“No deals.”
Putting all his arm and as much of his foot-locked body as he could behind it, Glaeken hurled the weapon at the sac. The huge eye ducked away as Rasalom’s voice screamed in his mind.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
The point of the blade pierced the membrane, penetrated about a foot, then stopped, quivering. Rasalom’s voice became a howl of pain as inky fluid spurted out around the blade, coating it, congealing around it, sealing the wound and encasing the weapon until the entire blade and all but the pommel of the hilt were mired in a hardening tarry mass.
And then Rasalom’s howl of pain segued into a peal of laughter. The single huge eye once again pressed against the inner surface of the membrane and regarded him coldly.
“Ah, Glaeken. Noble to the end. Just as well, I suppose. You probably knew you’d never see the tropical idyll I promised. But did you truly think you could hurt me? Here in the heart of my domain, in the seat of my power? Your arrogance is insufferable. It is too late to harm me, Glaeken—too late for a long time.”
Glaeken tried once more to pull his feet free but they would not budge. He took a deep breath and stood quietly, waiting, listening to the hated voice in his mind.
“You knew it was too late, Glaeken. You must have known all along. Yet knowing it was useless, still you took up the weapon and came to me instead of waiting for me to come to you. I don’t understand that. Can you explain your madness, your arrogance? We have some time. Speak.”
“If the answer is not apparent to you, no amount of talking will make you understand. Where do we go from here?”
“We wait. I’m almost ready. At the undawn I will be complete. When I emerge from my chrysalis I shall leave you here and move to the surface where I shall deal with your little circle of allies. And as I gut them I shall let you see it all through my eyes. And as for your wife, I shall keep my promise to you: I will restore her youth and her mind before her end—after all, we wouldn’t want her to die without knowing exactly what is happening. When all that is done, I’ll return for you. And then the fun shall truly begin.”
Glaeken said nothing. No use in asking for mercy for himself or the others when none was to be had. So he closed his eyes and willed his insides to stone to inure them from the sick dread coiling through him.
He’d failed.
“And while we wait, I believe I’ll close that tiny wound in my perfect night. Too many people are taking undue pleasure in it. Imagine their fear and dismay when it starts to fade and they realize that they are naked prey to all the night things encircling them. Yes, I like that idea. I should have thought of the pinhole myself. Allow a little cone of light through here and there about the world, let the locals run to it like moths to a flame, let it shine long enough to lift hopes, and then douse it. Thank you, Glaeken. You’ve given me a new game.”
“Look at them all,” Carol said. “Must be thousands down there.”
She’d returned with the others to the living room of Glaeken’s apartment and now she gazed down through the broken windows at the crowd below, listening to the noise floating up as each new arrival was greeted with cheers and hugs. A good sound, the noise of people breaking from unrelenting fear.
“It’s the radio,” Bill said. “The only station still on air in town is playing a message sending everybody here.”
Suddenly it went quiet below.
“What happened?” Carol’s heart thudded with alarm and she clutched his arm. “I think the light just dimmed. Tell me I’m wrong, Bill. Tell me I’m wrong!”
Bill glanced at her, then back out the windows.
“No … I’m afraid you’re right. Look—it just dimmed a little more!”
“It’s Glaeken’s fault,” said a familiar voice.
They all turned. Nick was still sitting on the couch where they’d left him, still facing the dead fireplace.
“Glaeken has lost. Rasalom is ascendant.”
“Glaeken is … dead?” Sylvia said, stepping forward, hovering over Nick.
Carol was surprised at her concern. She’d thought Sylvia blamed Glaeken for Jeffy’s condition.
“Not yet,” Nick said. “But soon. We’ll die. Then he’ll die. Slowly.”
Carol heard a new sound well up from the crowd outside—murmurs of fear, wails of panic. She turned back to the window and had the sudden impression that their cries of despair seemed to chase the light. She watched with growing dread as it faded from midday glare to twilight glow.
They’re afraid again.
“Afraid!” she cried. “Maybe that’s it.” Suddenly she knew what had to be done—or thought she knew. “Bill, Sylvia, everybody—downstairs. Now!”
She didn’t wait to explain and she didn’t wait for the elevator. Filled with a growing excitement and a desperate urgency, she galloped down the dizzying flights to the ground floor, dashed through the lobby, and out into the crowd on the twilit sidewalk.
Bill was right behind her, then Ba, carrying Jeffy and guiding Sylvia through the restless, panicky people. Carol led them to the edge of the fading light, right to the shadow border facing the park, then grabbed Bill’s hand in her right and took a stranger’s—a frightened-looking black woman’s—in her left.
“I won’t be afraid anymore!” Carol shouted at the huge outer darkness that tried to stare her down. She squeezed the woman’s hand. “Say it,” she told her. “I won’t be afraid anymore! Grab somebody’s hand and say it as loud as you can.” She turned to Bill. “Shout it, Bill. Mean it. Take a hand and get them to say it!”
Bill stared at her. “What’s this—?”
“Just do it. Please! There’s not much time.”
Bill shrugged and grabbed someone’s hand and began repeating the phrase. She noticed that the black woman to her left had taken a young man’s hand and was repeating the phrase to him. Carol turned and saw a very grim Sylvia standing behind her, arms folded across her chest.
“Come on, Sylvia!”
She shook her head. “This is nuts. It’s—it’s hippie bullshit. Like those peaceniks back in the sixties trying to levitate the Pentagon. You can’t chant Rasalom away.”
“I know that. But maybe we can put a kink in his plans. His whole thrust has been to isolate us from each other, to use fear to break us up into separate, frightened little islands. But look what’s happened here. One little ray of light and we’ve suddenly got a crowded little island. What if we refuse to play his game anymore? What if we refuse to run screaming in fear back to our hidey-holes? What if we stand here as a group and defy him? There’s a defect up there, a hole in Rasalom’s night. Maybe we can keep it open. Maybe we can even widen it. What have we got to lose that’s not already lost?”
“Not one damn thing!” a nearby bedraggled, middle-aged woman said. She pulled Sylvia’s arm away from her chest and grabbed her hand. “I won’t be afraid anymore!”
“Okay, okay,” Sylvia said through tightly clenched teeth as she clutched Jeffy’s arm in one hand and the woman’s in the other. “Do your worst—I won’t be afraid anymore!”
Carol felt her throat tighten at the defiance in her voice.
The chant was becoming more organized, picking up a rhythm as it spread through the crowd, growing in volume as more and more voices chimed in …
And then the light around them brightened. The increase was barely noticeable, but it was noticed. A cheer rose from the crowd and suddenly everyone was a believer. The chant doubled, tripled in volume.
Carol laughed as tears sprang into her eyes. She heard Sylvia’s voice behind her.
“It’s working! It’s working!”
Everyone in the crowd was involved now, shouting at the tops of their lungs. And the light continued to brighten. Carol had no doubt now that the glow was growing stronger. Even the light in the channel that had trailed Glaeken into the park was growing brighter.
But more than that, the cone of light was growing wider, inching across the pavement toward the park, pump
ing pulses of brightness along the luminous channel that led to the Sheep Meadow hole.
And more people were coming, running to the light, swelling the crowd, swelling the sound of defiance.
Something was happening.
Rasalom had been uncharacteristically silent. And his huge new form did not lie quiet in its amniotic sac. The membrane rippled now and again, like a chill running over fevered skin, and occasionally it bulged in places as Rasalom shifted within.
Glaeken closed his eyes and tried to sense what was going on. He stood perfectly still, listening, feeling.
Warmth.
Light … light growing above. Not visible here, but he sensed it. Light and warmth, seeping into the earth above the cavern. And behind …
He turned and looked down the passageway. Where he’d left perfect darkness, he now saw the faintest glow. An illusion? Or the harbinger of a tiny dawn?
Glaeken turned back to his ancient enemy.
“What’s happening upstairs, Rasalom? Tell me!”
But now it was Rasalom’s turn to be silent.
Sylvia watched the scene from a second-floor window. The noise, the press of people had begun to frighten Jeffy so she’d brought him inside.
The cone of light had returned to noontime brightness and was widening steadily now, creeping uptown and down along the street, invading the park. The crowd, too, was swelling steadily, the light and the noise attracting thousands more. The Manhattan mix was there, red, yellow, Central African ebony to Norwegian white and every shade between.
The chant Carol had started still reverberated loud and clear, but here and there in the crowd Sylvia noticed pockets of people singing and dancing. A couple of MP3 ghetto blasters had appeared and different kinds of music, from hip-hop to salsa, were each attracting their own fans. A couple of guys were leading a big group in singing “Happy Together.” She guessed that was just as effective. You didn’t have to proclaim your lack of fear when you were singing and dancing. And from directly below her window, uncertain harmonies drifted up as a ragtag group tried to find a comfortable key for “The Closer You Are.”
Sylvia thought of Alan then and how he’d loved doo-wop and suddenly she was crying.
Oh, Alan. My God, how I miss you. You belong here, not me. You loved people so much more than I. I should be dead and you should be here.
Alan … after he’d pulled out of the coma from the Dat-tay-vao, she’d come to think of him as indestructible. An indisputable assumption: Alan would be around forever. She’d never considered the possibility of life without him. And now he was gone—no body, no grave, no trace, just gone—and she hadn’t even had a chance to say good-bye.
She hugged Jeffy closer. It was all so damn unfair.
For a brief while she had blamed Glaeken, but knew now that he, too, was paying a terrible price. She’d seen it in his eyes as he’d picked up the hilt and told her to get Jeffy clear—the anger, the frustration, the vulnerability, the weary resignation. All in a single glance. The weight of the terrible responsibility he was shouldering once more had struck her like a blow. She’d instantly regretted all the angry things she’d said to him.
And now maybe he was gone too.
She watched the arc of light edging through the park—well into the Sheep Meadow now, almost to the rim of the hole. Did that mean they were winning, or was this just a false hope?
Sylvia closed her eyes and hugged Jeffy tighter.
If you’re still alive down there, Glaeken, please know that you’re in our thoughts. If there’s anything you can do, do it. Get him, Glaeken. Don’t let him get away with what he’s done to us. GET HIM!
Yes, light was seeping down the tunnel. Glaeken was sure of it now. Growing steadily. And Rasalom … Rasalom was thrashing about in his amniotic sac.
What was happening up on the surface? The weapon was here, useless, encased in hardened fluid from the sack. What in the name of anything could exert such a disturbing effect on Rasalom?
Suddenly a thunderous rumble from the tunnel behind him. The support shuddered beneath Glaeken’s feet. He twisted and saw the growing glow disappear as the roof of the tunnel collapsed, choking the passage with rubble. As the tunnel mouth belched a cloud of dust, Rasalom’s voice returned.
“Once again you’ve chosen a vexing group of friends, Glaeken.”
A warm glow of pride lit within him, along with a glimmer of—did he dare?—hope.
“They’re a tough bunch. What have they done?”
“Nothing that will matter in the long run, but for the present they’ve created an annoyance, an inconvenience.”
“What?”
“They’ve enlarged the pinhole in the night-cover made by your puny little weapon.”
Glaeken steadied himself, choked down the shout of triumph that surged against his vocal cords. He maintained a calm exterior.
“How?”
“How is irrelevant. Their success is irrelevant. The entire world is in darkness. A single cone of sunlight, no matter how bright, is laughably insignificant.”
Glaeken sensed the weight of all that Rasalom had left unsaid.
“Sunlight, Rasalom? Since when have you been afraid of sunlight?”
“I fear nothing, Glaeken. I am master of this sphere. It fears me.”
“It’s not sunlight, is it, Rasalom. It’s another kind of light. Light from your enemy. And it comes at a time and place that’s more than ‘inconvenient.’ It’s shining directly above your little nest, and it has arrived at a time when you’re vulnerable, before your new form has matured.”
“Nonsense, Glaeken. Pure wishful thinking on your part. When my gestation is through, and that is only a matter of hours now, I shall personally plug that hole in my perfect night. Then you will see how ‘vulnerable’ I am.”
Glaeken noticed a growing warmth at his back. He twisted again toward the rubble-strewn tunnel. Something happening there.
And then he saw it. A gleaming pinpoint, a tiny bead no larger than a grain of sand, glowing near the top of the debris, growing bigger, growing brighter. The light seemed to be worming its way through the rubble, as if it had a mind of its own. But how was that possible?
“Don’t allow yourself to hope, Glaeken. It cannot harm me.”
Yet Glaeken did allow himself to hope, could not help but hope when he saw the bead brighten suddenly and shoot out toward the pit in a narrow beam of brilliance, like a needle-thin blue-white laser streaming toward Rasalom. But it came up short against the support under Glaeken’s feet, spraying and splashing like water against a stone wall.
The beam persisted, though. Like a living thing with a will of its own, it split, one half sliding upward, the other down around the support. The light crept to the top just inches ahead of Glaeken’s trapped feet. As soon as it crested the support it raced downward to rejoin its other half. They fused and once again shot out toward Rasalom’s amniotic sac.
But the beam did not strike the sac. Instead it flashed toward the weapon, igniting the exposed butt of the hilt. The pommel blazed with blinding fire, and dimly, through the encrustations, Glaeken could see bolts of light flashing along the length of the blade.
Rasalom howled in Glaeken’s mind as he writhed and thrashed within his sac. Glaeken had a feeling that this time was no act.
The weapon began to vibrate, the encrustations cracked and fell away like old skin, and suddenly the hilt was free, blazing with white light.
Another beam of radiance broke through the rubble and flashed across the cavern. It too found the weapon and added its power to it.
But how … how could the light pass through the rubble?
And then he heard a stone tumble off the debris pile. Something—someone—was disturbing the rubble, clearing a passage along its top.
Glaeken knew of only one person with the indomitable will necessary to reach this spot.
As Rasalom’s howl rose to a shriek, Glaeken felt the tendrils wrapped around his legs begin to soften, their hold
weaken. He bent and tore at them, straining to pull free. No time to lose. Rasalom’s thrashings were shaking the weapon within the wound it had made. The beam of light stayed with it, moving whenever it did, but if the weapon slipped loose it would fall into the pit. And then Rasalom’s victory would be assured.
With a final surge, Glaeken yanked his legs free and leapt to the central disk where the four arched supports fused. He dropped to his belly, hung precariously over the edge, and reached for the weapon.
Cold-fire eternity beckoned below.
He fought a surge of vertigo and stretched his right arm to its limits, violently thrusting it down to force the ligaments to give him the tiny extra increment of length he needed to reach the jittering hilt. His fingertips brushed the pommel twice, and then with a final, agonizing thrust, he hooked two fingers around it. At his touch the weapon seemed to move on its own, slamming the grip of the hilt against his palm. Power surged up his arm and throughout his body and once more the weapon was his.
As he was the weapon’s.
He stood and looked about. The original beams of light and new ones from the rubble stayed with the blade, fueling it, following wherever he moved it. He couldn’t reach Rasalom or his sac, so he decided to try the next best thing.
Reversing his grip, he lifted the weapon high and drove the point down into the center of the nearest of the supporting arches. A blinding flash lit the cavern as the blade cut deep into the flinty substance. The material of the support began to bubble and smoke as the blade melted its way through it like a hot knife cutting frozen butter. Foul, greasy smoke, reeking of seared flesh, engulfed him. More flashes followed as Glaeken worked the blade back and forth, widening the gash as he deepened it, strobing the cavern with bursts of light and stretching weird shadows against its walls.
Rasalom howled.
“No, Glaeken! I command you to stop! Stop now or you’ll pay dearly. And so will your friends!”
Without pausing an instant in his labors, Glaeken glanced down at the huge eye pressed furiously against the membrane.