“Anything else?”
“Well, maybe there’s another link.” Griffin touched a button, and the tape Vail had made in Gaming B went on display. It carried a sidebar of physiological data.
Millicent looked sick.
Griffin cleared his throat. “Dr. Vail has already been reprimanded for this violation of privacy. It won’t alter his behavior much, I’d guess. And however distastefully this tape may have been obtained, we cannot ignore its implications. Any disagreement?”
There was no sound from around the table, except for the moment when Harmony softly muttered, “So. I did right.”
Griffin looked at Izumi. “Are all of the effects ready? Are you sure that you can pull this off?”
Izumi nodded cautiously. “The prosthetics are excellent. You’re risking her sanity, you know.”
“We’ll take every precaution. There’s just something I have to know. And after I do—” The half of a pencil splintered, leaving nothing but fragments.
“After I do, maybe we’ll have a few more options.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
SACRED WEAPONS
The first of the Wolfalcons swooped out of the sky. The human face in its breast gibbered obscenity. Max whirled and swung. The composite-bird wheeled back out of range. Max’s usik cut a whistling haymaker; he danced to keep his balance on the sea-ice.
The air was warming, wavering.
The island behind them was shimmering with power. The satellite’s manna, its magical energy, had been short-circuited by the backpacks. It was disappearing into random improbabilities. The aurora had come out of the sky and settled over the island. The light danced and crackled and cast a bizarre, shifting radiance over the impossible angles.
An army of Amartoqs and spider-things were behind them, dots on the ice now, but catching up too quickly. The Wolfalcons acted as flying eyes for the monstrous horde, keeping the Adventurers in sight and urging their pursuers onward.
Orson was panting in Max’s ear. “Those damned griffin-things are the leaders. They’re the Cabal. Transformed. That’s why they’re going . . . to let the other beasties . . . do their dirty work.”
“What in the hell do we do?”
Eviane looked across the ice field. Far in the distance there was a shimmering, a roiling as of a snowstorm. She pointed.
“That way,” she said. “Seelumkadchluk!”
“And if we get across, will we be safe?”
“No,” she said, “but we’ll be on home turf.”
All of them were dead tired by now, and more than a little frightened. It didn’t help to know that the deaths of the others were only simulated. It hurt to watch, it hurt to think that it could happen to Max himself. The point was to avoid dying.
“What can we do?” Johnny Welsh was leaning on his spear, panting. “My legs feel like fifty pounds of dead blubber.”
Snow Goose looked back across the ice. Like a pack of hounds hunting runaway slaves, the monsters were gaining implacably.
There was a cracking sound under their feet.
“Now what?”
“Shit if I know—” Max adjusted his furs. It was getting warm.
Orson slapped his shoulder. “We’re dummies! It’s getting hotter. The ice pack is melting. The pressure shifts, and the whole thing is cracking up.”
“I think you’re right.”
The sound of the approaching monsters was just audible now.
The ice in front of them burst open with a roar like lightning striking too close. A tremendous blue and white torpedo surged into the air, dropped onto the ice, and slid. A nastily familiar shape, a killer whale blessed with stunted-looking tree-trunk arms, slowed and turned and pushed itself toward them across the ice. Its mighty forepaws gouged furrows.
Max heard Hippogryph’s wail of frustration. Hippogryph had spilled his pack across the ice and was reloading in frantic haste, powder, paper, shot—
Yarnall unshouldered and fired twice. The monster kept coming. Yarnall was dancing, trying to keep his balance and his aim; but the ice rumbled and shuddered with every movement of the land whale.
Yarnall paused a moment too long, and it had him. It was a death deferred, a doom that should have overtaken him two days before. That didn’t make it any prettier. He screamed, and its teeth were in him. For a moment there was an expression of almost humorous resignation on his face, and then he was gone, swallowed.
Hippogryph fired his musket. The creature shuddered with the shock, then came on, bleeding red light. Hippogryph poured powder and shot into his musket. He was nibbling on his lower lip, but there wasn’t a wasted motion.
“I was too tired. Just too tired,” Hippogryph said.
Snow Goose screamed: “Sacred weapons! We need sacred weapons!”
Max looked at the curved usik in his hands. Well? He ran forward, pubic bone raised on high. The killer whale tried to turn, but Max was faster on land. He brought the usik down against a blue-black wall of monster-flesh.
Well, through it, actually. The usik passed through the huge head, but where it passed, a wide red swath was cut, and the creature, immense as it was, began to redden. It sank back through the ice.
The ice cracks were spreading, and sheets of ice were sliding up at crazy angles.
The wind howled at them, driving snow even as the sun burned brighter.
“We’ve gotta make a stand,” Trianna screamed against the wind.
Max shouted, “I don’t like that idea, but I don’t have a better one.”
The Gamers scrambled up one of the inclines, taking what could laughingly be referred to as the high ground. Orson said, “Let’s hope the landscape doesn’t shift a whole lot more in the next few minutes.”
The monsters were coming now, fast and hard, across the stretch of ice. At the most, they were a hundred meters away now. The spider-thing was visible in the back. In front were three of the black-taloned horrors, shambling headlessly, heedlessly across the ice.
The Wolfalcons wheeled in the sky.
Max nudged Orson. “Hell of a place to make a last stand, hey?”
“I’ve seen worse. Ever played Zork? It’s an old computer game—”
Trianna hissed at them. “Keep your attention.”
She had her sword at the ready, and Eviane, beside Max, had her spear. A wall of ribs . . .
“There are too many of them. I guess we’ll just have to die well.”
Eviane looked up into the sky. “No. Something will happen.”
The spider-thing reached them first. It was slow. It took too long to struggle up the slab of ice. They cut the legs from under it.
The creatures came in waves. Max stood shoulder to shoulder with Eviane, repulsing them one and two and four at a time. At the touch of the enchanted usik, the monsters went down. He heard the others grunting and gasping, and Trianna’s yell of triumph turn into strangled huffing.
The monsters came in an infinite stream. They swarmed out from the distant shape of the dread island, fought and died until the tide below them glowed red with monster blood.
The Adventurers were gasping for breath, but Max slew on. None of their companions yielded, and as the sky rolled with fire and ice, the Implementors, if Implementors there be, witnessed a battle to warm the blood.
Johnny Welsh lost his footing and slid down the embankment into a mass of ravening monsters, things with arms and clubs and glistening fangs, things which struggled up at them, eyes glaring sulfurous hatred. Max saw Johnny slide down into that vile cacophonous mass, heard Johnny yell, “Hold the mayo—” before he disappeared.
He saw the monsters climbing over each other, struggling—
And then the ice field began to break.
A crevasse opened. Monsters slid into it, screaming and howling. A score of the unholy beasts vanished in a few moments. The Wolfalcons overhead cawed and screamed in rage. A third of their might had died; the crevasse blocked another third.
One of the bird-beasts strayed too close
, and Trianna speared it. It flapped in the snow, dying ungracefully.
“Come on!” Orson grabbed Charlene’s hand, and they retreated across the ice.
Fissures were opening all around them. They’d reached one they would have to jump. Below them was dark water, and the ice chunks were shifting uneasily.
Max crossed the gap like a great ungainly swan. Eviane leapt across, landed unsteadily on crunchy ice. She waved her arms for balance. Her rifle slipped from her grasp, and slid toward the water, as Max’s big hand gripped her parka and pulled her against him. She looked after the rifle as if considering a retrieval effort.
Max retained his grip. “Forget it! I’m not losing you now.”
Orson held his breath, and jumped, and missed. He hit the water with a mighty splash. “Help!”
Max said, “Oh, drown it!” and dove in after him. The water was oddly warm—those Implementors were rascals indeed. Also, there seemed to be another layer of iceberg beneath his feet . . . or else it was rather improbably shallow . . .
Ah, well, no time to think.
Something was moving in the water. He saw the tentacle out of the corner of his eye, raised the sacred usik on high, and bashed the thing backhand before it could come much closer. Hands reached down into the water, hauled Orson out, then reached down for Max. Blood slick spread around them. If there were predators about, well . . .
Eviane’s eyes were glittering at him, and she paused a moment to give him a quick kiss.
“Come on!” Snow Goose yelled. “It’s not far!”
Behind them the entire ice field was breaking up. Huge slabs rose and sank, clashed amidst a monstrous spray. In the distance, the Wolfalcons screamed their frustration.
And then . . .
The sun began to change. It was warmer still, and the air shimmered around them, rather like a heat mirage. Nothing extreme, but a sensation of chill ran the course of his body, and he knew—
Seelumkadchluk! Reality lay just ahead.
Chapter Thirty-Six
MICHELLE
The earth rumbled, and then subsided.
There, ahead of them, was the village where they had crash-landed an eternity ago. The burned and blasted wreckage of their plane was a reminder of happier times, like the stripped carcass of last week’s Thanksgiving turkey.
A dozen Eskimos, scattered around the edge of the bay, pointed and cried out as the Adventurers ran across the last of the sea-ice. The steadily thinning sheet dissolved beneath their very feet. One by one they plunged into the sea. Eviane’s legs burned with fatigue; she hopped from perch to perch, and finally ran out of ice.
Chunks of ice bobbed and clashed about her head as she stroked for shore. Eviane noted how little the freezing water affected her. Her toughness might save her yet.
Snow Goose scrambled ashore to be met by Martin, her father. “My child!” He embraced her warmly. “You have saved us!”
“Daddy, we’ve still got trouble. The Cabal are coming.”
“The Cabal cannot use their beasts or spirit forms in this world, but they can attack as before, with guns. Hurry!” He pulled her toward the trading post. Other Adventurers followed, while Eviane struggled up the strand.
Seven Adventurers remained. Orson and Max, Eviane, Snow Goose, Charlene, Trianna, and Hippogryph. They all looked like something the proverbial cat should have buried in the sand.
Eskimos scrambled to get boxes from the trading post. “Weapons!” Martin the Arctic Fox bellowed. “Sometimes the need is for spiritual weapons, and sometimes for a Smith and Wesson.”
Eviane recoiled as an Eskimo handed her one of the rifles. It felt heavy in her hand, and alien, and . . .
A single gunshot set the tired Adventurers to diving behind buildings. Eviane found herself below ground level in a web of splintered wood. Something sailed through the air—
“Grenade!” Orson screamed. All heads ducked as one of the sheds disintegrated in fire and sound. A ragged Eskimo form flew boneless through the air.
There was firing all around her. Eviane huddled, covering her face.
Charlene dropped behind the barrier with her. “Eviane! Why aren’t you fighting?” She looked concerned. Eviane had no answer.
She heard the roar behind them. It was not an explosion; it was the roar of a great beast, and Eviane knew what she would see even as she turned. She sucked air, hyperventilating, as she did whenever the nightmare returned.
The thing that rose from the ocean was a form of madness and nightmare, larger than anything that they had seen yet. It was a many-segmented worm-shape, with a yawning maw.
Martin walked on stiff legs, unconcerned by the gunfire and the explosions that had turned the village into a battlefield. He stared up at the creature, and screamed, “Blasphemy! How much power did you steal, to manifest in this world! You go too far, Ahk-lut! I, your father, renounce you! I, your father—”
A sound that could only have been a human laugh emerged from the titanic shape, and the entire world shook with its evil mirth.
Martin’s magical gestures were evidently inadequate. The monster humped forward. The shelf of ice supporting Martin shattered, filling the air with frigid mist and chips of broken ice. Martin disappeared into the ocean.
Ahk-lut’s terrible spirit form dove after him.
“What was that?” Max gasped.
“A Terichik,” Snow Goose said, eyes wide. “I’d only heard about them. Never seen one. It’s Ahk-lut, my brother. He’s going to kill us all.”
Like a raging mountain, the Terichik rose screaming from a frozen, nightdark sea. Its many-sectioned, grotesquely wormlike body reared up; tons of water and ice thundered into the ocean with a howl like the death of worlds. The night sky swirled wind-whipped snow through mist that tasted of salt. The Terichik’s mouth gaped cavernously. Endless rows of serrated teeth gleamed as it shrieked its mindless wrath. Its breath was a cold and fetid wind.
The humans beneath it were warrior and wizard, princess and commoner. They were frail meat in the Terichik’s path, brittle fleshly twigs tumbled in an angry storm. They scrambled for safety, away from the sea. They fled past the wreckage of the shattered Inuit village: rows of crushed houses, a great stone lodge with its roof stove in, boat hulls splintered and scattered like insect husks.
Max gaped up at the creature, then looked down at the sacred usik in his hand. Magic against magic. Why not?
Eviane screamed as she saw Max face the Terichik, remembering another figure who had lost his life while wielding a magical usik.
Max died well. He was the greatest warrior among them, but foolish to think that his enchanted usik, the pubic bone of the sacred walrus, could stand against the Terichik. Even faced by a beast to dwarf ten killer whales, Max roared defiance and sprang forward.
His magic, his courage, his strength were not enough. The Terichik crushed him, savaged his body with fanged cilia. His screams echoed in their heads long after his body had vanished into its gaping maw.
“No!” Eviane screamed, and ran out. Into the open.
Behind her, Hippogryph yelled, “No!”
She heard. She turned, breathing hard, too hard, hyperventilating.
She took a Cabal bullet through the heart. The electric jolt that meant The End warned her. She saw the red stain spreading over her entire body, and she realized— I’m not dead! Then . . .
It’s a Game!
And . . .
A series of images flooded through her mind, colliding and crashing. She screamed it. “I’m Michelle! I’m Michelle.”
She turned and began firing at the Cabalists.
One of them flopped back, out of her sight, but directly into Hippogryph’s.
* * *
That was no red stain on the man’s face! The head had been blown half away, the brain pan leaking onto the snow. Hippogryph jumped back screaming. “No! Oh, no.”
And turned around, and saw Michelle staring at him, the gun in her hand, her head cocked slightly to the side.
She stalked toward him.
“You,” she said.
He was confused. It was all happening so fast. “Wait a minute. Now. listen to me—”
Michelle’s rifle came up to the aim. “Damn you. You’re the one who put that rifle in my hand. I never forget a voice. I’m rotten on faces. But if I hadn’t been so damned confused, I would have known two days ago. I would have known!”
The other Gamers turned to watch.
“Listen.” Hippogryph was licking his lips nervously, staring at the bore of that rifle. “I didn’t mean for it to happen like that—”
She fired once, twice, three times. She howled, “Liar!”
Marty felt impacts; he felt his parka twitch. He looked down and saw dimpled cavities ripped through the parka. He could hear the click click click as Michelle Sturgeon tried to shoot him again.
Blood filled the holes in his parka and dribbled down. Marty dropped his rifle. Unbelieving and unwilling, he ripped the Velcro apart, pulled open the quilted cloth over his chest and belly, and saw red coils of intestine beginning to bulge through torn flaps of skin.
Hippogryph screamed. He pulled his jacket closed, convulsively, and ran stumbling into the white mist. They heard his screams diminish, then chop off sharply.
Another explosion. Eviane cursed and covered her ringing ears with her hands, then dropped them; she’d need her hands for fighting.
They’d been distracted a moment too long, and the immense figure of the Terichik loomed over them.
Orson shouted and pointed.
The entire sky was blotted out by a shadow which had grown so gradually that none of them had noticed it. Suddenly, with no more fanfare than that, the Raven was there. It filled the sky; its wingspan defined the horizon. It was huge beyond any ordinary concept of size.
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