Before her eyes, she watched galaxies being born out of dust, only to die again in fiery collapses of blackness.
She stretched her eyes wider, wanting to see more. The upper arcade of the room sped to a blur that defied dimension. All that remained were the glowing eyes of the beings. Their light filled her skull and built into an exquisitely painful pressure. She breathed in through her nose and out her mouth. She employed ancient meditative techniques of yogis in India. She gave herself over to nothingness like the monks in Nepal. She relaxed her body to a limp receptiveness.
She did not fight.
She flowed with the light, accepted its burning glory with no resistance. Birth was painful, but ultimately it brought one out of darkness into life. Here was yet another form of birth. She would be the first of humankind to pierce that new barrier into a grander existence.
All would be known then.
As the pressure increased, it felt like the sutures in her skull were cracking open. She breathed harder, panting against the pain. Her vision widened in scope as if she were hovering just inches from her own body. Though she never looked away from the eyes, her vision expanded, widened.
Through her new eyes, she saw one of her men stumble across the room, wobbling, holding his head. Perhaps sensing her observation, he swung toward her. One arm reached out, searching blindly. His mouth stretched open in a silent scream, beyond pain into something worse. Blood poured down his cheeks. Smoke steamed from his eye sockets.
Despite the horror, she felt no pity. The man was untrained, unfit for the glory here. He had fought when he should have bent to the solar winds that blew out of the brightness from the swirling eyes.
The soldier hobbled toward her, pleading, warning.
Then he fell face-forward.
Dead.
But he never struck the floor. Instead he floated at half-mast, suspended over the ground. His body began to rise, drawn upward. She was surprised to find one of her own arms lifting toward him.
Then his limp body twirled and spun higher.
Though her physical eyes never shifted from the glowing eyes, still she followed the body’s path upward with her expanded vision. That inner part of her craned high—and discovered a writhing blackness found only in the center of dead stars. The darkness screamed down at her with the cold fury of the unknown, the unknowable.
The horror of it blinded her new vision. Terrified, she collapsed back into her own mind, back into an agony that splintered the bones of her skull. As she snapped into herself, she found herself face-to face with one of the beings.
It towered directly in front of her, its eyes blazing with galactic fires.
How had it gotten there?
She had never seen it leave the throne.
At the periphery of her vision, she also noted that the upper arcade of the throne room had stopped spinning. Something was about to happen.
More light blazed out of the eyes of the tall being before her and into hers. Understanding dawned as bright as the light and as painful as the pressure in her skull. Spalko suddenly knew the truth. This enlightenment was no gift. This creature was attempting to destroy her, using its knowledge like a dagger.
NO . . . !
With a wrench that was as much mental as physical, she tore her head from the blaze of its fiery eyes. She turned her back on the creature—only to find another being standing there, appearing out of nowhere. Its eyes locked upon hers and raged with the fire of a thousand suns.
NO . . . !
She could not even blink. The flow of light held her lids open. All she could do was turn—
—to find that another being stood on her left.
—and on her right.
—and all around her.
NO MORE . . . !
They circled her completely, shoulder-to-shoulder, with her in the center. All thirteen pairs of eyes blazed down upon her.
“Cover them . . . Cover them . . . ,” she gasped out, knowing in her heart that no one remained in the room.
More light and knowledge filled her. Her senses expanded again, unbidden now. Her temples throbbed. She felt a cascade of energy storm across the folds of her brain, crystallizing membranes in its wake.
All the better to conduct more power into her.
There was no stopping it.
From her lips, alien language babbled.
Faster and faster.
It poured out of her, spilling forth as if she overflowed.
With senses expanded beyond human endurance, Spalko felt more of her brain tissue harden into crystal. Hot tears flowed down her cheeks, leaving burning trails.
Not tears.
Blood.
Her senses expanded again. As before, she found herself floating, seeing the world from a foot above her own head. She remembered accounts of near-death experiences: how victims sensed themselves floating out of their own bodies, looking down from above. She did that now. She drifted higher, spinning—suspended in fiery agony. She was high enough now to be able to stare down at her own face.
Blood poured out of her eyes, which quaked and smoked.
She watched them turn black.
Watched them.
Her lips moved below—erupting in a scream of horror.
“I CAN STILL SEE!”
Even with no eyes, more light flowed into her.
She felt it as she floated higher.
With a final blast her brain turned to pure crystal and reflected back all that power in one blazing burst. Flames shot like geysers out of her sockets, a fire so hot it burned bone, hollowed out her sockets to a smoking husk.
Below, her body collapsed, all connections to it severed, like a blown-out candle. But like the soldier, her body never struck the floor. It drifted up after her, following her, her own corpse.
Dead arms flailed as if reaching for her.
She screamed in horror and twisted away—
—only to face the churning cauldron of dark energy, of impossible dimensions, of nothingness that waited for her.
Chased by her own corpse, she sailed up into it.
And away.
FIFTY-EIGHT
FED BY NETHER forces at the edges of the universe and nourished by the energy of vibrating atoms, the vortex grows. It swells outward along elliptical planes that shatter dimensions. It consumes all matter in its path. Deep in its heart, dark energies and dark matter churn, preparing for what must come.
But before that can happen, it needs to grow much stronger.
And to do that . . .
It needs to feed.
FIFTY-NINE
MAC FELT SOMETHING following him, a prickling at the back of his neck.
With his heart pounding, he ran faster, jangling down yet another corridor. Explosions rocked the floor under him. Distant booms echoed from much deeper underground. The air itself felt charged. It was as if he were running through the eye of a hurricane. Though there was nothing threatening that he could see with his eyes, he knew something pursued him, hunted him.
He also had to admit one other thing.
He was bloody lost.
So he ran faster.
It was the only thing he could think to do.
As he fled down an especially long corridor, cracks began skittering alongside him, racing with him, splitting walls, floors, ceiling. It was as if he were running on thin ice that was giving way around him. An especially loud grind of stone drew his attention behind him. Glancing over a shoulder, he watched a dark shadow flow into the far end of the passageway.
He blinked and squinted. Whatever was back there was slippery to the eye, hard to focus on. He dismissed it.
Just a trick of the light.
Still, his slowing feet sped up again. Ahead, the passage dead-ended into another corridor. A familiar figure shot past along that distant corridor, holding his fedora to his head.
Brilliant.
If anyone could find a way out of here . . .
Indy fled down the hallway. He
was losing ground, his hip aching. Oxley was keeping up better than he was. Ahead, Marion and Mutt vanished around another corner. There were a lot of damn corners down here.
A large quake lifted the floor and dropped it.
Unprepared, Indy fell to a knee. Cries echoed to him from up ahead. That was a big quake. The vortex and its energies must be tearing apart the foundations of the city. If it continued, it threatened to drop the whole place down on top of them. Their only hope was to find a way out of this subterranean maze before that happened.
Indy shoved himself up and kept going, determined to survive. He had just reunited with Marion and discovered a son. He would not lose them again. He started forward, but before he could take two steps someone clapped him on the shoulder, scaring the wits out of him.
“We did it, Indiana!” a familiar voice shouted.
He groaned inwardly. You’ve got to be kidding. Still, he shouldn’t have been surprised.
“Rats and sinking ships,” Indy mumbled as he glanced over sourly at Mac.
As Indy fled, he had been praying for a miracle. This wasn’t it. But he was too exhausted to do more than glare. Still, he had broken Mac’s nose twice. And as they say, third time’s the charm.
Indy cocked his arm.
Mac held up a hand. “Wait! You knew I was with you all along, right?”
Though Indy didn’t believe a word of it, he still lowered his arm. What was the use? He scowled. “It’s whoever’s in the room, isn’t it, Mac?”
His friend smiled, unapologetic, no remorse. Mac had always been a man who fought dirty and Indy had known that about him—so why not this, too? Besides, Indy had a soft place in his heart for scoundrels. And despite Mac’s recent betrayals, the man had saved his life a few times over the years.
Indy finally relented and waved ahead. “C’mon, Mac. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
They ran for another minute in silence, just like old times. Indy even began to outpace his companion, which helped soothe his own wounded ego.
Mac called out behind him. “Indy?”
Indy turned at the strange note in his voice. Mac had stopped following. He had one foot out, leaning forward, but he was unable to move. Strain showed in his reddening face, panic in his wide, shining eyes.
Behind him, darkness churned at the end of the hallway, shifting and swirling with gravitational energies.
The vortex had found them.
Indy felt the force of it now, too—like a wind in the face that had been growing steadily stronger, blowing against him, trying to force him back.
Mac, farther down the hall, struggled against that power. He leaned with his arms toward Indy, grasping for some hold in the empty air. Indy noted that Mac’s jacket extended behind him, stretched by pockets heavy and full.
Gold glinted there.
Indy now understood what held his friend trapped.
“Mac! Get rid of your metal!”
The darkness crept closer with swirls of ink and gravity. Loose rocks rattled and rolled toward its black maw. Cracks splintered across the floor and chased straight for them. At the back of the hall, the walls began to buckle and collapse, dragged down the black gullet.
Closer at hand, one of Mac’s jacket pockets ripped at the seams. A cascade of gold and jewels flew out, jetting through the air to the vortex.
One of Mac’s hands reached for the emptying pocket.
“Mac!”
His friend realized his foolishness, his eyes back on Indy. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
Mac’s foot slipped, tugged by a laden pants pocket. He fell hard on his belly and began to slide backward. His hands scrabbled on the smooth stone floor, but he found no purchase.
“Indy!”
Despite his cry for help, Mac knew his doom.
It writhed with darkness and dread energies. Fighting against it, he flipped onto his back and braked with his feet, but still he kept sliding, if anything even faster. Rocks shot past him, not rolling anymore, but flying. The walls cracked in skittering bolts as the darkness pushed outward.
He dug in with his palms, his heels.
He still slid.
No one could resist that pull.
Kuh-RACK!
Something bit into the wrist of his outstretched arm. He stared up. A curl of leather cut hard into his wrist. He wrestled around onto his chest and grabbed the whip’s end in the fingers of his trapped arm.
The whip trailed, taut as steel, back to a figure who stood with both his feet braced wide, leaning back hard, like a fisherman with a hooked marlin.
Good ol’ Indiana!
Then Indy’s heels began to drag across the floor, pulled as Mac slid. His friend jerked an arm out and snagged a pillar as he passed, momentarily stopping them.
But for how long?
Mac read the strain on Indy’s face. His body was stretched as if on a torturer’s rack. And at Mac’s heels, the abyss yawned with the insatiable hunger of a dying star. And the vortex grew steadily toward him, pressure increasing with each breath.
Mac understood the truth.
“You gotta let go of me, mate!” he yelled.
Indy’s voice was an overtuned violin string. “C’mon, Mac! We’ve been through worse than this!”
“No, Indy. Not this time.”
Indy used his own words against him. “There’s always a way out, Mac!”
“Not at the very end, my friend . . .”
The darkness called for him, a mirror of his own heart. He’d been a bad friend to Indy in life. But maybe in death, he could be a better one.
Mac let go of the whip with his fingers and twisted his wrist free of the leather.
“No!” Indy called to him.
Unhooked, Mac flew down the hall. He saw Indy, unburdened now, fall back safe.
Good luck, my old friend.
With nothing else to do, Mac turned away and faced the darkness and the unknown. Despite his doom, a small grin formed on his lips.
He had pockets filled with gold.
And the great unknown ahead of him.
Let’s see where this goes!
SIXTY
INDY SCRAMBLED TO HIS FEET as Mac vanished into the darkness. He took a step after his friend, but in even that short distance he felt the dread power of what he faced increase tenfold. He not only felt it as a tug on his body, but also heard it silently screaming with forces beyond his comprehension, with energies not of this world.
He stood limned against that dark abyss.
And he took a step back.
Not in fear, but in simple certainty.
There was no rescuing Mac.
Not this time.
He heard a shout from around the corner behind him. “Indeeee!”
It was Marion.
Indy pushed backward against that pull, one hard step at a time. It was as if the air around him had become warm molasses, flowing toward the abysmal hole. He fought against it with all his will, driven not so much by pure survival as by something more important.
“Indeee!”
For the first time in his life, he had a reason to live—and no world-sucking vortex was going to stop him. With each step, he felt the pull of the abyss lessen. His pace increased, his feet stumbling in his haste.
At the rear of the hall, the walls buckled and huge cracks raced toward him as the underlying structure of the complex fractured. It was all coming down.
Reaching the far corner, Indy dashed around it and pounded along the next hall. He was pursued by skittering cracks in the walls.
Ahead, he spotted Marion. She stood at another corner of the interminable maze and pointed down the intersecting passageway.
“Indy!” Marions voice rang with relief, frosted with anger. “About time! Over here! There’s light!”
Bounding up to her, he scooped an arm around her waist and headed into the next passageway.
Here the tunnel walls had been dug out of black granite streaked with thick veins of crystallin
e quartz, and as Indy ran with Marion, the quartz veins widened—growing to encompass the walls, floor, and ceiling. In another few steps, the tunnel was pure quartz all around them.
Through the translucency, Indy noted water flowing behind the walls, heavy, turbulent, under high pressure. He pictured the giant reservoir over the city. They must be passing through the main feed for the metropolis’s extensive aqueduct system.
Suddenly the ground quaked under them, another massive jolt.
Indy glanced behind him.
At the far end of the passageway, the walls fractured. Cracks reached for them like the black fingers of the vortex, scrabbling after its escaping prey.
“Move it, Jones!” Marion hollered.
“You’re the boss!”
They fled faster.
Behind them, heavy grinds and deep groans followed. Rock shattered and pulverized as strange gravities tore it apart. Then a new noise joined in.
Splashing and spraying.
With a glance over his shoulder, Indy spotted fissures opening in the quartz behind them. Water jetted into the tunnel through the cracks. The far end of the passage gave way and collapsed with a concussive whomp. A large block of quartz cracked from the ceiling and dropped under a massive deluge of water, like the floodgates on a dam.
“Go!” Indy shouted, realizing the new danger.
More sections crashed behind them.
Indy didn’t look—just sprinted. Still, he heard the wall of water building behind them, pressured by the giant reservoir above.
They rounded a curve in the quartz tunnel, and Indy saw the source of the light. An exit must be near! Mutt and Oxley waited.
“Run!” he yelled at them.
“Where?” Mutt hollered back.
Then Indy saw Mutt’s eyes widen, in horror. The kid back-pedaled away. Indy feared to turn around. He ran up to Mutt and Oxley and realized two things at once.
There was an exit.
Only it was a hundred feet straight up a sheer shaft.
Sunlight streamed down at them.
There was no escape.
Indy turned as a wall of water roared straight at them down the tunnel, powered by the weight of the reservoir.
He ran to the others. “Hold tight!”