Iástron
Page 42
‘Something has obviously changed in the last ten years then,’ she said. ‘But what?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Us.’ Kramer glanced down at Ketrass. ‘Erebus has been here for thousands of years, Avéne. In all that time I think it’s unlikely that anything other than our presence has occurred here. And whatever’s down here knew we were up there. I expect they’ve been waiting for this.’
‘Then why are we just walking in, without so much as a knock-on-the-door? We’re not prepared for whatever’s down here.’
Kramer looked to her. ‘You may not be, Avéne. But I’ve been waiting for this my whole life. I am—’
‘In control?’
Kramer smiled. ‘Always.’
Anna looked up and perceived that the tunnel itself was carved in a way similar to the passageways within Erebus. Was whatever had been up there inside the asteroid now down here? Was that why Kramer brought them down? If the mass of beasts formed the army, then maybe their leaders were here. Maybe Kramer was right. And maybe whatever had cast itself down here was indeed waiting for them.
After only a minute or two they stopped moving. ‘Go on,’ she heard Kramer say. ‘Go down.’
She peered out from behind her guards; they had reached a fresh cliff face. There was not a drop, however, but a stairway, carved from the rock along the wall to her right. The amazing part, however, was what lay before her: an enormous, circular chamber resembling the centre of Erebus itself.
One by one they descended. The soldiers lit several flares, exposing the entire cavity. The rounded room, extremely wide and immeasurably high, stood around a great chasm at its centre, which resembled a maelstrom of carven rock. And upon the far side rose an enormous black-stone structure; pillars and images of beasts and creatures undreamed of were visible in the red-hued shadows. The edifice stood higher than it was possible to see in the dark.
Several of the soldiers spread out about the chamber, moving in a circle around the large fissure at its centre. But a scream filled the chamber. It was Ketrass. The sound echoed around them all as though she continued to scream, but in truth she had backed up and now held tightly onto the old professor. The soldiers backed up immediately, but the flares they had lit upon the far side exposed the cause for panic.
Anna bit her tongue, her eyes watering as she gazed upon the body of a man, hanging lifelessly, suspended above the far edifice. His wire-like bonds wrapped around him and cut through his limbs, his chest, and his neck. His arms and legs had been removed.
The soldiers raised their rifles and prepared to fire. Ketrass fell to her knees. ‘No,’ she whimpered. ‘That’s . . . but that’s—’
‘Lesper, my dear,’ Kramer said, wheezing. ‘So he did make it in here.’ He closed his eyes. ‘But he did not survive long enough for us to find him.’
‘That’s what you planned to do?’ Ketrass asked.
‘In part, but it no longer matters. The worst has been done.’
‘You . . . You know him?’ Anna said, her arms around her sister, still only half conscious.
‘He warned me,’ Kramer said. ‘He feared what would be down here. Well I have realised my fear, and it’s not what I pictured it would be. It would seem he has suffered a death more terrible than I could have imagined.’
As though in reply, throughout the chamber there rose a deep, echoing rattle, joined closely by a voice. ‘Declare!’ it uttered, ‘what is it that causes them to assume he is dead?!’
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
THE IMPACT WAS chilling. Anna screamed, holding tightly onto her sister, backing away from the terror-stricken group. Not because the hanging man high above the chamber had spoken. Not because of the words he had said. Not because she was hidden deep beneath a black alien mountain, alone and so far away from her home, but because the black band burned into her wrist had shuddered with the booming around them, and the alien voice rattling through her body had spoken to her alone.
Before her the soldiers backed up; they shouted and gathered back together. ‘Stay where you are!’ Kramer said, a quivering Ketrass attached to his arm.
‘What was it?’ Ketrass cried.
‘I don’t—’
‘WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?!’
‘Quiet, Avéne!’ the Professor said. ‘Repeat yourself! Say that again!’
And the echoing rattle repeated, ‘What is it that causes them to assume he is dead?’
Kramer took a deep breath. ‘Who said that?’
‘Him,’ Anna shuddered, pointing to the man whose body continued to hang limply, while his mouth shifted as though words were forced from his lips. Then he laughed, loud and bellowing.
‘Stop it!’ Kramer shouted. ‘Lesper!’
‘The womankind is powerless and the men but shadows!’ the limbless man laughed, the rattles coming from across the pit dark rasps of a foul breath.
‘Reveal yourself!’ Kramer’s voice trembled for the first time since Anna had met him.
Lesper laughed deeply again.
‘STOP IT! REVEAL YOURSELF!’
Anna’s heart thudded against her ribs; her whole body trembled with an icy chill. The bracelet around her wrist vibrated and pulsed as the dark words were spoken, and she kept hold of her sister, unable to let go. Once more Lesper laughed a piercing laugh, and Kramer turned to one of the armed men nearby.
‘Shoot him,’ he said. ‘Shoot him down right now!’
One soldier did so, striking one side of the limbless puppet. But from the shadows stretched an answer and the startling rattle writhed into a howl of outrage. From the darkness of the far-walled structure there emerged a chilling organism: tall, skeletal, and covered in long, black cloth it seemed to peel away from the moulded edifice as though its thin form had been there forever. Bit by bit it stretched itself out of its position and turned to them, revealing a beastly countenance, black-boned like the demons of the Labyrinth; except this bore not two, three, or even four, but countless horns extending from its skull, down its piercing chin, and along both outer sides of its body, down insect-like legs, and finally to its feet.
The creature howled and rattled. Lesper interpreted: ‘They are Zinn! Bow!’
Nobody moved. Nobody dared.
‘Bow!’
Kramer dropped to his knees. ‘Zinn?’
Anna descended slowly.
‘BOW!’
‘Nobody’s bowing to you!’
Anna spun to see Antal Justus stroll across the chamber floor, a poised sneer etched into his jaw line. Kramer started, ‘What’re you—’ But Justus passed by, nudging him in the ribs.
‘You’re the Zinn?’ he said. ‘Strange name. But I have one question: do you know who we are?’
The Zinn-creature stood tall on powerful struts, and replied with a painful rattle. ‘You are Antal Justus!’ Lesper cried.
Justus hesitated. ‘Well,’ he said, shaken, ‘I’ve heard of human translators before, but that’s a little bit too far!’
‘BOW!’
‘Yeah, yeah!’ he said. ‘I got that bit. And you’re right. I am Antal Justus. I’m a good man, a brave man, captain of the Crimson Flux! I know what I am now, and what I’m not!’
‘His words are merely the words of an infant, riddles of an ill-bred!’ cried Lesper. ‘Antal Justus! Weak and guilt-ridden, he flees from those who think they love him! captain, pha! his luck has now run dry!’
Justus opened his mouth, but it was as though the words had been stolen from his very throat. As he struggled, Kramer rose from his knees. ‘Do you know who I am?’ he said, his voice high-pitched but steady.
‘Xerin Kramer!’ Lesper’s voice carried through the chamber. ‘The man who yearns for control, yet cannot hope to command even himself!’
The professor wheezed, advanced a small step. ‘The . . . The current System-date?’
The puppet laughed maliciously. ‘Forty-two, sixty-two!’
‘Your world of origin?’
‘Wh . . . What was that?’ Ketrass said.
All of a sudden, from the corner of her eye Anna picked up on numerous dots of light appearing in the shadows. Pairs of eyes watched from the dark as the group at once found itself surrounded.
Kramer attempted to question the Zinn one last time: ‘Constantine Lesper’s innermost fear?’
The demon’s rattle lowered. ‘To have no real home or family . . . to live and die and be forgotten . . . to achieve nothing and be with no one at the end!’
Kramer fell back to the stone floor and said, ‘They’ve been inside Lesper’s head. The readings said he was still alive, but it was them, feeding on his thoughts, on his knowledge. Which means they now know all that he knew about Erebus.’
‘And humanity,’ Justus said, teeth gritted.
Anna continued to watch movement in the shadows, her hands around her sister’s cold body. They had to leave before they became surrounded.
‘Everyone remain calm,’ said Kramer, fear pouring from his voice.
Before he had finished, patient creatures having lingered long in the shadows appeared around them, striding slowly forwards, elongated arms hanging tight about lean torsos. Dozens of the Zinn moved to surround the group, obstructing the stone steps and rattling deeply. Anna covered her ears, but it did not work.
‘I think they’re laughing,’ Kramer yelled over the clamour.
Justus dropped to his knees beside Anna. He looked her in the eye, smiled weakly.
‘I knew you’d come for me, Antal.’
‘Of course.’
‘What do we do?’ Ketrass shouted.
‘There is nothing we can do!’ Kramer said.
All of a sudden the shrieking stopped. It was then that Anna tilted her head, able to see several more of the creatures leaning behind them, while many more crept from the shadows behind the far robed Zinn. They were draped in heavy-looking armour which shimmered silver-black, much like the bracelet now enveloping Anna’s wrist with painful jolts. Had they not seen the creature adorned in dark cloth, it would have been nigh impossible to tell what the rest looked like.
Justus moved closer to the girls; one hand took Anna’s and the other extended to the coil at his side. Anna’s peripherals picked up on several more creatures moving nearby, keeping back in the darkness, dagger-like teeth exposed. Perhaps they were afraid. Or simply waiting for orders. She reached for Gílana, still unconscious, and clutched her hand tightly.
‘What do we do?’ Ketrass asked again.
‘What kind of weapons do you have?’ Kramer asked Justus.
‘Coils, rifles, nothing special.’
‘And a craft? Ours was damaged beyond repair.’
‘We have one,’ Justus said. ‘We just need to get past them.’
Kramer nodded without taking his eyes from the surrounding Zinn. ‘Where is it?’
‘Alongside yours. Up those steps. Minutes away. We have to be fast.’
‘Then that’s what we’ll do. And now that’s clear I can do what it was I came down here to do.’ Kramer revealed a hand-sized contraption. With both thumbs he pressed the screen. ‘Fifteen should be enough.’
‘Fifteen what?’
‘Fifteen minutes,’ he said, rising from his knees.
‘Minutes?’ Justus shot to his feet. ‘It’s a bomb?!’
Kramer smiled, activated the detonator, and hurled it across the chamber. It rolled past the Zinn, down, and into the innermost pit.
‘What are you doing?’ Ketrass cried.
‘Taking back control!’
Before any of them could utter a response, stone and dust began to fall from above and the ground shook. The group moved close together.
Lesper cried out again: ‘They are here, Masterium! Come for them! Masterium, they are here and they are ready to serve! COME FOR THEM! COME FOR THEM!’
A gargantuan column of black power like the energy within Erebus’ central chamber surged from the heart of the stone edifice, disappearing through the caverns above. Anna’s bracelet pulsed fiercely. She knew what it meant.
‘They’re making contact with Erebus!’ she yelled. ‘Stop it! We have to stop it!’ The Zinn were doing something terrible. She had activated the black-rock moon, and now they could use it. Long they had been trapped down here, but now they were free. ‘They’re taking Erebus back!’
‘The Masters!’ Kramer yelled. ‘The Masters never left!’
Without warning Anna felt cold claws reach around her arms and body, lifting her from the ground. She couldn’t move. Frozen in fear. Legs hanging beneath her. She cried out, but the clatter of rifles emptying their barrels sounded around her; the movement coming from beside told her that Gílana too had been seized.
Justus ignited his crimson coil and moved towards them, but stopped, hesitated. He looked to Anna, held in the creature’s cold grasp. She nodded once, slowly, and he understood.
‘NOW!’ he cried aloud and aiming at the ground beneath her he fired at the Zinn’s feet. A shocking rattle pounded her eardrums and she fell to the stone floor. He fired again at the demon beside and Gílana fell to the rock, the creatures that had held them now pelting for the nearest tunnel.
‘NOW!’ Justus cried again. ‘NOW, DAMN IT!’
The singing rattle of rifle-fire and rattling demons were at once merged with the startling bursts of bright-blue and violet light which now filled the chamber. Upon one side Captain Ferranti appeared from behind a ring of rock, coil and blaster sending the mass of black bone retreating. While upon the other charged Lieutenant Avila and, Anna did a double take—
‘Gordian!’
Gordian and Avila sprang towards the group, blue coils firing between them, and tearing the air as they fired at the Zinn-creatures behind. The three met Anna, Gílana, and Justus in the middle of the circle of panicked soldiers. Kramer and Ketrass huddled close nearby. But all around them the Zinn were reforming, attacking in waves of armored might.
‘Some signal!’ Ferranti said to Justus.
‘Yeah, and you took your time answering!’
Gordian jerked Anna and Avila out of the way of a Zinn-creature hurtling through the group and as one they sent it spinning in the opposite direction. ‘Well we’re here now,’ said the assassin. ‘I don’t suppose you have a plan?’
It seemed unlikely. The circle had become too small; the creatures too many. Running. Swerving. Slashing. The group was beyond exhausted.
Ferranti dropped his blaster and drew out another coil. He moved to fire upon the rear edge of the attacking line of Zinn, fiercely and precisely demonstrating his well-honed aim. Accuracy and determination, however, were no match for the sheer strength of their dark enemies; and though both he and Avila continued to send the violent line fleeing, the three Zinn that came charging through the group sent them both soaring towards the abyss of the inner maelstrom. As they slid down the precipitous plunge Gordian threw himself after them. He bolted for the pit and hurled himself to the ground; reaching out he clutched tightly the only hand still clinging to the surface.
‘Gordian!’ Justus yelled.
Anna held her sister’s hand tight. It was impossible. They couldn’t hold them off any longer.
The Crilshan clutched Ferranti and pulled him from the edge. Lieutenant Mica Avila had been thrown to her death. Though, as Ferranti and Gordian found their feet, breathless and panting, one of the attacking Zinn clenched Ferranti and leapt over Gordian, who tried but failed to bring the creature down.
‘Gordian!’ Justus cried again as the surrounding creatures moved in for the kill.
Anna watched, distraught, as the dark being scaled the nearby wall, heading for a crevice high above. Ferranti, no! Anna relinquished the grip on her unconscious sister and reached for the blaster the Titanese captain had abandoned. And she fired several times, over and over, at first striking not
hing but rock, but eventually hitting the fleeing creature and both Ferranti and the Zinn plummeted to the ground. Neither moved, and Gordian, launching a fearless offensive, rushed to recover him.
Then, as expected by all, the circle broke.
They were vastly outnumbered, and the cries and screams from nearby soldiers were replaced by threatening rattles of fury and bloodlust. Kramer and Ketrass, who had until now been cowering beside her, backed up in terror. Coilbolt booms stopped. Justus grimaced and fell to his knees.
When it seemed that hope had left them; when it appeared there was no way out at all; when everybody’s energy was sapped and Anna fought to breathe in the thin air, the Zinn stopped advancing. They stayed still and continued to emit their deep, rattling din. All watched, silent and exhausted, as the primary organism marked with black cloth circled the large pit to approach them. Upon the far side the dark energy continued to flare, up through the ceiling to Erebus itself.
Anna turned to Justus. ‘Thank you.’
‘I am truly sorry, Anna.’
Before she had chance to reply a hand reached around her mouth and dragged her backwards. Justus cried out and grasped for her hand. Their fingers touched, but she was pulled back across the chamber stone and over dark boulders. Justus followed, but not fast enough. They did not move high, but instead dropped below. Down through a gap in the jagged rock. Down into darkness. And with one last attempt Justus gripped her hand, the scathing rock beneath them tearing at his stomach. He lost her grip. Their eyes met, and a roaring voice called out, ‘STOP!’
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
‘GILAXIAD! GILAXIAD! GILAXIAD!’
The dark organisms panicked, their unsettling rattles resonated around them as though there were ten times their number. The Zinn-creature clutching Anna backed up and struck the cave wall furiously with its horned skull many times, before releasing her and disappearing into the dark. Justus found her hand, dragged her from the cleft.
Upon the far side of the chamber the dark beings had gathered, and above them Lesper was crying aloud one word, over and over:
‘GILAXIAD! GILAXIAD! GILAXIAD!’
And at that moment, a light as bright as a thousand red dawns appeared behind them; and they turned to the top of the stone steps to witness a dark shape situated upon the summit. It was from this being that the light branched out, and as he watched the man stood high above, Antal Justus had no doubt in his mind just who it was.