by Lee Roland
“You saw the troops on the third level. The balance, three million or so are stored on the fifth level. And don’t ask where the fifth level is. I don’t know.”
“Three million? They’ll all take the elevator?”
He laughed softly, but there was no true humor in that laugh. “No. He’s found a way to create a gateway from the fifth level directly into Elder, but it still has to pass through the fourth level. Once the fourth is closed, he can’t get there. At least not quickly or easily.”
“No!” Maeve shouted, and Erik winced. “No one has that much power—”
“No one? Guess again, Maeve. The dead soldiers are only a part of his power. He delves into phenomena that could destroy everything. Elder, the world outside, and worlds beyond that, your precious Elementals, he’s within weeks of having the means to own them all. That’s why I have to act now. He’s long past any measure of sanity.”
The elevator door opened. A dome light cast a pale murky light on an area twenty feet from the door, but a midnight curtain concealed whatever lay beyond.
“Don’t let the door close,” he said softly. He laid a hand on the button panel. “I’ve locked it, but it has a timer that overrides the lock. It’ll close in five minutes.”
“Can’t you block it?”
He shook his head. “I tried that. It sends him a signal. I know because it happened once before. When we finish and leave, he will be waiting for us.”
“And turning the key a bunch of times won’t signal him?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Maeve understood. “Oracle be damned. You don’t need me here. You’re afraid to die alone.” She gazed into the unspeakable darkness beyond the island of light. “What’s out there?”
“Nothing…everything. The worst run from the light.”
****
Alex gathered his few belongings from the Commander’s apartment and slipped out. The picture of him and Grandpa, and Grandpa’s journal. Small things, but precious.
He hurried down the hallway and headed for the catwalk that would take him to the loading docks. He was almost there when he heard the sound of voices. He stopped in the doorway, before exiting onto the catwalk. Two people stood on the floor, fifteen feet below him.
The Commander and Maeve.
The Commander crouched on the floor and worked on a box containing wires. Alex had enough training to recognize explosives, even at a distance. They were going to blow up the factory. What should he do? Go beg them to let him help?
Alex closed his eyes. Joshua’s face appeared in his mind. He would help Erik and Maeve if they would allow him. By the time he’d made his decision, they had gone.
Damn!
Alex sprinted across the room and through the door they’d exited, but they had already disappeared. He knew the factory layout and had little doubt he could find them. He would go to the central concourse and wait. All hallways exited there. He rushed through the hall to the concourse, but Maeve and the Commander weren’t the first to arrive.
Sethos waddled into view. He stopped and sniffed the air, like a hound searching for an elusive scent. He knew something was happening.
Run, Alex’s mind cried. He forced his body to remain immobile. If the Commander and Maeve showed up and Sethos caught them…he had to help them. He gathered his courage and walked down the stairs to meet Sethos.
“Good afternoon, sir.” Alex managed to smile.
Sethos studied him, suspicion plain on his face. “Now here is a thing I’d not thought possible. Is it that you do not fear me?”
A thread of terror ran through Alex. He shrugged and tried to look indifferent. “I’m frightened of everything, and everyone in this place.”
“Ah, you remember your comrade.”
Alex nodded.
Sethos beckoned with his pudgy fingers. “I wonder… Alex come, let us walk a bit.”
Alex followed him. At least they moved away from the concourse, and hopefully away from the Commander and Maeve. To his dismay, Sethos led him back to the Commander’s apartment. He opened the door, went in, and Alex dutifully walked behind him.
Sethos studied him again. “What do you have in that bag?” His voice sounded bland.
“A few pictures and a book.”
Sethos pointed at a nearby table. “Put them down, then come here.”
Alex obeyed. He forced himself to take the few steps that brought him within two feet. His throat tightened as he tried to work a little saliva into his paper dry mouth.
Sethos closed the distance and held up his hand, palm up. “Touch me.”
Alex didn’t want to, but he’d committed himself to buying time for Maeve and Erik. He laid his shaking palm across Sethos’ thick fingers. The pale hand was smooth, far smoother than it should have been—and it had no fingernails.
Sethos chuckled. “This body of mine is neither human nor witch. Does that trouble you?”
Alex shook his head. He grasped the fact that most residents of Elder weren’t human, so he’d unconsciously accepted Sethos as such.
Icy threads of indefinable power spread from Sethos fingers into Alex’s body, cutting, freezing as he gasped for air and fought. With all his will, he concentrated on controlling his arm. With one mighty effort, he broke contact and dropped at Sethos’ feet.
Alex crawled away, knowing it was useless. He had to fight though, to the end, he had to fight. The peculiar feeling of large arms wrapped a blanket of air around Alex and lifted him to his feet.
“Dear boy,” Sethos crooned. “I am not human—and neither are you.”
Alex shook his head, trying to clear it.
“Imagine that. You are not Iameth, either. Now, let us explore this thing.” Sethos reached for him with both hands.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The elevator stopped below floor level, so they had to lift the box and pallet up six inches before it would roll out. Maeve helped Erik lift the box to a rough stone floor. When she stepped from the elevator, she realized that the room was not a room but an immense cavern—a cavern of onyx air with the feel of a mountain crushing down upon it. If she shouted, it would probably echo forever. Shout? That was the last thing she wanted to do. What manner of being might inhabit this dreadful hole?
“Erik, how big is this bomb?” Such a small thing compared to…what? Everything? Nothing?
“Big enough to collapse this cavern.” He lifted the top off the box and exposed the wiring. “Stand by the door. If it starts to close, stop it and turn the key to the right and then back to the left.”
Maeve shivered as she stepped back inside the elevator. At least she couldn’t feel the oppressive weight of the darkness above her.
The caverns of Elder kept their secrets hidden from a witch without night vision. Only one such hole had ever drawn Maeve into its depths. As a foolish child, feeling immortal, she’d tried to make it through the ogre’s cave to the world outside. The ogres didn’t kill her right away because she threatened them with Tana’s name, but Bathos said no witch’s whelp would enter his realm and live. Only Shost’s intervention had saved her. This wasn’t like the ogre’s cave, though. The ogre’s cave crawled with living things—plants, animals, blind geckos, and spiders. The air here carried the scent of dry death.
As Maeve tried to pinpoint the difference in the caves, the elevator door slid shut, leaving Erik and his bomb alone in the dark. At least she hoped he was alone.
She twisted the key and punched the ‘open door’ button. It slid back to reveal Erik glaring at her tight-lipped and frozen in place. “Sorry,” she said.
He went back to work, and she went back to her door duty. Twice she turned the key to keep the door open. Three times, fifteen minutes, how much longer? If Sethos was attuned to blocking the door, wouldn’t he know it had been opened and closed a number of times?
The darkness surrounding the pool of light seemed fluid. A murky river, filled with choking mud, sliding along with the sound of a disembodied whi
sper. It would be easy enough to imagine monsters lurking out there. Easy enough to imagine the single silver thread drifting from the unfathomable ceiling to the floor. No. Two very real threads, one on each side of Erik.
“Erik?”
He ignored her.
“Erik, can you see? Beside you!”
Erik glanced at the threads.
Maeve drew the .38 from the holster.
“Don’t,” Erik said in a tight voice. He carefully reached into the toolbox and lifted out a hatchet. “How many?”
“Two that I can see, none behind you.”
He sat immobile and waited.
A spider the size of a German Shepard slid down one thread—fast.
Erik moved faster. Just as it touched the floor, he smashed its head, then whirled and did the same for another on the second thread. He jumped to his feet, buried the hatchet deep into one spider’s body. Using the weapon as a sling, he flung the body into the black river. He did the same to the second spider, then dropped back to his knees to continue his work.
A symphony of strident noise erupted from the darkness. A feeding frenzy of screeches, howls, and the crunching of bones danced with the distant rumble and chatter of falling rock. The echoes soon fell back to angry silence, broken only by the occasional pattering of multiple feet, and the hiss of scales slithering across rock. A monstrous creature from nightmares crawled in this cavern of the damned.
“Inaras help us,” Maeve whispered. “What is this place?” She kept her voice and hands steady, though her legs quivered as if immersed in ice water.
“The feeding ground.” Erik didn’t look up.
“And these things feed on…”
“Each other and what we bring them.”
“And you bring them…”
No answer. What could they bring to feed such creatures. She knew. Joe Don, the other failures upstairs. The ones who didn’t make the cut as zombie soldiers. The factory workers when they were worn down, the remains of the slaughter house…downstairs. To the feeding ground, and he brought them here. Maeve’s body shook in rage as she won a savage inner battle to keep herself from closing the door and leaving him there.
But she waited. She’d keep her word.
Tana’s childhood lessons had included discussion of how dragons, harpies, and demons differed from their mythical counterparts. She and Maeve had laughed at the fairy-tale distortions. An accidental sighting by a human, massaged into bedtime stories over the millennia.
“Some characters are real and some are not,” Tana had said long ago.
But where did they come from, those creatures that weren’t real? Out of a fertile imagination? Or had a brave soul who walked these stony halls eased their half-remembered nightmares by changing the monsters to mere words and pictures.
The thing emerging from the darkness didn’t know it wasn’t real, nor did it know it was supposed to fear the light. An ancient storyteller must have seen it somewhere, because Maeve recognized it. Manticore. Head of a man, body of a lion, and a scorpion’s tail, curled and ready to strike. A distortion of its mythical ancestor, but easily identifiable to one who heard the stories.
The round lump of a head had a full-lipped mouth, two eyes, like a man, but no nose. Gaping nostril holes flapped like the gills of a fish, drawn from its watery home into the poisonous atmosphere of earth. The furred body and four legs could be a lion’s, but it was a stretch of imagination since four toes splayed at the feet instead of claws—and it was as tall as a unicorn. Black poison dripped from a slender stinger, a deadly needle, at the end of a tail curled high over its back as it hovered on the indefinite edge between dark and light.
Erik stood to face the horror.
The Manticore eased its way along the edge of darkness, as if it seemed unready to commit itself to enter the arena of light.
“Should I shoot it?” Maeve hated to break the silence, but she had to know. Could she shoot a living being that meant no harm? Could anything in this place be harmless?
“Can you hit the head?” Erik slowly backed toward the elevator, keeping his eyes on the beast.
Yes, it would have to be a headshot. A .38 might not take it out with a body shot. She gripped the pistol in both hands, straightened her arm, and aimed.
The trucker who’d taught her to shoot called her a natural. Her first shot sent an empty beer can dancing across the sand, and she’d rarely missed after that.
Maeve squeezed the trigger.
The shot cracked the air and roiled out in ever-expanding waves. The Manticore staggered and added its shriek to the riot of noise. She’d hit the eye, but it didn’t go down. Did the thing not have a brain? Or was its brain not located in its head? It turned its remaining eye toward her—an eye filled with pain and madness.
The Manticore lurched, and Erik dodged the lumbering beast. As it passed, it twisted and slammed him to the rock floor. Turning faster than Maeve believed possible, it whipped the coiled snake of a tail up, the poisonous spike directly over him.
Maeve squeezed the trigger again and the spike shattered.
The Manticore reeled, and its thick legs buckled. Erik scrambled away, but as it pitched and swayed, one football-sized foot slammed on his hand.
Two screams followed the echo of gunfire. A savage animal’s death cry, cut short as it crashed to the stone, and a long lingering howl of agony from Erik as broken bones ground against each other.
Maeve holstered the .38 and ran to Erik. On his back, he twisted from side to side while he cradled his injured hand against his chest. She dropped to her knees beside him, grabbed his shoulders, and tried to make him sit up.
“Come on, Erik. We have to get out of here.”
He gasped for air and responded slowly. She had him sitting up when she heard the inexorable sound of an elevator door sliding shut.
****
Alex twisted, but it was useless.
Sethos froze. His hands stopped before they reached Alex’s face. He cocked his head to one side, as if listening to an inner voice.
“Dear Alex,” he said softly. “You will not have to consider your Commander's wishes again. I’m going to kill him now. Such a waste.”
The blanket of force holding Alex faded away, and he staggered. He threw himself away from Sethos.
Sethos headed for the door. “You may go, Alex. For now. I’ll find you later, and we’ll continue our…discussion.”
Alex watched him waddle away. He drew deep breaths and waited until his body stopped quivering. Then he grabbed his bag and raced out. He ran for the concourse, through the hallway, and to the loading dock. He saw nothing except the space in front of him until he burst out into the sunlight. It blinded him for a moment, and he staggered, but then ran on. Down the road, up the hill, until he saw Captain Harlan standing beside an armored car.
He collapsed at the captain’s feet.
“Alex?” The captain knelt and grasped his shoulders.
Alex slowed his breathing. “He touched me and he said…” Alex stopped. He must not tell anyone what Sethos had said regarding him not being human. This compulsion was stronger than the one that sent him to the factory.
The captain raised his eyes to the factory. “Claire’s still in there. She ordered me to leave. She forced me.” Dismay filled his expression. “She used a spell on me. I wouldn’t have left her.”
Alex understood. He felt the same about Erik. “Maeve and the Commander are there too. They’re planning something. Oh, Great Spirit, let it work.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Maeve released Erik and threw herself toward the elevator. With one flying leap, she jammed herself in the opening and stopped the door’s relentless slide with her body. Her head banged against the wall, and her elbow smacked the floor. It required precious seconds to clear her spinning head and get to her feet. She reached for the key to set the timer again, and a small red light began to blink and flash on the panel.
The key refused to turn.
Maeve glanced at Erik. “The key won’t work, and I can’t leave the door.
Erik rose and stumbled toward her.
A beep sounded in unison with the flashing red light.
Erik crashed into Maeve and knocked her off her feet. He fell into the elevator and cried out as he bumped his hand.
“Can we go now?” she asked.
“No.” Erik gasped for breath. “Timer. You have to set the timer.”
Maeve searched the area outside the elevator. The manticores’s body lay to her left, and the bomb was gone. Was it behind the creature’s body? In its death throes, it must have knocked the box on wheels away. There was no way she was…she spied the box. An ill-defined shape, it rested barely beyond the edge of darkness.
“I see it,” Maeve said.
Erik swayed, but managed to get up. “Can you…”
Could she go out there and drag the thing back? She’d faced men, the Slough Hounds, and the High Witch for Elder’s sake. Worse, she’d gone to Andovar’s body to retrieve his lifestone.
Maeve bit her lip and wiped her hands on her jeans. “How?”
“Drag it into the light. There’s… I’ll tell you.”
His face had regained a bit of color, but he shivered. Maeve wondered if he could be going into shock. She drew the .38 from her holster and placed it in his good hand. “Try not to shoot me.”
She sucked in a deep breath. Had to get this over with—fast. She opened herself to magic. It was there, but it had a different flavor, a more subtle texture than she’d experienced before. When she stepped into the cavern toward the box, she drew the power to herself. In a last ditch effort, she would release it, regardless of the consequences.
Maeve strode across the rock like a queen marching to her throne. She could put on a show of bravery no matter how much her guts churned. She reached the box, bent over, and grabbed it with shaking hands. She stepped backward and dragged it toward the elevator. To turn her back on that murky black river was more than she could bear. It rolled with ease—until a wheel caught in a small hole in the rock.
