The mists in the distance began churn, as if something was moving through them very quickly.
But a hiss in front of me drew my full attention back to the fight.
Rhodes' remaining men had pulled back from me, cautiously holding their combat machetes in a guarding stance. To their left, the Horde pit continued to broil and expand.
“Faster, Barnes,” The massive man in the middle intoned. “We don't have time for a normal progression.”
The man in the black robes began chanting again, and the few lit patches of purple fire around the pit began to sputter and flare.
A long spindly limb, too long to belong to any of the Horde I had fought before, twisted out of the pit for a brief moment, then splashed back down. Several smaller figures seemed to roll about near the pit's edges.
“You!” Stell shouted, running forward. She swung an arm, and one of Rhodes' men was immediately blasted away with a scream and a cracking sound. “Dare!” Three more men jumped in front of her, and Stell swept her leg out in a wide kick. The result was so violent that all of the remaining men immediately tumbled away from her. I wondered if those guys would ever walk again.
Purple chains suddenly appeared in the air, writhing around the pit.
I don't know where, how, or why they came from. But they erupted along the edges of the pit and snapped at Stell, who snarled in frustration as she was forced to snap them apart one by one.
“Guineve!” Stell screamed. “Horde! Get here now!”
“Coming dear,” Guineve's voice carried calmly through the mist. The rolling section of fog came closer and closer.
Now three long limbs could be seen twisting in the center of the pit, and they were distinct enough for me to see that they were arms with long-fingered, oily brown hands. At the edge of the pit opposite Stell, I saw three Ilklings crawl out. They gave Stell a drooling glance, but they leaped toward me instead.
I snarled and cracked my spear on the neck of another member of Rhodes' security team. I could probably deal with the little ankle-biters one kick at a time, but it was going to make my current melee even harder. I needed to get free long enough to start using magic again.
“Done,” Barnes said as he suddenly stopped chanting. “He'll be here any moment.”
“Ugh,” Dalfrey wrinkled her nose. “I was hoping to avoid meeting that gross perverted thing.”
“Perversion is just a matter of taste,” Warren said in a calm and untroubled voice. “Right, Chris?”
“Yes, Dad,” Chris sighed in barely hidden disgust. “You're absolutely right.”
Hypocrite, I thought at my high-school rival as I slammed my shield into another man's face. I've caught you drugging how many women again?
But then the leftmost fire guttered, and I found something new to hate for the rest of my life. Smoke billowed in droves from the dying flame, and it stung my eyes when I got close.
“WARNING,” The planet suddenly boomed. “UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY DETECTED. AVALON IS RESISTING THE ATTEMPT. THE ATTEMPT IS OCCURRING AT-”
“WARNING! RESISTANCE IS BEING OVERCOME. INVADER'S ETA IS CURRENTLY FIVE MIN- INVADERS ETA IS CURRENTLY TWO MINUTE- ETA IS IN 30 SECONDS- TEN SECONDS- CONTAINMENT FAILED. PREPARE FOR UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY.”
Avalon's voice seemed to scramble as it spoke over itself.
“WARNING! WARNING! AVALON HAS DETECTED THE INVADER AND WILL BE UNABLE TO ASSIST IN DEFENSE. AVALON'S TRIAL HAS BEEN UPGRADED TO AN ABOMINATION-CLASS TUMULT. EVACUATE. EVACUATE. EVACUATE.”
Then the planetary supercomputer went silent.
Stell paused in the act of ripping chain-tendrils apart.
“Avalon?” she asked, her eyes flickering with troubled doubt.
But no answer came. On impulse, I sent a quick probe to my mind-screen. There was a one-word message that repeated, over and over.
EVACUATE. EVACUATE. EVACUATE.
“Besides,” Warren said to Dalfrey. “The thing's going to ignore you, because its target is probably her.” The man shrugged as he spoke. “Why, I don't know. Maybe it just likes half-flat chests.” He scowled again, looking at his men. “Everyone else fall back. Your work is done here. Barnes, Dalfrey, hold your ground.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Rhodes,” A chorus of pained voices said as they finally gave way from my blood-covered spear. I briefly winced as I noticed my bloody weapon, and winced even more when I looked at the number of bloody bodies on the ground. I couldn't tell if I had killed any or if they were all just wounded. And I had no idea if they would even stay dead if I had killed them, or if they could come back like I supposedly could.
Were we even sure I could come back? The back of my mind asked again.
Because I knew that question was about to become very, very important.
The tiny purple spark at the bottom of the boiling smoke seemed to hiss.
And then something else hissed with it.
“Stellllll...”
And just like that every fleck of skin on my body tried to jump up and crawl off of me. The fact that the voice had directed its attention at someone I knew made it that much worse.
Everything froze for a moment. Me. My enemies. The movement in the pit. Even the mists and smoke and other magic suddenly seemed to stop as everyone took in that something other, and wrong, had come to Avalon.
“Stellll...” the voice said again. My friend finally reacted to the sound.
“No,” the mighty woman said in a small voice, her body suddenly quivering. “You're gone. You were never real. You're just a bad dream I keep having in my sleep. They said that I made you up one night. They... they promised! You’re not real!”
She had backed away from the pit, putting one foot behind the other and barely keeping upright in the process. The tendrils and figures in the pit had suddenly lowered, as if in worship, and in a manner horrifyingly similar to what the previous Horde-beings had tried to do with me.
Pastor Barnes stepped backwards and suddenly prostrated himself. Even Dr. Dalfrey chose to hide and carefully kneel, her face turning pale and green. Warren Rhodes just remained standing, with his usual scowl still etched on his face.
Chris Rhodes backed away from all of us. He had a look of shock and horror on his face that probably mirrored mine.
A long spindly black arm pulled its way through the new smoke, using a hand nearly the size of my head to grasp the ground. With a heave, the rest of the ten-foot figure pulled its way through. A thick, yet somehow still bony shoulder revealed itself, and then as the limb twitched another arm came through the smog. Both hands dug long, writhing fingers into the ground, and with another heave the rest of a very bad dream pulled itself forward.
The thing’s body twitched at all sorts of odd angles. It swayed as it slowly stood, lacking even a toddler's grace at standing still. Yet it never toppled over, somehow suggesting superior balance, that its movements were either intentional or inherent. Something on the black chest pulsed, and I realized that it was covered with smog and something else, something that crawled all over it. A second later I realized the objects were grasping hands that crawled worm-like all over the creature's chest, sometimes grabbing the torso itself, sometimes grasping empty air around the thing. Two long, bony legs limped and dragged out next, and every now and then either a shadow, or a tail, or an additional leg would form out from the creature, solidifying out of smog or tar into greasy shriveled flesh, and help prop up the massive thing. At some point, after I looked away from the third or fourth limb, they would vanish. I never knew how or why.
Finally, the neck jerked forward out of the billowing smoke, revealing the creature's head.
The size of the thing's head seemed to change every time it swayed. When the monster swayed away from me the head shrunk to be smaller than a human skull. But when the thing's balance made it twist forward, the head somehow grew as it drifted toward me and lolled, stretching outward until it was shaped almost like a pumpkin, or even wider when it grinned.
I wish I couldn't remember its
grin. I wish I couldn't remember a single speck of its face.
Even when I tried not to look, the eyes drew me to the grin. They dotted the top of the face and they caught my gaze every time I tried to look away. I would think they were big, then I would realize they were just two little holes, then suddenly they would flare up and look like two giant starry points, covering half of the creature's face.
Then, because I had seen one half of the monster's head, I would instinctively look at the second. And I would realize the creature's mouth covered the entire second part of its face. That was always true, no matter what expression the monster was making with its mouth. When its mouth was just a small line, the head would shrink. When the mouth grinned, or worse, opened, the head expanded. When the mouth did open, the creature looked two dimensional, as if its mouth were just another empty hole like its eyes that you could look right through. But then light came up from the throat, brighter and more colorful than the white light that sometimes shined from its eyes. I saw tiny, faint flashes of a dozen different colors that turned the hole into a fleshy gray tear full of bloody muscle, the only part of the creature's body that wasn't night-sky black. Sometimes, the lights would rise from the creature's throat in tiny sparks, as if they were trying to escape, only to be stopped when the monster closed its toothy lips.
“Stelllll,” the giant thing repeated again, its mouth and head both growing wide. Its black eyes suddenly gleamed with starry light, and as the mouth opened again a tiny red mote desperately shot forward. The mouth stayed wide open, as if to let it escape, and then a long, worm-like brown tongue wrapped lazily around it to pull it back down its gullet.
“Stellllll... Ohhh Stellll,” This time the abhorrent voice came out as a long, hungry moan, and the glowing eyes closed completely as the thing smiled.
Barnes and Dalfrey started quivering. Chris shot me a look of utter horror and denial. Stell just stood stock-still, except for her trembling shoulders. Warren Rhodes maintained his bearing, although his derisive expression was gone.
“Honored Ambassador,” Warren Rhodes said formally. “We have upheld our end of the bargain. We have gained entry to this place. We have found what you seek.”
Chris gave his father a wild, unbelieving look, then he went back to shivering in mind-numbing terror.
So did I.
“Yesssss,” the ten-foot tall monstrosity said. It turned its head to look at the man I had grown up knowing. “Bargain, honorrrrred.”
One of the hands on its chest suddenly stretched out on a wiry, single-jointed arm. It opened its downward-facing palm and three black drops fell to the ground. The entire earth shuddered as they fell, and for a moment I feared that Avalon had been damaged. But the drops just sat there on the grass like black gelatin clumps.
“Knowledge, toolsss,” the creature hissed. “All you neeeeed. Jussst add time. One hour. Then one day.”
“My thanks, Honored Ambassador,” Rhodes replied formally, watching the fallen black drops with a blank expression on his face. He motioned for Barnes to scuttle forward and put the three black drops in his chained pouch. “At the appointed time and after the appointed events, we will fulfill the other half of our bargain and acknowledge you as the Lord Umbra of this Expanse.”
“Don't carrrrre,” the monster said with a roll of its tongue. It turned its eyes elsewhere, and they twinkled when they found my currently-blonde friend. “Want! Stelllll!”
The thing, the Umbra, Rhodes had called it, took a jerky step toward my friend, swaying towards her, forming new legs for balance. The smile on its face nearly doubled in size, and another light tried to escape from its mouth before it was caught and re-swallowed by its tongue. Its two arms swayed slightly help maintain balance, but the fingers on its hands constantly jerked toward the Star-sown at unnatural angles. The hands on its chest also stretched out, reaching for her, and I heard faint moaning noises come from both them and the monster's chest, as if its torso and palms were dotted with hungry maws.
Stell had not stopped backing away from the nightmare in front of us. Her breathes came in hurried pants, as if she were hyperventilating. “No,” she tried to say, but her voice came out in a hurried squeak. “No,” she tried again, her voice stronger. She closed her eyes, and repeated her earlier chant. “You're not real. You're a nightmare I had when I was a little girl. You're a bad dream I had about losing everything.” She opened her eyes again, as if she had been expecting the abomination to be no longer there, and suddenly looked disappointed. She sucked in another breath.
It was clear that she was inches away from having a total breakdown, and I couldn't find a single reason to blame her for it. Not in front of this thing. She was this creature's target, and she was still handling its appearance better than me or anyone else. I hadn't even dared to breath yet.
The Umbra took another awkward step forward, somehow back down to two legs. Its two main hands were still raised toward my friend, and I realized that its arms were almost as long as the creature was tall. Its many-jointed fingers were kept twitching towards her in impossible ways.
“Stelllll,” It croaked. “My Stelllll. Found you. Finally.”
Its voice was still all kinds of get-me-on-medication-right-now disturbing, but the thing was getting more coherent. “Missed you,” it added, this time without prolonging the words.
“Stay... stay back,” she said, getting a little more force into her voice. “Don't come any closer.”
She finally took her eyes off the monster, and a little bit of panic left her face.
“Wes, Guineve,” she called both names out, and I finally snapped out of the thing's trance.
I was still stupendously terrified, but a tiny part of my brain was screaming at me to take action.
“R-right,” I finally said after a couple of tries, and I started walking towards Stell.
“What are you doing?” She asked, looking even more horrified. “No! Don't come near me! He'll see you!”
That was good advice. I wanted to follow that advice. The rational part of my mind told the rest of me to follow that advice.
For some horrible reason I ignored it, and slowly tried to get my shaking body between me and Stell.
“Wes!” Stell hissed. “What are you doing? Get back!”
But if the monster treated me as if I wasn't here at all.
“Shhhh, Stell,” it hissed, its voice becoming less garbled. “Don't worry. Everything will be fine. Come to me. Be mine. Be my little Stell.”
It took another step forward, on three legs this time.
“No,” Stell said firmly, sucking in a breath. “I am not yours. This is not your place. Be gone!”
A chuckle tumbled out of the Umbra's throat. Little lights flared all around the inside of its mouth, and I thought I heard tiny screams from them.
“Just like your mother. Just like your sisters,” Stell's eyes quaked a little wider at the comment. “They miss you, you know. Do you not miss them?”
The monster opened its mouth again, as if to show off the tiny lights writhing inside of it. Again, whenever they tried to escape, the tongue always caught them, and this time I could hear them cry out for sure.
Stell tried to reply, but whatever words she wanted to make stayed stuck in the middle of her throat.
“Do you not miss them? Please, Stell,” The monster begged with a wide, toothy smile. “Come,” it burbled. “Help us. Help them accept me. Show them we're all one family now.”
Her whole body heaved again, and she took a jerky step backwards. She seemed like she would topple over any moment.
My brain ached as I tried to comprehend what she was experiencing, being the target of whatever horrible, mind-bleaching scheme the monster was threatening her with, and had already threatened everyone she had ever grown up with. I just couldn't process it. I didn't even know what the monster wanted to do exactly, but I knew it would destroy her, destroy the woman who had given me my legs and brain back.
My grip on my spea
r tightened a tiny bit at that. And I kept walking over to her.
She looked at me then, asking me for help and begging me to stay away all in one terrified glance.
“Stell,” I somehow croaked out. “Are we... are we faster than it?”
It was a cowardly question. But anything strong enough to terrify Stell wasn't something I could find a way to deal with. It hadn't even deemed me as existing yet, my power was so beneath it.
For a second she just stared at me. Then she seemed to process my words. She gave a slow, jerking nod.
“M-maybe,” she stuttered, and I could see the thinking part of her come back alive bit by bit.
“Maybe?” the awful giant hissed, its glowing grin widening. “Does my little Stell want to run away again? Does she want to play another game? That's okay. Uncle Cavus doesn't mind. He can let you run a little.”
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