They ignored him, perhaps not hearing, and his bile rose as the monster melted away. It thrashed and screamed in a thin, wailing cry as the flesh was stripped from its skull and its eyes were eaten from their sockets. White bone gleamed in those places where the flesh was thin; the skull, backbone and ribs were exposed, shoulder blades and hips starting to appear.
Unable to stomach it, Sabre whispered to Purr, "Is it safe to leave while that... thing is busy?"
The mosscat shivered, tearing his eyes from the carnage, then nodded and crawled away. Sabre let the donkeys scramble up and led them away. Tassin stumbled after them, her pale face tinged with green. They all threw nervous glances over their shoulders while they retreated in silent haste. The shimmer around the now dead monster had taken on a pink tinge, giving it a cloud-like form.
They hurried away, not caring that they were heading in the wrong direction. The mosscat led, his fur still on end, and they only paused to allow Tassin to retch behind a tree. They circled, creeping through the forest in a cold sweat of apprehension, and Sabre did not object when he realised that Purr was leading them at right angles to their previous path. They all wanted to get out of this Flux-reality as fast as possible, and there were sighs of relief when the green and brown flickers appeared.
The new Flux-reality was reassuring in its normality; a green landscape of short soft grass dotted with twisted, black-barked trees. Thin, pale green leaves hung from their knotty branches, and some bore bright blue fruit. Yellow flowers spotted the grass, and a pink sky arched overhead. What caught everyone's attention, however, was the party that was going on a few metres away.
A bevy of small, delicate people dressed in gossamer clothes danced to a playful flute. Yellow flowers twined their long golden tresses, and rosy lips parted to laugh and pant, revealing pearly teeth. A lacy blanket was spread with a feast of fruit, vegetables and nuts on silver plates, accompanied by pitchers and cups of wine. More people ate and drank, watching the dancers skip and twirl. Sabre regarded the peaceful scene warily, hoping it was as innocuous as it appeared.
"Looks like a picnic."
The flute player stopped, and everyone turned to stare. Stunned silence fell, then several people laughed and capered towards them, smiling.
"Welcome! Welcome!"
The dancers surrounded them, skipping and bouncing, their bright hair flying and eyes sparkling with excitement. None of them was over a metre and a half tall, and they were slender and youthful, but not child-like. The men were broad shouldered and well-muscled, the women curvaceous and lovely. All had varying shades of golden hair and blue eyes. They tugged at Sabre and Tassin, urging them towards the picnic. Dena shrieked with joy when two ladies took her hands and twirled her in a mad dance. They patted the donkeys and even tried to stroke the mosscat, who perched atop the cart, grumbling.
Sabre allowed several young women to urge him towards the party, pretty sure they were harmless. They made him sit beside the picnic cloth and pressed food into his hands, offering him a cup of wine. Dena fell to with a will, relishing the sweet fruit. Sabre found the fare exquisite, and Tassin sat close to him, a bevy of admiring males, who seemed fascinated by her black hair, surrounding her. They plied her with food and drink just as the girls did Sabre, and other members of the crowd made a fuss of the donkeys and Purr, although he was the only one who did not seem to appreciate it. When the excited chatter died down somewhat, a man seated on the other side of the picnic blanket addressed them.
"You must be travellers, strangers to our land," he said. The gold circlet he wore in his bright hair enhanced his air of authority.
Sabre nodded, introducing himself and his companions.
The man inclined his head in polite acknowledgement. "I am Prince Larric of Mernon, and you are welcome here. Where do you fare to?"
"We're just passing through, roaming."
"Ah." The Prince smiled, and although he looked like a nineteen-year-old, his manner was mature. The woman beside him, who looked to be in her twenties, leant over and spoke in the Prince's ear.
Sabre muttered to Tassin, "Pity he's not real, hey?"
She snorted. "He's too short, anyway."
"He's a prince. I didn't know he had to be tall, too."
"Stop it, Sabre. It's not funny."
The women examined Sabre’s brow band and asked questions, distracting him. They seemed to have a short attention span, however, and the novelty of the newcomers soon wore off. The Prince clapped his hands, and the piper started to play again. The dancing resumed, and Dena joined them, trying to match their fluid grace, but failed, her limp obvious. The Prince watched her, a faint frown furrowing his smooth brow, then rose and approached her. He spoke to the child, and Dena nodded. The Prince removed his golden circlet and touched it to the girl's brow.
Dena's spine and crooked leg straightened, and her patchy brown hair turned to shining gold locks. Tassin gasped and looked at Sabre, whose mouth twisted with regret. Dena beamed at the Prince, her eyes brimming with joyful tears. Larric bowed, smiling, and took her hands to lead her in a graceful dance. The others clapped and cheered, and Dena laughed with happiness. Sabre groaned and rubbed his face, shaking his head. Tassin rose and joined the dance, leaving him to watch Dena twirl and leap with grace she had never known.
The merry folk, as he came to think of them, caroused for hours, yet the food was not depleted and the piper never tired. Dena was a princess in her ragged dress, the Prince her golden companion. Tassin tried to persuade Sabre to dance, as did several other ladies, but he remained unmoved, shaking his head. Tassin rested on occasion, flushed and smiling, but Dena danced untiring under the Prince's spell. Sabre stood up and called a warning when the green and brown flickers shot through the land, and the world Changed.
The high skirl of pipes hung in the air like an echo, and the dancers' ghostly laughter faded into a memory as a dark, gloomy forest appeared around them. Dena, caught in mid-twirl, tripped and fell. She sat stunned, then let out a heart-rending wail. Tassin went to kneel beside her and hug her, but the child would not be consoled, and sobbed harder, her deformities once again a reality. Sabre waited for her to calm, but instead her wails rose to screams, and she flung a full-fledged tantrum, flailing at Tassin with her fists.
Sabre strode over to her and gripped her thin shoulders, giving her a shake. "Stop it! You knew it wouldn't last, Dena. It was just like a dream, that's all, a cruel dream. You woke up, now stop it."
Dena glared at him, her tear-streaked face twisted with bitter self-loathing, but she choked back her sobs and knuckled her eyes. He went to the cart, where Purr waited. The mosscat yawned and stretched.
"Well, now we can be on our way, at last." He jumped down and headed off through the gloom.
The dense coniferous forest allowed no glimpse of the sky, and its needle-strewn floor was lifeless. Sabre tugged the donkeys forward, his belly growling, bereft of the food he had eaten. Tassin, looking tired and pale, led a still sniffling Dena after the cart, her limp more pronounced than ever.
They trudged through the gloomy forest in silence, each sunk in private unhappiness that the depressing landscape aggravated. There seemed no end to the monotony of shaggy trunks and flat, needle-thick ground. Their footfalls were silent, and only the faint sighing of a breeze in the trees' upper branches broke the quiet. There was no oppressive atmosphere here, however, only cool, damp gloom. The mosscat stopped beside a Real-reality pool, the first they had come across for a while, and Sabre filled the water skins. They chewed on the tough dried meat to fill the aching void in their stomachs that the loss of the succulent fruit they had eaten at the picnic had left.
The control unit's clock informed Sabre that they had been walking for only four hours when the next Change came, so the Changes were speeding up, which meant they were nearing the Core. They clustered around the cart when the flashes appeared, and a world of grey mud replaced the gloomy forest. A roiling sky of purple clouds glowered down on flat mire pock-m
arked with small, weeping craters, and Sabre found the footing firm but slippery. A hiss made him spin around as a geyser of steam erupted from one of the craters, vented for a moment, and subsided. Warily placing his feet, he moved off, tugging the slipping donkeys. Everyone moved cautiously to keep their footing except Purr, who sprouted long claws for traction and trotted ahead. The air stank of sulphur and mud, an ugly mixture whose pungency abused their noses.
The journey through the mud world was uneventful until a nearby geyser's venting startled Tassin, making her slip and sit down with a yelp in the mud. Sabre stared at her, the endless tedium of the mud world dulling his mind, and then Dena giggled. Tassin grinned, picked up a handful of mud and hurled it at the girl. It landed with a splat on her chest, and Dena shrieked and retaliated, her much larger dollop hitting Tassin on the side of the neck and sliding into her dress.
Discarding all dignity, the Queen flung a moist mud pie that hit Dena on the rear as she bent to scoop up more muck. Dena jumped with a shriek, slipped and sat down with a squelch. Soon a storm of mud patties flew between them, and they resembled mud monsters. Purr came back to stand beside the grinning cyber, shaking his head in amazement.
"Are all human females this crazy?"
Sabre laughed. "Only the ones with a sense of humour."
Tassin flung a dollop of muck at him, which hit him square on the forehead and obliterated the cyber band. Declining to join in, he retreated with the mosscat to the safety of the donkeys' lee, laughing. By the time the mud fighters had had enough, they were plastered with grey sludge from head to foot.
They trailed behind the cart, vainly scraping at the caked muck while they meandered between the craters. Despite the slippery footing, they made good progress in the mud world. Sabre was not surprised that this world had no life; it appeared to be a young planet, still in its birth throes, unstable and unformed. He wondered if their tracks would remain to puzzle archaeologists in a millennia's time.
Chapter Nine
Again the Change came faster, and the mud world vanished in a wink. A sun-drenched beach pounded by the waves of a sparkling green sea replaced it. Noting Tassin's weariness, Sabre stopped the donkeys and made camp while Dena frolicked in the shallows, collecting shells. Tassin sat on the sand, looking a bit startled to find herself clean again, the mud vanished with the previous Flux-reality.
Although the warm, pleasant world offered easy travelling, and the beach stretched invitingly ahead of them, they had to sleep; even Sabre was tired. The constant daylight made time hard to calculate, and only weariness dictated their sleeping times. Even the control unit's clock failed to provide a reliable time, Sabre had discovered that every Change reset it. When he turned to offer Tassin some food, he found her already asleep, her hair blowing over her face in a veil. He gazed at her, wishing anew that he did not have to leave her when this adventure was over, if he survived.
He caught Purr watching him and said, "Why don't you go and catch a fish or something?"
The mosscat gave his purring chuckle. "Eating Flux-reality only makes you hungrier when it's gone, friend Sabre. I thought you would have noticed that."
"Yeah, but it'll keep you occupied." Sabre lay back, closed his eyes and allowed the lassitude to wash over him in a healing tide. Cyber hosts still needed sleep.
Sabre woke with a violent start when something small and hairy landed onto his chest with a squeak. He struck out in reflex, sending Purr flying with a yelp, and sat up, a hand on his laser.
Purr rolled to his feet and cried, "Look out!"
Sabre whipped around. A huge red cat with golden spots crouched not two metres away, ready to spring. Snatching the laser from his belt, he fired as the beast leapt, burning a hole in its chest. It rolled to a stop beside him, its blue eyes glazing. He rose to his feet, staring down at the beast.
"How the hell did that thing get so close, Purr? I thought you were keeping watch?" He glared at the puffed-up mosscat, who glared back, undaunted.
"It just appeared out of thin air! One minute there was nothing, then suddenly, poof! It just stepped through, as if an invisible door opened."
Sabre glanced at Tassin, who stared at the cat, rubbing one eye sleepily. Dena studied the beast with obvious fascination, and he turned back to Purr.
"How's that possible? It's never happened before."
"We're getting close to the Core. I did warn you, it will try to protect itself. It's divined your intentions."
Sabre snorted. "I think you fell asleep."
"No. I've watched three Flux-realities come and go. You slept for a long time, but I was awake. Had I been asleep, you'd be dead."
Sabre doubted that, but his anger abated when he bent to examine the beast. The cat had none of the deformities Flux-monsters usually did. He glanced around at the new landscape of shoulder high golden grass, which almost hid distant trees with long yellow leaves. Deep red earth was visible between the grass clumps in a pattern of spots and stripes. The feline matched the terrain perfectly.
"It's a Flux-reality animal," he informed Purr.
The mosscat sniffed. "Of course, I knew that."
"So it stepped through the grass and caught you on the hop."
"No! It came out of nowhere! Nothing creeps up on me. Do you think I would have survived this long if I was that stupid?"
"It was well camouflaged," Sabre pointed out.
"I saw the animal in the weird world coming, and that was invisible."
Sabre pondered. The mosscat was right, the big cat should not have been able to sneak up on him, but that introduced a plethora of unpleasant possibilities. "So, you think the Core sent it."
Purr's tail twitched with annoyance. "That's what I said. The Core transported it here, hoping it would kill you while you slept."
"So we can expect more visitors like this."
"A lot worse than this. I think this one just happened to be nearby. Perhaps the Core has just realised the danger, soon it will start sending many monsters, real ones."
Sabre looked at Tassin, glimpsing a flicker of fear in her eyes before she hid it. "Sure you don't want to turn back now? Purr can still guide you out."
"No, I'm coming."
Sabre looked away, angered by her foolishness. Females were supposed to have better survival instincts than males, but this one was distinctly lacking. To prevent himself from arguing with her, he checked his equipment, ensuring the lasers were fully powered, and tucked some spare power packs into his harness. He took an extra laser and checked Tassin's weapon as well, avoiding her eyes. His preparations clearly frightened her, and that gave him an odd twinge of satisfaction. He buckled the sheathed sword across his back, where the hilt was easily reached over his shoulder, and tucked the knife into his belt.
Turning to Purr, he said, "If you want to leave, it's okay. I'm sure I can find the Core now."
The mosscat watched him with narrow eyes. "I'll stay a little longer."
Sabre grunted and pulled the donkeys from their meal, pushing through the long grass. Tassin walked close behind him, and Dena sat on the cart, scanning the land with wide eyes. Within half an hour another Change came, a strange world of metre-high buff ridges that stretched away to the horizon. A pale yellow sky glowed uniformly, with no sign of a sun. Sabre stopped the donkeys and frowned at the ridge that blocked their path. Stepping forward, he kicked it in frustration, and his foot sank into it. He prodded it, finding it as soft as sponge, and led the donkeys on again, trampling the stuff underfoot. The sponge gave off a tangy smell when it was crushed, which made Sabre's mouth water.
A dark green monster stepped out of the air in front of Sabre. Purr sneezed, sprouting claws and fangs, and Tassin yelled, reaching for her laser. Sabre's weapon was out before anyone else had time to do anything, and the monster died with a surprised look on its ugly, snouted face. After a second of shocked stillness, Purr sneezed again, and Sabre put away the laser, staring down at the monster.
"One thing about the Core interfer
ing like this," he said, "the beasts are just as surprised to see us as we are to see them."
"It will learn," Purr stated grimly.
Tassin leant on the cart, looking like her legs were weak with shock. "What will it do, materialise them right on top of us?"
"Maybe. Or further away, so they'll have time to attack us, and probably many of them."
Sabre stepped over the corpse. "Then we'll see how clever it is."
They walked undisturbed for an hour, then the world Changed again, this time to rolling hills covered with bright red creepers that snaked across the land like serpents, twitching and coiling in the sun. Sabre poked one with his foot to assure himself that it was harmless, but it merely coiled away, revealing black soil beneath it, from which it had withdrawn thousands of slim white roots. The sun was a lighter spot behind a layer of pale grey clouds, casting a diffuse, cold light. Within minutes of the new Flux-reality coming into being, the Core launched an attack.
Five monsters stepped from the air around the cart, one less than a metre away, the others a few metres distant. Purr sneezed as Sabre yanked out his laser and shot the nearest tusked horror. The mosscat leapt at a hairy orange creature with blazing green eyes. Tassin pulled out her weapon and fired wildly at a bewildered boar-like animal. Sabre killed two more attackers while they lumbered towards the cart, then shot the boar-like animal as it swung about short-sightedly, confused by the cracks of laser light around it.
Purr and the orange monster rolled together, snarling, in the vegetation, a whirling blur too confused for Sabre to aim at with any degree of accuracy. Instead he grabbed an orange appendage and lifted the wolf-sized monster up, Purr dangling from its bloody snout with long claws and fangs. With a quick twist, Sabre broke its neck and dropped it into the red creepers. Purr regained his rotund appearance with a sneeze, and Sabre surveyed the bodies with grim satisfaction.
"It'll have to do better than that."
"It will," Purr muttered.
The Cyber Chronicles 03: The Core Page 10