Rith fled screaming through bellowing billows of fire, and Kane ran with great long steps over a shrieking abyss, his own yowls joining those from below. His lips clamped shut, Arton ran in total silence through a corridor filled with sizzling continuous arcs of lightning crackling across the hallway. And when the thief came to the end of the passage, the Foxes had at last reached the far side of the dread-filled mutating maze.
As they stepped out into the final corridor and the stone slab ground shut across the way behind, laughing, Kane picked up Rith and swung her about. Her mastery of sound had gotten them safely through.
“Next is that hideous stench we’ve got to endure to reach the door,” said Arik.
“I don’t see how we can take even one step into the place where it lies,” said Arton. “I took the full brunt of it and was unable to do anything but vomit.”
Arik turned to Kane. “Is it disease or poison?”
“Perhaps both; perhaps neither,” replied the big man. “Pon Barius called it the air of decay. But if you ask me, it may not even be air—nothing breathable, that is.”
Rith cocked an eyebrow. “Are you saying that it’s a gas?”
Kane shrugged.
“How will we get past it?” asked Lyssa. “I mean, we don’t even know how far into this—this black hole it extends. It could be just in the corridor near the door, or it could reach far inward. But no matter its extent, short or long, still the question remains: how will we get past it?”
“Let’s ride that horse after we capture it,” replied Kane. “But let me say this: of the five of us, for this particular trap, I am probably best equipped to deal with it. So, I will take the lead and go slowly, while the rest of you hang back. When we come to it, I will see what I can discern. Agreed?”
Foxes looked at one another and nodded, and Arik lit a second lantern and handed it to Kane and grinned, saying, “After you, brave leader.”
Through the mountain they wound, following the arched corridor, the way twisting and turning, rising and falling. Some twenty paces in the lead strode Kane, the big man moving through the darkness in a halo of lantern light, the remaining Foxes coming after, moving in a halo of their own. And all around, white granite frowned at these passersby, at these intruders bearing light through this dark domain.
Of a sudden, Kane gasped and reeled back, dropping his lantern. He turned and, retching, stumbled toward the others. He stopped a moment and knelt, then shakily stood and made his way slowly back to the waiting Foxes.
“Arda, but that was awful,” said Kane, gasping and blowing to clear his nostrils of the putrescence. The big man put his back to one of the walls and slid down to a sitting position.
Lyssa handed him an uncorked waterskin. As he poured water into his mouth and gargled and swashed and spat, she asked, “Do you know what it is?”
Kane looked up at her. “A hideous sickness spell. I’ve heard of them, but never have I encountered one before.”
“A junga would curse his enemies with such,” said Rith.
Arton cocked his head. “Junga?”
“Shaman, witch doctor,” replied Rith. “In my land of Imbia, we of the Udana name them jungas.”
“And they cast sickness spells?” asked Arton. “Nice fellows. Remind me never to insult one.”
Lyssa turned to Kane. “You’re certain it’s a spell and not a gas, not bad air?”
Kane nodded and pointed at the burning lantern lying in the hallway where he had dropped it. “If it were a gas or bad air, I think the lamp would die out. No, I am certain it’s a spell. There really isn’t any rotting flesh or pus filled sores or gangrenous limbs or other such lying about in concealment somewhere. I believe the odor is part and parcel of the spell; seven hells, I think the spell is such that all beings will smell whatever is most foul to them.”
Arik squatted beside Kane. “Can you do anything about it? Nullify the spell?”
Kane shook his head. “I can’t banish it like Pon Barius did.”
“Dretch!” spat Arton. “Trapped.”
“Not necessarily,” said Kane.
“Oh?” Arton squatted.
“Well, I’ve an idea,” said Kane. “It’s risky, but it’s all I can think of.”
“Risky?” Arik glanced at Kane. “How so?”
Kane looked at each of them. “Well, if it doesn’t work, we’ll all die. And even if it does work . . .” The warrior-healer did not finish the sentence.
After a moment, Arik spoke up: “Go on, Kane. What were you about to say?”
“Just that even if it does work, I may die. But listen, we’ll all die regardless if we don’t do something to get past this ward.” Kane grinned at Arik. “Beside, I didn’t tell you the best part.”
“Best part?”
“Yeah. Just this: you’ll all have to bodily carry me.”
“Ready?” asked Arik. “Then by the corners lift!”
“Oof!” grunted Arton, grappling with one of Kane’s legs. “Damn, but you’re as heavy as that cube of silver.”
Lyssa, on Kane’s other leg, hissed her agreement through clenched teeth.
Rith, on one of Kane’s arms, said, “You’ve got the easy parts. Arik and I have the worst of it.”
“But we’ve got the climbing gear,” retorted Arton.
“And the lantern,” added Lyssa.
“Save your breath,” said Arik on Kane’s other arm. “Let’s get to the door and let Arton deal with it.”
Off down the hallway they started, lugging Kane, and just before they came to where the big man had dropped the lantern, Arik said, “Remember, keep flesh to flesh.”
And at that moment, they entered the hideous stench.
Vomit geysered from Kane’s mouth, rising into the air and falling back onto his face and arms and chest, falling onto Arik and Rith as well, but they did not stop in their rush through the arched corridor. Kane groaned in agony and there came the liquid dumping of his bowels, and he urinated in his leathers. He broke out in a profuse sweat, followed immediately by a burning dryness as greenish bile bubbled and frothed from his mouth and his hoarse retching resounded from the white walls.
And still the Foxes scurried onward, harshly gasping in the putrid air.
Hideous black pustules burst forth on Kane’s skin, and veins on his forehead stood out like pulsating cords. Boils burst, yellowish goo splattering forth, oozing down and dripping, leaving a trail on the granite behind.
Ahead, the Foxes could see a bright sparkling.
“It’s got to be the door!” cried Arik.
Black-streaked yellow mucous began pouring forth from Kane’s nostrils.
Now they came to the dead end. Quartz chips flashed in white granite, brighter than the lantern light would allow, and reflected on the face of the stone was the glistening silhouette of the door.
“Arton, see what you can do! But don’t turn loose of Kane’s flesh!”
As Arton raised a hand to touch the glittering granite, Rith shouted, “Wait! Pon Barius said all the wards were deadly but the first, where we suffered despair, and the last, where the chest was hidden in stone. That means the door is lethal, too, if not opened exactly right!”
“Just what in seven hells do you suggest I do?” sissed Arton.
Kane began coughing blood, great red bubbles bursting and dribbling down his cheeks.
“Rith!” gasped Lyssa. “Pon Barius opened the sparkling door by singing a word. Can you do the same?”
“If she doesn’t get it right, it may kill us all,” cried Arton.
“It’s the only plan we have,” said Arik. “Rith?”
Kane’s gums turned black and his teeth yellowed as Rith calmed herself then frowned in concentration.
She raised her face to the door and took a deep breath and then sang a single word—”Kínÿîtñì!”—her intonations exactly matching those of Pon Barius.
And as a pale liquid seeped from Kane’s ears, the sparkles vanished and a dark line formed down the
center, growing wider with each labored heartbeat as the portal split in two and doors wheeled inward to the sound of stone grinding on stone.
The moment the gap was wide enough, over the threshold they sprang, and they bore Kane out into the dawnlight and fled across the mountainside, while behind them the door ground shut once more.
Lyssa led them to a hollow beneath an overhang, where a small streamlet bubbled forth from the rocks. There they set up camp, and for the next three days they waited to see if Kane would live or die. They brewed the herbal drinks as he had instructed back when he revealed his plan, and fed them to him in small sips.
On the second day he awakened.
On the morning of the third day he said, “I’m as sick as any five people could be,” which was no doubt true since he had used his powers to take on all of the illnesses of the other Foxes as well as his own as they had carried him through the stench and to the door.
It was on this third day, too, that Lyssa and Arik went back to the door, and Lyssa used her powers to see if she could track Horax. She found a trail leading to a wide ledge of stone, and thereon was the scat of some great creature. “A winged thing of some sort,” said Lyssa, examining the droppings. “What kind, I cannot tell.”
Arik looked over the edge. A drop of a mile fell sheer below. “Are you saying that Horax flew away on some great bird?”
“Bird, dragon, fell beast—I cannot say. Only that Horax came here bearing Ky and did not walk away.”
When they reported their discovery, Kane ground his teeth in rage and his great hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. Rith looked at the big man and said, “We must hurry, for Horax has had many days to think on her doom . . . if she yet lives.”
“Agreed,” said Arton. “But remember, we’ve got two wards to get past.”
“Perhaps not,” replied Rith.
“Oh?”
“Well, since Horax did not climb down, perhaps they have not been reactivated.”
On the morning of the fourth day they began their descent, Lyssa unerringly leading them back along the twisting way they had originally climbed.
They discovered that Rith had been right—the next ward had not yet been reactivated—as gangwise, they crossed it swiftly, and were down and away before its fatal spell could turn the stone “slick” and drain them of energy.
When they came to the ward of discouragement, they were still on the ledge when it reactivated. And they wept inconsolably for they knew they would never reach the Drasp in time to rescue Ky . . . besides, she was probably already dead . . . and who were they to even think they could defeat Horax?
Soon they were beyond the reach of this ward, too, and Kane cursed the sky and stone and Horax and the DemonQueen and the gnomen and the gem and whoever and whatever else he could put a name to as down the mountainside they went.
They reached their base camp by midafternoon. Swiftly Arton broke out some jerky and passed it around, for they had run out of food two days back. The horses were glad to see them, especially when they received a ration of grain. Even the mules seemed comforted by their return.
Pon Barius had said that they would not escape the wards of White Mountain without his aid. . . .
But even the wisest of mages are wrong now and again.
28
Evil Genius
(Coburn Facility)
Toni Adkins turned to Doctor Meyer. “Drew, we’ve got to shut down all nonessential power—eliminate whatever we can that’s tapped into the battery reserves. We’ve got to keep Avery running and the alpha team alive, but all else has got to go.”
“There’s not all that much we can eliminate, Toni,” replied Meyer. He ran his hand over his balding pate. “The backup system has already cut loose all but the essential—” Toni’s comband beeped.
She keyed a switch. “Yes.”
“This is Tim. Is Drew there?”
“Yes, Timothy.”
“I need him down here in the AIC.”
Drew keyed his own comband. “What is it, Timothy?”
“I need you to help me rig an old-fashioned keyboard into Avery.”
Drew Meyer glanced at Toni. “In a moment, Timothy. I’ve got to set a team to working on reducing battery drain. I’ll be there in five.”
“Right. Out.”
Doctor Meyer keyed his comband off. “Toni, have someone find Hawkins—Al Hawkins. He’s in the building somewhere and is the best powertech we’ve got. He’ll know who to get and what can be shut down.” Drew looked about the control room. “I would say you can turn off everything up here but the medconsoles and the rigs. We can monitor the rest from the AIC.”
“What about the emergency lights?” asked Toni. “Should we shut most of them off?”
“No, no, Toni, they are running on batteries of their own . . . and before you ask, those batteries aren’t of use in powering Avery or the alpha team—we’d have to rig a converter, and by that time it’d be too late.” Drew started for the door. “I’ll be in the AIC,” he called over his shoulder.
Toni keyed her comband.
“Yes, Doctor Adkins,” came the voice of David Cardington.
“Chief, find me Al Hawkins. He’s a powertech and likely to be at the generator, or at the main bus, or at in the reserve battery center. But no matter where he is, it’s critical you find him straightaway.”
Toni turned to Doctor Ramanni. “Alya, stay here in control. Shut down all but the medconsoles and the rigs. I’m going to the AIC.”
Repeatedly, Mark Perry glanced back and forth between the screen and Doctor Stein, the lawyer waiting for someone to do something. Finally, unable to stand the silence, he barked, “Well don’t just sit there, Stein, you’ve got to get Arthur out. Unplug him from the rig or something.”
Without looking away from the silvery ovoids displayed on the holoscreen, Stein shook his head. “I’m not going to do anything until I know what’s going on here.”
“It’s obvious,” snapped Perry. “Avery has sucked their brains into himself. He’s like some goddamned mind vampire.”
“He didn’t actually suck their ‘brains’ in,” said Doctor Greyson. “But their minds, their spirits, their souls—those he did take.”
Stein leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers, his gaze locked on the screen. “Their mentalities? Perhaps. But their souls? Only if you believe in such things.”
“I don’t care what you call it,” said Mark, “brains, mind, spirit, soul, mentality, heart, what-damned-ever, the fact is, it’s all your fault that Arthur is trapped. You put him in there and you’ll get him out or else.”
Fury in his eye, Stein whirled on Mark Perry and shouted, “Enough, you ignorant fool! Get out of here! Now!”
“Wha—?” Perry’s mouth fell open. Before he could muster a reply, there came a pounding on the door. As the guard levered it open to admit Drew Meyer, Greyson took Perry by the arm and steered him away from the console.
“Come on, Mark,” said Greyson. “Let me treat you to a cup of coffee. The cafeteria urns ought to still be warm. We’ll bring some back with us, too, for the others.”
As they neared the door, again came a pounding. It was Toni Adkins. “Leave it open,” she instructed the guard. “The last thing we need is another hindrance.”
“Look, Drew,” said Timothy, “I got this old keyboard from my office.” He handed it to the physicist. “If we can rig it to plug into one of Avery’s comports, I think we might be able to talk to him, communicate with him.”
Drew Meyer turned the keyboard over and over. “Lord, Timothy, how old is this?”
“It came from my granddad’s comp—a Xentium.”
“Ancient history. ASCII?”
Timothy nodded.
Drew sighed. “Well, we’ll need to rig an interface board we can jack straight in. Get me some techs and I’ll tell them what we need.”
“Sheila, Billy,” called Timothy.
Mark and Greyson came bearing two trays loaded w
ith hot cups of coffee and three thermos carafes. “It’s not steaming,” said Greyson as they passed the tray around, “but it’s plenty warm. We brought enough for refills, too.”
As Toni took a cup, she said, “How about the control room crew?”
Greyson grinned. “Alya already thought of it. A member of her crew was there when we arrived.”
Mark Perry set one of the cups down beside Stein. The neurosurgeon looked at it and then at Perry, and without saying a word took it up and sipped, turning his attention back to the silvery ovoids on the holoscreen.
Shrugging, Perry stepped back and watched in silence as the six mental patterns slowly rotated in the holo. At his side Greyson watched as well. Finally the philosopher quietly said, “They were living in a Penfield vat, but now they exist in a Berkeley world.”
“What?” asked Perry.
“A Penfield vat, a Berkeley world,” repeated Greyson.
“What are they?”
“Don’t you remember, Mark? We talked about brains in vats when we first met the alpha team.”
Mark shrugged. “Frankly, John, most of the time I was bored to tears. Stuff like that has never interested me.”
Greyson slowly shook his head and sighed. “Well, Mark, back in the nineteen thirties, Arthur Penfield said that if an evil genius put our brains in vats of nutrients and perfectly connected them by perfectly driven microelectrodes to a supercomputer which perfectly simulated our world and all of our perceptions, there would be no way we could tell it was not real.”
“And you think that’s what’s going on now?” asked Perry.
“No, no, Mark, that’s what was going on. The rigs took the place of the vats and Avery took the place of the supercomputer.”
Shadowtrap: A Black Foxes Adventure Page 28