The cataclysm t2-2

by Margaret Weis

  Out of the silence came a sound that was not a sound as much as a tingling in the air, a mounting of invisible tensions. Past the eastern horizon, where the immense flare still lingered, lightning danced and black clouds like mountain ranges marched up the sky, one after another. The inaudible sounds grew and grew, becoming a torrent of vibration that strummed the winds and made rocks dance on the slope. In the distance, gouts of brilliance spewed upward, rising above the clouds to shower the eastern world with marching storms of fire.

  Shouting and screaming, terrified creatures rushed past him, the largest among them less than half his size and wide-eyed with fear. The humans from the slope below, slavers and enslaved, fled together in panic. They ran within arm's reach of him, and he barely noticed them as they passed. Dazed and dazzled, he stared out across a landscape gone insane, a landscape where distant mountains writhed and shattered and sank from view, where serpentine brilliance danced in a fire-lit sky gone black with climbing smoke, where the horizon heaved upward like a tidal wave, rushing toward him.

  Winds like hammers swooped down from aloft and struck him with a force that sent him tumbling backward, arms and legs flailing helplessly as oven-hot gusts rolled him uphill a dozen yards and dropped him into a heaving pit. His club was wrenched from his fingers and flew skyward, carried by raging winds. Struggling, fighting for balance, he got his feet under him and climbed, drawing himself over the edge of the chasm just as it closed with stone jaws behind him.

  In a bedlam of howling, furnace winds, shattering stone, and deep, bone-jarring rumbles from beneath the ground, he lay gasping for breath, then raised stricken eyes as the nearer mountains to the west began to explode.

  Huge boulders rose into the sky like grains of flung sand, then showered back down onto the slopes, bounding and rolling downward, bringing other debris with them as they came.

  He struggled upward, dodging and dancing, flinging himself this way and that as monstrous rock fragments shot past, shaking the ground with their force. A tumbling boulder the size of an elven mansion bore down on him, and he flung himself aside, hugging the ground as it hit, bounced and sailed over, missing him by inches. He raised himself and turned to watch it go, and something hit him from behind — something massive and stone-hard that smashed against his head, bowling him over. Chaos rang in his ears, and he saw the hard, shaking ground rise to meet him… then saw nothing more.

  Where he fell, shards of stone skidded and bounced, piling up in drifts around him. After a long time, the stonefalls slowed and stopped, and a creeping, gurgling torrent of mud and silt from ravaged slopes above rolled down to bury the lesser debris. He was not aware of being buried. He wasn't aware of anything now. The flowing soil found him, covered him and passed on, and there was nothing there to see.

  With the winds came clouds, and with the clouds came rain — torrents of rain washing over a ravaged land, rain and more rain, scouring channels and gullies in the sediment among the tumbled stones.

  The rains came and went and came again, and between storms the ravaged land lay in silence.

  On a caprock hillside, where scoured stone rose in stacked layers above the climbing slopes, evening light made a patchwork of shadows, hiding indentations in the stone cliffs, camouflaging them from prying eyes. Here on the south face of the cliff, low in its surface, one of those somber shadows might have seemed slightly different from those around it, to the practiced eye — darker and deeper, the opening of a cavern that opened to other caverns beyond.

  Screened from view by jutting rock, the spot was just the sort of place the combined clans of Bulp had been seeking for weeks — a place that could be This Place until it was time to move on to Another Place.

  And, seeking it, they had found it and moved right in. Furtively, they entered, scouted around, were satisfied, and reported the find to their leader.

  With great ceremony, then, His Royalness Gorge III, Highbulp by Choice and Lord Protector of This Place and Who Knew How Many Other Places, made his own brief tour of inspection, strutting here and there, looking at this and that, muttering under his breath and in general behaving like a Highbulp.

  Various of his subjects trailed after him, occasionally stumbling over one another.

  At a wall of rock, Gorge stopped and raised his candle. "What this?" he demanded.

  At his shoulder, his wife and consort, the Lady Drule, peered at the wall and said, "Rock. Cave have rock walls. Wouldn't be cave without walls."

  Old Hunch, the Grand Notioner of the Bulp Clan, padded forward, leaned on his mop-handle staff, to ask, "What Highbulp's problem?"

  "Want to know what is that." The Lady Drule pointed at the wall.

  "That wall," Hunch said. "Rock wall. So what?"

  "Highbulp doin' inspec… explo… lookin' 'round," Gorge proclaimed. He moistened a finger, touched the wall, then tasted his finger. "Rock wall," he decided. "Cave got rock wall this side."

  "Other sides, too," Hunch pointed out. "Caves do."

  Satisfied, Gorge wandered away from the wall, raised his eyes to look critically at the rock ceiling, and tripped over a bump in the rock floor. He sprawled flat and lost his candle.

  "Highbulp clumsy oaf," Drule muttered, helping him to his feet. Someone returned his candle to him, and he looked around, found a foot-high ledge, and sat on it. "Bring Royal Stuff," he ordered.

  Several of his subjects scouted around, found the tattered sack that was the Holder of Royal Stuff, and brought it to him. Digging into it, throwing aside various objects — a rabbit skull, a broken spearhead, a battered cup — Gorge drew forth a broken antler nearly as tall as he was. An elk antler, it once had been part of a set, attached to a tanned elk hide. The hide and the other antler were long gone, but he still had this one, and he raised it like a scepter.

  "This place okay for This Place," Gorge III decreed, "so this place This Place." The ceremony ended, he tossed aside the elk antler. "Get stew goin'," he ordered. " 'Bout time to eat."

  The Lady Drule stepped aside to confer with other ladies of the clan. There were shrugs and shaking heads. She paused in thought, gazing into the murky reaches of the cavern.

  "Rats," she said.

  Gorge glanced around. "What?"

  "Rats. Need meat for stew. Time for hunt rats."

  Within moments, small figures scurried all around the cave and into the tunnels leading from it. Their shouts and chatter, the sounds of scuffing, scrambling feet, the thuds of people falling down and the oaths of those who stumbled over them, all receded into the reaches of the cavern.

  Gorge looked distinctly irritated. "Where ever'body go?"

  "Huntin' rats," the Lady Drule explained.

  "Rats," Gorge grumbled. No longer the center of everyone's attention, he felt abandoned and surly. He wanted to sulk, but sulking usually put him to sleep, and he was too hungry to sleep.

  It was a characteristic of the race called Aghar, whom most races called gully dwarves: Once a thing was begun, simply keep on doing it. When at rest, they tended to stay at rest. But once in motion, they kept moving. One of the strongest drives of any gully dwarf was simple inertia.

  Thus the rat hunt, once begun, went on and on. The cave held plenty of rats, the hunting was good, and the gully dwarves were enjoying the sport… and exploring further and further as they hunted.

  Stew, however, was in progress. Seeing that her husband was becoming more and more testy, the Lady Drule had rounded up a squadron of other ladies when the first rats were brought in. Now they had a good fire going, and a stew of gathered greens, wild onions, turnips and fresh rat meat was beginning to bubble.

  Gorge didn't wait for the rest to come to supper. He dug into one of the clan packs, found a stew bowl that once had been the codpiece on some Tall warrior's armor, and helped himself.

  He was only halfway through his second serving when a group of gully dwarves came racing in from the shadows at the rear of the cave and jostled to a stop before him.

  "Highbulp come lo
ok!" one said, excitedly. "We find.. ah…" He turned to another. "What we find?"

  "Other cave," the second one reminded him.

  "Right," the first continued. "Highbulp come see other cave. Got good stuff."

  "What kind good stuff?" Gorge demanded, stifling a belch.

  The first turned to the second. "What kind good stuff?"

  "Cave stuff," the second reminded him. "Pretty stuff."

  "Cave stuff, Highbulp," the first reported.

  "Better be good," Gorge snapped. "Good 'nough for inter… int… butt in when Highbulp tryin' to eat?"

  "Good stuff," several of them assured him.

  "What kind stuff? Gold? Clay? Bats? Pyr… pyr… pretty rocks? What?" Another resounding belch caught him, this one unstifled.

  The first among them turned to the second. "What?"

  "Pretty rocks," the second reminded. "Highbulp come see!"

  "Rats," Gorge muttered. Those around him seemed so excited — there were dozens of them now — that he set down his codpiece bowl, picked up his candle, and went to see what they had found. A parade of small figures carrying candles headed for the rear of the cavern — the guides leading, Gorge following them, and a horde of others following him. Most of them — latecomers on the scene — didn't know where they were going or why, but they followed anyway. Far back in the cavern, a crack in the rock led into an eroded tunnel, which wound away, curving upward.

  As he entered the crack, Gorge belched mightily. "Too much turnips in stew," he muttered.

  By ones and threes and fives, the gully dwarves entered and disappeared from the sight of those remaining.

  The Lady Drule and several other ladies were just coming back from a side chamber, where they had been preparing sleeping quarters. At sight of the last candles disappearing into the tunnel, Drule asked, "Now what goin' on? Where Highbulp?"

  Hunch was inspecting the stew. He looked up and shrugged. "Somebody find somethin'. Highbulp go see." He tasted the stew. "Good," he said. He tasted again, then turned away, philosophically. "Life like stew," he said. "Fulla rats an' turnips."

  The Lady Drule glanced after him, mildly bewildered, then glanced around the cavern. Only a few of the males were there, some asleep, some more interested in eating than in following the Highbulp around, and two or three who had started on the trek into the tunnel, then lost interest and turned back.

  She could see them clearly, she noticed. The cavern suddenly was very well lighted, light flooding in from the entrance and growing brighter by the moment. Near the fire, a sleeping gully dwarf rolled over, sat up and blinked, shading his eyes. "Huh!" he said. "Mornain' already?"

  The light grew, its color changing from angry red to orange, to yellow and then to brilliant white, nearly blinding them, even in the shadows of the cavern. Other sleeping souls awoke and gaped about them.

  "What happenin'?" the Lady Drule wondered. Hunch returned with a bowl and filled it with stew. "Get-tin' lighter," he said, absently. Abruptly there was a howling at the entrance, and a gust of wind like an oven blast swept into the cave. The stew in Hunch's bowl seemed to come alive. It spewed up and out, showering gravy halfway across the chamber. The bowl followed, wrenched from the Grand Notioner's grip, and Hunch followed that, rolling and shouting, his mop-handle flailing.

  Everywhere, then, gully dwarves were scurrying for cover — stumbling, falling, rolling, fleeing from the brilliant, howling entrance. They scurried into crevices, rolled into holes, dodged behind erosion pillars… and abruptly there was silence. The bright light still flooded in from the entrance, but now not quite so blinding. The roaring wind died away and the howling diminished to a low, continuing rumble almost below hearing.

  Silence… then the rumbling increased. The floor of the cavern seemed to dance, vibrating to the sound. Bits of stone and showers of dust fell from the walls, and chunks of rock parted from the ceiling to crash downward. A rattling, bouncing flood of gravel buried the stew pot and the fire, and there was a new sound above the rumbling — the high, keening wail of stone splitting.

  The cavern's entrance collapsed with a roar. Tons of broken stone slid across the opening, burying it, sealing it. Within, the rumbling and the rattle of rockfall were a chaos of noise, but now the noise built in darkness, for there was no light to see.

  The tunnel from the back of the cavern called This Place wound deep into the capstone of the hill, bending and turning, always angling upward. His Royalness Gorge III, Highbulp and leader of clans, was somewhat to the rear of his expedition when the rest of them rounded a bend in the rising tunnel and saw the light ahead. Somewhere along the way, Gorge had decided that his feet were sore, and had taken to limping whenever he thought about it.

  But when he heard the shouts and exclamations ahead of him — cries of, "Hey! This pretty!" and "Nice stuff, huh?" and "Where that light comin' from?" — he forgot his limp and hurried to see what was going on. Rounding a bend, he found a traffic tie-up in a well-lighted cave, where the light seemed to grow brighter moment by moment. The first arrivals there had stopped in awe; others had piled into them from behind, and several had fallen down. Wading around and through tangles of his subjects, Gorge pushed past them and stopped. The cavern was a wide oval, an erosion chamber where ancient seeps had collected, and at the top of it was a hole that opened to the sky… a sky that suddenly was as bright as day.

  "What goin' on here?" Gorge demanded. "What light through yonder… yon… why hole all lit up?"

  "Dunno," several of his subjects explained. Then one of them pointed aside. "See, Highbulp? Pretty rocks."

  He looked, and his eyes widened. One entire wall of the cavern glistened like brilliant gold, layer upon layer of bright embedment shining in the dark stone. "Wow," the Highbulp breathed… and belched. As though echoing him, the whole cavern shuddered and rumbled.

  "Way too much turnips," Gorge decided, as those around him looked at him in admiration. He turned his attention again to the wall of pyrites. He moistened a finger, rubbed it against a glittering lode, then licked it. "Real nice," he said. "Good pyr… pyr… pretty rocks."

  Spying an exceptionally bright nodule, he reached for it. The cavern belched again — a deep, rumbling roll of sound — and the node fell loose in his hand. Gorge belched in surprise, and the cavern echoed him. The light in This Place had dimmed slightly, and suddenly became murky with dust. Gravel fell and rattled around them as the whole cave shook in a spasm. "Hiccups?" someone asked.

  "Not me," the Highbulp declared. "What goin' on here?" As though the mountain had given a stone belch, the cavern vibrated and began to shake. Gully dwarves danced around in confusion, stumbling and falling over one another. The spasm subsided slightly, then came again, this time far more violently. Fallen gully dwarves piled up on the gravel-strewn floor, and the Highbulp was thrown head over heels, to land atop them.

  " 'Nough of this!" he shrieked. "Ever'body run like crazy!"

  They would have, gladly, but a rumbling like approaching thunder growled all around them. Debris from above pelted down on them, and the cavern's floor heaved and rose, pitching them into the center, where they piled up in a writhing, struggling mass with the Highbulp buried somewhere within.

  Then, with a tremendous roar, the hole in the ceiling split wide, the cavern's floor heaved upward, the very world seemed to belch mightily, and the hilltop above erupted in a gout of gravel, pyrite fragments, dust and tumbling gully dwarves.

  The Highbulp found himself airborne, and shrieked in terror, then he was falling, and thudded onto hard ground beneath a smoky red sky. Someone landed on top of him, and others all around. For a time he lay dazed, then he raised eyes that went round with wonder. He was on a hilltop, surrounded by other stunned gully dwarves, and all around was confusion. In the distance to the east, the horizon and the sky above it were a cauldron of blazing, writhing flames, where smoke and black clouds marched across a howling sky. And in the opposite direction, to the west, mountains were exploding.

&nb
sp; "Wha' happen?" several voices echoed one another. "Cave all turnippy," someone said. "Burp us out."

  For long minutes, the ground beneath them shook and danced, and they hugged its surface in panic. The sky rained dust and cinders on them, and huge winds howled overhead. Then there came a lull, the quaking subsided, and dark raindrops thudded into the dust around them.

  One by one, the gully dwarves got to their feet. They crowded around the Highbulp, making it almost impossible for him to get his feet under him.

  "Back off," he growled. Those nearest backed away, creating a ripple effect in the crowd that knocked some of those on the outside down again. Gorge stood up, tried to dust himself off, and a large raindrop splattered on his nose. He looked around at his gathered followers, squinting in the darkness that had replaced the brilliant light.

  Lightning split the sky overhead, illuminating everything, and Gorges latest belch turned to a shriek of panic. All around them were Talls — humans — armed men with swords and axes that glistened in the storm light — armed, determined human slavers… and there was nowhere for the gully dwarves to run.

  The rains came and went and came again, scouring a savaged land that never again would be as it had been before. Gray morning light shone on silent chaos, a land rent and ripped and devastated, a landscape of desolation, where huge boulders lay scattered upon silt-buried slopes, a place of sundered silence in a land torn and rent by cataclysm.

  Mountains no longer had the dagger-spire silhouettes of yesterday, but instead presented cratered and tumbled faces to the dawn. Their slopes were strewn with boulders. Jagged shards jutted like teeth from the pitted flows of settling topsoil scoured from ravaged ranges above.