The men had purple geraniums pinned to their stained shirts, and the female servant-things had little white blooms in their stringy hair. They were still as statues, forming an obscene honor guard, all staring towards Ed and Reverend Mott, who stood by the “Master’s” pit.
The dark crystal cavern itself had also been decorated. There were white candles burning around the perimeter, and pink ribbons festooned the pillars which supported the roof.
Beyond the pit, the dark pyramid on its pedestal and the framework over it had been left untouched. That silver claw still hung there, its purpose to block the way to the other world—if the Guardian could be believed.
There was still a silver cord running from the pit into the tunnel to the basement … the conduit through which Krotan would use the machinery in the basement, no doubt. The same machinery with which Ed had been tortured, and with which Krotan was going to turn all of Garatayne into a mass of mindless horrors—if Ed didn’t stop him.
Ed poked at the cord with his foot, but he could barely budge the heavy metallic rope. He had no doubt that it was fastened to something down in the pit.
No matter. The important thing was to destroy the demon himself—and that was what he was set to do.
Truthfully, he’d been ready for hours. His every muscle felt sore from being tensed too long, and his back was so tight that he thought his spine might curl up.
But he had to wait a little longer.
He’d promised Julea that, at the very least, she could walk down the aisle as a bride. He couldn’t say no to her. Without her, he’d never have found the determination to do any of this, anyway.
But he was very worried for her.
The crystal-stone door at the far end of the chamber, which led to outside, and which he’d thought might give her a chance to escape, was closed. Ed could just make out the slight glistening of the seams that marked its location. It must slide open, somehow … Would she be able to open it?
He’d tried to get a closer look at the door, but as soon as he’d taken a few steps Mott had reached for him, hissing, and he’d decided against it.
Ed looked to his right, where Mott stood beside a small table upon which was set the music box from Julea’s bedroom, and also a marriage certificate.
The latter was already neatly dated and signed by both the Guardian and Reverend Mott, he saw; Mott’s signature was a childish scribble. It only awaited Ed and Julea’s own names.
After a few minutes, the Guardian appeared in the basement tunnel doorway behind them. He waved to them and loudly forced a dramatic cough.
Apparently this was a signal, because Mott immediately reached down and lifted the lid of the music box. Inside, porcelain figures of a bride and groom began to dance in endless circles as a tinkling tune played, its volume magnified as it echoed through the chamber. Now, Ed recognized the melody as a traditional wedding march.
The Guardian appeared again, this time escorting Julea in her billowing blue gown. Her eyes flashed Ed’s way as she marched forward on her father’s arm.
He somehow worked his mouth into a smile, and she smiled back.
Just a little longer, he thought. She knows our signal.
It was a simple word: “Go.” When he gave her this final command, she would run for the door, while he would descend into the demon’s pit—from which he knew he had little chance of ever emerging.
Julea and the Guardian continued their approach, following the aisle of deathly servants as it slanted down into the bowl of the cavern. She was still smiling at him, and he wondered if she wasn’t imagining that things were better, if in her mind’s eye she wasn’t seeing a lovely grand cathedral or a little country church or someplace more pleasant than this.
In a moment, she had reached him and was at his side. The Guardian stepped beside Mott, then waved for both of them to turn towards the rotting Reverend. The Guardian whispered something into the ragged black hole that passed for Mott’s right ear.
Mott closed the lid of the music box; it came down with a thud and the music stopped.
Spreading his bony arms, he croaked: “Hummmm-bulll breath-er-renn … wwweeee arrrr heeeeer toooday tooo wit-a-nesh th-the youn-eee-yun offff these twooo young peee-ohh-pole, un-durrr theee eyesh offfff ourrr …” He paused here, turning for a moment to look at Krotan’s pit … “Ourrrrr Godddd.”
Ed smiled, smoothing his coat in what he hoped looked like a reflexively nervous manner. While he did so, he patted the knife and fork in his pocket, reassuring himself that the utensils were still there.
Was it time to act? He had fulfilled his promise to Julea, after all. And Mott could barely speak anymore, his stuttering hissing words drawn out in agony, so that Ed had no idea how long the rutting mad ceremony would go on.
But he turned his head to look at Julea, and those big brown eyes were quivering and glistening wet, as if on the verge of tears.
Rutting hell! What more did she want from him? The ceremony was important to her, yes, but she had to realize what they faced …
Well, perhaps just a few moments longer?
Now Mott turned to him and rasped: “Edd-wynnn Baawwwwwk, sh-shall yooou take thishh whoa-mannn tooo beeee yoour wiiif, to leee-ifff toooo-gett-torr ack-ord-dinggg toooo Goddd’s deee-cree innn th-the whole-eeee eee-state offf mare-eeee-age?
Ed looked to Julea, who was still smiling at him, her lower lip trembling, those big eyes reflecting his own face.
He swallowed hard, and nodded. “I shall.”
Next, Mott addressed Julea, his neck bones popping as his charred face turned down to look at her. “Jewel-leee-aaahh Muuu-reee-aahhh Cranndolffff, sh-shall yoooou take thish mannn tooo beeee yoour hush-bandd, tooo leee-ifff toooo-get-torr ack-ord-dinggg toooo Goddd’s deee-cree innn th-the whole-eeee eee-state offf mare-eeee-age? Tooo oh-bayyy himmmm, serfff himmmm onn-orrr him?”
Tears running down her flushed cheeks, she nodded quickly several times. “I shall, I shall.”
Mott nodded. His withered hands crackled as he clasped them together. “Aye pro-nounce yoooou m-m-mannnn annnnd wiiif. Yooou maaaay … kissssh yooour boo-riiid.”
Ed grabbed Julea’s shoulder. She was already leaning close, and he turned his head, moved his lips over her tiny mouth. It was soft and wonderful, but his heart was pounding with the knowledge of what he had to do …
Pulling away, he whispered, “I… I do love you, Julea. I want you to know that.”
“I love you too,” she said—and she reached out for his hand.
But he shook his head, reached into his coat for the knife, and, calmly as he could, told her “Go.”
And then, the fight of his life began …
-36-
Orcus Gaelti stood beside one of the obelisks on the platform above the Tomb of Oberkion, watching Lanaya’s flying fortress gliding above the river.
As he looked on, squinting through his eye-shield to see every detail, the great ship slowly turned his way, the shadowed opening of the cannon under its prow like a great staring eye.
“Sir,” his young aide, Horion, whispered, “If you think they will use the cannon on the Tomb, perhaps we ought to evacuate the men?”
The tall youth bit his lip and jerked his head nervously, as if he half-expected Gaelti to order everyone to stay.
But Gaelti only nodded. “I agree. Get them all into the transport and fly as far as you can.”
“Sir, you are coming along, yes?”
For a moment, Gaelti toyed with the idea of staying. What a relief it might be, to find sweet oblivion in the painless annihilation of a giant ambia blast!
He’d felt the great ship’s approach before it arrived. Something that big wasn’t hard to sense …
The ancient technology sang to his soul, trying to seduce him with a harmony of destruction. And behind it he thought he heard their voices—her masters’ voices—cackling and whispering from their holes in the ground, already celebrating their imminent victory over the Order of Kion and Damerya.
>
Their imminent victory over humankind, he corrected himself.
This was the beginning of the end for civilization on his world. The da’ta se had failed, and there was nothing else to do.
He’d asked for a squad of men to guard the Tomb and the Key of Oberkion, just in case. But it was now clear that she meant to annihilate both, and there was little point in keeping them here to die.
“Sir?” Horion asked again, rousing him from his thoughts.
“I’ll come along,” he said. “Any contingency plan is doomed to failure, but it is my duty to keep struggling until the end.”
As he turned to board his personal craft, he paused to look at the monstrous enemy ship again—then spat in its direction.
Horion stared at him, mouth open, apparently taken aback by his master’s uncharacteristic vulgarity.
“A man should be allowed one moment of animal weakness, should he not?” Gaelti asked.
Horion nodded nervously.
Without another glance at the great ship, Gaelti boarded his transport.
-37-
Ed drew the dinner knife and lunged forward towards the demon Krotan’s pit—only to be jerked back as something grabbed his arm.
Suddenly, bony fingers were at his throat, and the fetid maw of Mott’s mouth was leaning close, as if the preacher-thing meant to bite off his face.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Julea rushing for the closed door to outside.
The Guardian was still standing where he’d been, stunned.
But Mott’s charred hands were crushing Ed’s throat …
Time seemed to slow as Ed drew back the knife, searching for a place to strike. He looked into the hole where Mott’s nose had once been. Deep up inside that bony tunnel, he thought he could see a gray mass pulsing and glistening.
“Bas … tard!” Ed choked, and stabbed upward with the knife, thrusting it into Mott’s nose-hole. He wiggled it and pushed, felt it slide in several more inches with a crunch.
Suddenly, the pressure on his throat was gone. There was a terrible racket as Mott’s jaws spasmed, his blackened teeth clicking together again and again. His arms popped and crunched as they bent at unnatural angles, and his knees buckled.
Ed grabbed at the knife, trying to pull it loose—but it was stuck fast. He only succeeded in pulling Mott forward, and the dying thing tumbled forward onto the ground.
The Guardian was watching Ed now, his red eyes slitted in fury. “You!” he bellowed. “Will … kill … you!”
But Ed was already springing forward. The pit loomed up in front of him …
At the last moment, his bad foot caught on the silver cord than ran into the pit.
Flung forward, he found himself falling towards the pit, then plunging head-first into the shaft …
#
Betrayer!
Guardian Crandolph blamed himself for not seeing the truth earlier.
So young Bocke had been plotting this all along! He’d turned against the Master, practically spit in the faces of himself and his dear child Julea …
“Father!”
Crandolph heard his daughter’s voice now, calling out to him. He looked that way to see that she stood by the heavy dark crystal door which lead to the outside.
What was she doing there? Only he could open that door … but surely she wasn’t trying to leave him now?
“Father!” she shouted again. “Leave Edwyn alone!”
“I have to kill him!” he replied. “He can’t join us in the communion with the Master now. He doesn’t deserve that, doesn’t deserve to live.”
“NO!!!!!!!!!!!” Julea screeched back, her hands clenched at her sides, her face red with fury. “Stay away from him! I HATE YOU!!!!”
Her words made Crandolph’s legs feel weak and his veins feel cold, as if the Kraelon fire within them had been momentarily quenched.
“I hate you!” she repeated. “You’re … no good! You love that monster more than me. Mother knew you weren’t any good, she knew … that’s why she died! All you’re good for is death!”
She waved her hands at the servant-things, who had now left their orderly lines and were marching forward to defend their master in the pit.
Just then, an inhuman scream of pain arose from the pit, a sound halfway between the yell of a man and the gurgling squeal of a drowning beast.
The Master is hurting!
“I can’t let him harm the Master!” he told her. “Let me finish this, and then we’ll all join with Krotan, have a new and blissful life! Please, Julea!”
“I don’t want to join with him and I don’t want to join with YOU!” she screamed. “I’d rather DIE with Edwyn!”
She picked up her skirts and started running for the Master’s pit.
“No!” he shouted.
The Guardian ran forward and caught her, snatched her slim form up in his arms.
She shrieked and pummeled him with her little fists.
He blinked away the blurriness from his eyes … and only then did he realize that his face was slick with tears.
#
Driven by his momentum, Ed rushed head–first down into the darkness of the shaft.
He hadn’t even had time to draw the fork—his only remaining weapon—before he’d tripped and found himself plunging down into Krotan’s nest.
As he slid, he got a glimpse of lambent red eyes rushing towards him in the darkness. They came closer and closer and then he hit the thing itself, felt the leathery body give under him as they both tumbled to the very bottom.
Krotan’s breath was like the odor of a trash pit on a hot summer day, and when he howled it was a wet noise, as if the sound had to gurgle through a maze of mucous-filled passages before reaching the air.
The demon did not hesitate to fight back.
Ed felt its claws in his back, tearing through his jacket, lines of hot pain pulsing where it ripped his flesh.
But he pushed the hurt away, shoved it down into the same place where his fear had gone. He kept only his anger, only that which gave him strength …
He tried to reach into the jacket for the fork, but a sharp wet something grabbed his right arm, piercing deep.
He bit me!, Ed realized. Rutting bastard!
He shook his arm and tried to throw the biting demon off, but it was no use. Trying to struggle only brought agonizing bursts of pain, as if the arm had been pierced by a thousand cold needles.
Somewhere up above, he heard Julea’s voice shouting, though he couldn’t make out the words.
No! She was in trouble, he had to …
But there was nothing he could do now but fight. Kill the bastard and hope she made it through all right.
Ed felt his head wrenched forward as Krotan grabbed his hair and tore out a clump of it. Then, the thing’s clawed hand was on his face.
He closed his eyes and tried to turn his head away as the sharp nails raked his cheek. As he struggled, the writhing fingers brushed his chin, prying at his mouth …
He opened wide, and when several of the thing’s fingers slid inside, he bit down hard.
A thick, soupy liquid filled his mouth, tasting like curdled milk. There was so much of it that it ran up into his nose and spurted from his nostrils, burning all the way.
Ed bit down harder, and he felt bone under his teeth.
It cracked between his jaws like sugar candy, and then Krotan screamed an animal howl and tugged away.
With a ripping, popping noise, the fingers came loose in Ed’s mouth and he fell back, free of the beast for a moment.
Spitting out the foul fingers and gasping for breath, Ed reached into his jacket for the fork.
I thought it might help, Julea had said. Just in case.
Now it was their only hope …
He gripped the fork’s handle and drew it out.
Krotan was hissing in the darkness, only a few feet away. Ed could still see his red eyes.
“Oberkion en draen!!!” the thing rasped.
&nbs
p; “Forget about rutting Oberkion!” Ed sneered. “It’s Ed Bocke who’s killing you now, bastard! Feel my hate!”
Drawing up every last reserve of strength, he pushed himself up and lunged, focusing only on his enemy’s eyes. Krotan jumped forward—
And Ed struck. The thing’s own momentum helped to skewer it as it flew forward, meeting Ed’s strike.
The fork pierced the eye’s membrane as easily as it might have punched through the congealed skin of a boiled pudding.
Driving it in deep, Ed twisted the implement and wriggled it back and forth as hot liquid flowed over his hand and Krotan thrashed and spasmed.
The thing fell down to the floor of the pit and the fork, still stuck in the demon’s eye, slipped from Ed’s grasp for a moment; but he found the handle again and punched the tool in deeper.
Krotan howled again, but the sound was cutoff midstream, becoming a pathetic gurgle.
And then, the thing stopped moving, and the red light in its remaining eye faded, snuffed like a candle flame.
From above, Ed heard the Guardian’s piercing scream: “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”
He looked up to see a group of the corpse-like servants standing at the top of the pit-shaft, surrounding it, as if about to plunge in.
Their bodies began to spasm, their legs wobbling, and then they fell forward …
-38-
Lanaya looked out from the bridge as her great flying fortress turned slowly in the air, and the cliffs that sheltered the Tomb of Oberkion came into view in front of her.
“We need to angle the prow downwards in order to target the Tomb, Pai General,” one of her technicians said.
“Do it,” Lanaya ordered. She braced her hands against her console as the floor slanted under her and the great ship tilted down.
“Are we in position?” she asked.
“Yes, Pai General.”
“Telnon! The ambia conduits?”
“Holding, Pai General,” the man responded, nodding his bandaged head nervously.
Battle Across Worlds Page 28