The Atomic Sea

by Jack Conner

  At last Layanna emerged from its tar-like substance. Still encased in her amoeba-form, she dragged herself loose. Her sac was ripped and torn to shreds, eaten by other-dimensional acids, reduced to a thin shell of protection around her. As she squirmed free and the last bulks of her enemy continued to dissolve, she released her other-self and fell gasping, panting to the floor.

  Meanwhile, Hildra, enraged and standing over the body of Bryon, who was clearly dead, a bullet hole through his upper left chest, fired into the ngvandi that remained—several were already down—using the gun Byron had sacrificed his life for. One ngvandi pitched to the floor. Blood exploded out of another’s back. The rest of the ngvandi, disoriented and lost under the psychic backlash of the Mnuthra, fled from the chamber.

  Avery swayed to his feet and made his way to Layanna, edging around the shrunken Mnuthra. He knew they didn’t have long. Hopefully the trident thrust would kill the being, but then again the Mnuthra might recover at any moment and launch itself at them. And there were still, apparently, other Mnuthra in the lake to contend with.

  Covered in sweat and blood, Layanna retched onto the floor. Avery helped her up.

  “Thanks,” she wheezed. “You ... saved my life.”

  He half-supported her to the cavern wall, where she was able to prop herself up, but barely. She looked pale and shaky, and he wanted to stay with her, but he crouched over Byron and examined him just to be sure.

  “I’m sorry,” Avery told Hildra. “He’s gone.”

  She swore viciously, and to Avery’s surprise tears glistened in her eyes. Gasping made Avery glance over his shoulder.

  Muirblaag was picking himself up off the floor. Janx staggered away from the priest he’d been fighting—the priest was down—his fists bloody, his chest heaving, and bent to help Muirblaag to his feet. The fish-man sucked in great breaths, clearly in pain.

  “You okay?” Janx asked.

  “Yeah,” Muirblaag said, his voice ragged. “Better than ever.”

  They saw Byron and stopped.

  “Damn,” said Muirblaag.

  Janx, leaving Muirblaag to catch his breath, bent over the fallen man, sighed heavily, and closed Byron’s eyes.

  “You went out like a champ,” Janx said, his voice as gentle as Avery had ever heard it.

  Behind Muirblaag, the Mnuthra stirred.

  “We have to—” Avery started

  He had time to see the exhausted, pained look on Muirblaag’s face, had time to note the burns on his abdomen where the Mnuthra’s limb had struck him, before—with horrible suddenness—a tendril wrapped around the fish-man’s waist and wrenched him off the ground. Muirblaag lifted his head and screamed so loudly Avery feared his lungs would burst.

  Janx bolted forward, but huge, gelatinous limbs erupted from the water—the other Mnuthra—and strove toward him. Avery grabbed him and reeled him back. Great, glistening limbs, bulwarks of phantasmagorical flesh, oozed from the lake.

  “Mu!” Janx shouted, his face locked in horror. Avery could still hear Muirblaag screaming, though he was now out of sight.

  The first Mnuthra swelled—Avery’s strike did not seem to have killed it, after all—and rushed toward them. The ground shook beneath it.

  They had no choice but to run.

  With Avery and Janx supporting Layanna, and Hildra firing backward, the band fled the grotto. They passed up the main hall and turned a bend. The floor rippled beneath them. A great psychic scream struck Avery, and he wanted to collapse, to vomit. It was all he could do to stay on his feet. The walls around him vibrated, and dust drifted down from the ceiling. The ground shook violently.

  The Mnuthra were coming. All of them.

  The shaking continued behind the group, louder and louder, and the floor bucked wildly. The reek of ammonia and sulfur filled Avery’s nostrils, stung his eyes, and made his head woozy. The Mnuthra were closing in.

  From behind issued a great, inhuman roar, almost like the song of a whale, but even more awful and terrifying.

  The band passed into the larger tunnels. Ngvandi crouched beside the bubbling streams and rivers. Their eyes rolled and foam beaded their lips. Some bashed their heads against the walls. Others flailed helplessly. It was clear the psychic backlash of the Mnuthra’s rage had undone them. A few made halfhearted efforts to clutch at Avery’s legs, but he kicked them away. He stole a staff from one, Hildra another gun.

  The roar grew louder behind them. The caverns shook. A stalactite broke off and crushed a praying ngvandi.

  The group hurried up the mining tunnels. Dust and rock rained down from the ceiling. The rotten timbers that buttressed the tunnel looked ready to split. Janx eyed them and grunted. As he passed a particular one, he stopped and said, “Wait.”

  He hefted up his trident and began bashing the supports. A great anger had seized him. Hildra and Avery, seeing what he meant to do, pitched in, digging at the rock, smashing staff and gun butt against the timbers and stones. At last, with a sinister groan, the buttress cracked.

  “Run!” Janx said.

  As the tunnels collapsed behind them, they ran as hard as they could. The halls caved in with a great whoosh of sound and air. A storm of dust chased them down the halls and enfolded them, and Avery wheezed for breath.

  He could almost feel the rage of the Mnuthra as the beings reached the blockage. A great, primeval roar shook in his head and staggered him. He knew it would not take them long to break through. How far could they go? They were creatures of the water. Avery imagined them swimming along chutes and tubes deep underground, threading their way into vast black lakes and rivers, forging their way to the sea, to chambers in other mountains. But land? He did not think they would go too far. He did not think they could maintain their otherworldly selves for long outside of the water. It had cost Layanna a great deal to do so. And they had allowed their human selves to grow too weak and frail to support them on their own.

  Nevertheless, he ran. With all his strength, he ran. His lungs burned, and sweat stuck his shirt to this back, his pants to his knees. His legs cramped and flamed.

  The group passed out of the caves and into the fortress, where the ngvandi rolled about on the floor much as they had in the grottoes, clutching dumbly at the air. They offered no resistance.

  * * *

  Outside, night smothered the land. A light snow drifted over the city, and screams and shouts echoed up from the shadowed streets. The ngvandi that occupied the city had not been as deeply affected by the psychic screams of the Mnuthra as those in the fortress, perhaps because of distance, perhaps because they were not as high in the echelons of the faith and thus not as connected to their gods. Even as Avery and the others threaded their way through buildings and roads, they saw the ngvandi prowl the streets in groups, dragging screaming slaves out from hovels and tearing into them indiscriminately with bare hands and claws. Slaves ran panting down the streets, terrified, some bleeding. Avery’s group ducked into an alley after seeing one slave gutted in a town square.

  “Why’re the ngvandi attacking their own damned slaves?” Hildra said.

  “I don’t know,” Avery panted. “But I think—they don’t know what’s going on—just some attack—from non-ngvandi—”

  Layanna said in Octunggen, “They’ll know soon.”

  “Over the bridge,” Avery said. “It’s the—only way.”

  “We can cut it behind us,” Janx agreed.

  “Wait!” said Hildra, when the others had started to move. They turned to her. “Where can we go once we get over? Bridge or no, they’ll be after us.”

  “She’s right,” Layanna said.

  Suddenly Avery remembered the Octunggen slaves. “I have an idea.”

  Slaves ran down the streets, fleeing from the enraged ngvandi. It wasn’t long before Avery picked out one of the Octunggen and with Janx’s help wrestled the man into an alley. The fellow fought against them, but Janx was too strong. Avery saw that the Octunggen already showed signs of infection, black growth
s along one cheekbone, and one eye bulging out, fish-like, its pupil transformed.

  “Release me!” the man cried in his native tongue. “They’re on my heels!”

  Avery thought of what the Octunggen had done to Mari and Ani, and he felt no pity. “Tell me where your dirigibles are, and we’ll let you go,” he said.

  The man stared, shocked.

  “Tell me!” Avery demanded. He knew the Octunggen raiding parties, like those that had attacked Benical and killed his wife and daughter, used dirigibles to hop from mountain to mountain. They were the ideal vehicle for such purposes—small and light and silent.

  The howls of the ngvandi drew closer.

  The Octunggen sweated, and nodded. “Fine. They’re no use to me anymore. It’s not as if I’m in any condition to escape. We came here to attack them, but—”

  “Just tell us,” Avery said.

  The man scowled. “My mate Sunctanis was just sacrificed to the fish-gods yesterday. If you really did kill one, mister, you have my blessing to take as many ships as you want. Here’s how you’ll find them ...”

  Chapter 15

  Wind rustled through Avery’s hair as he slumped against the dirigible gunwale, exhausted. Below ngvandi hordes howled and raged. Some flung spears. Hildra laughed at them and made obscene gestures, while Janx piloted. It had been a tense day since their escape from the Mnuthra-con, and the mutants had hounded their steps every inch of the way, having been summoned from other cities or towns. The dirigibles had been right where the Octunggen had said they would be, under tarps on the top of a certain summit. Avery and the others had taken one just as a ngvandi patrol had come across them.

  The dirigible rose higher—higher. Avery clutched the gunwale and gulped down deep breaths; he felt as though he’d been running forever. A stitch flared in his side. The mountain peak grew small below, as well as the howling mob. The creaking and swaying of the dirigible was strangely reassuring, and Avery almost smiled as he caught his breath and lifted his head to behold the panorama of the mountains, whose snow-capped summits stretched in every direction for as far as the eye could see.

  Layanna’s ragged gasps drew him. She’d said little since the events in the cavern. For most of the journey, she’d been unconscious, pale and shaky, and it was clear she was terribly wounded, if not on this plane, then in another. Several times she’d vomited, and her veins showed, too visible, beneath her skin. Whatever had happened to her in that other dimension, if that was the proper way to think about it, was affecting her here. Avery wasn’t sure if she would survive.

  Janx continued to pilot, his face a mask of misery. Avery wanted to reassure him but knew it would be at best useless and at worst resented. Janx and Muirblaag had been close friends, almost brothers, and the pain of losing him clearly cut deep. Janx needed to mourn. He would grieve about losing Byron, too, of course, and the others who had died in Hissig, but their deaths would not have affected him like Muirblaag’s. Avery would just have to give him time, and space.

  Hildra paced back and forth, smoking and staring at Layanna. The Octunggen had left stores of food, whiskey and cigarettes, as well as first-aid supplies. They had probably also brought their strange weapons with them, but these they must have unloaded to use against the ngvandi. Now that the thrill of escape had worn off, Hildra looked like she was working herself into a fit. Hildebrand chattered in shared agitation as he climbed the rigging.

  “Alright,” Hildra snapped at Layanna. “I’ve had enough. First Jay and Hold, now Mu and By. I don’t want any more of us to die for this bullshit. Saving the world! Who do you think you are, lady?”

  It’s my fault, not Layanna’s, Avery wanted to say. Layanna gave me the option to go back, to prevent what happened, but I chose to go on, and to bring you all with me. If you want to beat up on someone, Hildra, beat up on me. He thought about saying this, then saw the set of Hildra’s face and said nothing.

  “I am sorry for your losses,” Layanna said, apparently willing to take the blame. Silently, Avery thanked her.

  “Lot of good that does us,” Hildra said. “You want us to—”

  Janx interrupted her with an upraised hand. To Layanna, he said, “Just tell me this: was it worth it? Did Mu and By ... did they die for nothing?” There was a raw edge to his voice, a strain, and something crazy gleamed in his eyes. It was a fierce anger, Avery realized, a bottled force that was ready to explode—and would, Avery sensed, if Janx got the wrong answer.

  For a moment, the world took a breath and waited to see which way the fates would blow, and then, to Avery’s intense relief, Layanna said, “No.” He translated as she added, “I got what I needed. When I was ... engaged with the Mnuthra—and he was a powerful one, one I had heard of long before, known as Uthua—I was able to touch his thoughts. I learned what I came to find: the location of the nearest functioning altar.”

  “Where?” asked Avery.

  A dark look crossed her face. “A place known as Cuithril.”

  Hildra swore.

  Furrows wrinkled Janx’s face. “But ... but that’s not even a real city!”

  “He’s right,” Hildra said. “Isn’t Cuithril the afterlife of the Ungraessotti?”

  “Yeah,” said Janx. “A city in the Underworld. Where you go when you die, right through the Soul Door. If you worship the God-Emperor, anyway.”

  “It’s a real place,” Layanna assured them. “The Ungraessotti attach mythical connotations to it, but it’s real enough—a great subterranean city in the northeast of Ungraessot, near Maqarl, the capital. It’s only accessible through the system of caverns that runs beneath the country. Actually, they run beneath many, even stretching most of the way to Octung. I believe the Ungraessotti call them the Hallowed Halls, or the Tunnels of Ard.”

  “Ungraessot,” Avery mused. It was one of Ghenisa’s nearest neighbors, and it lay just over the Borghese to the east. He had always wanted to visit the country for its L’ohen history. “Then that’s where we’re going.”

  “You’re insane,” Hildra said. “We can’t go there. Ungraessot’s under invasion by Octung. It’s liable to fall any day if it hasn’t already.”

  “It’s the only way,” Layanna said.

  Hildra groaned. “Let me get this straight. You want us to find some altar in a mythical city on the other side of a godsdamned warzone?”

  “You took an oath,” Avery reminded her.

  “Fuck my oath. This is batshit!”

  Janx rubbed her shoulder, but she shook him off and retreated into a corner, where she sulked and smoked in private. Janx nodded his head at Avery.

  “I’m in,” Janx said. The crazy gleam in his eyes had vanished, but the anger was still there, lurking just below the surface, ready to erupt—only now its target would not be Layanna but anyone that stood between him and Cuithril. “No way I’m letting Mu or any of them die for nothing. And don’t worry about Hildy. She’ll come round.” He paused. “Mind, she’s right. This thing we’re doin’ ... well, it’s a suicide run, you realize that?”

  “We’ll find a way,” Avery said.

  Janx gave him a doubtful look. “I’m in, but if we’re really gonna survive this ... you’d best start thinkin’ of a plan.” He moved off to comfort Hildra, and Avery gripped the wheel.

  Layanna seemed pensive. When Avery asked what was wrong, she said in Octunggen, “There is one problem.”

  “What?”

  “You can not tell the others this. I don’t want them to despair.”

  “Go on.”

  “It’s Uthua. The Mnuthra.”

  “Could he ... have survived?”

  “Uthua is quite old, and powerful. He’d let his human self whither, but yes, he survived. What’s more, I sense that he’s ... stronger now than before. How I don’t know.”

  She gnawed at her bottom lip.

  “There’s more, isn’t there?” Avery said.

  “When our minds touched, there is a chance, however small, that Uthua was able to read my
thoughts, as I was able to read his. It’s possible he knows our destination.”

  “You’re not telling me ...”

  “Yes, Doctor. He could try to intercept us on our way to Cuithril. I wasn’t able to defeat him last time, and I certainly won’t be able to next time.”

  “If you can’t stop him, and if being stabbed through the chest can’t do it, what can?” When she didn’t answer, he asked, “Will he alert the other Collossum?”

  “Certainly. But he’s much closer to us than they are and can reach us faster.”

  Avery felt a momentary flutter in his belly, but he was able to push the fear aside, at least for now. It would come back later, he knew. Oh yes, it would come back.

  “Then the race is on,” he said.

  * * *

  Avery piloted for a while. He was far from an expert dirigible pilot, but he slowly began to get the hang of it. Gears and levers jutted up on either side of the console, and pedals stuck out below. The rear propellers could move them faster or reverse to slow them down, even stop them. They could also be positioned to angle the ship up or down. And the balloon, the stiff, ovoid envelope, could be filled with hotter or cooler gases, or combination of gases, that would make them rise or fall. He experimented—unsuccessfully at first, to the curses of Janx and Hildra—but slowly improved. It was not surgery, but it was not child’s play, either ... although, after a time, he couldn’t help but feel a sort of thrill, despite everything. He was flying.

  I wish you could see me now, Mari. I wish you could be here with me. You and Ani both.

  All the while, Hildra shot dark glances at Layanna, and Avery could tell something was building in her again. Finally, Hildra stormed up to her and said, “If we’re really gonna do this, blondie, really gonna go to—to Cuithril, of all places—I want you to do me one thing for me. Just one fucking thing.”

  Layanna waited.