Warren knew exactly what he wanted to say. With his opponent finally prepared to listen, the X-Man proceeded sedately, composing his message step by step.
“I remember a woman. She was blonde and strikingly beautiful. I remember being enchanted by her bone structure. Almost elfin, I guess you would call it. Narrow chin, a soft, smooth throat, collarbones so gracile I was afraid they would break if I should shake her hand too hard. But she wasn’t weak. I saw her trudging hardily along a snowbound trail that would have wearied an experienced mountaineer. I was there when she hiked across the Savage Land, being chased by giant reptiles and flung off cliffs, and still she kept going. All to find and help the man she loved.”
Sauron stood rigid in front of Archangel, gazing back balefully but without applying his hypnotism. Warren had the distinct sensation his listener was attending to happenings far away, either in space or in time.
“Tanya. Yes, yes,” Sauron said impatiently. “Psylocke already tried to roll that subject in like some sort of Trojan horse. Is that the best you can do?”
“She was unswervingly loyal to you, Lykos. Never stopped worshipping you from puppy love all the way up to sharing an apartment with you in Greenwich Village. In spite of all her father’s opposition to the romance. In spite of all that time you hid from her down here by the South Pole. She used to drop me notes every once in a while, did you know that? In every one she would tell me how happy your lives were after the Professor managed to chase your mutate virus into remission. Seems to me she mentioned the two of you planning on having a child.”
“That is past. Part of another reality,” the monster said in a monotone. “I am not Karl Lykos. I never will be again.” “Why should that change your feelings for Tanya Anderssen?” Warren responded. “At first, even in your Sauron form, you craved her love. You cared for her safety.”
“I spent my youth trying to be worthy of her love. Yet when my power manifested, she refused to see how much better it made me. She wanted only that pathetic weakling. She was a fool. What does it matter if there is one less fool in the world?”
“It matters,” Warren said. “I know you still love her. You try to deny it only because of the guilt you feel. If not for you, she would be alive. So much easier for you to pretend she never existed, or if her face turns up in your mental yearbook, you turn the page as fast as you can, ignoring the stains of your tears upon her picture.”
“I didn’t kill her,” the monster said hoarsely. “The Toad captured us, made me do it. I had no choice.”
At last, he was cracking. Warren licked his dry lips and kept pushing. “Oh? I thought you said you didn’t care. Thought you were proud of how you sucked every last bit of lifeforce from her cells.”
“I—”
“Well, which is it, Lykos? Are you glad she’s dead, or do you mourn her after all?”
“I am not to blame!” he replied sharply. “If not the Toad, then it is you X-Men who opened the trapdoor through which she plunged. Your mutant energies made me Sauron in the first place. And you—Angel, Archangel, or whatever you want to call yourself—you brought Tanya here to the Savage Land when I had come to terms with my curse. You brought the two of us together that time. Her ultimate fate is a result of your actions.”
“Don’t think I don’t lie awake at night sometimes, thinking of that,” Warren said solemnly. “I tried to talk her out of conducting that search. Tanya was unstoppable. You know that, Karl. She would have come without me. The only thing that could have stopped her from being reunited with you, was you. And you stopped her, Karl. Forever.”
Sauron opened his huge mouth and hissed. Warren was certain he was looking at his own demise. He suddenly felt his nakedness. One thrust of a wingtip into his viscera, one talon slash into his jugular vein, and he would be the latest X-Man to die. Sometimes the team joked at all the members who had eluded death when it seemed inevitable, but it was no joke. Warren was not the deathless horseman of the Apocalypse he had once posed as. Mutant or not, he was mortal. His time would come. Was it now?
Psylocke’s voice suddenly filled his mind. We lost the momentum, she reported. He started stabilizing as soon as the subject of Tanya came up. Brainchild must have realized that particular guilt was his worst weakness, and constructed some sort of extra safety net.
Warren blinked. So prepared for a physical assault, he found it a shock to feel his future open up ahead of him once more.
Sauron turned and stalked down the row. With each step he grew more steady and composed.
“No, I will not defeat myself again,” the villain said passionately. “I have come too far for that.”
Brainchild whimpered with relief. Ka-Zar and Shanna and Ororo all released the breaths they had been holding. It appeared nearly everyone else in the room had been primed for the murderer’s lunacy to explode into full blossom.
“I detect an odor of trickery,” Sauron said. He stopped pacing when he came even with Psylocke. “Brainchild ...” he murmured.
“Yes, Master?”
“Your inhibitor has a flaw. This witch has somehow managed to awaken a spark of her power.”
The little mutate swallowed hard. He checked a display on his monitor. “It... is possible, Master. I did tell you last month that I couldn’t be certain the inhibitor would fully dampen a telepath unless I had a telepathic ally to check my work. Whatever she may be doing is very muted, my lord.” “But it has been enough to give this group an advantage 1 did not anticipate.” Sauron leaned toward Betsy, tonguing the sharp edge of his lower beak. Warren was reminded of a cat grooming its fur while it contemplates pouncing on the gopher it has just cornered far from its burrow. “Hasn’t it, my dear?”
“Need a toothpick?” Betsy jeered. “Oh, I forgot. You don’t have teeth.”
Sauron guffawed. “It gives me such pleasure to hear such gumption, and know that it gains you nothing whatsoever.” Warren was discouraged to see the vivacious humor characteristic of the new Sauron surfacing once again
“Except self-respect,” Psylocke replied. “But you wouldn’t know anything about that.”
Sauron didn’t deign to respond. He placed his face directly in front of her and began generating a fresh hypnotic spell.
Betsy closed her eyes. He lifted the lids and succeeded in locking her gaze to his. Betsy’s telepathic expertise and ingenuity couldn’t compensate for her depleted level of power.
“You will destroy whatever mental construct you made that allowed you to circumvent Brainchild’s inhibitor device,” Sauron said. “Do it now.”
Psylocke cried out. Lines of strain deepened on her forehead and around her eyes. Inside Warren’s mind, the link to his beloved abruptly snapped. The recoil careened through him like one of Vertigo’s blasts. Where there had been a comforting, constant whisper and glimmer, now there was a silent void.
Archangel fell unconscious. Awakening almost immediately—he guessed two or three seconds later—the shock was replaced by an ache. The adjustment reminded him of the return of the ability to see objects in a dark room after a bright lamp has been shut off. Enough input to function, but never enough to make up for the deprivation.
Warren filled his eyes with Betsy’s face, since he could no longer fill his mind with her presence. But that was like looking at a photograph, instead of touching the real person. He choked down bile. He would have wept, except that would have given Sauron too much satisfaction.
Betsy had been knocked out as well, more profoundly. She stirred later, and took longer to open her eyes. Her glance darted toward Warren. Seeing that he was all right, she turned and gave Sauron a glare full of more hatred than Warren had ever believed her capable of.
Sauron nodded, smiled, and checked the other captives. They bore the grimaces of psychic backlash, though not as severely as the two lovers. The villain hummed jubilantly.
“Such treachery deserves a special reward,” Sauron declared. ‘ ‘Since it seems I have more than enough mutants to sustain me
for the indefinite future, perhaps I am better off without the lovely Ms. Braddock. Who knows what sort of deceit she might manage? I do not take kindly to being agitated the way I was just now. I think I shall kill her. Yes. Quite slowly. We have the means to prolong her agony. Lupo or Brainchild would appreciate a little ... sport.”
“No, Lykos!” Warren shouted. “If you want one of us dead, take me.”
“Stuff and nonsense,” Sauron retorted. “I want to watch your expression as your lady is whittled down, one bone or strip of flesh per half hour.” He pranced over to the group of mutates. “Shall we begin?”
“Master,” said Gaza, “shouldn’t we wait until we’ve caught Cannonball and the Beast?’ ’
Sauron frowned. “Ah. Those two. I had almost forgotten. I see no reason not to have our fun here and take care of that loose end at the same time. That is, if for example you, Barbaras, and Vertigo want to miss this wonderful oppor—”
The cavern began shaking.
“What?” Sauron blurted.
A deep ramble cascaded down the large tunnel that led to the cave opening. Guards suddenly burst into the chamber, eyes wide, shouting. The noise of stomping feet and elephantine trumpeting drowned out their words.
A stampede of mammoths crashed into the room, sweeping aside warriors, bales of food, random pieces of equipment, and anything else in their way save the sturdy array of platforms on which the X-Men resided. Sauron squawked and shot upward so suddenly he bumped his head against the side of a stalactite. Brainchild ducked behind his console, joined by Vertigo. Amphibius hopped away, Lupo scrambling in his wake. Gaza and Barbaras tried to meet the charge head on, but even their strength paled in comparison to the beasts—they barely vaulted atop sets of tusks in time to avoid being squashed.
Warren’s heart began pounding hard. “Yes!” he cried.
Logan grinned. “Incoming!”
Right behind the last mammoth, roaring and swiping at their woolly ramps to urge them to top speed, came Zabu. He broke off once the huge animals were all in the chamber, attacking guards directly. He roared at Ka-Zar.
Ka-Zar roared back.
Zabu was barely out of the way when a blue-yellow blur rocketed onto the scene.
“Over here, Comball!” Wolverine shouted.
Cannonball had just enough time to catch sight of his bound teammates before he rebounded off the far wall and aimed for the console. Or, more to the point, aimed for Vertigo, the mutate who could throw the biggest monkey wrench into the rescue attempt if she had a moment to apply her talents. He knocked her down just as she was starting to rise. Brainchild eluded him, but the console did not. It shut down with a flash of sparks.
“Good boy, junior,” Archangel said to himself. “Got her.” And he had wiped out the inhibitor field. The collar around Warren’s neck ceased its subtle vibration. A whisper of power and strength awoke deep inside his body.
Sauron swooped and bashed at Sam on the next rebound. Cannonball’s kinetic envelope protected him well as ever, but the impact sent him bouncing to a far comer. Sauron was thrown into a loop-de-loop.
They had to take the green-winged freak out of action, Warren knew. If he got enough of a break to apply his hypnotism, he could make Sam drop his blast aura. Warren tensed against his shackles, fervently wishing one of his teammates happened to be the Thor or the Hulk.
“Have no fear. Dr. McCoy is here!” called a gruff, wonderfully familiar voice. Warren hadn’t seen the Beast race into the cavern, but there he was, bounding to the platforms. He went straight for Wolverine, freeing the Canadian’s wrists to allow a certain set of adamantium claws the freedom to slash.
Snikt! The blades burst from the backs of Logan’s hands. He grinned ferally. “Payback time!”
CHAPTER 14
As Wolverine slashed away the rest of his own shackles, the Beast leapt toward Shanna’s platform. A warrior who had somehow eluded the mammoth stampede was rearing back his arm to bash her with a stone axe.
“Unpleasant dreams,” Hank said, and slammed both feet into the brute’s chest. The opponent crashed onto the stone floor, .emitting a satisfying grunt of pain and rolling into a limp pile.
Keeping alert for more such unwelcome harassment, Hank hurried to unlatch Shanna’s cuffs. He had intended to free her and Ka-Zar next anyway, reasoning that they were the most helpless while trapped. Storm, Iceman, and Psylocke could use their powers even before being freed, and Warren could probably toss a wing blade or two, but the two nonmutants were sitting ducks.
“Remind me to kiss you later,” Shanna said. She grinned at Hank, slid to the floor, and picked up her assailant’s axe, which he had “misplaced” during his tumble. She hobbled toward the group of guards that Wolverine was bloodying. Hank was sure her feet were still asleep from being bound, but that wasn’t stopping her.
“I’ll collect on that, you can be sure,” he called after her. As he freed Ka-Zar he murmured, “You are a lucky husband, sir.”
“I know,” Ka-Zar replied. Flipping loose the last shackle
around his ankle, he ran to join his mate. Hank dashed over to Archangel.
Barbaras suddenly appeared at the end of the row of slabs. Hank managed to release one of Warren’s wrists—hopefully he could do the rest himself—and met the four-armed mutate’s charge.
Barbaras, he knew from experience, was horrendously strong. Hank declined to meet him hand to hand. Instead, he chop-blocked him at the knees. The mutate tumbled forward, saved from striking his head on the stone only by putting out all his many palms at once. The slaps sounded like gunshots.
Hank sprang to his feet. Between one heartbeat and the next, he took in a snapshot of the situation just beyond his little battle. Bobby, his powers apparently not as depleted as the other prisoners, had assumed his ice form, turned his shackles brittle, and burst free. Ororo had managed to call up a tiny ice storm to freeze a patch of spilled water on the floor, bringing down Vertigo as she tried to wobble to her feet. With Ka-Zar joining the clash with the main fragment of guards, Logan was rushing off toward the depths of the cavern to deal with something Hank couldn’t see.
From the cannon bursts and pterosaurian screeches coming from above, Sam was still managing to keep Sauron occupied. Not a bad start to the rescue. Barbaras, though, was hurtling back at Hank obnoxiously quickly.
The Beast retreated, grabbing his attacker’s foremost wrist and rolling him into a somersault. The mutate slammed to the limestone again. “I borrowed that technique from the Japanese art of aikido,” the Beast explained. “A logical application of the principles of leverage which—”
Barbaras bounded upright, forcing Hank to abandon an attempt to free Ororo. McCoy ducked beneath one strike, two, then was sent reeling by the third and fourth blows.
He saw stars. Where were the garters?
The Beast scampered backwards. ‘ ‘No doubt you are dissatisfied with the lack of a proper wrestling mat,” he quipped through swollen lips, taunting his enemy to continue the assault rather than turn and bash Ororo or Psylocke while they were still confined to their slabs.
Barbaras closed the gap. “Yaahh!” he cried, and hammered the Beast with all four fists.
Hank deflected the blows, using his agility to compensate for the disadvantage in strength. It felt like he was knocking aside swipes of Colossus’s metal limbs. A trace of panic was taking root when a giant snowball whapped Barbaras in the face. The mutate staggered back, stunned and momentarily blinded. A precise puff of wind, courtesy of Storm, tapped him behind the knees, tipping him over. Then, before Hank could leap in, down came Archangel’s wing, rapping him sharply on the skull.
Hank looked up to see Warren releasing the last clamp around his ankle. The winged X-Man dropped to the floor just as Iceman trotted up. The three of them regarded Barbaras, who groaned, tried to lift his head, and passed out.
“Heave ho,” Hank said. His old-time teammates reached under Barbaras and hefted their opponent onto the
slab that Archangel had just vacated. They rapidly closed the cuffs around him. The shackles designed for Warren’s wings took care of the extra arms.
A wave of nausea hit the group. Hank wheeled toward the spot where he had last seen Vertigo. His motion accentuated the dizziness, collapsing him to his knees.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” he heard an impassioned female voice call. Through blurred vision he saw Shanna leap atop Vertigo. Suddenly the nausea vanished.
But Brainchild was emerging from beneath his console, straightening up behind Shanna with an axe handle in his
grip-
Iceman tossed a rock-hard snowball at Brainchild, catching him just above the ear. He fell.
“Nice pitch,” Hank told Bobby.
“No problem. That head’s a big target.”
Warren, shaking off the last of the aftereffects of Vertigo’s interference, flapped into the upper reaches of the cavern, joining the dogfight between Cannonball and Sauron. He did so none too steadily, Hank was sorry to see. His teammates’ powers seemed to be returning to full power quite slowly.
“I’ll help over there,” Hank said, indicating Shanna and Vertigo’s tussle. “You finish liberating our fine damsels.”
He reached Shanna just as she collapsed to the floor, obviously dizzy. But she took Vertigo with her. The female mutate struck the limestone hard. By the time Hank lifted away from Shanna, she was limp.
“Let’s shackle and blindfold her,” Hank suggested to Shanna, dropping his burden in a heap.
“Look out!” Shanna said.
The Beast instinctively bounded to the side. Brainchild’s axe handle whisked by where Hank’s head had been. Then Shanna was on the assailant. Her first blow struck him on the large welt left by the iceball. He yelped, clutched his head, and did a remarkably poor job of avoiding Shanna’s followup punches and kicks. He sagged to the floor, dazed and temporarily harmless.
“Now, I’ll shackle both of them," Shanna said.
The blaring trumpeting of mammoths echoed through the chamber again. Three of the creatures thundered out of the passageway down which they had disappeared.
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