Root (51 page)

Chapter 49:
Maelstrom

A score of arrows, freshly notched, lay heaped
at Karla’s feet. She took my hand and squeezed it hard. At first, I
couldn’t tell if she was afraid or trying to reassure
me.

I looked at her and she was calm. I was
freaking out, but she had this confidence in her eyes that couldn’t
help but rub off on me. As preposterous as it sounded, she acted as
if we still held the upper hand in this situation. It was clear,
between the two of us who had the stronger and braver
heart.

This Reaper was big, bigger than any I had yet
seen, so big, it could barely fit itself into the tunnel. The
collapse and the rigid walls not only trapped us but forced the
beast transform itself into something more snake-like to squeeze
itself into the narrow space.

“
That thing’s in no rush to get
after us,” I said. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“
It will come. It is just being
wary. I can see from the scars that it has been many
fights.”

“
With … you guys?
Luther?”

“
No, not us. And Luther, I doubt,”
said Karla, sneering. “Perhaps … Victoria.”

With its front end narrowed into a tapered
snout like an anteater’s, the beast began to move, heaving its
blubber up the slope. A reddish glow pulsed in the walls each time
the beast flung itself forward, almost as if the light were the
pain it inflicted on the root system.

Karla strung her first arrow and let it fly.
It bounced off the roof and spun harmlessly to the ground. Too much
arc. She gave the next a deeper draw, but it skittered against the
floor. The narrowness of the tunnel was making things difficult.
Once she found her mark, however, she rarely missed.

Each arrow that stuck in the Reaper’s snout
made it groan and shudder. She upped the ante by holding her palm
over each tip and making them glow white hot before sending them
off. The Reaper paused with each direct hit, but quickly
re-gathered itself and kept on coming.

I felt stupid and useless standing there with
my sword waiting for the thing to come to us. I wish I could have
made a weapon with some range.

“
We can’t defeat it,” said Karla,
flinging arrow after arrow, like a machine. “But maybe we can
discourage it. Make it wish for an easier meal.”

“
I think we’re just making the
damned thing mad,” I said.

“
You have a better plan?”

I shrugged.

“
Then make me some more arrows. I am
running low.”

It was nice having something to do, only my
arrows didn’t quite have the consistency of Karla’s. They were all
different lengths and weights, which challenged her
accuracy.

And meanwhile, the creature kept squeezing
forward, inexorably, like a flood of cold molasses. The arrows had
slowed it, but it obviously had no intentions of
retreating.

“
It never had to come to this,” I
blurted. “You could have come with me … in Inverness.”

“
You think there are no monsters on
the other side?” said Karla, pausing to straighten a curve in an
arrow I had fashioned less than true. “Think again.”

“
We didn’t have to come back here.
We could have gone to London … to Rome.”

“
Stop! We’ve been through this
already. I would have lost Isobel if I couldn’t return here. Now,
at least, I have her attention. When we … if we … make it back …
she will talk to me … she will listen.”

The beast took its sweet time creeping
forward. In response to the arrows it had armored up its snout with
thick plating that deflected Karla’s arrows.

A ring of prehensile tentacles began to sprout
from the tick. It kept its maw closed and protected as it
approached us, but flaps and wrinkles revealed the accordion-like
pleating that would burst open to envelope us when the time
came.

“
I wish that we had Astrid with us,”
said Karla. “She has always had a way … with energy … and fire
bombs.”

“
Astrid … she’s gone over to the
dark side.

“
What do you mean?”

“
Luther, I mean Arthur … she’s
working for him.”

“
That is not the dark side,” said
Karla. “You are looking at the dark side.”

I leaned on my sword, staring at the slow
motion apocalypse sliding our way. “We’re not going to make it, are
we?”

“
We don’t know that.”

“
I mean … because if not … this
really sucks,” I said, the frustration really began to mount. “You
know what I went through trying to find you? To have it all come to
this. Gawd! I just want to stick this fucking blade down that
bastard’s throat, lop its wormy head off.”

“
It … doesn’t have a head,” Karla
pointed out.

As soon as I said that, my sword began to
glow, a dull red at first, transitioning to orange.

“
Holy crap! What’s
happening?”

“
Stay mad. Mad is good,” said Karla,
scrambling to fix my half-assed arrows.

The creature continued to alter its shape,
reabsorbing its stubby legs, fanning open its moist and flapping
maw until it scraped the sides of the tunnel. Teeth formed at the
leading edge, scraping into roots. Branch lights shot ahead like
grounded lightning.

Tentacles slapped wetly against the walls. The
lining of its mouth and gullet rolled forward and formed a second
mouth, like a worm turning itself inside out.

“
Oh, no fucking way. I ain’t letting
that fucker slobber all over us.” I raised the sword and stepped
out to meet it.

“
No James! Stay back! Maybe it is
bluffing.”

The beast sensed me and heaved itself forward,
ripples of blubber cascading down its length. Its hide smelled like
rotten sneakers. Bits of decayed flesh clung to its skin. Several
bulbous tentacles extended and came swinging my way.

I plunged the now white, hot sword into the
first blob that swung my way. The flesh sizzled, filling my nostril
with an odor like burnt fish. The beast retracted and like a
startled cat, spat out a nasty gasping hiss.

The creature reared back and launched its
snout me against like a rocket, stretching its unarmored body like
a boneless earthworm. I dodged aside, swiping at it as it went by,
slashing deep into the plating.

Karla fired arrow after arrow into its
eversible gullet at close range, causing it to pucker and
retract.

The beast re-gathered itself, goose pimples on
its tentacles growing into spikes. It coiled its body behind its
armored front, forming a fleshy spring, preparing for the final
strike. One lunge now, and it would easily reach the end of the
blocked tunnel, taking Karla and I with it.

“
James, come here … with me.
Please?”

I refused to have things end like this. I
whacked the tunnel wall with the sword, knocking some bits loose
but it was clear there was no way out.

Karla had laid down the bow, and fashioned her
own sword—a blocky, unwieldy thing like a primitive
claymore.

“
James … if we keep fending it off …
back here … together … maybe it will tire and leave us
alone.”

“
Does that thing look tired to you?
Does it?”

Coils continued to accumulate behind the
business end of the beast. A fire grew in my belly. I extended the
sword, and again it glowed—orange then yellow then
white.

My heart throbbed in time with my brain. My
whole body felt like it was going to explode.

I noticed how the tunnel immediately beside
the beast remained flexible, bowing out and expanding as its coils
thickened. I took in those roots with my unfocussed gaze and
summoned them to obey my heart.

When I swirled the sword around, every root
lining that passage twisted and contracted clamping down on the
coils. They clamped down on the coils. The beast grunted and tried
to spring, but was stuck in the pinched off tunnel.

“
That’s it! That’ll give it a taste
of its own medicine.”

“
You
?” said
Karla, mouth agape. “You are doing this? How?”

The beast roared, blasting us with its hot and
foul breath. Its coils burst through the sides of the tunnel. It
inched forward, re-tightening its coils against the shattered
tunnel.

Swirling that sword, I stared down the
creature’s pouting maw. Roots tangled in its bristles and prodded
its underbelly. Something hard and hot formed deep in my belly as
if I were impregnated with something beyond the
physical.

It was painful beyond anything I had ever
experienced. My eyes rolled back in their sockets. I moaned
involuntarily and this ball of something kept growing, building the
pressure inside me, squeezing my organs against my
bones.

And then, whatever it was—a ball of energy,
the life force of my soul—broke loose from my groin, and came
spinning up my torso. It split into two and raced down my arms,
splitting again down each of my fingers, breaking loose from my
body with a ripping groan.

Ten pulses of cold fire came spinning like
ninety mile per hour sliders into the beast and the already
shattered tunnel, blunting its snout, ripping the roots to shreds.
A vortex of fragments spun, picking up more and more pieces with
each rotation. Roots liquefied, causing the creature to lose its
grip and spin along with them, coils and all, as a massive void
opened up beneath it.

The creature lunged, gripping what it could
reach of the matrix with every claw and feeler it could muster. A
hooked tentacle came whipping into Karla’s leg, knocking the
claymore from her grip. She shrieked as she fell and was dragged
off.

Sword held high, I leaped and hacked at the
tentacle as it slid past me. Karla grabbed onto my leg, hauling me
down. We tumbled in the grip of the severed tentacle to the edge of
the vast crater that had opened up beneath the beast. Only a tangle
of severed roots kept us from spilling over.

Appendages sallied forth from the beast and
latched onto whatever root structure remained. The creature
deformed itself, shifting its weight wherever it could find
purchase. It looked like a giant amoeba hovering over a vast
cauldron of severed roots and the ever-widening vortex.

Its dripping maw sniffed us down, drifting our
way, sensing victory, opening wide in anticipation.

I twitched my sword. The beast’s pseudopods
ripped loose. It plummeted, spinning out of sight through a
maelstrom of shattered roots.

Chapter 50: The Upper
Reaches

Karla and I clung to the edge of the vast,
conical abyss. If not for a few stray loops and curls of frayed
root, we both would have plummeted with the Reaper.

The vortex had sliced through many layers of
tunnels. Like severed but bloodless arteries, their dark openings
gaped, some ringed with seepages of light. At the thresholds of
several broken tunnels, lesser Reapers nosed about confused and
bellowed into the void.

Hands trembling, too scared to look down, I
looked over to see if Karla was okay. She had no obvious injuries,
but she had this goofy vacancy in her gaze, as if she were dizzy or
plastered.

“
Why are you looking at me like
that?”

“
Because … what you did … was
amazing. How did you do that?”

“
I don’t know,” I said, still
stunned. “I just wanted it to happen, and … it
happened.”

“
Bern was right,” she said. “You are
special.”

The partially severed roots unraveled and
snapped under our weight. Karla cried out and started to slide. I
grabbed her wrist and hauled her back. We crawled away from the
edge, up to a flatter part of the mangled tunnel that felt more
secure. Panting, I jabbed my sword into the tunnel floor and leaned
back against the wall, struggling to gather my breath.

With the Reaper gone, the walls lost their
stony texture and much of their mass. The roof sagged, its fibers
gone limp as if all resolve had abandoned every root. Feeble lights
flickered through the occasional strand. They were back to being
ordinary roots again, if these roots could be called
ordinary.

Karla grabbed my face and kissed me. Her eyes
twinkled, and it wasn’t just from the tears. I had never seen her
so giddy.

Bern’s staff poked through curtains of
shredded root that had only minutes earlier had been a pile of
immovable rubble. I got up and slashed at them with my sword,
letting them fall into a heap. Karla recovered her claymore and
joined me, wielding the heftier weapon with both hands.

“
Hold on, Bern!” I said, as his
staff nearly jabbed me in the groin. “We’ve got it from
here.”

“
We?” he said. “Oh thank God. Are
you both okay?”

“
We’re fine.”

“
La!” Isobel scrambled through the
cleft and leapt onto her sister. “Thanks God! I thought that smelly
thing ate you.”

“
No way,” said Karla. “I’m much too
bitter. It would have spit me out. James is the one you should
worry about.”