Onio (16 page)

They
walked along the river for many miles and Mel’s heart was lodged in her throat
much of the way. Once, they saw a fire burning on their side of the river in
the distance and smelled something hideous upon the smoke. It was the charnel
stench of rotten meat. There was nowhere to go but forward so, advancing
slowly, the sasq waded through the icy river to the other side. Then, to Mel’s
absolute astonishment, the sasquatches allowed their skin and fur to fade into
shadow. Mel remembered hearing about their chameleon-like abilities, but this
was the first time she’d observed it firsthand.

The
eight remaining full-blooded guards ranged in appearance from snowy white, to
red, brown and black. Most of the skin beneath their fur-covered bodies was
dark, but some of the fairer ones had skin as pale as Mel’s. During the
transformation, the warrior’s flesh turned as dark as night. Onio possessed
this talent as well, if not quite as much. His skin went from tan to the hue of
darkened oak. Wordlessly, he gathered Mel in his arms and covered her up in the
furs. Mel noticed Black Pony did the same with his queen, Tanah.

In
single file, the sasq moved toward the firelight. There was a small open space
in the fur wrapping that Mel could see and breathe through, and what she saw
made her heart pound with dread. Three humans danced and gyrated around the
licking flames. Their shadowed shapes threw ghastly silhouettes on the rock
walls of the tunnel. In the fire’s glow, Mel saw three bodies hanging upside
down by ropes tied around their ankles. Their captors sang, lunging in with
their knives, and capered, slashing at the prisoner’s flesh.

Mel
thought the prisoners were dead until one, a young woman, howled in agony,
writhing against the ropes. The sasq warriors came to a stop and stared at
their queen.
“Put me down, Pony,” she commanded, staring wordlessly at the torturers across
the river’s water.

One
by one, the dancing figures stopped and gazed open-mouthed at the suddenly
visible sasquatches. “Kill them!” Tanah screamed, and the warriors let loose
with their spears. Within seconds, the murderers lay dead on the rocky shore.

The
troop waded across the river again. Tanah rushed to aid the injured prisoner
but it was too late. Whatever strength allowed the woman to withstand her
tormenters administrations had failed. She stared sightlessly into eternity, as
her saviors gazed down at her ravaged body. The woman’s face, upper torso and
thighs were crisscrossed with cut marks, as were the bodies of her fellow
captives. One of the men had been dead long enough for maggots to form; they
swelled in and out of his nostrils and tear ducts while enormous bluebottle
flies landed and fed on the wriggling larvae. It was the most horrendous thing
Mel had ever seen, and she turned away, gagging.

She
heaved until her head ached and then climbed to her feet. Onio held a cup of
water to her and said, “Drink it, Mel.”

She
wiped her mouth with the back of a shaking hand and took a sip. “Tha…thank you.
I’m sorry, Onio. I’ve never seen anything like that before.” She turned her
back on the dead bodies and watched the sasq warriors study the remains of the
slain captors.

Onio
nodded. “I haven’t either, Mel. When called upon, the sasq can be brutal, but
this kind of…of savagery, is an evil thing. I feel sick too.” Mel and Onio
walked together toward the guards. Wolf turned toward them and said, “Look at
these creatures, First Son.”

Onio
looked down at one of the bodies and frowned. “Wolf, what am I seeing?”

The
bodies held every appearance of being human, but Mel gasped and stepped back in
fear. The three men didn’t have human skin, but flesh that heaved and jerked
with blue, red and green threads. The threads seemed to be alive as they wove
their way in and out of the men’s bodies. Two of the men were face down on the
ground but one stared upward with open eyes. The threads wavered above the man’s
rapidly drying eyeballs as if they sought more flesh, more blood, additional
eyeballs to devour. Some of the threads turned toward them as they watched.

“Stay
back!” Tanah barked, “I don’t know what mischief this is, but I do not want my
warriors to play any part of it,” She hesitated for a moment, chewing her
bottom lip. “It goes against our beliefs, but I don’t think we should try and
bury these creatures, or their poor victims. Stay as far back as you can and
set the fire alight. Maybe a conflagration will burn these foul humors away.”

A
few minutes later as they continued down the rocky shoreline, Mel heard a
whooshing sound. Whatever the medics poured on the flames had caught, painting
the whole area in an incandescent glare. She paused, trying in vain to think of
a prayer for the dead. Onio placed a hand on her upper arm, “Best not to dwell
on what we witnessed this day, Mel. The sasquatches believe that positive
energy expands in relation to our thoughts…negative energy does too,” Looking
back, the young sasq sighed. “Pity them…all of them, I think…but do not think
over-long on what you saw. My people and I have heard of this sickness…those
strange threads. It is not of our world. Some of the wise ones claim it is the
web of alien spiders, others say it is flesh made machine. Either way, those
people came too close to what they didn’t understand and paid the ultimate
price.” Grabbing her hand, he said, “Come Mel, let’s walk.”

They
walked with the others for another two or three miles. Stopping once, Mel
stifled a scream as gigantic spiders scurried across the ceiling. The monstrous
arachnids stopped for a moment and seemed to weigh the idea of attacking the sasquatches,
but scuttled away and squeezed into a crevasse and out of sight. “What is this
place, Onio?” she muttered as they resumed their journey.

Onio
shook his head in silence but Wolf answered. “Many of the elders believe that
this place is what used to be the planet’s surface, before the giant rocks
appeared out of the heavens and smashed into the Earth’s crust, extinguishing
everything that survived the blast. Some of the wise ones say that this is a
world within a world, complete with its own sun and stars. Regardless, it is
not a place we should linger overlong,” he finished with a snort of disgust.

Mel
noticed that the river was growing narrower. When they first started down its
pebbled shoreline the water spanned a distance of fifty feet or more. Now a
body could jump across with a few mighty bounds. The sasq stopped and gazed at
a small boat that lay at anchor by a tiny dry dock. Tanah stared at it in
dubious speculation. Mel thought that even one sasq warrior would swamp the
boat, much less the whole troupe.

Mel
looked around in bewilderment. What was it the old Indian said; go right to
find the king’s Conclave and go left to find the aliens? Mel didn’t want to
find the aliens! She wanted to go up, out of these ghastly tunnels. She wanted
to breathe fresh air again and see her old familiar sun, not some new inner-worldly
sun that had no business lurking inside her planet!

However,
how were you supposed to go right? The river ended here and the walls were
solid…unbroken in their stony continuity. A well-traveled path lay to their
left and through Onio’s ear’s Mel could hear the sound of rushing water. She
saw Tanah confer with two of the forward guards, who nodded obediently and
walked down the path. A few moments later, the guards returned. They looked
agitated and their huge arms gestured dramatically.

Tanah
turned around and walked to where Mel and her companions stood watching. “My
guards tell me that there appears to have been a rock-slide. The path leading
to the left and down is clear, but the right hand trail is blocked. I believe
that there are other paths further down the trail that will lead us upward. I
know that, with time, the mighty sasq could clear an opening in the rocks, but
time is the one thing we don’t have. What do you think, Pony…Wolf?”

Wolf
glanced uneasily at the left pathway and shrugged, “I agree. I don’t like it,
Tanah, but I agree.”

Pony
gave a solemn nod as well. The bandage over his damaged eye was gone now and
Mel marveled anew at the healing properties of the magic waters. She assumed,
when she first saw the guards injury, that he would lose the eye to the cougars
scratch. However, two days later, the flesh around the socket was pink and the
eyeball itself seemed to be functioning perfectly.

Tanah
turned to the other sasq warriors and said, “Take water and meat now, my
warriors. Relieve yourselves, if necessary, but don’t go alone. We leave in
half a span.” Turning to Mel she said, “Girl, come with me, please.”

Mel
followed the queen across the shoreline and behind a grouping of boulders.
Squatting, the women emptied their bladders. Mel peeked over the top of the
rocks and saw Onio conferring with Wolf. Sighing with relief, she started to
stand and wobbled as her pants caught on the many furs she wore. Cursing under
her breath, she caught her balance on the ground with one hand and gasped when
the ground moved.

What
Mel thought was a dune or elevated mound of gravel behind her heaved itself up
out of the ground with a spasmodic jerk. Tanah screamed and lifted her sword as
the giant worm opened its fang-filled maw and roared. Mel clapped her hands
over her ears; the sound of the beast’s scream rang like a million bells in her
consciousness.

The
mammoth worm swayed this way and that, blindly seeking the thing that disturbed
its rest. Its mouth was as large as a garage door and its fangs rotated like a
jigsaw’s blade. Two slit-like nostrils trembled in its muzzle, sniffing the air
for prey.

Suddenly,
Onio was standing before her. He shoved her back with one hand and yelled at
the beast as loud as he could to divert its attention away from the women. The
beast stopped roaring and focused its attention on the annoying but convenient
target that stood directly in front of it. Then Onio began his dance of death.

The
worm writhed in mid-air, took in a great draught of breath, vibrated violently
and then spewed gouts of flame at the young sasq warrior. Mel did not know if
Onio possessed advanced training in war-craft or if it was instinct, but it was
quickly apparent that he possessed the ability to anticipate an opponent’s
moves. Just as the flames looked to cover his body, Onio sprang away and leapt
in to stab the worm with his spear.

Surprise
and Onio’s physical skill had a devastating effect on the worm. It did not
matter where it aimed its deadly fire, the sasq warrior was like quicksilver,
impossible to pin down, never where his adversary expected, evasive and fluid,
a ghost.

Finally,
with a roar of frustrated rage, the worm plunged back into the ground and
disappeared.

Chapter 19

Mel
stood still and tried to quiet her pounding heart.
What the hell was that
?
She thought. She couldn’t help but wonder if everything that had happened since
she drove off the road was some sort of hallucination; a fever dream in full
techno-color, complete with advanced special effects and stereo surround-sound,
while in all actuality, she lay in a hospital bed, hooked up to tubes and a
watchful heart-monitor, entranced within a coma’s restful embrace.

Until,
that is, Onio ran up to her, picked her up in his arms and swung her around and
around, laughing in triumph. The other sasq warriors gathered around them and
clapped Onio on the back in gratitude and pride.

“Did
you see, Mel?” he asked, grinning. “Did you see me vanquish the beast?”

Mel
nodded and said, “You were really…you were great, Onio.” She paused for a
second and took a deep, shuddering breath. “What the hell was that thing?” She
almost screamed the question and the sasq guards gazed at her with surprise.

Onio,
however, seemed to understand her feelings of shock and anxiety. He placed a
hand on her shoulder and started to speak, when Tanah answered. “It was a
common worm, Melody, grown large and mutated almost beyond recognition. This
place…this under-world land… is filled with strange things. Some of the
creatures here are man-made and others are said to be from other worlds, other
dimensions than our own.” She looked at Mel with kind eyes. “Please, try to
stay calm. My guards will do their best to keep you from harm.”

The
sasq warriors were all looking at her now, which made Mel squirm anew. She had
been trying so hard to put on a brave face…to no avail. She felt humiliated by
feelings of inadequacy and fear. She tilted her chin up defiantly, and
muttered, “Okay, no problem.”

Onio
grinned, chucked her chin gently and then turned back to the other guards, who
asked him about some of the finer points of his battle strategy. Tanah grinned
at her as well before turning to the guards, saying, “We leave shortly. Please
gather your belongings together.”

Mel
pulled her furs tight and watched as the sasq warriors picked up their packs,
food stores and weapons. She studied the tiny raft for a moment, and for no
good reason, except perhaps residual humiliation at being proven such a coward,
she picked a pebble up off the ground at her feet and tossed it at the wooden
boat.

Suddenly,
a wash of green and blue lights painted the water and the stone walls of the
tunnel. Some sort of membrane shimmered and rippled around the boat; a grid of
lines, cross-angles and numbers glowed briefly, with almost blinding intensity,
and then faded away into shadow. The boat bobbed harmlessly on the shallow
water.