions. "So I guess we go on." she said.
The tunnel wasn't long. After a few turns that— thankfully, as far as Annabelle was concerned—put the cavern, with its chasm, well behind them, it opened up into a new cave. Here there was less of the phosphorescence, making the light dimmer, except in one corner, where there was a hole in the floor from which a bright, honey-gold glow issued. Other than the hole and the tunnel through which they'd just come, there was no other way in or out of the cavern.
They made a thorough search of the walls before they finally gathered around the hole. Looking down into it, the yellow glow was very bright. Sparkles floated in it. like dust motes set on fire. There was no way to tell what it was. or where it led. but there was a ladder set into the rocks leading down into it.
Annabelle stepped back from the edge.
"Chew one of Chobba's byrr leaves,'' Sidi said.
Strangely enough, Annabelle got no sense of real depth from the hole. Her breathing remained normal, her chest muscles loose. The trace of unreasonable fear that flickered at the back of her mind was only her memory of the chasm and its seductive voice.
"It's not that," Annabelle said. "I just don't like the way we don't have any choice about where we go. It's like, we either go down there, or we go back. If the Quanians are guarding the gateway back there, that means we can't go out. So we either head down this ladder, or...."
She left the remainder of her thought unspoken, but it lay heavy inside her. Or we go back to the chasm.
She looked at her companions. Had any of them heard its voice? The promises it had made? What if she'd blown her one chance of getting home again by not listening to it? If Amanda was gone forever....
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