by Pat Kelleher
He gasped for breath. His voice became a hoarse whisper as he began to prophesy. “As the breath of GarSuleth leaves us, so do these Ones leave this scent of prophecy. Our trail has led to this place at this time. Heed, then, the final inescapable prophecy of the Nazarrii that yours may not. In the spira when the Breath of GarSuleth grows foul, the false dhuyumirrii shall follow its own scent along a trail not travelled, to a place that does not exist. Other Ones will travel with the Breath of GarSuleth, the Kreothe, made, not tamed. Then shall Skarra, with open mandibles, welcome the dark scentirrii. There shall emerge a colony without precedent. The children of GarSuleth will fall. They shall not forsake the Sky Web. The anchor line breaks.”
The final notes of the scent, hastily distilled from the dead Chatt workers, died away, leaving Mathers’ mind entombed with them in the dark. A dark he knew. And feared.
He screamed.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“The Lonesome Dark...”
MATHERS COLLAPSED AS his mind returned to this world. As he did so, the men about him solidified and the pain in his stomach returned. Atkins stared at him. “What the hell was all that about?”
“It is a prophecy,” said Napoo, in awe.
Mercy dismissed the idea. “Mumbo jumbo more like. It don’t mean anything. The man funked it a long time back.”
“Oi!” snarled Norman.
Mercy flashed a sheepish smile, and held up his hands apologetically, before turning back to his mates and tapping his temple.
Chandar chattered as the prophecy-inducing liquid soaked into the dry earthen-packed floor where it could do no more harm. “This does not augur well. It would have been better if this liquid had been destroyed than used to make a heretical prophecy. But it is too late, the words have been spoken. The deed is done.”
“You can’t believe that stuff?” said Atkins.
“Things will be as GarSuleth wills them.”
Nellie sank down beside Mathers. “Let me see him?” With reluctance, the tank crew let Nellie minister to their commander, who sat slumped against the chamber wall, saliva dribbling from his mouth, his face an ugly patchwork of livid red lesions. She unbuttoned his collar to find the swellings at his neck had now spread down over his torso. She felt for the pulse at his wrist. It was racing.
She looked up at Reggie. “His condition is worse. I don’t know what to do about it. I certainly can’t do anything here.”
Reggie nodded in agreement. “We got to get him back to the Ivanhoe. It always goes better for him when he’s in it, Miss.”
Nellie frowned. “The fumes, yes. Well, first things first, we must get him out of here.”
Atkins could hear the sound of something below repeatedly ramming roof falls. One of the creatures was attempting to clear its way through the rubble of the collapsed tunnels. “Then, Miss Abbott, you go with them. Hurry.”
“Are you sure, Corporal?”
“Yes. Keep an eye on Lieutenant Mathers. Napoo, go with her.” The Urman was reluctant to accompany one he considered possessed, but Atkins had gambled that his loyalty to them would extend to Nellie. The Urman nodded.
Atkins resented the fact that they had come all the way for the tankers, and now had to put their lives on the line for them again. However, when he spoke, the tone was matter-of-fact. “We’ll buy you time. Keep going up. If we’re not out in an hour, use the tank to bring this place down and kill these things, then get back to the encampment, toot suite. Go.”
The big boxer, Jack, nodded his thanks and, supporting the semiconscious Mathers between them, Jack and Frank led off up the passage. Alfie followed, cocked revolver in one hand, torch in the other. Nellie and Napoo fell in behind them. Reggie and Norman carried their makeshift coverall bags, with Cecil and Wally, which tapped and clinked as they walked.
Atkins watched them go as the light from their torches receded up the slope and the tunnel faded into blackness again.
Below them, the sounds became more urgent, as the repeated clinker and clatter of tumbling debris told them that the creature was breaking through.
“Stand to!” Atkins ordered. He knelt with Chalky and Pot Shot in the tunnel. In a rank behind him stood Gutsy, Gazette, Porgy and Mercy, their packs and webbing bulging with stone jars. Despite the number that the men were carrying, Chandar looked despondently at the containers they had to leave behind. “So many, so much... knowledge...”
The intermittent smash of rubble became constant as the creature found enough momentum to push through the barricade, ploughing a wave of rubble as it raced up the tunnel incline towards them.
“Fire!” ordered Atkins.
A fusillade blasted into the darkness. The onrushing wave of rubble didn’t slow.
“Fall back!” yelled Atkins. “Fall back!”
THE SOUND OF gunfire behind them spurred Nellie, Napoo and the tank crew on, passing through several galleries, taking any upward tunnel, the jars clanking together as they tried to pick up their pace without breaking any.
“We’d get out of here faster if we didn’t have to carry these bloody things,” Wally groused. “Why can’t we just dump ’em?”
“Because, like the infantryman said, these things can hit the Chatts where it hurts, wherever the hell that is. And I’m all for that,” said Norman.
“Just imagine you’re on ration party and quit griping,” said Reggie. Mathers stirred. “Sir. Are you all right?” asked Jack.
He shook off his crewmen’s help. “Never better, Tanner, never better,” he said, breathing deeply. The pain in his stomach was fading fast. Mathers felt calmer than he had done in days. It was as if whatever fever he had been suffering from had broken.
He felt an insistent need to feel the wind on his face. He stopped, confused. There, a faint cooling air current from a branching tunnel to the left. He turned towards it, not a doubt in his mind. The draft in his face drew him on and he gave in to the impulse.
Behind him, his crew called after him, perplexed, “Sir! Sir!”
“Stay there!” he commanded. He did not need them now. He walked on down the tunnel, and the breeze grew stronger. He luxuriated in the feel of it upon his skin. He heard the sound of something rushing up the tunnel towards him, but he wasn’t afraid. He smiled to himself, content. He saw a slick, black bulk that filled the tunnel bearing down on him, and he stopped and welcomed it with open arms.
ATKINS AND THE others, meanwhile, raced up the tunnel and took a fork, which led to another gallery. Passages and chambers led off in several directions, up and down. The discordant whistling from the choked ventilation system seemed amplified here, making the men, tense and edgy already, feel even more windy. Chalky had started to fret and whimper.
In the centre of the gallery, they found recently dead Chatt bodies. Atkins recognised the scentirrii and the priests. “Zohtakarrii,” he said, as he passed them. Something had deposited them here. The Section spread out and scouted the gallery.
Gutsy pointed at another pile. “Urmen. Must be that shaman’s bunch.”
“The Chatts were killed outside. Why have they been left here?” wondered Atkins.
A hard translucent substance plugged several adjoining chamber entrances, sealing them. Atkins cupped his hands to one and tried to peer through. For a moment, he couldn’t make anything out. Something moved, slapping against the translucent barrier, something with the texture of tripe. The pressure from within grew. The whole of the barrier began to click and snap under the pressure. Cracks raced across the surface. The plug began to splinter.
“I think that’s why!”said Atkins as he stumbled back with the others, retreating to the centre of the gallery, as the seals on the other chambers began to creak under the strain from within.
Chandar sank down on its legs and hissed.
Chalky whimpered, a wet stain spreading down his khaki trousers. Poor sod. Atkins reckoned it was as much from the unsettling sound of the whistling, that reverberated unpleasantly in the bowels, as from fear.
“I don’t think it’s a good time to be here,” said Mercy.
The seal shattered and something began uncoiling from within. Two shapeless black creatures, the size of motor cars, slopped out of their foetal chambers on a tide of thick fluid that sluiced across the gallery floor, washing up against the piles of bodies and depositing the creatures on the chamber floor. The glistening creatures lay like great excised viscera. They seemed totally without skeletal support, with no discernable head, limbs or features of any sort. Then after a moment their shapeless bodies began to contract and flow, drawing themselves in; whether as a defensive reflex or like the first awkward attempts at movement by a newborn calf struggling to stand, it was hard to say. At the same time, orifices formed, gaping black lipless holes that began to suckle blindly at the air.
Gazette nudged Pot Shot. “Better hope it goes for the dead ones first.”
“Would you go for Machonochies when there’s steak?” asked Gutsy.
“Fair point.”
The heaving black bulks extruded tendrils, which quested blindly towards the waiting bodies and, finding them, began to drawn them towards their open maws.
A third creature was expelled from its chamber like afterbirth and, unable to reach the food thanks to its birthmates, it sent tendrils out after the Tommies.
“And for my next trick,” Gazette announced, “pick a tunnel, any tunnel.”
Atkins picked one and they ran, the stone pots and jars chinking and clattering as they did.
THE TANK CREW, abandoned in the passage by Mathers, began to turn on themselves.
“We’d better go after him,” said Frank.
Norman shook his head. “He told us to stay here.”
Reggie stepped forwards. “He’s ill, even if he won’t admit it himself.”
Norman glared at him. “Well, there’s no point us all going. Send him.” He jerked his thumb at Alfie. “If he’s got the balls. I want to see him put himself on the line for the Sub.”
“No!” Nellie protested.
“It’s all right, Nellie,” said Alfie. “I’ll fetch him. I’m not afraid.”
“Alfie, don’t!”
Alfie smiled shyly and gave her a wink that exuded more confidence than he felt. “I won’t be long. Back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. The lieutenant can’t have gone far.”
“And why the hell should we trust you?” snarled Cecil, stepping into his path. “You’ve never understood the lieutenant’s plans. He’s a genius, he’s got it all sorted out, up here,” he said, tapping his forehead. “He’s a man of vision. He has plans for this world and he’s taking us with him. But oh, no, you don’t want to go. You know better. You’d rather be with your bint, here.”
“’Ere, you watch your lip!” snapped Nellie.
“Or what,” Cecil jeered, “your beau will swing for me?”
Nellie’s eyes narrowed, full of focused fury. “He won’t bloody have to, I’ll do it myself.”
Alfie sighed. He didn’t want to do this. Not here, not now. “You can’t see it, can you? Any of you! It’s the fumes talking, all of this. This isn’t the crew I knew back in Norfolk. You lot have been riding my back about my loyalty. I’ve done as much to keep the Ivanhoe going as any of you, and we’re standing here arguing about it while the lieutenant could be in danger. He’s not himself.” Cecil didn’t back down. “Fine. In return, I’m trusting you. With her!” he pointed at Nellie, knowing that he didn’t have to trust them. The Urman, Napoo, would keep her safe, and she had her revolver.
“Seems like a fair deal,” conceded Reggie, arching an eyebrow. “Cecil?”
The sullen loader muttered under his breath, but let Alfie pass.
“Look after her,” called Alfie, holding up his torch, “and if we’re not back in five, get the hell out of here.”
“Alfie!”
It was hard leaving her, but he had to do this. He had to regain their trust. Mad or not, Mathers was still the Tank Commander and, despite what the others may think, he wasn’t himself. He was the only other one who knew about the things inside Mathers, the things Mathers had been fighting. Holding the torch high, he turned and gave Nellie a bright smile and an airy wave and, with a deep breath, plunged into the waiting dark.
DRIVEN ON BY hunger, the black mass of the freshly hatched creature propelled itself after the Tommies. Atkins and the others raced along the tunnel, desperate to stay ahead of it. Chandar bounded alongside them, its legs showing a power and spring it had kept well hidden. Around a slight curve in the tunnel came a faint glow of light.
“Lads, daylight! We’ve made it!” yelled Porgy.
Atkins grabbed the flagging Chalky by his webbing and dragged him on. They pelted up the curving inclined passage as it led upwards for several hundred yards. The light grew brighter until, used to the gloom of the labyrinth, their eyes ached. They could see a round opening now, draped with foliage.
The low susurrating sound of pursuit still harried them, closer now. “Run!” shouted Atkins. He gave Chalky another shove and felt one of the Chatt pots in the lad’s pack break. A green sticky stain spread over the canvas. He hoped it wasn’t anything important.
Mercy and Gazette came to an abrupt halt at the mouth of the opening. Gutsy barrelled into them, almost sending Porgy sprawling, but Mercy caught his webbing. Chalky came staggering up.
Atkins glanced over his shoulder. The creature was gaining. “Get out, get out!” he bellowed, closing the last few yards between him and the rest of the section.
“Not this way, we can’t,” said Mercy, sounding grim.
“What do you mean?” said Atkins, pushing through them to where the foliage draped across the opening. He parted it with an impatient sweep of his arm.
The ground fell away. The tunnel opened onto empty space. A hundred or so feet below, he saw the canopy of the jungle spread out before him.
“Eh, up!” said Mercy, grabbing Atkins’ webbing as he flailed to keep his balance.
The tunnel came out on the side of the precipice. Only it wasn’t just a precipice. Looking out across the top of a jungle canopy below, he could make out the far side of the valley with its rising cliff face, the one he’d seen before, when Jarak tried to sacrifice him. He saw now that it wasn’t a rift valley as he previously thought. From here, he could see that the cliffs curved round and met, the sides of a vast crater hundreds of feet deep and filled with jungle. Over to his right he could see the mysterious discoloured line of vegetation in the crater that he’d noticed before.
None of which helped them now. They were trapped, and the creature was rushing towards them.
ALFIE SHUFFLED CAUTIOUSLY down the passage, holding the torch high, and peered into the gloom. From somewhere up ahead he could hear a constant muttering.
“Sir?” he called. “Lieutenant Mathers, sir!”
At the very edge of the torch glow, he caught sight of the scarecrow figure of the Tank Commander in his shamanistic rain cape. “Perkins? Don’t move. Stay there.”
Beyond Mathers, something filled the tunnel space, writhing. Alfie held his breath. The creature waited, small tendrils waving tentatively in the air around Mathers, apparently mollified by the lieutenant’s muttering. The tentacles retreated into the body of the creature, and Alfie watched it withdraw back down the tunnel with a sucking sound, the way it came.
Alfie edged forwards, uncertain as to whether the thing had truly gone. “How?” he began.
“I wondered that myself,” said Mathers, unperturbed. “But you’ve seen them.”
“What, sir?”
“These things inside me. I think it could sense them. I don’t think it likes them.”
Alfie remembered the glimpse he got after being forced to drink the petrol fruit. He didn’t like them either.
Mathers turned to the Gearsman. “I
need to get back to the tank, Perkins. I can’t fight them any longer. I was ready to give myself to them just then. I can feel them interfering with my mind. They want me, need me to die, for some reason. The fumes seem to subdue them somehow, but I can’t hold them back by myself for much longer.”
“We’ll get you back, sir.”
“Don’t tell them, Perkins. Don’t tell them about the things inside me. They don’t need to know.”
Alfie thought they did. He didn’t want to be a confidant. He didn’t want to be burdened with secrets, but he bit his tongue. “My lips are sealed, sir,” he said, guiding the weakened officer along. Mathers offered no resistance.
Alfie saw the bloom of torchlight ahead. “We’re here,” he called. The light moved along the passage towards him, highlighting Jack and Frank below it, as they approached.
Mathers had lapsed from lucidity again and, vacant-eyed, muttered to himself.
“We need to get him back to the Ivanhoe,” said Alfie, as Frank and Jack took Mathers from him.
“Alfie!” Nellie rushed forwards to hug him but stopped herself, the fleeting moment of impropriety before the others embarrassing her. Alfie was amused to find the tank men averting their gaze and shuffling awkwardly.
“We must carry on,” Napoo reminded them.
The crew picked up their jar-stuffed coveralls and let the Urman take the lead, thinking to blame him if they remained lost. They pushed on, the tunnel spiralling upwards at a gentle gradient.
Mathers was delirious. He revived briefly when they felt the fresh air blowing down the tunnel. The tank crew stumbled towards it, finding a breach in the wall. They pushed through the tangled mass of creepers and vines obscuring their view, and caught sight of the tank across the clearing.
“Yes!” A weary cheer went up. Even Alfie was relieved to see the great iron beast again. It was like coming home. Inside that, they would be safe.