“Ow! What the fuck?”
“It’s the Reaper,” said Bern. “I’ve seen this happen. The tunnels and beasts, they work together sometime. It’s some kind of symbiosis … or maybe even different parts of the same organism.”
“Or maybe the roots want the damned things fed and back to their den,” said Lille. “Minimize the battering.”
A pale, frost-like patina spread out from the patch as the hardening and condensing propagated down the length of the tunnel.
“Oh Lord! But I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Bern. “We’re trapped in this tunnel.”
“This is not just any Reaper,” said Lille. “This is a Mother.”
“I bet its range is limited,” said Karla. “Lille, take Jeff and Isobel up the tunnel. Keep going until you find a place to break through the wall. James and I will hold the beast back.”
“Say what?” I said, startled. I was ready to run.
“It is the only way,” said Karla. “If we all leave together, it will follow, and seal the tunnel wherever we go.”
“Oh for Heaven’s Sake,” said the freckled lady, stepping forward. “Do you all need a human sacrifice? Because I volunteer.”
“Kind of you, ma’am,” said Bern. “But to it you’re just a snack. I doubt you would even slow the creature down.”
Karla tore a root from Isobel’s pod and fashioned it into a long bow. She broke off strands and formed arrows, feathering the tail and pinching the other into sharp, barbed points.
“I’m not leaving, La,” said Isobel. “I will fight with you.”
“M-me too,” said Jeff. “This … was in my dream.”
“Isobel, you will do what I say and go with Lille. You are too new here to make a difference.”
I had been standing around, befuddled, still hoping we’d all reach a consensus to flee. When Karla glared at me, I reached down and peeled off a chunk of the brittle stalk that had attached Isobel’s pod.
I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the most potent hand-held weapon I could imagine. I waffled between a .50 caliber machine gun, an RPG launcher and a bazooka.
Having never handled such devices, I was forced to use movies to try to visualize what one would look like, but it was difficult to wrap my mind around all those moving parts and mechanisms. I conjured scenes from Black Hawk Down, Saving Private Ryan, Kill Bill.
Kill Bill? Where had that thought come from? There were no bazookas in that movie.
The roots in my hand churned and twisted. Knobby bumps formed only to melt away. Instead a gun or rocket launcher, the most beautiful steel samurai sword formed under my hands. Bern gasped.
“Marvelous, James! It looks sharper than the dickens.”
“I was hoping for a bazooka.”
Jeff saw what I had done and tried his own hand at creating. He came away with a limp root that recalled some of my first attempts at weaving.
“All of you, quit standing around!” said Karla. “Take Isobel and go! We will discourage it from following too close. We will buy you some time.”
“But La!” said Isobel.
“Don’t worry, Izzie, we will catch up with you. I promise.”
Lille took Isobel’s hand. “That means you, too, old man,” said Lille to Bern.
“What do you mean? I’ve got my weapon at the ready.”
“Let the young ones deal with this. They’re spry enough and have enough sense to get out of the damned thing’s way when it makes its move. At least I hope ….”
Bern sighed, his face reddening. “Fine.” He lurched off after Lille and Jeff. “You two, don’t dally too long.”
“Isobel, you do what my friends say,” said Karla. “They are good people, they will keep you safe.”
The bloated creature lumbered forward into the light, looking like an enormous, deformed walrus, blind and obese. It dug its claws into the roots, its stubby legs struggling with the slope. It was heavily scarred, covered with warts and sore-like gaps in its hide.
The freckled lady staggered back from the wall. “Ew Lordy! This isn’t exactly what I bargained for.”
“It looks hurt,” I said.
“Reapers can shift their shapes but they don’t seem to heal very well,” said Karla. “They carry their wounds like badges. But it does not seem to slow them.”
“I’m joining your friends,” said the freckled lady. “Do you think they would mind?”
“Just go!” said Karla, without even looking at her. She was lengthening the arrows she had already made, broadening and sharpening their tips.
The woman trotted off, feet flopping side to side in a most awkward stride.
A spasm shook the tunnel wall. A wave of constriction came rippling forth from the Reaper, like a wave of fractured stone, knocking me off my feet. The freckled lady stumbled but kept on running.
The constriction slowed, halting before it reached the others. Bern reached the blunt end of his lance through the gap that remained. The freckled lady grasped it. He hauled her through. The tunnel crunched and crumbled as the walls continued to pinch shut. Isobel screamed. Bern’s stunned face was the last thing I saw before the tunnel collapsed completely. A wall of rubble now trapped us before the Reaper.
The tunnel walls around us creaked and crackled as the strands continued to harden, taking on the consistency of rebar and concrete. We backed away until we reached the dead end.
“The rubble, is it loose?” said Karla, keeping her eyes on the beast. “Can we dig our way through?”
I kicked at a pile. It didn’t budge. “It’s like … frozen solid.”
“Crap,” said Karla.
“So what do we do?”
“There’s nothing else to do,” she said. “But fight.”
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 to have 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 clawed pseudopods ripped free one by one. 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.”
“Astounding!” said Bern, staring down the tunnel at the enormous pit. “Incredible.”