Gutterby's eyes flared with rage at the ungrateful dwarf, then cooled to understanding and sorrow. He lowered his head. "We all have our own cages, and some bars are stronger than iron or steel," he said quietly. "My cage has been shame — shame at what my people have become, shame at the fear that has kept me from acting against the disgraces of House Vareth."
The old dwarf stepped from the cage, walking toward become, shame at the fear that has kept me from acting against the disgraces of House Vareth."
The old dwarf stepped from the cage, walking toward the richly-dressed dwarf who was now up and watching the exchange. He held his bruised wrist, and dried blood caked his nose, but he smiled nonetheless. He spat red at Gutterby's boots.
"I am ashamed of you, Gutterby," the rich slaver said. "You have been reduced to a criminal, trying to free slaves from their rightful masters. And the laughable thing is that they don't want to be saved!"
Gutterby grabbed the front of the slaver's suit, pulling him close so that their noses were almost touching. "If freeing slaves is a crime, then let me be guilty," the old dwarf declared. "And I am going to let you live, so that you may take a message back to Duke Dwy van. Tell him that his term as leader of House Vareth is coming to an end. Tell him that Gutterby is going to restore the House to its former glory. Tell him that when next we meet it will be on opposite sides of clashing armies, for the days of slave-trading are over. Tell my cousin all this, every word!"
"Cousin?" Tolwyn wondered aloud, and Pluppa nodded that it was true. Gutterby was not only of House Vareth, he was of the royal family of the surface dwarves.
The old dwarf turned to Tolwyn, determination creasing his brow. "Let us finish your quest, Lady
Tancred, so that I may begin mine."
114
Katrina Tovarish stood beside Captain Nicolai Ondarev, listening to the cold night. It was close, she knew. She could sense it, the alien thing. She could see it in her mind, a foul beast with wings and claws and leathery skin. But it was more than just a thing of flesh and blood. It was partly metal, some unholy combination of skin and steel. And it was intelligent, which made its actions more than bad.
It was evil.
She stood a moment longer, letting her awareness center on Ondarev's warm hand that rested gently upon her arm. He was a good man, this Nicolai Ondarev. She was very grateful that it was he the government sent to fetch her from Project Omen and not some unfeeling Party man. She tentatively touched his hand, then gripped it more boldly, seeking the strength within it.
"You should have let me bring soldiers," Ondarev whispered. "We should not be out at this forsaken farm. This is not that far from where we found the stelae."
"We had to come alone, Nicolai," Katrina explained. "I can block the two of us from its notice for a time, but others would surely be noticed. We would never be able to catch it before it fled."
"What makes you think it will flee?" Ondarev asked. "What if it wanted you to try this? What if it is waiting to kill you?"
"That is exactly what it is waiting for," Katrina said. There was no fear evident in her voice, but it was there nonetheless, within her, an icy blackness stretched across her heart. "Wait here," she told him, then started to walk toward the dark, uninviting house.
"What?" Ondarev gasped. He grabbed her arm, restraining her. "I cannot let you go in there alone. You cannot see, Katrina!"
She turned to him, pointing herself in the direction of his voice. "Against this foe, I can see better than your eyes, Nicolai. Let me do this. But be ready. I will need your help, and you must be beside me at a moment's notice."
She felt Ondarev's warring emotions, fear and duty battling for a grip upon him. And there was something else there, an emotion she was not as familiar with after long years in hospitals and testing facilities. Was it ... love? Then she felt the set of his stance that signalled he had made a decision.
"Be careful, Katrina," he warned her. "I shall wait for your call."
Katrina Tovarish did not smile at this victory. She had half hoped that he would talk her out of this. But she knew that what they were doing was for something more than either of them. It was for the entire Soviet Union, and Ondarev's sense of duty was stronger than his concern for one young blind woman. She turned and headed for the house she could not see but knew was there just the same, heading for a confrontation with the invader that had attacked her across kilometers with powers that were greater than her own.
The icy blackness deepened.
115
Andrew Jackson Decker held Julie Boot's hand as they jogged down the forest path with Kurst. They were following the directions the dwarf mage had given them, heading for someplace Kurst called the Valley of the Sword. It felt like they had been running for hours when the shapeshifter finally allowed them to stop and rest.
Decker was amazed by Kurst's stamina. Even after all the running, he seemed barely winded. He was stopping for them, Decker knew, and part of him was angry that he could not keep up the pace. He used the time to check his weapons. He had an M-16 strapped across his back, three grenades hooked to his belt, a nine millimeter automatic pistol holstered to his hip, and a knife sheathed to his boot. He also had some spare ammo, a compass and a canteen, but that was the extent of his remaining supplies. The rest had been left with the packs back in Takta Ker.
"Where are we going, Kurst?" Decker asked.
The shapeshifter looked up at him, studying him before answering. "We are going to the Valley of the Sword."
"Why?"
"To meet Tolwyn and the others."
"How do you know that that's where they're going to be?" Julie asked, finishing the question that was on Decker's lips.
Kurst looked from one to the another. "You still do not trust me." It was not a question.
"I need to know how you came to this conclusion, Kurst," Decker replied. "If we didn't trust you, we wouldn't have come this far."
The shapeshifter nodded, but Decker wasn't sure what the gesture meant. Then Kurst said, "Tolwyn seeks a High Lord named Uthorion, the necromancer who attacked her world the day she died."
"Yes," Decker said. "So?"
Kurst met Decker's eyes. "Uthorion took over this reality in the battle that saw Tolwyn's death," Kurst explained. "But to do so, he needed to take a form that was attuned to the magical axioms. He placed his spirit into Tolwyn's lord. The Lady Ardinay that Tolwyn comes to save is actually Angar Uthorion, one-time lieutenant of the Gaunt Man."
"Does Tolwyn know?" Decker asked.
Kurst shook his head. "No," he admitted. "I... never got around to telling her."
"That's terrific!" Decker shouted. "And this Ardinay who is actually Uthorion is located in the Valley of the Sword?"
"That's where her castle is," Kurst said. "Uthorion will stay there until he decides to go to Earth."
"If she doesn't know that her lord is really her worst enemy, then your friend is walking into a trap," Julie commented. "And to make matters worse, we're leading this Wild Hunt thing right toward them."
Kurst stood, signalling that the rest stop was over. "There is no other choice," he declared. "If Tolwyn is to have any chance at all, then the six of us must be together. I believe that is the meaning of the aborigine's knots."
"I'm even more confused than before," Julie admitted, but Kurst was no longer listening. He was heading off down the path, and all Decker and Julie could do was follow him to see where it all would end.
116
Thratchen was in the chambers far beneath Illmound Keep. He ignored the raging maelstrom and the ruins of the possibility sorting machine that filled much of the room. Instead, he stood before the machine that was connected to the infernal device located some miles away in the Indian Ocean. The Gaunt Man had devised a three-part process for becoming the Torg. The first involved a world rich in possibility energy. Thratchen was on that world, but with the Gaunt Man's Darkness Device hidden somewhere out of the techno-demon's reach, the possibilities were beyo
nd his access. The second, the shattered sorting machine that was to eliminate all possibility of failure, was also unavailable to him. Only the infernal machine remained, full of the stolen physical energy that had stilled the world's spin.
This end of the machine consisted of a panel full of measuring gauges and a small booth. Within the booth were two metal bars to hold on to, and two metal straps to stand in. When the buttons upon the bars were depressed, the physical energy of the planet would flow through the completed circuit and into whoever stood within the booth. Without the other two pieces of the plan, however, the physical energy was useless to him.
Or was it?
Thratchen turned to look upon the maelstrom formed by the meeting of the Heart of Coyote and the inner power of the Gaunt Man. It was so much like the maelstrom of legend, a combination of Eternity and the Void but on a much smaller scale. Unlike the legendary maelstrom, however, the Gaunt Man would never walk out of this one the way Apeiros and the Nameless One had.
"I know another way to become the Torg," Thratchen yelled into the raging wind that swirled around the hole in space. "I do not need your Darkness Device!"
He turned back to the machine panel, adjusting the controls to the levels he had calculated with his built-in computer. It was slow work, but Thratchen had time.
He had all the time in the world, and it was stored within the infernal machine.
117
Christopher Bryce was amazed by the horseless carriage they were riding. It seemed so beyond the world he imagined Tolwyn was from, yet it was also totally like the dwarves. The steam engine was noisy, and it vibrated through the rest of the carriage with jarring yet somehow comforting energy. Pluppa and the remaining dwarves of her company crewed the vehicle, leaving Bryce and the others to sit back and watch for trouble. But there hadn't been any since they commandeered the carriage and freed the slaves. He hoped there wouldn't be any until they reached Uthorion.
"This is just like that car we took to find Tom," Toolpin yelled above the roar of the engine. "Do you remember that, Tom?"
The pilot smiled, patting the young dwarf on the head.
"I remember how Praktix steered the wheel while Braxon worked the peddles," Toolpin remarked fondly, remembering his dead friends. "I miss them. Triad, too."
Bryce could think of no words to say as Toolpin returned to monitoring the engine. The priest instead turned to watch the passing countryside. They were well beyond London, and now he could feel thepressure that Tolwyn had talked about'. It was like being under water, with only a bubble of air — or, in this case, his own reality—to protect him from the alien environment. Parts of the landscape were totally familiar, for he had been to England before. But other parts were different. It was like two different photographs had been superimposed over each other. In some places the modern world showed through, in others a world more akin to the Middle Ages. And then there were the places where the two worlds mixed, and in some strange way those places hurt Bryce's eyes to look at. There was a recognizable office building, but parts of its roof were now thatch, and parts of its walls were straw or wood instead of brick. Once, when he looked very closely, he saw that the brick was actually becoming straw, with fine strands growing out of what remained of the baked clay.
Then they were in Oxford, and rising into the twilight sky was a bridge of worked stone. It was a massive construct that stretched as high as he could see, held up by no visible means of support. He looked at it, and he imagined that the stone itself was rippling with subtle movement as if it were alive.
"Remember to keep moving," Pluppa warned as she steered the carriage toward the bridgehead.
"And don't look directly at the stones," Grim added.
"Are we going to walk?" Bryce asked.
"How else do you expect to cross the bridge, Father Bryce?" Pluppa returned.
"Why not keep driving?"
Tolwyn suddenly burst out laughing. "Why not, indeed!" she exclaimed. "There is no reason not to return to Aysle in style!"
Pluppa shrugged, then swung the carriage around and pointed it at the bridge.
"Are we sure this is safe?" Bryce asked Toolpin quietly so that the others couldn't hear.
"Perfectly," Toolpin assured him, "unless something goes wrong."
"You're a comforting soul, Toolpin," Bryce replied dryly. Toolpin beamed at the compliment.
lis
Katrina Tovarish stepped carefully across the threshold of the house and immediately found herself in another world. The cold she had felt outside became an icy shawl within the house, wrapping around her shoulders like some skeleton's boney fingers. It was like death within the confining structure, and she was suddenly grateful that she could not see.
She touched the wall with her hand and guided herself forward, trying to concentrate on everything but the feel of the wallpaper (it felt like skin)
as she made her way further into the place. Once this had been a home, she thought. In the background she could still sense the lingering memories of family and love. But those good images were buried beneath the cold alienness of the current occupant. She stretched out her senses. Yes, there was only one, but there had been more recently.
Katrina followed the wall until she reached a doorway. She paused before pressing on, trying to determine where the thing she sought (or did it seek her?)
was hiding. But she could not pick it out from among the other alien things within the house. Her senses were not that refined yet. She would have to work on that if she survived this night.
Like a high diver standing on the brink of oblivion, Katrina plunged into the room. The cold was stronger here, and she knew her teeth were chattering. It was more than just cold, though. This was where the aliens slept and worked. This was where they used their powers to strike at her across the distances between here and Moscow. There was evil here, and she suddenly wished she had not come. Why didn't Nicolai talk her
out of this? Why did he let her come alone?
She started to turn, to leave the way she had entered, when she heard the click of a metal claw scraping across the wood floor. She froze, listening, trying to determine how far away the noise had been. Did she have enough time to run, to escape, before the thing was upon her? She decided to chance it.
Katrina Tovarish ran.
But the alien was faster.
She heard the flapping of great wings, felt the stirring of the air. She had only taken three steps when she felt the clawed hands grab her, force her down. Fetid breath assaulted her, and she tried to fight her way free. But the thing was strong. It held her tightly. Then, to make the horror worse, the thing spoke.
"You are blind, yet you see more than most on this puny world," the thing said. It spoke her language, but its accent was strange, and the words fell from its tongue with difficulty.
Gathering her courage, Katrina asked, "What are you?"
The thing laughed. "I am of Tharkold, the cosm that will take your land. You are the one that stopped us earlier. You are the one I led here."
Led here? Then Nicolai had been right. The attack at the center had been to lure her into this trap. And she had fallen for the deception so easily, so confident that her own abilities would serve her. The mistake was going to cost her and her country a great deal.
"Why are you doing this?" Katrina asked, stalling for time. She hoped an idea would come to her, but her mind refused to think as fear threatened to overwhelm her.
"Enough questions, girl," the Tharkold snarled, running one sharp claw slowly across her cheek. The alien did not cut her — yet. "It is time for you to sleep."
The alien lifted her from the floor, holding her so that she could not move. He forced her to move, and an image came to her mind. She saw a shell of some sort, like a clam shell. It was filled with machinery and slime, and it was directly in front of them. The Tharkold was going to seal her in a shell! She struggled, but to no avail.
"Why do you fight me, girl?" the Tharkold asked. "You w
ill sleep safely within the pod until my master arrives. I am sure he wants to meet the girl that caused him so great a setback." The alien laughed.
Then the pod was before them, and Katrina could smell the slime. "I do not want to go in there," she said.
"I am not giving you a choice," the Tharkold responded.
The fear was great now, and Katrina could feel herself slipping away. No! her mind screamed. Do not put me in the slime! Do not close me in the pod! No!
And then her mind shattered into a thousand shards of glass.
119
Decker heard the distant thunder the same moment he saw the towering castle rise out of the mist-filled valley. The castle was a many-spired construct that must have been magnificent at one time. Now it looked dark and foreboding, a tomb with battlements and ramparts. He turned back. On the horizon he saw another tower, as dark as the one in the valley, but made of more insubstantial material. It was the tower of black, lightning-filled clouds that had followed them from Takta Ker.
"What now, Kurst?" Decker asked as he pointed out
the approaching storm.
"Now we run/' the shapeshifter answered. "We have to reach the castle, and time is running very short."
"What's the point?" Julie screamed. Decker heard more than a hint of hysteria in her voice. "No matter how far we run, the Wild Hunt will catch us. Do you remember the reports? It slaughtered Covent's platoon. What chance do the three of us have?"
"We are alive, Julie," Kurst stressed. "We have every chance in the cosmverse while that statement remains true. Now come on, do not give up on me yet."
They ran into the Valley of the Sword.
120
Claudine Guerault mingled into the crowd that had gathered in front of the church in Avignon, France. This was the site of the "miracle" that changed her country, and now the crowds were gathering again to witness something that promised to be grand.
She looked upon the arch of light which had fallen from the sky into the church's courtyard. It was still there, calling for her to believe. But miracle or not, she did not like the effect it had on her country. Suddenly France was no longer an enlightened nation on the verge of the twenty-first century. It had reverted to the Dark Ages, no matter how bright the bridge of light appeared to be.
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