The Shadow and Night (114 page)

The single word
together
evoked an extraordinary excitement.

“Do you really promise?” Merral asked, telling himself that listening could do no harm. Indeed, he reminded himself, did he not have a duty to extract the best possible concessions for his world from this being?

“Oh yes,” said the earnest voice.

I must give her a new name. Something beautiful, something fitting.
As he was thinking about it, he caught another glimpse of the caked blood on his sleeve.

“But Lorrin Venn is dead,” he heard himself say.

“I know,” she answered thoughtfully, “but only a short time ago. There will have been little biochemical change yet. If you promise to spare me, I can bring him back.”

“You can do that?” he gasped.

Then she gazed up at Merral, and he thought how he longed to be immersed in her timeless and beautiful eyes.

“Spare me. I can restore life.”

Then she bowed her face toward him submissively, as if to indicate that she was his.

As she bent her head, Merral glimpsed beyond her fine hair something white that had rolled under the chair in the blast. It was a polished, smooth waxen object, like a bowl.

In a moment of appalling knowledge, he knew what it was: the skull of a child.

And in that moment, he knew that she was Death, not Life.

He screamed.

The blade arced straight down. With a terrible sucking noise, it sliced through the smooth flesh of the neck.

Merral closed his eyes briefly as the head hit the floor. Slowly, sobbing with emotion, he opened them. The slack-jawed face was upside down, looking up at him from the ground.

“Man, have it be gone.” The envoy's words were formal and unsympathetic.

Then, aware that his hands and legs were shaking, Merral spoke words as they came to him. “Thing! Demon! Whatever name you are known by, I command you by the authority of Jesus, the living King of the heavens and the worlds, be gone, and return to your realm to await your judgment!”

The figure crumbled away as if it were made of sand. A faint column of dust spiraled up into air and then, in an eddy of air, it was gone.

Merral stood there shaking, full of shame, realizing how close he had come to disaster. He wanted to be sick. What was it that the envoy had warned him barely an hour ago?
“The enemy seeks your ruin. For him there are more satisfying and useful ways for your destruction than fire, sword, or tooth.”

“I'm sorry,” he gasped. “I didn't mean to listen.”

The shape of the envoy, although still at the margins of his vision, was somehow more substantial than it had ever been.

“You would have been far wiser not to. Again, you nearly fell.”

“I'm truly sorry.”

There was only silence in response.

“Is it destroyed?” Merral asked, still shaking.

“It has lost the body fashioned for it and gone back to the abyss.”

The horror of the thing, and of what he had had to do to slay it, came back to him and made him shudder afresh.

“Envoy, what was it?” he inquired.

“I do not name it. Its name is best forgotten until the Judgment breaks. It and its kind had been set free. By explorations where mankind was not meant to go, and by men who thought that they could be harnessed.”

“And would she have kept her promises?” Merral asked.

“Man, you know so very little,” the envoy said, and there was a great sadness in his voice. “Not one of your race ever struck a deal with their sort and did not regret it. I think Lorrin's family would not have long thanked you for what walked in their midst and pretended to be their son. And the Assembly's rejoicing at your arrival through Below-Space would have been very short-lived.”

The figure beside him seemed to sigh in an almost human way. “And troubled as your world is now, all this would have been a pleasant dream compared to what you and she would have unleashed together as Lord and Lady of Farholme. Let alone your offspring.”

“I see.” Suddenly Merral felt very small and very weak.

He turned to the envoy, now certain that he was much less indistinct than he had been.

“The other things. The things the steersman said, in my mind. The breach in the barrier, the end of the Assembly.
Those
things. Are they true?”

“There were lies there, as you know. Yet not all was lies.”

“Which bits were true?”

“Ah, Man, that is for you to find out.”

“I had a feeling you'd say that.”

“But more importantly, next time, obey immediately.”

“Next time? I thought it was finished?”

“Finished?” Merral suddenly heard a sound that might have been a laugh. “No, you will know when it is finished. There will be no doubt of that moment.”

“What about the evil loose on my world?”

The dark shape at the margins of his vision seemed to suddenly become even more solid, and Merral thought he could make out a strange, archaic coat and a round, wide-brimmed hat that seemed to hide the face.

“No,” the figure said slowly, “the war will go on. But with this gone, your world may have some measure of healing.”

“Only some measure?” Merral asked sharply, feeling that the sacrifice of Lorrin and the diplomatic team and—for all he knew—another dozen more, merited a greater prize.

“The time for the mending—and ending—of things is not yet. Be content with what the day brings. But you must go.”

Suddenly Merral realized that outside the battle still raged. He glanced at his watch; to his amazement he saw that he had been on the ship for only twenty minutes. “Yes, I must.”

“You will face opposition outside the door, but they already fear you as Lucas Ringell. When they see you return alive and victorious out of here that fear will be greater. They may use terror, but they are not immune to it themselves. And your gun works now.”

“Thank you,” answered Merral, collapsing his blade and clipping it back to his belt.

“Man, save your thanks for him who sent me.” He paused. “I too serve.”

Then Merral turned, ran across the ghastly floor and through the doorway. Any sense of achievement in having killed the thing that had been the source of evil was dampened by the awareness that he had come so close to destruction.

He picked up the gun, and as he did, he turned and looked back. There on the floor of the chamber he saw a tall, straight-backed man, clothed in a black ankle-length coat over black trousers, whose face was hidden by the brim of his hat. He was poking tentatively and thoughtfully at the remains of the column with a black-shoed foot.

As if aware of his gaze, the figure began to turn toward him. Merral, curiously anxious not to see the face under the brim of the hat, turned away.

He slid the gun to “ready,” saw the status light go to red, and tugged at the handle of the outer door. As soon as the door began to open, he heard the shrill noise of multiple sirens.

As the door opened farther, he curved his finger around the trigger.

He gasped.

Lined up in front of the defaced bust in two symmetrical and silent rows were at least twenty intruders. The back row was made up of towering ape-creatures, the front by a line of twitching cockroach-beasts.

With a sickening feeling, Merral realized that every single one of them was staring at him.

44

T
he door clicked fully open, and as it did, it seemed that for a brief moment time itself froze. As the forty or so weird and hostile eyes gazed at him, two thoughts came to Merral: The first was the bizarre one of how much the sight in front of him resembled some monstrous parody of a formal sports team image. The second was simply this: the time had come to die well. Then, on the heels of that, came a third thought: He had, first of all, to announce the defeat of the monstrous steersman.

“The steersman is dead! Glory to God and the Lamb who reigns!” Merral cried, in as loud a voice as he could muster. And as he shouted it, he felt astonished at the calmness with which he faced his end.

Then he fired in the air, and amid the crash of falling ceiling panels, the twin lines of the opposition suddenly broke. With a terrible cacophony of wails and yells, the creatures fled left and right in utter panic. Merral fired again into the midst of the fleeing figures on both sides.

The result was an astonishing—and gratifying—mayhem. The smaller cockroach-beasts with their faster initial response were overtaken near the stairways by the longer-limbed ape-creatures. The result was that both sets of terror-struck creatures tried to get down the narrow stairs at once. To his right, Merral saw an ape-creature trip over a cockroach-beast and go flying, taking another of his own kind with him. To his left, two ape-creatures reached the stairwell at exactly the same time, their limbs becoming hopelessly enmeshed, while a cockroach-beast cannoned into the back of their legs. Fighting erupted between them, and he glimpsed a brown-shelled creature tumbling—or being thrown—over the rail.

Merral fired quickly once more at each side, to renewed howls. Noticing that the elevator door was open, he ran in and pressed the lowest of the six buttons.

The doors closed, and with a soft whine, the compartment descended sharply.

Merral realized how desperately he wanted to leave the ship. How many of his men had perished? he asked himself bitterly. They had achieved some sort of victory, but what had been the price?

Suddenly the elevator stopped and the door opened smoothly, revealing a low-roofed and gloomy lateral corridor. Yet for all its gloom, Merral rejoiced when he realized that he could smell fresh air. Furthermore, over the noise of the sirens and the sound of panicked, tumbling feet echoing from the levels above, he could hear sounds and cries from outside.

Merral exited the elevator compartment. As he did, he felt a new and powerful vibration begin. He knew instantly what it was: the engines of the ship were starting up.

“Time to go,” Merral said aloud.

To his right, a fresher, cleaner light seemed to be flowing into the corridor. He ran to that end and carefully peered round the corner.

Beyond a pile of equipment and crates, he could see a ramp sloping downward. At its base was a strip of beach where a chaotic mass of cockroach-beasts and ape-creatures milled about.

There were other noises from the ship. Harsh, unintelligible words trumpeted from speakers, and a red strip light began pulsing rapidly along the ceiling. The vibrations reverberating through the ship began to rise in strength and pitch.

Merral moved forward, ducked behind an oil-stained container, and peered round at the ramp. Up it trudged a handful of the ape-creatures, some limping, others showing patches of raw red flesh amid their black hair. At their heels scuttled several cockroach-beasts, one with a severed arm, another trailing a limp leg. Merral noticed that on the ramp there was a trail of red smears. At the end of the sorry line, he caught sight of two heavy, dull gray metallic figures, shorter than the ape-creatures but much taller than the cockroach-beasts. For a moment, he thought that they were yet another race until he realized that what he was seeing was an encrusting armor that covered the figures from head to toe. Underneath their heavy protective suits he knew these were men. One, he noted, had a left arm that hung limp.

Halfway up the ramp, the men stopped, squatted down stiffly, and fired a dozen whistling blasts out at the beach beyond. Then they stood up, turned, and with a heavy, labored tread retreated back up the ramp.

As they passed him, barely three paces away, Merral heard a new noise, a deep mechanical groaning from within the ship. He looked to see that the ramp was beginning to rise.

Without thinking, he threw his gun down and rose to his feet. Then he leaped onto the ramp and began racing down its bloodied surface. Above the sound of his boots pounding on the metal he could hear the shout of harsh voices.

He had been seen.

At the very edge of the ramp, Merral dropped to his knees, grabbed the metal rim, and rolled himself over. He heard the sound of firing. Something whistled over the tips of his fingers so close that he felt its warmth. Aware of the fresh air around him and glimpsing the sand beneath him, he let go.

It was a long drop.

He struck the soft sand with a force that punched the wind out of him. For a moment, he lay there, dazed but grateful to God that he was not going to die on that foul ship. Then he caught a whiff of bitter smoke, heard the cries around him, and saw the shuddering corpse of a cockroach-beast in front of him.

Something hissed over his head, and Merral rolled himself down into a nearby hollow in the sand. High above him there was a clunking sound as the ramp seated itself into the vast black underside of the hull. All around him, the beach surface was shaking with the vibrations from the ship.

As his breath returned to him, he looked around, trying to take stock of the situation. About him lay a scene of devastation, with smoldering debris and the bodies of intruders.