Dimension Of Horror Part 21

Blade answered. Of course he answered. Mazda was his name in this world. "Chara!"

Her cape swirled around her slender body. "Quick, Mazda! We must flee!"

Blade bounded into the saddle, seizing the reins. "Yes. Flee." Never had his mind been so sluggish, so reluctant to leave the realm of dreams.

King Rikard was running through the camp, shouting, kicking awake the men who lay around the campfire, and the women and neuters. "Spread out! Spread out! They can't track all of us!"

Blade thumped his horse in the ribs and galloped out of the camp; Chara rode, silent and grim, at his side. For a moment the confused feeing Tharnians surrounded them, then they broke free and rode through the fields, and only an occasional shout or whinny revealed the presence of what must have been a substantial army. Hundreds? Thousands? Blade could not remember.

Then Blade saw a distant dark ma.s.s. "This way, Chara," he said, turning his horse. "There's a forest over there."

"Yes, Mazda." She obeyed him instantly, without question.

For a while there was no sound but the drum of hooves, the rush of wind, and the flapping of Chara's cloak. She rode to his left and a little behind him. It was a warm night, without a moon. Under other circ.u.mstances it would have been pleasant to go riding with Chara.

They pa.s.sed the first spa.r.s.e trees on the edge of the forest.

He noticed the horses were becoming uneasy, veering from side to side, snorting and rolling their eyes. They were frightened of something, but what? Blade himself felt a vague nameless terror creeping over him. Suddenly he realized what was causing it. Subsonics! There must be a Looter vessel somewhere close using the subsonic generator to demoralize possible opponents. "Chara," he began, "we'd better . . ."

Before he could finish his sentence the vessel rose from behind the dark wall of trees ahead, not more than a hundred yards away. It was at least forty feet long and twenty feet wide, with a domed turret on top, and gleamed faintly in the starlight. The trees, as the machine pa.s.sed over them, seemed to s.h.i.+mmer and dance. Antigravity fields produced exactly that sort of s.h.i.+mmer.

The horses saw the thing at the same moment Blade did, and went crazy, rearing and bucking as if they'd never been tamed. With a scream Chara pitched from her saddle to land with a bone-cracking thump in the weeds. Blade decided his mount had become more of a liability than an a.s.set, and leaped off, landing with a roll and coming up on his feet. The horses galloped off toward the camp.

The vessel moved closer, slowly, taking its time. Another similar machine came in view behind it.

Blade knelt beside Chara to whisper, "Are you all right?"

She shook her head, and when she spoke her whisper was harsh with pain. "No. I think . . . I think I've broken my leg." She did not weep. She was a soldier, as much as any man.

A third machine rose up from behind the trees. In the first machine a searchlight snapped on and began to swing slowly from side to side, probing the grove, seeking a target, a victim. Blade guessed the machines carried human pilots. They were acting with a purposefulness the merely automated machines lacked. It seemed the Looters from Konis had learned a lesson from their recent spectacular defeat, learned that a human soldier is more resourceful and flexible than even a well-programmed robot. Blade also guessed that the men from Konis would this time be more interested in revenge than in loot. They would not be satisfied to kill, but would try to capture and torture.

Blade whispered, "Chara, I'm going to try to distract them, draw them away from you. Lie still and don't make a sound."

"No, Mazda, your life is too valuable . . ."

He turned away from her and, crouching, moved off silently to the left. When he judged he had gone far enough, he stood up and shouted, "Here! Here! I'm over here, you swine!"

Then he ran.

But was he running in a forest or down a vast cathedrallike corridor? Suddenly both images appeared before him, like a double exposure, and he realized . . .

This is an illusion! I'm not in Tharn! There are no Looter machines here! I must wake up!

The image of the corridor faded.

The searchlight of the first machine swung in Blade's direction, pa.s.sed over him, swung back, caught him. The three machines accelerated, pursuing him.

He dodged as he ran, but the searchlight followed, never losing him for an instant. He sensed the bulk of the machine above him, saw it out of the corner of his eye, a black silent hulk behind the blinding light.

Then he heard a metallic rattling, a swish like a giant whip, and suddenly his ankle was gripped by a cold metal tentacle. He fell on his face, clutched wildly at the twigs, the stones, the weeds, anything. The tentacle gave a tug and he swung upward, head downward, struggling frantically, to swing like a pendulum, narrowly missing some treetops.

The earth fell away rapidly.

The forest became a small black blot. He could see the campfire, a tiny point of light. Looter machines were everywhere, moving slowly across the landscape, some with searchlights, some simply featureless blobs of darkness. In the unnatural silence he could hear distant screams. Chara's screams! They'd found her after all.

Above him, inside the first machine, someone laughed.

Then the tentacle let go.

Richard plunged downward.

He thought desperately, I must wake up! I must wake . . .

Blade awoke with a savage headache.

Someone was pounding furiously on the door of his bedchamber.

"Come in, d.a.m.n you," Blade shouted, sitting up in the darkness.

The door burst open and Yekran stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the s.h.i.+fting glare of a bright maronite lamp. He was a big barrel-chested man with a broken nose and a long scar across his left arm and shoulder. He was clad in a tunic, kilt and sandals, and armed with sword and dagger slung from a brown leather belt.

It was Narlena who held the lamp. Her tunic was dark green. Her hair hung disheveled and black to the small of her back, and her delicate features were clouded with fear.

"We're under attack!" Yekran announced.

Blade stood up, swaying, not yet fully conscious. Had he been dreaming about some sort of monster made of glowing energy? He shook his head to clear out the cobwebs. "Who's attacking us?"

"Krog!" Narlena whispered the name.

For a moment Blade stared stupidly at her. Krog? Who was that? Then it came back to him. Krog was the leader of the gang of vandalistic Wakers Blade had, some months back, driven from the city in a final decisive battle. Krog had agreed to lead his forces far to the north and stay there, but it seemed this was only a ruse by which the clever Waker bought his life and, almost as important, bought time to regroup his army. Blade had come to this strange city of Pura and found it divided between the barbarian Wakers and the civilized but decadent Sleepers-men and women who spent their lives in underground vaults in artificially induced dreams-who had given up their civilization to the barbarians by default. It was Blade who had organized the Dreamers and led them in the crusade to drive the Wakers out.

But now the Wakers were back!

Blade realized he had been a fool to trust Krog. The man's word was worthless!

In feverish haste Richard dressed and armed himself in an outfit not unlike that of Yekran, then, together with his two friends, he hastened out and down the long decaying hallway. He could hear distant shouts and the clash of metal on metal. Had the enemy already breached the walls and entered the city?

Swords drawn, they ran out the front entrance and descended the stone stairway to the street. In spite of the repair work the citizens of Pura had been doing, the city still resembled an ancient abandoned ruin, though it was not as bad as it had been when Blade first saw it. Armed men and women were rus.h.i.+ng past, mostly heading toward the north wall. Blade saw an old man coming from the north wall, pus.h.i.+ng against the crowd.

"Has Krog entered the city?" Blade called to the man.

The man answered hysterically, "He's across the bridge. I could swear he's right behind me."

This seemed to be an exaggeration, but nevertheless the sounds of battle were uncomfortably close and getting closer. Blade cursed himself. He had had Krog at his mercy and let him go. How many lives was that act of kindness going to cost?

The way ahead of them was jammed, so Blade, Yekran and Narlena veered off down an alley, looking for a less crowded way. It was dark in the alley, except for the glare of Narlena's lamp. Wild shadows danced on the mossy brick walls.

Then, behind them, a door of rotten wood burst asunder and with a triumphant howl a stream of ragged, hairy, fur-clad men surged forth from the bas.e.m.e.nt.

The three tried to flee, but another horde of warriors was now emerging from the darkness ahead. They were trapped between the two forces, and hopelessly outnumbered.

"Back to back," Blade commanded.

The other two obeyed, and they stood in fighting crouch, awaiting the enemy attack.

It was not long in coming. After a few seconds hesitation, the Wakers advanced cautiously until only a few yards away, then charged.

Blade found himself hacking his way through a solid wall of stinking human flesh. The light fell and was crushed underfoot, but they fought on in darkness, grunting, gasping, struggling, drenched in a warm sticky fluid Richard knew must be blood.

His sword blade broke, severed by a blow from some heavy blunt weapon, perhaps a mace. He fumbled for his dagger. The heavy weapon swung again, connecting with Richard's head. Stunned, bleeding, he fell to the broken paving stones of the alley floor, under the trampling feet, and someone shouted, "We've got him! We've got him! We've got Blade!"

Another light appeared, a blazing torch.

Richard looked up through a tangle of faces and saw the shadowed features of Krog grinning down at him, clean-shaven, short-haired, curiously civilized among his s.h.a.ggy troops. Blade attempted to struggle, but the troops held him pinned, immobilized.

"Is that really you, Blade?" Krog demanded. "By the G.o.ds, so it is!" He turned to his second-in-command and snapped, "Spread the word! We've captured Blade!"

Helpless, Richard heard the shout pa.s.s down the line, to be echoed by more and more distant barbarian voices.

In a daze he was dragged to a nearby cellar. Through the mob he glimpsed Yekran and Narlena. They were prisoners too. Krog followed close behind.

"Krog!" called out Blade through cracked, bleeding lips.

"Yes?"

"Is this how you repay me for sparing your life?"

"I'm not going to kill you, my friend. I'm not even going to torture you. That will have to do for payment. A life for a life! That's fair."

Blade found himself in one of the Sleepers' vaults, now abandoned, and began to understand. "No! You're not . . ."

"Yes, I am," Krog said seriously. "I'm going to put you in one of those dream chambers. This one, if I remember correctly, was made for a big man like you."

The interior of the vault, no larger than the inside of a London studio apartment, was jammed with men, and when someone switched on the lights, Richard could see the low blue-enameled ceiling almost completely covered with a maze of tubing and cylindrical reservoirs and with square metal boxes at irregular intervals. Some of the boxes had dials and tiny lights on their sides.

He was being dragged inexorably toward an upright case-it could have been a mummy case-in the center of the room. It looked a good deal like KALI's launching case, and indeed worked on similar principles, except that it had no power to transport him into another dimension.

Krog said wistfully, "I have never been in one of these dream chambers myself, but I'm told the sensation is delightful. The Dreamers used to like it better than reality."

Many hands pressed Richard into the case. He glimpsed Narlena's horrified face. Many hands began pressing the door of the case closed on him.

Why did he suddenly see an immense glowing pa.s.sageway down which he was running? Blade thought. Was this . . . was this another of the Ngaa's illusions?

The case closed. Richard was in darkness, but he could smell the sickly sweet aroma of the gas that now began to hiss into his face, cool, soothing, gentle.

He thought, I must not sleep! I must awake! I must awake!

Richard Blade awoke with an agonizing headache.

The first light of dawn was dim, but even a dim light was painful. He closed his eyes, then opened them again. The sky over the distant white-capped mountains grew brighter. Soon it would be sunrise.

Blade sat up, yawned and stretched, then glanced around at his small band of comrades. All were asleep but one, Stramod the Mutant, who had stood the last watch. Stramod, with his bandy legs, long arms, large protruding ears, and white fringe of hair framing a whiskerless sea-blue face, looked more like a chimpanzee than a human, but he was dressed in fur tunic, breeches and boots and carried a sword and a long-barreled heavy flintlock pistol, and in his large brown eyes there shone an intelligence few normal men could equal.

"Good morning, Stramod. All's well?"

"Good morning, sir. All's well."

Blade stood up and began moving from one to another of his friends, waking them gently. He had no need to waste time dressing: he'd slept in his clothes-the same tunic, breeches and boots combination that Stramod wore, that they all wore, whether man, woman or mutant.

"Wake up, Dr. Leyndt."

Dr. Leyndt opened her eyes and drew back her long auburn hair from her face. There was a stern quality to her expression that made her more handsome than beautiful, but Blade knew that she had the pa.s.sions of a woman when the occasion presented itself.

"Time to get up, Nilando."

Nilando woke suddenly, his hand moving as if by reflex to the sword he wore even while sleeping. He was a young man with a blond beard and braided hair, and wore a chain of heavy bra.s.s links around his thick tanned neck. Only when he had a.s.sured himself that he was in no danger did his grip on his sword relax.

"Wake up, Rena."

Rena was the youngest. She awoke with fear in her wide blue eyes, eyes that stared up questioningly at Blade from out of the tent of her long dark-blonde hair.

Four human beings. Five, if you could call Stramod human. Blade sighed, thinking, We are the only free humans left on this planet.

They ate a spartan breakfast; a few handfuls of uncooked meat and a swig of water from the canteen, then broke camp and continued their trek deeper and deeper into the jungle. Blade was weary, and he knew the others were too. For two weeks they had been moving at a forced march southward, further and further from what had once been civilization, further and further from the corpse-strewn smoldering ruins of Treniga, the Graduk capital, further and further from the blasted blackened island city of Tengran, from the radioactive crater of the Ice Master's former underground headquarters among the snowdrifts and glaciers. To the north there was nothing but death. To the south there was hope. To the south there was heat, and the enemy did not like heat. To the south there was jungle, miles and miles of thick vegetation that might-perhaps-s.h.i.+eld them from alien eyes in the sky.

Shortly before noon, as they forded a narrow brook, blue-faced Stramod stopped abruptly and scanned the heavens. Stramod had the sharp senses of an animal, sharper even that Blade's.

"Hush," whispered the mutant, finger to lips.

"What is it?" Rena whispered, clutching Blade's arm.

"The Menel," Stramod answered softly, pointing.

Then Blade too heard the sound, the faint hissing roar of distant aircraft. He looked in the direction of Stramod's pointing finger, and saw four dots approaching from the north. The Menel! Blade had seen the creatures once, seen their giant stalklike bodies, their double-jointed eight-foot arms, their lobster claws, their pairs of two-foot tentacles, the snaillike pulsing suction disks upon which they glided with a stomach-turning sucking noise. The Menel! Alien monsters from some other planet, some other star-system, monsters whose technology was so far beyond mankinds' that there was no comparison and, in combat, no contest.

"Quick," Blade snapped. "Under the trees!"

They waded ash.o.r.e and dove into a thicket where they lay motionless, waiting. The rus.h.i.+ng hiss grew louder, closer. Finally it was directly overhead.

Then, with the suddenness of a thrown switch, the sound stopped.

Blade lay on his stomach listening.

Nothing. Nothing but the cries of jungle birds, the hum of insects, the growl of some far-off animal. He waited a long time before venturing a little way out toward the stream.

He looked up, and his worst fears were confirmed.

Directly above him, motionless and silent, hung four Menel aircraft, not more than half a kilometer up. They were needle-slim, wingless, finless, exhaustless, made of a bright metal that blazed in the sunlight. They were in line formation, exactly equidistant.