"You believe it is just a story?"
"A story? Yes, that is what it is. Perhaps there was some truth to it once, but that was long ago, before even the Gaunt Man existed."
They two were silent for a time, Thratchen staring into the flames as he held her hand, Sabathine regarding the techno-demon with an amused expression. Then Thratchen, still looking into the fire, spoke.
"I believe that you are wrong, Sabathine," Thratchen said. "I believe the legend that speaks of the first maelstrom is true. I believe the Nameless One and Apeiros were the first children of the mating of Void and Eternity, and that they lived on to become as gods."
Sabathine scowled. "These stories obsess you, Thratchen. I can hear the awe and wonder in your voice. Why do they hold such meaning for you?"
Thratchen looked up into the vampyre's eyes. "The pursuit of knowledge is to me as blood is to you," the techno-demon admitted. "You drink the life out of human cattle in order to survive, and the drinking is ecstasy to you. I, on the other hand, am filled with a curiosity that rages through me like the hunger rages through you. To satisfy that hunger, I must go to any lengths to uncover facts and theories with which to feed it. Like the Void craves Eternity, I crave knowledge and the power it can bring me."
"To what end, Thratchen?" Sabathine asked. "What will you do with this knowledge and power if you actually achieve it?"
Thratchen laughed heartily. "There is no 'if,' lovely Sabathine, there is only 'when.' The Gaunt Man and the other High Lords spread the Nameless One's religion of destruction across the cosmverse, whether they believe in the god or not. I seek proof not of if the Nameless One ever existed, but if he still exists today."
"And if he does?" she pressed, an unfamiliar edge to her voice that might have been the sound of fear.
"Then I shall meet him, and finally receive the answers that I crave."
Sabathine pulled her hand away, her eyes wide in surprise. "Be careful what you wish for, Thratchen," she warned. "There are some gods that are better worshipped from afar."
But Thratchen had not heard her warning, for he was again staring intently into the roaring fire. He did not even notice when the vampyre left the room, slamming the door behind her.
Ill
Father Christopher Bryce picked himself off the floor of the seaplane. He had been thrown from his seat on impact, and he had blacked out. From the amount of water around him, he assumed that while the plane survived the crash, it was quickly filling with water.
Bryce got to his feet and surveyed the plane's interior. He saw the dwarves (all four of them) helping Djil get out of his safety harness, and Tolwyn was working on forcing open the side hatch. Tom and Mara emerged from the cockpit a moment later, moving toward the hatch as well.
"I guess we made it," Bryce said to no one in particular.
"Not yet," Tom countered. "We still have to get out of this thing before it sinks."
Mara and Tolwyn managed to force the hatch open, and water poured in at a terrifying rate. It was like the entire river was trying to get into the small seaplane. "Hurry!" Tolwyn ordered, grabbing Tom and tossing him through the hatch. "Everyone must get off of this craft!"
Bryce half swam to the hatch, pressing against the wave of water. He felt small hands pushing him forward, and silently thanked the dwarves for their assistance. Then he was beside Tolwyn.
"Can you swim, Christopher?" the paladin asked as she grabbed the front of his shirt.
"Yes," the priest replied, getting ready to be tossed into the river.
"I can't," Mara suddenly admitted. "At least not very well." She was looking out the hatch with a mixture of fear and dread, and Bryce thought again that while Mara was an extremely intelligent and gifted child, she was still just a child.
"I'll help you," Bryce said softly, taking her arm.
"I can fly a plane, fight a war, even travel from one cosm to another, but I've never learned how to swim," Mara told him.
"Well, nobody's perfect," Bryce smiled, and Mara laughed out loud.
Then Tolwyn pushed, and the two of them splashed into the Thames River.
112
Decker, Julie and Kurst traveled for a time in silence, walking along a deserted road through a deserted, dying forest. They saw no people, heard no animals scurry through the undergrowth. It was as if they were on a world that contained no life beyond the withered trees and grasses. Decker paused every few minutes to listen, but he heard no thunder, saw no lightning in the distance. Perhaps they had lost the hunters.
The group rounded a bend and came upon a small clearing beside a shallow pond. Next to the pond was a tiny but beautiful cottage, although the land around it was cracked and dead. They saw no people, but they smelled the pungent aroma of something cooking over a fire, and smoke swirled from the chimney in a thin ribbon of gray.
"We shall get directions here," Kurst told them.
"Could we ask for some food, too?" Julie asked.
"We'll see," was Kurst's answer.
The trio approached the cottage carefully, taking their cue from Kurst's graceful loping. He reached the door first. It was a simple wooden affair set into the thatched wall of the house. A shuttered window was the only other thing in the front wall. He knocked, rapping three times upon the hard wood.
There was no answer.
Kurst rapped again, this time much harder than before. He stopped, and Decker heard a chair scrape against the floor. A moment later the door opened, and a small man with a long beard, wearing thick, red robes, appeared in the doorway.
"Go away," the dwarf muttered before Decker and 252
the others could say anything. "I have no time to entertain travelers." That said, the dwarf slammed the cottage door.
"That was rude," Julie commented. Then she asked, "Are all the people of Aysle so short?"
"No," Kurst said absently as he examined the door, "only the dwarves. Most of the folk are like you, except for the giants. And the elves. And the half folk." He knocked again.
The door swung open a second time, and the dwarf let out an angry sigh. "Look, I'm very busy," he said harshly. "If you do not go away I'll be forced to apply Linfir's Little Frog spell to the lot of you!" He started to shut the door, but Kurst imposed himself into the opening.
"We will not take up much of your time," Kurst said quickly. Decker could tell that he was running out of patience. "We just need to know how to get to the Valley of the Sword."
"Ah, going to join the troops, are you?" the dwarf asked. "Well, I can always spare a little time for Ardinay's boys. Enter, enter."
The dwarf moved into the cottage, and Decker, Kurst and Julie followed. It was a one room affair, divided up into cooking area, workroom and sleeping chamber. The massive table in the center held all kinds of jars and bottles and scrolls, and a large book sat open in front of a chair that was pushed away from the table.
"He is a mage," Kurst said quietly. "Be careful what you say."
"You must head rimward," the dwarf mage said, "but even then the valley is not easy to find. I can give you a map, though." He started digging through a wooden chest full of rolled scrolls, talking as he searched.
"I'm going to join up with the troops in another day or so, as soon as I finish preparing the potions that Lady Ardinay ordered."
"Of course you are," Julie said, sniffing one of the jars. "What is this stuff?"
"What? Oh, that's an ointment I've been perfecting," the mage called. "It should render the wearer invisible. Or is that the one that causes a folk to explode? Ah, here it is!" He pulled one of the scrolls free and approached the table.
Julie moved aside for the dwarf, slipping the jar into her pocket. The dwarf, meanwhile, spread the scroll out. There was a crude map of a large land mass. He pointed at a body of water within the land mass and said, "This is the Inland Sea." He moved his finger slightly. "And this is the Valley of the Sword. That's where Ardinay has gathered the armies of Aysle and set up the bridge to the new world."
"Right here," the mage said, pointing at a small dot some distance from the valley.
Kurst nodded, satisfied that he had what they needed. "I thank you wizard," he said, motioning for Decker and Julie to leave.
"Give my regards to the Lady," the dwarf said as he showed them to the door. "Tell her that I'll be arriving shortly." He closed the door, and Decker heard a bolt slide into place.
"Do you know the way now?" Julie asked Kurst.
"Yes," the shapeshifter said, leading them back into the woods.
"We didn't get any food," Julie commented.
"No," Kurst replied.
"We didn't even find out his name."
Decker looked back. The sky was still clear, and the sun was shining (though a perpetual gloom hung over this land). He saw no sign of dark clouds on the horizon. But as he turned to follow Kurst and Julie, he thought he heard the distant rumble of thunder echoing through the forest.
113
Tolwyn emerged from the river, water matting the army fatigues she wore to her body. She combed her chestnut hair with her fingers, pushing it away from her face to fall straight down her back. The others were all sprawled near the shore: Christopher Bryce, Mara, Djil, Tom O'Malley, Pluppa, Gutterby, Grim and Toolpin. They were all wet, soaked to the bone and dripping puddles onto the ground where they sat or laid.
"Where are we, Tom O'Malley?" Tolwyn asked. "This does not feel like Aysle. I still feel the push of your world, the pressure of it against my own reality."
"You're right, Tolwyn," Mara said as she looked around. "My sensors indicate that we are still in Core Earth, even though we passed through a storm front."
Tom stood up, glancing around to get his bearings. "We seem to be right outside of London, on the banks of the Thames River," he said. "We're in England, all right."
"Then where is Aysle?" Tolwyn wondered aloud.
"This must be a hard point of Core Earth reality in the middle of an alien realm," Mara explained. "Like Philadelphia was. Surrounding it on all sides was the Living Land, but the city where we met was still a center for Earth's axioms."
"What do we do now?" Tolwyn asked, for she still
had no idea how being here would get her back to Aysle.
"We have to find a maelstrom bridge," Mara suggested. "That's how we'll be able to get to your cosm."
"There's one at Oxford," Toolpin chimed in. "Right next to Christ Church College. That's the one we came down."
"Toolpin's right," agreed Pluppa. "That bridge leads to the Valley of the Sword."
Tolwyn stiffened at the mention of the holy spot. Though she remembered it, hearing someone else say the words made her memories more real. "Can you get us there?" she asked the dwarves.
"Without transportation, it's going to take some time," Gutterby informed her. "Too bad the seaplane sank. It was a handy little craft."
Tolwyn heard a loud whistling sound, and she looked around for the source. The others heard it too, and they all tried to find where it was coming from. A vehicle turned a corner, appearing from around the side of a large building. The vehicle reminded Tolwyn of Rick Alder's van, but the van never whistled as it moved, and billowing steam did not rise from it in great clouds as it did from this contraption.
It was a wheeled carriage onto which a massive steam engine had been mounted. No horses pulled this carriage, instead the churning steam turned the wheels and made the carriage move. There was no cab with swinging doors like on the Victorian carriage they rode in Orrorsh. This carriage was a barred cage full of battered, bruised and filthy dwarves. Tolwyn saw that dwarves were perched atop the wheeled cage as well, steering, operating controls, keeping watch. The dwarves that were outside the bars were much different from the ones within. They were dressed in fancy armor or fine suits of clothes, and they carried wheel lock pistols and heavy axes.
"Vareth clan," Gutterby spat, turning away from the scene with a look of disgust and hatred.
"Gutterby?" Tolwyn inquired. "You say the name of your clan as though it was a curse."
"Aye, it is a curse, and it has been for more centuries than I care to admit," Gutterby grumbled. "And it's not my clan, not anymore."
"What's wrong?" Father Bryce asked, unsure of what to make of the happenings around him. "Why are those dwarves in a cage?"
"That's a Vareth slave cart," Gutterby explained in shame. "That is what the greatest dwarven clan has become in Ardinay's brave new Aysle — slavers. The fat, content surface dwarves deal in slaves. And my countrymen aren't content to just enslave the lower folk and the half folk. They send raiding parties into the Land Between, into the dwarven homeland, in order to get bodies to fill their pens. It makes me so ... angry!"
Tolwyn's eyes narrowed as she watched the approaching steam carriage. She counted six slavers, going about their evil business as though they had no care in the world. The caged dwarves were probably runaways who attempted to find freedom in the confusion of the invasion, only to be hunted down by the slavers before they could escape completely.
"I share your anger, Gutterby," Tolwyn said coldly. "Let us do something about it." Tolwyn's hand dropped to the hilt of her sword, her eyes never leaving the approaching carriage. It was half a block away. "Mara, the two guards on the back running board. They are yours. Gutterby, Pluppa, take out the two on top. The drivers are mine. The rest of you will open the cage once we have stopped the vehicle. But do not damage the carriage, for that is our transportation when this skirmish is over."
They moved into position without further discussion, working like a well-coached team. Tolwyn stepped out in front of the carriage, waving for it to stop. She could no longer see the others, but she knew they were near.
"Get out of our way," the dwarf sitting beside the driver yelled as the carriage slowed. He was dressed in the finest elven silks, obviously a wealthy merchant or lord, and he wore a close-cropped, peppery beard. "If you do not move we will run you down."
Tolwyn smiled. It was a humorless thing, like the grin of a snake about to consume a cornered mouse. "I think not, slaver," she called. "Your acts of corruption are over."
The richly-dressed dwarf laughed, and the driver picked up the cue and laughed, too. "And what are you, woman? The knights of honor have been lax, figureheads to be dusted off for House banquets and parades. So who are you to speak to us of corruption?"
"I am the return of the true ways of Aysle," Tolwyn proclaimed, appearing to glow with the conviction of her words. "I am Tolwyn of House Tancred!"
She leaped, drawing her blade as she sprang. The driver, surprised, was nevertheless quick. He pulled one of his pistols from its holster and took aim. But Tolwyn was quick, too. Her sword flashed like steel lightning as she landed between the two slavers, and the hand holding the pistol flew from the dwarf's arm in a spray of red. She slashed again, and the driver's dying body was knocked from the carriage by the impact of her sword strike.
Tolwyn turned to deal with the richly-dressed dwarf, barely dodging the dagger he tried to bury into her. She was off-balance now, unable to swing her sword with any power. The dwarf pressed his advantage, slicing at her with his dagger, driving her toward the edge of the running board.
"You have nowhere to run to now, woman," the dwarf sneered. "In a moment, my men will appear over the top of the cage and I will give them the order to cut you to ribbons. Or, perhaps, I will have them capture you alive. You would draw a very good price at the markets in Polja. How would you like to be a giant's slave?"
Tolwyn returned his smile, and the dwarf blanched. "How would you like to be used as fuel in this carriage's engine? I think there is enough of you to get us all the way to the Valley of the Sword, but I do not know if I could put up with the smell."
Cat quick, Tolwyn's hand snapped, catching the wrist of the hand that held the dagger. Then, using the dwarf as an anchor, she changed her
footing and brought the pommel of her sword down on the bridge of the slaver's nose. There was a meaty smack, and the richly-dressed dwarf collapsed like a fallen tree.
Tolwyn climbed from the driver's bench to the top of the cage, worried about her friends. There was no need. Gutterby and Pluppa had secured the controls of the engine. The two guards were lying on the deck in pools of steaming blood. Mara, too, appeared intact as she climbed from the back running board to join them, though the sleeve of her jumpsuit had been cut open, and blood flowed from the tear.
"Mara?" Tolwyn asked, concern evident in her question.
"One of the slavers got lucky," Mara shrugged. "It's not deep. Not as deep as the one I gave him." The claws of her new hand audibly snapped back into finger sockets. Tolwyn noticed that the fingers of the alien hand splayed spasmodically, and it took Mara a moment to bring the spasms under control.
"This vehicle will get us to Oxford in no time," Pluppa predicted. "We can leave as soon as the dwarves are freed from the cage."
Gutterby leaped down to help Bryce and Tom open the cage door. But when they finally swung the door wide, the dwarves within the cage stayed huddled together, refusing to move or even look up at their liberators.
"What is wrong with you, lads and lassies?" Gutterby growled. "Don't you know the smell of freedom when its strong breeze blows past you? Get up and be on your way!"
"What for?" one of the older dwarves grumbled. "They'll only come after us again. We're marked as slaves, and slaves is all we'll ever be."
"Rubbish!" Gutterby yelled, storming into the cage. He grabbed the dwarf and hauled him to his feet. "You're only slaves if you think that way. We've opened the physical cage for you, but we can't open the cage you've set in your mind. You've got to open that one yourselves, or you'll never be free."
"What do you know?" another slave demanded. "I recognize you. You're Gutterby of House Vareth. You've never known life in the earth, hiding out when the slavers come to raid, hoping you or your loved ones aren't caught in the snares. You've never been locked in a cage, or forced to work until your hands bleed and your legs give out. What do you know?"
torg 03- The Nightmare Dream Page 22