The Valley of Thunder

  Clive was the last to be loaded onto the cart. He felt nauseous when it came his turn to be hoisted up and laid down beside the others. His skin crawled at the feel of their hands on him. Unable to move, unable to even speak. To be so helpless. ... If he'd had a weapon in hand. Clive would gladly have killed the pair of them in cold blood.

  "Oh, you're a hater, you are." Hare said, looking down into his face. "Hold that hate to you, assassin. The Lords feed on it."

  Laughing, he got into the passenger seat. Burke sat down behind the wheel and the cart moved smoothly off on its fat wheels, through the door and down a long corridor. All Clive could see of their passage was the flicker of the ceiling lights as they went by. He tried counting them, as a means of memorizing the route, but he soon lost track of both the number of lights and the turns that they took.

  Finally, after what seemed like an inordinately long journey, through corridors as bafflingly laid out as the maze that they had so recently escaped, the cart came to a halt, and Burke and Hare were hoisting them from the bed of the cart and carrying them into a jail cell. The pair stood Clive and his companions up against one wall, vacated the cell, and locked the door behind them. Not until then did Hare take that small box from his belt once more and aim it at the four.

  When he depressed its control button, use of their own muscles returned to Clive and the other three. But their legs buckled under them, and it was all they could do to keep themselves from smacking their heads against the floor.

  "Goodbye for now!" Hare called cheerily.

  "W-wait...." Clive called.

  But Burke had already set the cart in motion, and the pair of them whizzed out of sight.

  Slowly, Clive sat up. His muscles felt bruised and sore. His head ached. He was hungry and thirsty, and what little patience he had had completely run its course.

  "Damn them all to bloody hell!" he cried.

  "Keep it down, would you?"

  The voice was familiar, though it didn't belong to any of his companions. Clive turned slowly to face its source.

  gaze taking in the double set of tiered cots—one pair to either side of the back wall—the water bucket, another for bodily wastes, until he was looking at the man who had spoken.

  This was too much.

  "You!" he cried. "It's your fault that we're here."

  "Me? I've never seen you before in my life."

  But if the man wasn't Father Neville of Dramaran— the one who'd stolen the history and name of Clive's twin and abandoned them in the cavern, with its maze and monsters—then he was an identical twin.

  Clive rose to his feet and stalked over to the other side of the cell, until he stood against the bars looking into the neighboring one.

  "I'm tired of your lies." Clive said.

  "I tell you. I've never met you before."

  Clive thrust an arm through the bars, and the man backed hastily away, even though Clive couldn't reach far enough into the other cell to hurt him anyway.

  "Wait a minute, sah," Smythe said, "Let's give him a listen, first."

  "What for? To hear more lies?"

  Smythe shook his head. "Look at him. He thinks he's telling the truth. I'll wager that he has never seen us before. And besides, how could he have gotten here before us?"

  He tugged at Clive's arm. moving him away from the bars as he spoke, and settling him on a lower cot in their own cell.

  "The resemblance is uncanny," Guafe remarked. "All the way down to the mole at his wrist."

  Smythe nodded. "What's your name?" he asked the man in the other cell.

  "Edgar Howlett," he replied. "I came to the Dungeon twelve years ago, from the continent known as North America, on a planet called Earth. The year I was taken was nineteen eighty-three."

  Clive, feeling a little calmer now, took in that information. But more importantly, he weighed the man's delivery. Horace was right. Whatever else might be, the man truly believed he was who he said he was.

  "And do you have a brother?" Smythe asked.

  Howlett shook his head. "Not one," he said. "Now it's my turn for questions. What are your names? Where are you from?"

  In the same manner as Howlett had done, they gave him their names, places of origin, and the years of disappearance from their homelands. Finnbogg was the last to speak.

  "Ten thousand years?" Howlett said in disbelief. "You've been here that long?"

  The dwarf nodded.

  "This place has got to be Hell," Howlett said.

  In that they were all in agreement, except, of course, Guafe.

  "But there is so much to learn here," the cyborg said.

  "Screw learning," Howlett told him. "I finished high school. I'm a plumber, okay? What else do I have to know? I just want to get home again—see the wife and kid. Christ, Tommy'll be—what? Eighteen now. I missed seeing him grow up. I... aw, what's the point. I figure I died, you know? Back in Milwaukee, I didn't think I was that bad a guy, but this sure isn't Heaven, so it's got to be Hell."

  "We are not dead." Guafe said. "I would know if I had died."

  "Christ, look who's talking. The Bionic Man himself."

  "I am not sure that I care for the tone of your voice," Guafe said.

  Howlett shrugged. "So what're you going to do about it? Call for a guard?"

  Guafe stepped up to the bars separating their cells. Getting a firm grip on two. he began to exert pressure on them. Slowly, they started to bend.

  Before things got too serious, Smythe crossed to Guafe's side and laid a calming hand on his shoulder.

  "There's much we could learn from Mr. Howlett," he said.

  Guafe turned, metallic eyes flashing, but Howlett, his own eyes going wide as the bars bent under the cyborg's strength, stood up and held his hands placatingly in front of him.

  "Hey, easy now." he said. "You've got me all wrong. I used to love the Bionic Man. It was my favorite show— you know what I'm saying?"

  Guafe let his hands fall from the bars. Howlett let out an audible sigh of relief. Then, before anyone else could speak, he turned to Clive.

  "You said your last name's Folliot?" he asked.

  Clive nodded.

  "Any relation to a guy named Neville Folliot?"

  Clive's suspicions rose to the fore once more. "He's my twin brother." he said. "How do you know his name?"

  "It's also the name your twin was calling himself the last time we saw him." Smythe put in.

  "I told you." Howlett said. "I don't have any brothers—or sisters. The guy you saw must've been a clone, but I do know Neville Folliot. He's the reason I'm in this jam."

  "A clone." Guafe said. "Of course."

  "What's a clone?" Smythe asked him.

  "Cloning is a form of genetic manipulation whereby an entire exact replica of a being can be grown from just one cell taken from the donor."

  "That kind of thing's possible?" Howlett asked.

  "Very possible," Guafe replied.

  Howlett shook his head. "I only saw it in the movies, you know? I didn't think it was real."

  "What did my brother have to do with your present situation?" Clive asked.

  "Well, I met him, must have been five or six years or so ago, up on one of the upper levels. We hung around together for a while—came down from the third level, through the fourth and fifth—did you see the dinosaurs on the fifth?—until we finally ended up here. We got snatched by the border patrol, or whatever the hell they're called, and that's when old Neville put the knife to me."

  "He attacked you?" Clive asked.

  "Naw. He turned rat on me. Told the authorities that I was an agent of the Madonna's—you heard of her?"

  "Briefly." Smythe said. "In our time, we refer to the Madonna as the Mother of Christ."

  "Yeah? Well, in mine she's a pop singer, sexy as all get-out. But here she's some kind of. I don't know—I think demagogue's the word Neville used to describe her."

  "Is she of the Ren, or the Chaffri?" Clive asked.

  "No way of tel
ling." Howlett told him. "I never could keep those sides straight. I don't think anyone can. Anyway, this may be something strictly local. There's an awful lot in the Dungeon that the Chaffri and the Ren don't bother getting involved with, even if they are the big bosses."

  "What about Green?" Smythe asked.

  "Green what?"

  "A man named Green. Did Major Folliot—Neville— ever mention him? Is he an ally or a foe? Ren or Chaffri?"

  "Never heard of him."

  Clive shook his head sadly. Would they never find two pieces of information that fit together?

  Howlett continued his tale. "Anyway, Neville told the authorities that I was the Madonna's agent, and not only that, but that she was also sending in a bunch of assassins to kill the Lords, and the way to recognize them was that they'd be speaking English.

  "They only half believed him. Kept him in that cell you're in right now up until about a half hour ago—I guess that's when they caught you and found out he was telling the truth. Or, at least, what they perceived as the truth. So they let him go. Or took him away, anyway."

  "He was here?" Clive cried. "In this very cell, not half an hour ago?"

  "'Fraid so."

  "God damn the man. What is he playing at?"

  Howlett shook his head. "Damned if I know. I thought we were buddies." He paused, thinking for a moment. "This other guy looked exactly like me?" "Down to the mole," Smythe said.

  "Christ, talk about giving you the creeps."

  "What we should also consider." Guafe said, "is the possibility that the Neville Folliot we are chasing is another clone. Who knows how many of them there might be?"

  "A clone?" Clive said. "As this man's twin was? This is really possible?"

  "In my world it is." Guafe said. "And in this Dungeon...."

  He let the sentence trail off, unfinished, as Clive sat back down on the cot and bent over, face pressed into the palms of his hands.

  "I feel like I'm going mad," he said.

  "First things first," Smythe said. "Let's get out of this place, then you can go mad."

  "But, Horace. When you think of it... two. perhaps dozens of Nevilles running about...."

  "I know, sah. It's not a pleasant thought, by any stretch of the imagination. But we still have to escape."

  He turned slowly, then his gaze settled on the bars that Guafe had bent between Howlett's cell and their own.

  "We need your strength for this." he told the cyborg. "Can you pull the bars far enough apart for Howlett to join us, and then repeat the trick on the ones facing the corridor?"

  Guafe nodded. He returned to where he'd first opened a gap between the bars. Gripping them once more, he began to exert pressure on the steel. Slowly, the gap widened until it was just big enough for Hewlett to squeeze through. Turning, Guafe stepped over to the bars facing the corridor and repeated the maneuver.

  Moments later they were all standing out in the corridor.

  "Now what?" Clive said.

  "We find your brother, or we find a way out of here." Smythe said. "Whichever comes first."

  "I'd like a piece of him." Howlett muttered, but then he realized who he was talking to. "Sorry. I forgot he's your brother. It's just, after the way he screwed me...."

  "I sympathize," Clive said. "But if you want a 'piece of him,' as you put it. I'm afraid you'll just have to wait in line."

  Twenty-Eight

  "I don’t get it," Annabelle said, leafing through Neville Folliot's journal. "What’s this doing here?"

  Unspoken, but lying there plainly behind her words all the same, was the thought. If the journal's here, then what had happened to Clive and the others? The last time they'd set eyes on this book, it had been in Clive's possession.

  Could it be a copy? Shriek asked.

  Annabelle shook her head. "I don't think so." She glanced at the others. "You got any ideas. Sidi? Tomàs?"

  "Something has happened to the others." Tomàs said. "Sim?"

  "Yeah. I got a real bad feeling about this, too." She looked around the room. "I wonder how you buzz room service in this place?"

  "Room service?" Sidi asked.

  "To talk to Binro, or whoever's in charge. I want to know what this is doing here."

  "Perhaps that wouldn't be such a good idea. Annabelle. If the journal is here and something has happened to the others, then it stands to reason that our hosts must be involved."

  "Right. So let's get outta here."

  She swung her feet off the bed and, journal in hand, headed for the door. She gave the knob a twist, but it wouldn't budge.

  "Perfect. We're locked in. God, what a bunch of assholes we’ve turned out to be. Pilgrims, right. Guests. Let’s try prisoners on for size."

  She turned to Shriek to see if the alien could take down the door.

  "Does the journal say anything about Tawn?" Sidi asked.

  Good point, Annabelle thought.

  Returning to the bed, she sat down and began to flip through the pages. She passed through sections where Clive's sketches filled the blank spaces where once there had been Neville's entries. There was enough there to tell her that Clive and his party had successfully crossed the veldt on the fifth level, and had reached a city there. She didn't want to think about what the portrait of the woman meant. At last, she found a new message.

  "Here we go," she said.

  As far as they could figure out from Neville's rather cryptic words. Tawn was the focus of an ancient and continuing war between factions led by the Lords of Thunder, on one side, and someone called the Madonna, on the other.

  "Jesus," Annabelle said softly as she read further. She looked up at her companions. "What did you see out that window?"

  "A large city, much like Calcutta," Sidi said. "Just below our window is a marketplace."

  Tomàs shook his head. "No. It is a harbor, filled with ships from many nations."

  When the question was put to Shriek, she described some alien cityscape.

  And I saw a variation on New York, Annabelle thought.

  "There's nothing out there," she said, "according to Neville."

  "Nothing?" Sidi asked. He returned to the window. "But it seems so real...."

  "They're playing with our heads," Annabelle said. "The whole thing's a scam. Listen to this. 'Trust not in Tawn, even in what your own eyes tell you, for they fill up emptiness with what is familiar. Keep a sphinx's riddle for the Lords of Thunder, lest you be taken for fuels.'"

  "The riddle of the sphinx is a question that can't be answered," she explained. "And I don’t think I wanna find out firsthand what he means by ‘taken for fuels.'"

  Annabelle slammed the journal closed.

  "We don’t need this crap." she said. "Shriek, can you get that door open?"

  The arachnid flexed her multiple arms. Advancing on the door, she pressed the palms of her upper arms against it to get a sense of its density.

  Bring me a chair, she said.

  Annabelle brought one of them over, but before Shriek could use it as a makeshift battering ram, the door opened and Binro was standing there, a smile touching his features. He held a small device in his hand that reminded Annabelle of a remote control for a TV.

  "Congratulations," he said. "I took the liberty of entering your names in the lottery as a group, and you have won the privilege of speaking with the Oracle."

  "As opposed to being god food without trying to stump the Oracle?" Annabelle asked.

  Binro blinked. "Pardon?"

  "Outta the way, pal. We’ve decided to find new lodgings."

  The little man sighed as Annabelle advanced on him. Before either she or Shriek could grab him, he thumbed a button on the device in his hand.

  There was nothing to see, and little to feel except for an electric tingle that ran up their nerve ends. But when Annabelle tried to move, she realized that every one of her muscles had been paralyzed. From her companions' lack of movement, she realized that they'd all been hit by an invisible stasis ray.

&nb
sp; Oh, beautiful, she thought. The little twerp was a science fiction freak. Except this wasn't the movies. It was the real thing, and they were up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

  Fuming, all she could do was watch as Binro called up what looked like a small golf carl to transport the four of them to the Oracle. Its driver was much taller than Binro—a thin, cadaverous individual who made Annabelle think of a junkie. With the driver’s help, Binro loaded them onto the flat bed at the back of the cart, then they were carried down a series of long corridors to an elevator.

  Binro leaned back to look at Annabelle's frozen face. "There was really no need for things to be so unpleasant," he told her. "This is a great honor for you— speaking with the Oracle, and then meeting the Lords of Thunder."

  Screw you, Annabelle thought.

  Binro must have read something of her feelings in her eyes for he frowned, then gave a shrug and turned in his seat, leaving her to herself once more.

  When I get out of this.... Annabelle thought.

  The elevator doors slid open, and the cart pulled out into a vast chamber with cathedral ceilings. Binro and his companion unloaded them. When all four of them were lying on the floor, staring up at the vast ceiling, the cart withdrew, back into the elevator. Though she couldn't turn her head to see what they were doing, Annabelle assumed that Binro had thumbed his stasis device again, because she started to feel a new tingle in her nerve ends, and her muscles went slack. She turned just in time to see the door of the elevator slide shut once more.

  Her body had that numbed, prickly feeling of an arm or leg that had fallen asleep. It took a few moments for it to wear off enough so that she could sit up and take stock.

  "Everybody okay?" she asked.

  The stasis ray appeared to have had the worst effect upon Shriek—probably due to her alien musculature— and she was the last to recover. Annabelle helped her to her feet.

  "What is this place?" Sidi murmured.

  "Home of the gods," Annabelle said. "Can't you tell?"

  But for all the lightness of her tone, the place gave her the creeps. The room was enormous—a feeling that was compounded by the immense ceiling that rose some three stories above the floor. There were glass domes set into its curved features, through which a pale, orange-yellow light issued. The floor was the size of half a football field.