Crystal Sorcerers

by William R. Forstchen

  "Thar she blows," Kochanski cried through the comm. "The damn thing's a monster!"

  Mark strained his attention forward, and suddenly the image formed. His first instinct was to recoil, but the wild charge through the ocean and the ladultas maddening song overcame him.

  "Bugler sound charge!" Kraut yelled.

  "Banzai!" came Shigeru's growl as his ladulta pushed forward.

  Naga's massive bulk grew ever wider. The sorcerers were coming in on a broadside strike, and Mark, scanning back and forth, could barely sense either end of the creature.

  "The damn thing's at least two hundred yards long!" Ikawa shouted.

  Tulana and Leti, forcing their ladultas to slow, waited for the rest of the group to catch up.

  "We're near the bottom. It's one of his old tricks, so watch out," Tulana shouted. "Everyone fire on my command!"

  In a tight formation the group surged in. At the last possible second the team jackknifed straight down to the creature's side. The Cresus was simply gliding along as if his tormentors were only a minor annoyance.

  Sul jackknifed once again, turning directly underneath the massive beast.

  "Fire!"

  The water crackled into steam. Unable to miss, Mark pointed and let go with a fiery bolt.

  "He's crushing down!" Tulana roared. "Break out!"

  Horrified, Mark saw the monster's bulk come dropping.

  Sul spiraled down and out, skimming so close to the sandy bottom that he sent up a wave of silt. Alarmed cries drowned out the comm link, ladulta shrieks filled the sea, and over everything else was the insane trumpeting of the enraged Cresus. Sul pulled away at the last possible second, as the mountain of flesh slammed down on the ocean floor. A tidal surge stormed out, and to his horror Mark saw more than one of his comrades torn free of their ladultas by the turbulence. But their mounts heroically circled back to pick up the dismounted sorcerers.

  The ocean around Mark went black. It seemed impossible, but sweeping around him was a massive tail fluke, bigger than the side of a hanger.

  At Sul's command, Mark slammed out shot after shot, though the ocean around him was a wild confusion of energy bolts, darting ladultas, and--filling his vision--the writhing form of Naga, bent on crushing them.

  Sul pulled up over the fluke and raced down its backside, expertly rolling with the turbulent wake.

  "Keep shooting!" Sul kept calling.

  Mark, grasping at last that Sul and he were a team, finally started to block out the flow of the action, trusting to his companion to safely guide him through the battle and focusing only on placing his shots.

  Shigeru banked in alongside Mark, exuberantly firing at the massive underside of the tail.

  Suddenly the Cresus rose from the ocean floor and surged forward, his two hundred foot wide tail slamming up and down. The ladultas broke away, avoiding the turbulence, and with what Mark thought was incredible bravery started to dart underneath the creature. More than one of the offworlders, simply overwhelmed by the battle, was still not firing. Sul cut down and started a run, straight up the length of Naga's body, and Mark slammed off a series of bolts, unable to miss.

  "Wonderful strikes, wonderful. We finally getting him mad," Sul cried.

  "I thought he already was mad!" Mark called.

  "Just getting started. Hang on!"

  The creature surged downward again and Sul darted away. There was another boom as the Cresus slammed into the bottom, and then it was up again.

  From the corner of his eye, Mark saw a ladulta spiraling upward, pushing a limp form. It was Goldberg!

  "One of my men is hurt!" Mark cried.

  "My brother Gavd, he take him up. Airbreather not dead, just knocked asleep."

  Anxiously, Mark looked around, unable to see more than a handful of his companions. Another ladulta spiraled by, swimming spasmodically in a jerky spiral, with Saito no longer holding its dorsal fin, but now swimming alongside as if trying to help the creature to the surface.

  Sul let out a cry of rage and turned to go back in.

  "He's going to breach!" Tulana roared through the comm link. "Everyone up and clear!"

  Sul leaped through the water, rocketing straight up into the light.

  "Meet in direction of sun. Release!"

  Mark cleared the surface and was stunned to see Cloud Dancer less than a hundred yards away.

  "Break him east!" Tulana roared. "To the east, the bastard's after my ship again!"

  Turning, Mark arced back into the ocean, even as his other comrades were coming up out of the water.

  "Sul! Damn it, Sul!"

  The ladulta surged in and, without slowing, Mark grabbed his companion's fin.

  "Naga is wily one! Go for ship," Sul cried. "We must aim for Naga's eye."

  The darkness was coming up with blinding speed.

  Now trusting Sul's judgment, Mark hung on as the ladulta darted back and forth.

  Leti surged past, hanging on to her companion, but Tulana, bellowing with rage, swam alone.

  Mark and Shigeru followed in their wake. The Cresus's gaping mouth filled the ocean before them.

  "Jesus Christ!" Mark screamed, as Sul seemed to swim straight into the jaws of death. With deft turns, Sul cut in front of Naga, turned away, then darted back in.

  "Now fire. There eye!"

  Mark saw the orb, as big as the side of a house. A bolt shot past him, Tulana's, and drawing aim he fired. The ocean boiled with steam. Both shots hit, but it was as if they had struck a steel wall, and Mark saw that the lens was pockmarked with scar tissue. A traplike lid slammed down and the creature shifted away.

  "Keep firing, we going up!" Sul cried.

  The ocean color was shifting, growing lighter. Mark, hanging by Tulana's side, kept firing bolt after bolt into the protecting lid.

  Suddenly they were out of the water, Sul arcing into the sky. "Release!"

  Mark let go, hovering by Naga's side, still firing away. Over his shoulder he could see Cloud Dancer, its crew desperately working to turn the ship around.

  "You bastard," Tulana roared. "You scum-eating spawn of hell. Damn you, I'll kill you this time!"

  Shouts echoed up from below. Looking down into the torrent, Mark saw a light catamaran tumbling end over end through the air, the crew shrieking. Shigeru darted in, so close that he actually slammed into Naga's closed eye. Pointing down with both hands he fired off a brilliant flash of incandescent heat.

  "That's it, damn my hairy ass!" Tulana roared, and dove to Shigeru's side. Mark hovered above them, incredulous, as Tulana landed on Naga's closed lid and continued to fire.

  A bolt slashed past Mark, and then two more, the steel-tipped shafts burying themselves into the monster's grey side not a dozen feet from where Tulana and Shigeru continued to fire. The creature started to arc even further away.

  "He's falling!" Leti screamed, coming up beside Mark. "Get back!"

  Mark followed the demigod up and away from the creature. Now several hundred feet in the air, he looked down--into Naga's mouth. Like some pit of hell, the mouth was a hundred and fifty feet across, and ringed with row after row of teeth that marched downward into a fetid darkness. The creature seemed to be nothing more than one vast eating tube, capable of swallowing anything in its cavernous maw.

  Unable to resist, Mark fired straight into the darkness.

  A thundering boom echoed up, and the air filled with the stench of rot and decay. The creature seemed to surge in his direction, and Mark soared upward as the massive gullet slammed shut in a vain attempt to devour him.

  Naga started to fall away in the opposite direction from Cloud Dancer. The creature slammed back down, sending a plume of spray half a thousand feet into the air. A great tidal wave surged out and the great ship appeared to rise straight up into the heavens, hovering for a moment and then sliding back down the face of the wave, the crew shrieking and yelling, some with fear. But to Mark's amazement, most of them seemed to be enjoying the ride.

  The ocean sur
ged and boiled, the dark bulk of the monster turning, and with amazing speed it raced eastward.

  "Damn him, the bastard's running away," Tulana shook his fists in impotent rage. "Come back and fight me, you thieving, shit-eating coward!"

  "The thing's so damned big you could put fifty bolts into him and he'd still keep fighting, but he never gives us a chance. He'll run at top speed for a hundred miles," Tulana said dejectedly, coming up to hover by Mark's side. "He always does that just when we really get going. We'll never catch him now."

  "Thank the gods," Mark said, in an awestruck whisper.

  "Yeah, damn the bastards." Tulana's disappointment was obvious. "Well, let's get back to the ship, rescue our people, and tow the dead one in." Without waiting for a reply, the prince dropped and swept across the ocean surface to where ladultas were busy picking up the survivors of the wrecked launch.

  "What a fight. Best time of my life!" Shigeru cried, rising from the spray.

  Ikawa cut a path from the wrecked catamaran to draw up alongside Mark. "It's a miracle no one got killed. A lot of broken bones, but those ladultas picked up every man."

  "Goldberg--anyone see him?" Mark called out.

  "Back on the ship already," Leti announced, swinging in to join the group.

  Saito, coming up from the wrecked launch, was the last to rally.

  "How's your ladulta?" Mark asked.

  "Broken fin and some cracked ribs," the sergeant said with tears in his eyes. "I fell off and he went back in to save me and got hit by a fluke. They're taking him to the healers in Tulana's city. Damn, those creatures are grand." His comment was met with a chorus of agreement.

  "You know," Leti announced with a smile, "Tulana's been fighting with Naga for the last two hundred years. If he ever actually killed him, I think he'd be secretly heartbroken."

  Incredulous, Mark looked over at her.

  "I think it's sport for both of them," she explained, shaking her head.

  "Well, next time," Walker said quietly, "I'll stay home and listen to the game on the radio."

  "It's been great, come back soon," Tulana roared, staggering under the effect of an all-night drinking bout.

  Mark looked around at his companions. More than one of them was leaning over the side of Cloud Dancer, gasping in the cool early morning light.

  "Christ, Mark, do we gotta fly?" Walker begged, his face a pale shade of green.

  "It'll clear our heads," Mark said evenly, not really believing his own words. His nausea was not helped by what was going on astern. The massive bulk of the Cresus they had killed the afternoon before was hooked to the stern by a cable, so that the vessel had barely crawled halfway back to the floating island during the night.

  Hundreds of ladultas surged around the half-submerged corpse in a wild frenzy of feeding, their calls counterpointing the feasting aboard ship. To Mark's amazement, he had discovered that the ladulta loved beer, and he had shared an uncounted number of flagons with Sul, to the point that the two had babbled telepathic endearments of undying friendship.

  For the ladulta this was the grand payoff. A hated enemy was dead, there'd be food enough for weeks, and in return they'd help their surface friends by herding fish into nets and bringing up zah from the bottom.

  In celebration, the ladulta of Tulana had called in their neighbors from several hundred miles around to join in the festival, so that the ocean was awash in blood, Cresus meat, beer, ladultas swarming about and tearing off hunks of meat with their razor-sharp teeth. It was a party Mark knew he would forever remember with either fondness or disgust--he wasn't quite sure which.

  "Time to be off," Leti announced. The transport sorcerers, who had sat out the battle at the city and flew out after the fun was over, nodded their good-byes to Tulana and lifted into the air with Vena, who seemed anything but pleased with Imada's condition. With teetotalers' disdain for their less disciplined companions, the sorcerers quietly grinned at each other.

  "All right, I hate these damn good-byes," Tulana growled, casting his eyes over the group.

  "Shigeru, anytime you want to come out for a good hunt, you're my honored guest."

  "With pleasure, my lord," Shigeru slurred happily as Tulana slapped him on the back. Ignoring propriety, Shigeru slapped the prince in return, so that Tulana staggered and broke out into a delighted grin.

  "You're all welcome back, and maybe we'll kill that bastard for sure!" Tulana roared. "Why, by my hairy jewels, it was the best hunt in years!"

  "So long, you beautiful wench." Reaching out, he grabbed Leti's backside and squeezed. Playfully, she slapped him across the face and finally he let go. Ikawa, still uncomfortable with the attention Tulana had been showering on his lover, tried unsuccessfully to force a smile.

  "He actually took the crystal back all by himself?" Tulana asked, looking at Ikawa.

  Leti put her arm around Ikawa and smiled at her lover with an admiring gaze.

  "Then maybe I'll be your nephew, too," Tulana shouted with a grin, and gave Ikawa a bear hug.

  "Now get the hell out of here. I think I'm going to throw up again and I don't like my guests to see it."

  "There's some other good-byes to attend to first," Mark said.

  Tulana smiled indulgently. "Yeah, they do grow on you. If ever you need their help, just let me know." Turning, Tulana staggered away, bellowing an obscene chanty which was quickly picked up by the crew.

  Mark leaped over the side of the ship and his companions followed. The cool water felt good and he found it cleared his head somewhat. He let his shielding down so the water soaked through his garments to rinse out the after effects of the feast, then switched the shield back up again.

  "Sul, Sul."

  A ladulta darted past him, homing in on Shigeru who, bumbling out a string of endearments, embraced his companion.

  "Still drunk like me," Sul's thoughts whispered through Mark's mind.

  Turning about, Mark saw his friend hovering in the water before him.

  "I came to say good-bye," Mark whispered.

  The ladulta drew closer and nuzzled him like an overgrown puppy.

  "We good battle team, good friends. You come again we swim together, I show you my world. You need me, I come, anywhere ocean flow."

  Mark reached out and gave him an affectionate embrace.

  "You need me, I always come to help," Mark replied.

  Sul hiccuped and rolled his eyes.

  "Try Cresus meat with me. We make room for you beside body."

  "Some other time," Mark groaned. He found it strange to hear laughter echoing through his mind.

  Sul spun around him in a tight arc, his tail gently brushing across Mark's chest, then the ladulta darted away.

  Mark rose from the water and saw his companions forming up, looking at each other sheepishly.

  "Well damn it, they're like underwater Tals, like damn puppies," Goldberg sniffled.

  "All right, let's get going," Mark growled, trying to hide his emotions.

  Cursing and groaning, the group lifted into the air and winged over the Cresus, which was surrounded by ladulta still gorging themselves, while others floated lazily alongside, their bellies distended.

  "Lord, what a stink!" Walker said, wrinkling his nose.

  "My ladulta said they really love it when it's aged for a couple of weeks," Goldberg rejoined.

  Walker, leaning over, lost what little breakfast he had vainly struggled to hold, to the delighted hoots of the ladulta circling below.

  "Do you really expect me to believe this?" Patrice yelled. The messenger cowered. "Your ladyship, I am only reporting the information sent back from Asmara. It's already been crosschecked with another source. She is traveling with the group, and by now she's halfway across the ocean, with little or no hope of breaking free."

  "Get out of here," Patrice snapped.

  The messenger, bowing low, scurried out of the room without looking back.

  "Damn them," Patrice snarled, slamming her fist on the table before
her.

  I've got to get control, she kept trying to tell herself. She could feel the spasmodic trembling of her hands, knowing that the terrible stress was finally taking its toll.

  How am I going to break this to Gorgon? The thought made her stomach turn into knots. Already he was roaring about the damage done to his realms, the ever increasing pressure of Jartan, and the fact that so far he had borne all the burden of the struggle.

  That had always been her intent on this campaign: to let him take all the risks while she reaped the greater share of rewards. There had been the slightest of hints from him that if there was treachery involved, that if she was in fact secretly allied to Jartan, he would have his vengence. Would he assume that now, even though she was innocent in this delay?

  "What am I going to do?" She reached over to a side table and refilled her goblet yet again, watching as the trembling of her hands eased ever so slightly.

  If the girl was trapped in close proximity to Leti, the strain of keeping up her false identity must be crushing. And the slightest mistake or dropping of her guard would be fatal to all these long years of planning.

  Would Vena have the strength and resourcefulness to somehow slip away? Even if she did, Patrice thought dejectedly, there was no possibility of her ever being able to outrace Leti.

  "I'll have to get her out," Patrice muttered.

  Sitting back, she extended her hands, and the tile-covered surface shimmered with a pale light, the small crystals at the four corners glowing brightly. A milky filament appeared, and the surface of the table became wrapped in a fine mist that quickly formed into a map of the ocean.

  Patrice stood up, hands still extended, and the map moved, the projection and scale changing to revea! the northern chain of floating islands ruled by Tulana. She shifted the perspective around, scanning the distance between each. The measure of flying time appeared between each island, the figures adding up and appearing in one corner.

  Suddenly the images moved yet again, growing smaller. A map of the entire ocean again filled the table as she studied the chains of floating islands farther south, marking off distances and tracing out routes, calculating move and counter move.