torg 03- The Nightmare Dream (32 page)

"Mara?" Tolwyn asked, concern evident in her question.

"One of the slavers got lucky," Mara shrugged. "It's not deep. Not as deep as the one I gave him." The claws of her new hand audibly snapped back into finger sockets. Tolwyn noticed that the fingers of the alien hand splayed spasmodically, and it took Mara a moment to bring the spasms under control.

"This vehicle will get us to Oxford in no time," Pluppa predicted. "We can leave as soon as the dwarves are freed from the cage."

Gutterby leaped down to help Bryce and Tom open the cage door. But when they finally swung the door wide, the dwarves within the cage stayed huddled together, refusing to move or even look up at their liberators.

"What is wrong with you, lads and lassies?" Gutterby growled. "Don't you know the smell of freedom when its strong breeze blows past you? Get up and be on your way!"

"What for?" one of the older dwarves grumbled. "They'll only come after us again. We're marked as slaves, and slaves is all we'll ever be."

"Rubbish!" Gutterby yelled, storming into the cage. He grabbed the dwarf and hauled him to his feet. "You're only slaves if you think that way. We've opened the physical cage for you, but we can't open the cage you've set in your mind. You've got to open that one yourselves, or you'll never be free."

"What do you know?" another slave demanded. "I recognize you. You're Gutterby of House Vareth. You've never known life in the earth, hiding out when the slavers come to raid, hoping you or your loved ones aren't caught in the snares. You've never been locked in a cage, or forced to work until your hands bleed and your legs give out. What do you know?"

Gutterby's eyes flared with rage at the ungrateful dwarf, then cooled to understanding and sorrow. He lowered his head. "We all have our own cages, and some bars are stronger than iron or steel," he said quietly. "My cage has been shame — shame at what my people have become, shame at the fear that has kept me from acting against the disgraces of House Vareth."

The old dwarf stepped from the cage, walking toward become, shame at the fear that has kept me from acting against the disgraces of House Vareth."

The old dwarf stepped from the cage, walking toward the richly-dressed dwarf who was now up and watching the exchange. He held his bruised wrist, and dried blood caked his nose, but he smiled nonetheless. He spat red at Gutterby's boots.

"I am ashamed of you, Gutterby," the rich slaver said. "You have been reduced to a criminal, trying to free slaves from their rightful masters. And the laughable thing is that they don't want to be saved!"

Gutterby grabbed the front of the slaver's suit, pulling him close so that their noses were almost touching. "If freeing slaves is a crime, then let me be guilty," the old dwarf declared. "And I am going to let you live, so that you may take a message back to Duke Dwy van. Tell him that his term as leader of House Vareth is coming to an end. Tell him that Gutterby is going to restore the House to its former glory. Tell him that when next we meet it will be on opposite sides of clashing armies, for the days of slave-trading are over. Tell my cousin all this, every word!"

"Cousin?" Tolwyn wondered aloud, and Pluppa nodded that it was true. Gutterby was not only of House Vareth, he was of the royal family of the surface dwarves.

The old dwarf turned to Tolwyn, determination creasing his brow. "Let us finish your quest, Lady

Tancred, so that I may begin mine."

114

Katrina Tovarish stood beside Captain Nicolai Ondarev, listening to the cold night. It was close, she knew. She could sense it, the alien thing. She could see it in her mind, a foul beast with wings and claws and leathery skin. But it was more than just a thing of flesh and blood. It was partly metal, some unholy combination of skin and steel. And it was intelligent, which made its actions more than bad.

It was evil.

She stood a moment longer, letting her awareness center on Ondarev's warm hand that rested gently upon her arm. He was a good man, this Nicolai Ondarev. She was very grateful that it was he the government sent to fetch her from Project Omen and not some unfeeling Party man. She tentatively touched his hand, then gripped it more boldly, seeking the strength within it.

"You should have let me bring soldiers," Ondarev whispered. "We should not be out at this forsaken farm. This is not that far from where we found the stelae."

"We had to come alone, Nicolai," Katrina explained. "I can block the two of us from its notice for a time, but others would surely be noticed. We would never be able to catch it before it fled."

"What makes you think it will flee?" Ondarev asked. "What if it wanted you to try this? What if it is waiting to kill you?"

"That is exactly what it is waiting for," Katrina said. There was no fear evident in her voice, but it was there nonetheless, within her, an icy blackness stretched across her heart. "Wait here," she told him, then started to walk toward the dark, uninviting house.

"What?" Ondarev gasped. He grabbed her arm, restraining her. "I cannot let you go in there alone. You cannot see, Katrina!"

She turned to him, pointing herself in the direction of his voice. "Against this foe, I can see better than your eyes, Nicolai. Let me do this. But be ready. I will need your help, and you must be beside me at a moment's notice."

She felt Ondarev's warring emotions, fear and duty battling for a grip upon him. And there was something else there, an emotion she was not as familiar with after long years in hospitals and testing facilities. Was it ... love? Then she felt the set of his stance that signalled he had made a decision.

"Be careful, Katrina," he warned her. "I shall wait for your call."

Katrina Tovarish did not smile at this victory. She had half hoped that he would talk her out of this. But she knew that what they were doing was for something more than either of them. It was for the entire Soviet Union, and Ondarev's sense of duty was stronger than his concern for one young blind woman. She turned and headed for the house she could not see but knew was there just the same, heading for a confrontation with the invader that had attacked her across kilometers with powers that were greater than her own.

The icy blackness deepened.

115

Andrew Jackson Decker held Julie Boot's hand as they jogged down the forest path with Kurst. They were following the directions the dwarf mage had given them, heading for someplace Kurst called the Valley of the Sword. It felt like they had been running for hours when the shapeshifter finally allowed them to stop and rest.

Decker was amazed by Kurst's stamina. Even after all the running, he seemed barely winded. He was stopping for them, Decker knew, and part of him was angry that he could not keep up the pace. He used the time to check his weapons. He had an M-16 strapped across his back, three grenades hooked to his belt, a nine millimeter automatic pistol holstered to his hip, and a knife sheathed to his boot. He also had some spare ammo, a compass and a canteen, but that was the extent of his remaining supplies. The rest had been left with the packs back in Takta Ker.

"Where are we going, Kurst?" Decker asked.

The shapeshifter looked up at him, studying him before answering. "We are going to the Valley of the Sword."

"Why?"

"To meet Tolwyn and the others."

"How do you know that that's where they're going to be?" Julie asked, finishing the question that was on Decker's lips.

Kurst looked from one to the another. "You still do not trust me." It was not a question.

"I need to know how you came to this conclusion, Kurst," Decker replied. "If we didn't trust you, we wouldn't have come this far."

The shapeshifter nodded, but Decker wasn't sure what the gesture meant. Then Kurst said, "Tolwyn seeks a High Lord named Uthorion, the necromancer who attacked her world the day she died."

"Yes," Decker said. "So?"

Kurst met Decker's eyes. "Uthorion took over this reality in the battle that saw Tolwyn's death," Kurst explained. "But to do so, he needed to take a form that was attuned to the magical axioms. He placed his spirit into Tolwyn's lord. The Lady Ardinay that Tolwyn comes to save is actually Angar Uthorion, one-time lieutenant of the Gaunt Man."

"Does Tolwyn know?" Decker asked.

Kurst shook his head. "No," he admitted. "I... never got around to telling her."

"That's terrific!" Decker shouted. "And this Ardinay who is actually Uthorion is located in the Valley of the Sword?"

"That's where her castle is," Kurst said. "Uthorion will stay there until he decides to go to Earth."

"If she doesn't know that her lord is really her worst enemy, then your friend is walking into a trap," Julie commented. "And to make matters worse, we're leading this Wild Hunt thing right toward them."

Kurst stood, signalling that the rest stop was over. "There is no other choice," he declared. "If Tolwyn is to have any chance at all, then the six of us must be together. I believe that is the meaning of the aborigine's knots."

"I'm even more confused than before," Julie admitted, but Kurst was no longer listening. He was heading off down the path, and all Decker and Julie could do was follow him to see where it all would end.

116

Thratchen was in the chambers far beneath Illmound Keep. He ignored the raging maelstrom and the ruins of the possibility sorting machine that filled much of the room. Instead, he stood before the machine that was connected to the infernal device located some miles away in the Indian Ocean. The Gaunt Man had devised a three-part process for becoming the Torg. The first involved a world rich in possibility energy. Thratchen was on that world, but with the Gaunt Man's Darkness Device hidden somewhere out of the techno-demon's reach, the possibilities were beyond his access. The second, the shattered sorting machine that was to eliminate all possibility of failure, was also unavailable to him. Only the infernal machine remained, full of the stolen physical energy that had stilled the world's spin.

This end of the machine consisted of a panel full of measuring gauges and a small booth. Within the booth were two metal bars to hold on to, and two metal straps to stand in. When the buttons upon the bars were depressed, the physical energy of the planet would flow through the completed circuit and into whoever stood within the booth. Without the other two pieces of the plan, however, the physical energy was useless to him.

Or was it?

Thratchen turned to look upon the maelstrom formed by the meeting of the Heart of Coyote and the inner power of the Gaunt Man. It was so much like the maelstrom of legend, a combination of Eternity and the Void but on a much smaller scale. Unlike the legendary maelstrom, however, the Gaunt Man would never walk out of this one the way Apeiros and the Nameless One had.

"I know another way to become the Torg," Thratchen yelled into the raging wind that swirled around the hole in space. "I do not need your Darkness Device!"

He turned back to the machine panel, adjusting the controls to the levels he had calculated with his built-in computer. It was slow work, but Thratchen had time.

He had all the time in the world, and it was stored within the infernal machine.

117

Christopher Bryce was amazed by the horseless carriage they were riding. It seemed so beyond the world he imagined Tolwyn was from, yet it was also totally like the dwarves. The steam engine was noisy, and it vibrated through the rest of the carriage with jarring yet somehow comforting energy. Pluppa and the remaining dwarves of her company crewed the vehicle, leaving Bryce and the others to sit back and watch for trouble. But there hadn't been any since they commandeered the carriage and freed the slaves. He hoped there wouldn't be any until they reached Uthorion.

"This is just like that car we took to find Tom," Toolpin yelled above the roar of the engine. "Do you remember that, Tom?"

The pilot smiled, patting the young dwarf on the head.

"I remember how Praktix steered the wheel while Braxon worked the peddles," Toolpin remarked fondly, remembering his dead friends. "I miss them. Triad, too."

Bryce could think of no words to say as Toolpin returned to monitoring the engine. The priest instead turned to watch the passing countryside. They were well beyond London, and now he could feel thepressure that Tolwyn had talked about'. It was like being under water, with only a bubble of air — or, in this case, his own reality—to protect him from the alien environment. Parts of the landscape were totally familiar, for he had been to England before. But other parts were different. It was like two different photographs had been superimposed over each other. In some places the modern world showed through, in others a world more akin to the Middle Ages. And then there were the places where the two worlds mixed, and in some strange way those places hurt Bryce's eyes to look at. There was a recognizable office building, but parts of its roof were now thatch, and parts of its walls were straw or wood instead of brick. Once, when he looked very closely, he saw that the brick was actually becoming straw, with fine strands growing out of what remained of the baked clay.

Then they were in Oxford, and rising into the twilight sky was a bridge of worked stone. It was a massive construct that stretched as high as he could see, held up by no visible means of support. He looked at it, and he imagined that the stone itself was rippling with subtle movement as if it were alive.