by Jack Conner
Avery’s eyes stung, and he suddenly felt very heavy, very slow.
“Remember Ani,” Sheridan repeated.
She stepped forward, and Avery stumbled back—toward the Altar.
“I ...” Avery opened and closed his mouth, but no words came out. He wanted to shoot Sheridan but knew that he could not. Their nights together might mean nothing to her, but they did to him.
His heel struck a body, and he carefully stepped over it, kept edging backward, as Sheridan pressed forward.
“You can have her back,” Sheridan said. “You can have your Ani back. Just think about it. She would be safe, and loved, and you would be happy together. You would be a hero of the Lightning Crown, and we would put you up somewhere special. A mansion, perhaps, right in Lusterqal. All the little toys Ani could want. We have the best bakeries in Octung. Does she have a sweet tooth? She would love it. And, if you wanted, I would ... visit you occasionally. If you liked.”
He stared at her, shaking his head. She almost sounded as if she would have liked it, to visit him, and he remembered their few happy times together, remembered feeling that warmth that almost was. More, though, he remembered Ani.
He remembered his little girl. He remembered taking long walks with her, sometimes with Mari, sometimes not, through the forests and mountains near Benical. Ani had loved nature and would listen avidly as Avery told her every animal’s name and habits, and then she would promptly rename them. She said she wanted to be a biologist someday, wanted to work with nature. She had screamed like a baby the first time she fell off her bicycle, and seeing all the blood that wept from her knee had nearly given Avery a coronary. It didn’t matter that he saw worse than that every day at work; she was his daughter. But after he put on the bandage, she climbed right back on and pedaled away, faster this time, and laughing. Somehow he had taken her pain into himself, and she no longer seemed to feel it. Later, when she had grown sick, he had tried the same trick, for her and her mother, but it hadn’t worked any longer. Avery remembered cradling her in his arms as she faded, day by day, remembered staring into her eyes as they lost their luster, as she ... as ...
Suddenly he couldn’t see Sheridan anymore. All he could see was one big blur. Everything was misty and runny. Through it all a Sheridan-shaped smear stepped forward, and he heard the awful words—the wonderful words—“She lives, Francis. You can have her back. Still. Even now. Even after all you’ve done. Just turn that gun around and shoot the bitch.”
Avery blinked and wiped at his eyes. Slowly the world cleared. He felt like he couldn’t get breath fast enough. He could hear his heartbeat behind his eardrums.
“Ani,” he wheezed.
Sheridan nodded, almost sadly. “She’s yours, Doctor. Only turn that gun around.”
Avery felt as if he’d lost all strength. He wanted to sink to his knees and melt away, like the victims of the crustaceans back in Hissig. He didn’t think he had the strength to hold the gun any longer. Didn’t have the strength to make the decision. Ani, how could he not choose Ani?
The chaos of the rest of the room seemed very far away as Sheridan stepped forward again, and he stepped back. His heel struck the first step leading up to the Altar. Behind him hovered Layanna. Around him spread the ring of machines.
“Choose!” Sheridan said. “Your daughter or the bitch!”
Avery closed his eyes. The whole war had come down to this one moment. No one else could help him. It was all up to him. Time seemed to slow, even stop, and the screams nearby seemed miles away.
By the time he opened his eyes, he’d decided.
He swiveled his gun and fired. The round tore through the extradimensional machine Sheridan was standing near. Sparks exploded, and she threw her hands before her face and lunged aside. Avery fired again, and the machine erupted. He leapt backward, feeling the heat blister his face. He shot another of the machines, and another. Fires spread from carapace-like bulk to carapace-like bulk. The flames turned green and blue, white and crimson. Strange fires ringed the Altar.
Above, Layanna slumped across the black slab, and her otherworldly self drained away. Avery rushed up to her, afraid that his destroying the machines had interrupted her at her task, even afraid that he had hurt her. She looked weak and exhausted. Her other-self had burned away the last vestiges of the slime from the aquarium, and she embraced him with trembling arms. Her skin felt hot, and it was flushed and sweaty.
“It’s done,” she breathed. “It’s done.”
Her voice was so strained that he felt the words more than heard them, soft warm puffs in his ear. As soon as they registered, relief filled him, and he embraced her tightly.
“Wonderful!” he said.
The whole Temple shook, and Layanna screamed.
“He’s here!” she said. “The Elder is here!”
* * *
The halls trembled to the movement of the Elder, and dust drifted down from the ceiling. Screams filtered in from the hallways, echoing up from below.
“We don’t have long,” Layanna said.
There was something else wrong, too. Around Avery, beneath him, through him, the dais throbbed. All the machines had been wired to the Altar, and with the machines in flames something had gone wrong. Avery felt the pressure seep up through his feet, felt it press against his eardrums, against his tongue.
“Something’s off,” he said, as he helped Layanna to her feet.
She stared around her, at the flaming machines. “You broke it. Broke the connection.” She looked ill. “You made a fissure.”
“Is that bad?”
The machines hummed and shook louder all about them. Sheridan must have realized it, too, as Avery saw her running to her remaining troops and shouting for them to follow her out. They fled the room, fighting as they went.
From below came a sound of great weight and movement. Avery could almost feel the Temple rock from side to side. Strange thoughts and sensations spun through his head, and he saw colors he had never seen before, and smelled scents—scents—that nearly drove reason from his head.
“The Elder’s approaching,” Layanna said.
Janx and Hildra rushed up, breathless and drenched in blood. Janx had a bloody lip and Hildra a black eye, along with numerous other contusions. “Let’s get the fuck out of here!” said Janx, and Hildra added, “And he means now!” Hildebrand screeched from her shoulder.
Moving in the direction opposite the one Sheridan had taken, Avery led Layanna down the stairs of the dais and across the carnage-strewn chamber to the other entrance. As soon as they reached it, a great grinding noise filled the air, along with powerful emotions and fragrances. The few priests still in the Altar Room prostrated themselves before the far entrance. Strange lights bathed the walls beyond, spilling inside, some of them quite beautiful, drawing closer and closer, brighter and brighter, pulsing as if in time to some fantastic heart.
Avery, despite himself, hung back; he wanted to see the Elder. Just a glimpse ...
Layanna pulled him along, and Janx and Hildra jostled by on either side.
“No time to stop, Doc,” Janx said.
With walls shaking all around them, and somewhere screams still echoing—though from whom it was hard to say—they ran. They reached one of the exits, and Avery felt the stir of wind on his face. He stepped outside onto the bridge—
Janx and Hildra pulled him back. Blinking, he stared. The bridge was in flames and falling toward the city below. Former captives on the opposite side screamed in triumph, perhaps thinking Avery and the others to be priests in pursuit.
“Idiots!” Hildra said. “They’ve trapped us.”
“Maybe we can reach another bridge in time,” Avery said. It was their only chance, and they continued through the halls.
They almost stumbled directly into the fray.
Masses of former captives wrestled with priests and Octunggen soldiers directly before an opening in the outer wall of the temple. There must have been three dozen combatants. A
priest stumbled into Avery, blood running from his jaw, and Janx tossed him aside. A former captive with a jagged knife through the side of her throat nonetheless beat an Octunggen soldier into the floor, using a spent gun as a blunt instrument. It was a chaotic scene, and it only began to make sense when Avery saw that the opening was in fact the docking bay to a dirigible. They were fighting over who got to leave.
Despite the chaos, a group of Octunggen were trying to cast the dirigible off. The Temple shook ever more violently.
Janx and Hildra, navigating through the fight, stormed aboard. Avery and Layanna followed quickly behind. Layanna, still strong enough to exert her other-self to some degree, tore two Octunggen soldiers apart with her tentacles. Avery, marveling at himself, kicked one distracted trooper in the knee and knocked him to the ground, then went directly to the controls. Hildra, after dealing with another trooper, cast off.
Someone had reached the wheel ahead of Avery. Sweaty and ragged, Sheridan stood before the console.
“Not again,” she said tiredly.
She launched a punch at Avery’s nose. He tried to dodge, but he was just as tired. The blow connected, and a blinding pain filled his head. He reeled back, looking about for help. Layanna in her amoeba-form was currently fending off three Octunggen who were trying to subdue her with spitting lances. Someone had struck Janx on the head and he was down, moving feebly, blood weeping from his shaven pate.
By then the dirigible was already leaving the dock, Hildra having unmoored it. She shouted for former captives to jump across, but none did and then it was too late. Avery felt the deck lurch as the ship moved away.
“You’re outmatched,” he told Sheridan, one hand on his nose. His knees bent as he readied himself to dodge another attack. “We have Layanna. Give up.”
“I’m outmatched?” She grabbed up the radio mike and spoke into it in rapid-fire Octunggen.
Avery didn’t know who she spoke to, but he rushed forward to knock the radio aside. She punched him hard in the gut and he doubled over, but not before grabbing the speaker and wrenching it from her hands. She struck him across the cheekbone.
“Damn you,” she said, sounding as full of emotion as Avery had ever heard her. She reached for something at her belt—
Hildra tackled her from behind and carried her to the floor.
Avery stared at them fighting—punching and kicking and biting—and decided Hildra had a better chance at pacifying the admiral than he did. In the stern, Layanna’s amoeba-form was dwindling as the Octunggen struck at her with their shock-sticks. Her whole self lit up with every blow, and he could see her wince through the sac and organelles. Her amoeba-self shrank with every strike. Shaking his head, Janx tried to climb to his feet.
Meanwhile the dirigible listed to one side, drifting toward a nearby upside-down palace. The shaking of the Temple behind them was growing louder. They didn’t have much time. Seconds, if they were lucky.
Avery moved to the wheel. He mashed gears and levers, and the craft lurched, then shot away from the Temple. He could almost feel the pressure building behind him. Building ...
He shot the dirigible forward—
The Temple blew.
Whatever the Altar Room’s machines had been, however they had ripped apart dimensions to facilitate communication between gods, they had been powerful things and did not take destruction lightly. The explosion was the greatest burst of power Avery had ever felt, imagined he would ever feel. He felt the vibration in his teeth, in his bones, in his soul. The flames fanned outward in brilliant colors, blazing vermillion, dazzling ruby, a wall of turquoise, all rushing outward to engulf him. He steered the dirigible forward, riding the shockwave just ahead of the main blast. The airship shook and shuddered around him. He glanced over his shoulder to see the blast rushing toward him.
Gradually, it fell behind. There came a tremendous groan and squeal, and the Temple, or the flaming remnants of it, collapsed onto the Arena. A tall dark figure, not Uthua but the high priest, jerked his head back to watch the great mass fall upon him, and then he was obliterated entirely by a thousand tons of rock and flame.
Behind him Avery heard sounds of fighting, but he ignored it as he steered the dirigible around one rearing tower, then a dripping stalactite palace. He glanced once more over his shoulder to make sure there would be no second explosion—and swore.
The Temple would not erupt again, thank the gods, but suddenly Avery realized who Sheridan had been calling on the radio, and the news was not good. Nine of the dirigibles that had accompanied this one to the Arena had cast off and were in pursuit.
* * *
Avery spun the wheel. A hulking junkheap tower just barely scraped by, missing the dirigible’s envelope with inches to spare. Behind and around him the fight continued. Figures thrashed and rolled about on the floor and slammed up against the walls.
The nine dirigibles shot closer, narrowing the gap. Soon they would be within range. Avery aimed the ship around rearing towers and dripping stalactites, and soon he saw the lights of the city glinting on water ahead. The city must occupy an island or peninsula. Cuithril stretched on, tower after tower, and Avery wove his way through it, mindful of the need for urgency but also caution.
The nine dirigibles threaded their way through the spires and dripping palaces with greater skill—and speed. They closed the gap all too quickly.
Suddenly something slammed up against him and knocked him away from the wheel. It was a writhing Sheridan, locked in combat with Layanna, who was now too weak to bring her amoeba-self over. Sheridan punched and jabbed at her, and Layanna just barely fended off the attacks. The two women knocked Avery to the deck and rolled into the gunwale. He slammed into them, driving the breath from his lungs.
Sheridan elbowed him in the ribs. Gasping, he punched her in the lower back, aiming for a kidney. She moved. He missed. Her next elbow strike nearly broke his sternum. Below her Layanna sagged. Sheridan had both hands around her throat and was squeezing mercilessly. Perhaps she still had some hope of fulfilling her mission, of killing or capturing Layanna.
Avery locked an arm around Sheridan’s neck and gripped her in a headlock. She thrashed and kicked under him. Enraged, she let go of Layanna and grabbed his arm in both of her hands. With all her strength, she pulled it away from her neck, then ducked under it and spun around. Her hand chopped down, hit the side of Avery’s neck. Gagging, he collapsed backward.
She leaned to the side, searched the corpse of one of her Octunggen brethren and snatched up a knife. It glimmered in the light of a passing tower.
Layanna wrapped her arms about Sheridan from behind. With whatever strength she had left, Layanna hefted the admiral up and hurled her against the gunwale. Sheridan grunted and slashed backward with her knife. Layanna cried out. Avery punched Sheridan in the jaw. Around them the last spires of the city slipped past. Below them stretched water, black and wide.
Behind the dirigibles advanced, all too swiftly.
Sheridan sliced Avery across the chest with the knife, then reversed her swing to take out his throat. He grabbed her wrist, forced it away. She kneed him in the groin. He twisted. With both hands on the handle, she drove the knife toward his heart, and he just barely grabbed her forearms in time. They wrestled on the gunwale, grunting and straining against each other. Slowly, the knife inched toward his chest. Closer. Closer ...
“Leave him alone,” said Layanna.
Sheridan glanced sideways, just in time to receive the shaft of one of the Octunggen’s stun-clubs in the face. Avery heard the smack of bone, and then the admiral pitched over the side.
Breathless, he stared over the gunwale, watching as Sheridan plummeted, finally striking the vast darkness of the sea. Then she was gone from sight. He sucked in a deep gulp of air and turned to Layanna. Too weak to thank her, he just nodded. Tiredly, she nodded back.
Hildra manned the wheel, swinging the dirigible in and out of the stalactites that threatened to smash them to splinters. Janx was
stabbing the last Octunggen through the eye. That done, he hurled the corpse overboard.
Behind, the nine dirigibles closed the distance. Lights flashed on their decks, and Avery knew they were about to bring their otherworldly weapons to bear.
He noticed a certain smell. The air turned sour and thick, difficult to breathe.
“Down!” he said. “Take her down!”
Coughing, Hildra complied, and the dirigible quickly lowered, stalactites receding. So did the stench.
A familiar green light fell over the craft, and Avery gasped as pain filled him. A blister formed under the skin of his right forearm. He could feel another growing under his neck. He heard himself groan.
“Shit,” growled Hildra, as a bubble burst on her hand. “Shitfuckshit!”
This was just the beginning, Avery knew. The Octunggen’s otherworldly weapons would soon be the end of them.
He glanced up, saw the vague stir of vapor against the cavern ceiling, the vapor he and the others had just left. It was surely the same gas that had bubbled up from the sea on the other side of the city. The pack of dirigibles was just entering it.
“A gun!” he said. “I need a gun.” If I can make a spark ...
“What for?” asked Janx.
“Just find one!” Avery screamed, searching the corpses all around him. All the guns were empty.
“Will this do?” Janx pressed a flare gun into Avery’s hands.
Avery stared at it in wonder. “Yes,” he said. “It will do just fine.”
He raised the gun and pointed it at the cavern ceiling. He fired, and a bright red burst shot high into the darkness. It rose and rose, and the dirigibles plowed on, heedless.
The green light intensified, and other colors began to join it. Avery felt pain all over, and he sank to his knees in agony. Beside him Janx and Hildra did likewise. Layanna, unaffected, moved toward the wheel.
The flare hit the pocket of trapped gas.
The explosion ripped the darkness apart, engulfing the dirigibles.