No new footprints. That would have been a bit too obvious. Yet somewhere nearby he was certain he would find some sort of marker to lead him into the snare.
He marched to the top of the little knoll. A column of ice formed beneath his feet, lifting him higher and higher. Finally his upper body emerged from the treetops.
William and Maddy Drake’s little boy was in a heap of trouble.
He ducked back down, hiding himself in the uppermost leaves. Cruising over the swamp were more than twenty riders on pterosaurs. Iceman keened his gaze to see if Sauron was floating among them, but he saw only pteranodons and a pair of pterodactyls carrying juveniles—messengers to travel quickly, perhaps? No Sauron, no mutates, just the locals who served their cause.
The lack of super-powered foes was of little comfort. Obviously the X-Men’s antagonists no longer felt the need to operate covertly. The remaining members of the team were to be rounded up as rapidly as possible, with no concern how public the effort became.
Well, that solved Iceman’s first problem, namely how to lure attention away from Cannonball and the Beast. Now he faced a more complex dilemma—how to slip through the net long enough to give his comrades a meaningful interval in which to make good on the new strategy. Fortunately none of the riders seemed to have noticed his brief emergence; their eyes were trained on the ground below their positions. If he perceived their search pattern correctly, they wouldn’t pass over his location for several minutes.
He resisted forming chunks of ice around the feet of some of the closer pteranodons so that the added weight would send them crashing into the bog. That would bring too quick a response. However, as he slid down a ramp into the lower canopy, he left his ice tower intact. Eventually it would be noticed and he would have a posse hurrying after his trail of blocks of ice. But not until he had put some distance between himself and the pack.
“Hank, I’ve changed my mind,” he murmured toward his wrist radio. “Let’s trade places.” He spoke without tapping in the code to open a transmission. Neither he nor the others were using the radios, because to do so would give away that the three of them had separated, in the event that Sauron’s contingent had figured out how to listen.
“Just kidding,” Bobby said, forming his cruising ramp as fast as he knew how. He became a blue-white blur racing through the cypress trees, a dozen feet above the misty pools of stagnant water. “I live for this kind of thrill.”
Cold liquid struck Psylocke in the face, jolting her awake. She coughed and raised hdj dripping eyelids. In front of her stood a prune-faced, leathery mare of a woman wearing a loincloth, a lemur-skull pendant, and a sneer.
“Good morning to you, too, Pibah,” Betsy muttered.
The jailor chuckled to herself. She lowered her gourd dipper into her primitive bamboo-and-tar wheelbarrow and flung more water at her captive’s body. When the wheelbarrow trough was empty, she limped over to the well in the comer of the stone chamber to refill. The bucketsful came up icy cold from the depth of the mountain—perhaps from an aquifer outside the tropical Savage Land biosphere.
Pibah laughed louder as the frigid cascades raised goose bumps all over Betsy’s body. She loved this, Betsy knew. Here Pibah was—bent, middle-aged, most of her teeth missing and whatever beauty she had once possessed sacrificed to a harsh life spent with harsh men—able to torment a woman of beauty, youth, unique talents, and an unbroken spirit.
The worst of it was, Pibah’s little abuses were the least of what Psylocke had endured since her abduction. In the end, the servant did only what she was assigned. It was she who had kept Betsy fed the day before, and though she had doled out the morsels with excruciating slowness, she had not stolen any of the food nor sprinkled it with fire peppers, as Brainchild had suggested. And at least these baths did not involve harsh scrubbing or soap in the eyes. Perhaps she was still bound to a tilted slab, unable to tend to her own needs in even the most basic fashion, but at least the layers of sweat and the aromas of captivity and more were being rinsed off.
The overflow dribbled into the trench that ran along the base of all the slabs, vanishing from her presence. And cold as the water was, it refreshed her, in a brutal, tingling sort of way.
It could have been worse. Had been worse.
Pibah moved on and tossed water at Logan, who resided on the next slab. Beyond him Storm slept, still too drained from Sauron’s last feast to awaken. The villain had drawn a huge portion of energy from her. Her just desserts, he called it, for causing him so much trouble in the night sky battle.
Across from Betsy perched Shanna and Ka-Zar. Both were unconscious, their chests rising and falling faintly, their jaws slack. As non-mutants, Sauron’s feeding had hit them hard, but fortunately, with so many other sources of provision, the monster had spared them enough to preserve their lives. For now.
Beyond the two guardians of the Savage Land, intentionally placed at a distance from her to make her suffer, rested Warren. Brainchild had tilted that slab to horizontal in order to study his extraordinary wings. The mutate’s swollenheaded figure blocked her view, but she knew her lover was there.
She wasn’t alone anymore. Psylocke winced, wishing she weren’t so glad of the companionship, and knowing full well the defeat it represented. At least there was hope, as long as the three other X-Men remained at large.
Brainchild finished his examination and wandered off. Betsy saw that Warren was awake—the first time both of them had been conscious since Sauron and his raiders had dragged in the main clump of captives during the night. He turned and looked straight at her. He spoke. Not with his mouth and vocal cords, but by a more profound means.
X-NEN
I remember a ride we took on a ferris wheel. I remember a moonlight swim. I remember...
Betsy barely managed to suppress the huge grin that tried to blossom on her face. Despite supreme effort, the comers of her mouth rose. Warren saw it, and his eyes twinkled.
I remember a walk down Greymalkin Lane, she responded effusively. I remember writing to my brother about that ferris wheel ride. I remember telling him in that letter that / was in love.
She was no longer headblind! The terrible, dispiriting inner silence that had plagued her for more than thirty-six hours was gone. Her mind was now brimming with the glorious, beloved “voice” of her Warren. Her angel in blue.
The bone-aching weariness from Sauron’s latest leeching had not faded. Her powers had not returned in any substantive way. Her fingers twitched, but could form not a shred of her psychic knife. She was certain that she still lacked the ordinary, non-mutant physical strength necessary to stand up if the straps were removed. But that no longer discouraged her. If she continued to show the normal evidence of her defeat, Sauron would assume she was as helpless as ever.
When she had been small, her governess used to say that a rainy day was no disappointment as long as one was prepared for it. Well, nanny, she said to that kind old lady’s ghost, I’ve found my umbrella today.
Who would have thought, she broadcast to Warren, that in granting your request, / would benefit myself most of all?
Warren answered not in sentences, but with images of two nights earlier, when they had sat outside the lodge in Ton-gah’s village, watched only by the curious tribesmen up on the stockade walls, and fashioned the link that currently united them.
Psylocke and Archangel were tethered by a variation of
psionic rapport that Cyclops and Phoenix had long shared. Warren had intended the measure to serve as a crutch in his confrontation with Sauron. Betsy was so proud of him for that. Warren was a prideful man. To be able to let go of ego enough to ask for help touched her heart, because she suspected he could not have done so with anyone else. She had gladly set up the framework that would allow her to instantly send him telepathic countermeasures to the villain’s hypnotism if needed, a strategy that should have worked even if Warren ventured as much as fifty miles away from her during his circuits of the Savage Land.
&n
bsp; Ironically, when the time came, Archangel had faced Sauron unsupported, because Psylocke had herself already been taken captive. The link had not been powerful enough to let her reach him through the cavern’s thick stone walls once Sauron had drained her and Brainchild had fitted her with the inhibitor. The psionic construct was not as durable as that of Scott and Jean. Nor would it be permanent. Betsy estimated it would dissipate within a week unless they chose to reinforce it. However, in the meantime, now that Warren was inside the chamber with her, the two of them needed only to be awake and alert to make it function.
We need to open the channel as widely as possible, she said. Now that I have a telepathic anchor, I think I may be able to manage to speak to Ororo and Logan and Ka-Zar and Shanna. There’s even a slight possibility I could reach Hank or Bobby or Sam.
Go for it, he replied.
She surrendered to the delicious intimacy of the rapport. Though he had given permission, Warren resisted momentarily. An understandable reflex. She was, after all, more used to this level of psychic intensity. No matter. He was imbuing his astral armor with no greater force than a soap bubble. Pop. Barrier gone. She was in.
She had only to think of a memory of an occasion when she and Warren had done anything together, and she recalled not only her own impressions, but his as well. The romantic moments drew her—the walks, the intimacy, the long talks in and around the mansion or Warren’s Manhattan loft—but the strongest memories consisted of crisis moments. Those were the most valuable for the purpose at hand. Sharing those riveted the two of them together more than a recalled candlelight dinner could.
She cringed as she saw herself bleeding in Boomer’s arms, nearly eviscerated by Sabretooth’s claws as he escaped the X-Men’s custody. No direct memory of that existed in her own brain. She had been unconscious and all but dead. But Warren had been with Hank and Scott when they rushed to the chamber. He had served as witness as she breathed those shallow, ragged breaths, the rasps nearly inaudible beneath Boomer’s sobs. Betsy knew now what it had been like for Warren, how he had gone blank inside, horror claiming him from the end of every strand of his blond hair to the tips of his bionic wings. His world crumbled to meaninglessness. It was the sort of memory that eradicated any doubt that he loved her.
He saw into her memories as well. She blushed as he touched an incident during the aftermath of the battle fought against Cameron Hodge in Genosha, the huge altercation that set the stage for the return of the original members of X-Men into the core team. It was the first time they had met since she had acquired her Asian body. And how that body had reacted to Warren’s proximity. Though their love affair was not yet a glimmer on the horizon, she had wanted him from that moment forward. The pheromones were ... right.
Could it be that she would never have been interested in Warren if she had retained her original, British-born face and form? How much of romantic love came from the right mixture of scent and other purely physical considerations?
Now Warren was pouring over her memories of... oh, sweet mother of mercy, can’t a girl keep any secrets? She winced, let him share, and quickly went on to the next image.
In a generalized sense, the mingling of their souls was a pale shadow of the other night, when she had fueled it with her full, unsiphoned powers. But bit by bit, the connection regained vitality. Finally she pulled back. The doubled consciousness faded. In its place, she heard the whisper of the other minds in the room. Her telepathy had been rekindled, if at a mere one or two percent efficiency.
Much as she wished, she dared not probe Brainchild or even Pibah for information. With so faint a spark of her normal talent, she lacked the necessary finesse to get into an uncooperative subject and out without setting off alarms. For the time being, she had to approach only cooperative individuals. The circuit to Warren was firm now; even another sapping of their lifeforces would not break it. But as for the others ... ?
Logan, she called.
Wolverine ceased staring at the floor in his usual intense, brooding way. He shook his head as if doing nothing more than flicking away the drips from the dousing Pibah had given him. Betts?
His reply came in faintly, but without distortion. Yes, she said. Hold on. I’U see if I can bring the rest of us into the conversation.
Next came a bigger challenge. She had had an advantage when reaching for Logan. Remnants still existed of the bond forged between them when she had undergone the process that resulted in her ninja abilities—a connection not unlike the rapport. The process resembled building a bridge after the guide cable had already been installed. To connect with Ororo required greater effort, like leaping across a raw chasm.
She tested the doorway of Storm’s mind. Sweat popped from her forehead, mingling with the dew left from Pibah’s anointment. There. The latch turned. She entered.
Instantly the connection with Wolverine stretched out like taffy. The middle separated. Warren’s presence faded to a background whisper, insufficient for decipherable conversation. Betsy lacked the power to keep everyone linked simultaneously. One at a time then. She stayed with Ororo.
A hazy image formed of the Serengeti Plains of Africa. In the distance, snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro jutted up and through a layer of clouds. Storm lay in the mud of a watering hole, her goddess raiment and hair lying like mop strings around her. A pair of lionesses stalked toward her. She couldn’t get up to run. The most she could manage was to raise her hand and push at the air in the direction of the beasts—defiant to the end, but ineffective. Their long, sharp teeth came closer.
A nightmare. Betsy gently influenced the dreamscape. The lions froze into statues and became the guardians of an ivy-covered brick library, a building that she and Ororo had passed on excursions through Salem Center. Ororo, no longer muddy and disarrayed, rose to her feet at the base of the concrete steps.
Betsy emerged from the library foyer and smiled. Good morning, Ororo.
And with that, the co-leader of the X-Men awoke. She scanned the cavern, counted the captives, and sighed in frustration. Her pale eyes settled on Psylocke, but drifted away again so that the guards or Brainchild would not grow suspicious. I see you’ve found some way around our enemy’s slave collars, Ororo broadcast. Good work.
The congratulations may be premature, Betsy replied. She filled in Ororo on her limitations.
It is a start, the wind-rider stated, refusing to be discouraged. See how many of us you can reach, and then hoard your strength. We ’11 do our best to keep the attention focused in our direction to leave you as unmolested as possible.
Betsy smiled. Barely awake and helpless on a slab, and already Ororo was composing strategy. Bless her, she thought.
Psylocke eased out of their contact. After informing Warren and Logan of her progress, she closed her eyes and .braced herself. The next exertion would cause her pain. She thrust her awareness beyond the cavern, probing for the nearest familiar mind. Hank? Bobby? Sam? she called.
Nothing. It was as fruitless as yesterday, when she had tried and tried to get through to Warren.
Then something tickled her deep down. She frowned. What could it be? The emanations flowed with great strength, with a primal quality she couldn’t associate with any person she knew. Even Logan did not have such an aura of untamed, animalistic sentience.
Sauron himself? No. The contact soothed her in a way no hostile presence would. She absorbed not only friendliness, but a hint that the entity had been searching for her even before she had reached out in its direction.
She opened her eyes, still grasping at the astral filaments, trying to touch enough of them to communicate with their owner. Her gaze settled on Ka-Zar’s inert form. Immediately the whispers in her mind gained strength, but to her frustration, they refused to organize into true words or images. How could any telepath be transmitting so loudly and still be so mute?
But, since it seemed to be what was wanted, she continued to stare at Lord Kevin Plunder. Not an onerous chore, admittedly. She gave in to a r
eminiscence of their warm, almost flirting conversation outside the lodge two nights earlier. And such an excellent smile he'd worn as showed her the path that led to the hot springs. It pained her to see him slung up like a side of beef.
A throb of outrage came through from the observer inside her mind. Good, Psylocke thought. Any ally of Ka-Zar is likely to be an ally of the X-Men.
“Did you sleep well, my honored guests?” screeched a raucous voice. Suddenly the whisper of telepathic presence ceased. Betsy needed every ounce of her power to ward off the hypnotic domination as Sauron stalked into the cavern, grinning his long, toothy grin. She had nothing left to devote to conversation with a new, ethereal friend.
“Slept like a kitten, bub,” Logan muttered. “Mattress was too soft, though.”
Sauron fluffed back his long eyebrows with his talons, unruffled by Wolverine’s sarcasm. “We’re arranging a nice dungeon for all of you. For the time being, these facilities will have to do. At least until Brainchild has checked to be certain your powers will remain nullified no matter where we keep you.”
Psylocke read the monster’s aura, and calculated that he had lost little or none of his borrowed power overnight. That was bad in that it made him as formidable as possible, but it had one definite advantage: He would not be needing to siphon off more lifeforce from them just yet. Her recovery could proceed without interruption.
“We will escape,” Storm said. “We will destroy everything you have built here.”
“My dear weather deity,” Sauron mocked, “you can barely lift your chin. But I am glad to see such spunk. The more vigorously you try to fight, the more energy you generate for me to feast upon.”
“No matter,” Storm declared. “We’ve beaten you before. We’ll do it again.”
“Perhaps, before I go out to supervise the capture of your teammates, a demonstration of your ineffectiveness is in order.” Sauron danced around the room. Brainchild and the guards carefully averted their eyes, maintaining their visages of respect even while their leader acted like a fool. “Let’s see. A song would be good. Something simple, not too taxing for your little intellects. Ah. I have it. A round.”
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