A Prince Among Men Part 31

He was untangling his feet when the thing arrived, its twisted visage as clear before his eyes as it was in his memory. It looked a mockery of a man, made by a sculptor with little skill and too much redfire in his veins. The thing rotated its head, scanning past Holger and turning the dark pits of its eyes on Mannheim's helpless form. Its lipless mouth cracked open in a grin that showed dark flinty teeth.

Holger popped a pouch and felt the grenade drop into his hand. If he was quick enough, there was still a margin of safety. Slipping his thumb into the ring, he popped it and threw. The explosion erupted just behind the thing, where its ma.s.s would help s.h.i.+eld Mannheim. Holger might have done nothing, for all the effect it had on the thing. The thing stalked forward, intent on Mannheim's supine form.

Holger s.n.a.t.c.hed up the Viper. He knew better, but there wasn't anything else to do. He fired, emptying the magazine.

No effect.

The thing leaned over Mannheim, reaching out a blunt-fingered hand to touch his forehead. Mannheim screamed. And screamed.

Beyond the screams Holger heard the running footfalls. He was coming. Too late. Too late.

His insubstantial self stuck his head through the opening and perceived the danger. Too late. There was no time to get through, only time enough for- His image opened fire. The 5mm slugs ripped into the thing, tearing away chunks, but no wounds showed. For long, anyway. The surface of the thing s.h.i.+fted, flowing into and filling the craters. His image's bullets had no more effect on it than they'd had that day.

Mannheim's screams died away to a throaty gurgle. The thing was finished with its feeding. It turned cold, dark pits of eyes on the insubstantial Kun and smiled its dark smile.

Holger sat down hard. It had been hopeless. Tears he had thought long banished returned to wet his cheeks.

He heard himself crying and cursing as, a few meters away, his image tried to squeeze past the teeth. The ghostly Kun struggled until cloth tore. Like last time. He ran to Mannheim, but Holger knew what he'd find. He had found it before. The transparent Kun stood next to Holger, staring down at Mannheim's husk. Though the body was still breathing, and would go on breathing for almost a year, Mannheim was gone.

Deader than dead.

Again.

His image slumped to the floor, tears coursing down his cheeks. Holger felt a brief shock when the image overlaid him; then he was alone, staring at an empty stretch of corridor.

"So tragic. It need not be that way," the beast said.

Mannheim, Holger, and O'Connor came through the door at the end of the corridor. The cycle was starting again.

Another chance?

Holger forced himself to his feet. His image was the only one that did not look real. His own hand held before his face looked as solid and substantial as his former companions. He remembered the shock he'd felt when his image had collapsed in grief and touched him.

He walked up behind his image. A tentative touch brought a tingle. He stepped forward, standing where the image stood, and his whole body tingled as Holger blended with Kun. He went through the same motions. So easy, so familiar.

If he could direct the actions differently, he could take the trap, so Mannheim wouldn't be injured. Things would have to be different after that.

Holger walked beside Mannheim as he had that day. As they neared the trigger, he stepped forward directly onto the false stone in the floor, while his image turned away as he had that day. The tingle of separation rippled through him.

Moving through the s.p.a.ce Holger occupied, Mannheim took the fatal step.

"You can't do it that way," the beast told him. "You are not in phase with them, for time still flows past you. You need the doctor's staff."

The rumble began. The stone b.a.l.l.s shot from their tubes. The same one caught Mannheim in the same shoulder; it smashed muscle and bone again, just as it had before. The other b.a.l.l.s smashed against the far wall, shattering into deadly splinters that ripped and tore. Mannheim went down in a welter of blood.

Helplessness draining him of all motivation, Holger watched as O'Connor and the ghostly Kun tended the injured Mannheim. He listened to their a.s.surances and knew them false.

The beast spoke from behind him. "You know what will happen."

Holger spun to face it, screaming, "Why are you doing this to me?"

"You can do something about it. Change it."

"What can I do? I've tried! I can't change anything!"

They were back in the crystal's chamber. Spae was still locked in ice, but O'Connor's shape no longer overlay hers. The beast spoke.

"Take the staff. Accept the magic."

He hated magic. Magic had killed Mannheim. "No. No magic. It's not natural. It doesn't belong."

"But it does belong, it's the only solution. His only hope."

A ghostlike Holger Kun was just entering the chamber. Right behind him came O'Connor.

"Take Spae's magic," the beast said. "You can save Mannheim with it."

"You can go back to h.e.l.l."

Holger pointed the Viper's muzzle at the beast and triggered a burst. The bullets went right through it to chip flakes from the stone of the wall. The beast laughed, while the ghostly Kun and O'Connor discovered the plinth and the cylinder.

Again.

O'Connor touched the crystal cylinder.

Again.

Holger emptied his magazine into the beast, screaming, "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" until his throat was raw.

His shouting couldn't drown out the screams from the exterior chamber. Kun's image ran back into the blackness of the corridor as the Viper clicked empty. There was no noise now to mask Mannheim's screams.

He had failed. Again. Holger hung his head, eyes blinded with fresh tears. When he looked up, he and O'Connor were entering the chamber again.

"The staff," the beast prompted.

Holger looked at it longingly. Mannheim always said you can't unmake your decisions. What if he was wrong?

But whom was a man to believe in? A thing of magic or the mentor who had taught you how to make life livable? Mannheim had known the answer to that and had taught it to Holger.

There was no choice to be made, because a man could only make one choice.

Holger threw himself on the beast. Through it, actually. He bounced from the hard gritty stone. The beast snarled at him, baring its teeth. But instead of leaping on him, it recoiled. For a moment it seemed more substantial. Holger seized that moment, making it his as Mannheim had always counseled. He drew his boot knife and flung it. His aim was poor-a transparent beast was a difficult target-but the thing howled as steel embedded itself in its shoulder.

It took a step back, then staggered as a bolt of energy hit it.

Spae lowered her staff, looking to see what her magic had done. She was no longer trapped within the column of light. Holger didn't know how she had done it, but he was glad she had. Face knotted with rage and determination, Spae raised her staff, pointing it at the beast. Another bolt leapt from its tip, crackling into the beast and raising a smell like burning fur.

The beast howled. It stepped sideways and was-gone.

As if it had never been.

Spae took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh that sounded as though it had come from her feet.

"I'm glad it's gone. I don't think I have enough left to hit it again," Spae said. Her knees buckled, but she retained a strong enough grip on her staff that Holger was able to reach her in time to ease her to the floor.

"Thanks," she said.

"Are you all right, Doctor?"

"Me? You're the one that tiling was slavering over."

"I don't seem to have been quite what it wanted." He rubbed at a spot on his cheek that was stinging; his hand came away b.l.o.o.d.y. He didn't remember receiving the wound. "How did you escape the crystal's trap?"

Spae shook her head. "I haven't got that completely sorted out. You're right, though, the crystal was a trap; it sent me somewhere else, a place outside the otherworld, yet not back to our own world. I don't think I can explain it. No, I know I can't explain it. At least not to you, because you're not open to magic; you couldn't go there, so you won't be able to understand."

Holger was not sure he wanted to understand, but he was glad she was back. Spae went on, trying to explain the unex-plainable.

"I-I learned something there. A lot of things, actually. It was a bit humbling. I think the beast expected me to be helpless there, but I learned some things and used some of what I learned to find my way back to this locus."

"The magic told you how to escape the trap?"

"Well, that, and the tug on my staff."

Was there an accusation in her tone? "I never touched your staff."

She nodded. "But the beast wanted you to take it, didn't it?"

And he had almost succ.u.mbed to the temptation. He felt a need to confess. "It told me I could use your staff to-to help someone."

"It lied. If you'd touched the staff I would have been lost forever, and you wouldn't have been any better off. You're a mundane; you wouldn't be able to use the staff. You couldn't have helped anyone with it."

So it had been a false temptation, had it? Or had it? "How do you know that?"

"It's something I learned in that other place. I'll tell you more if you want, but I have to warn you that it's magic, and fairly esoteric magic at that. I don't think you'll want to hear it."

"You're right. I don't want to hear it." He'd take her word for it.

"You don't look like you're in very good shape," she said sympathetically. The concern didn't fit his image of her, but he found he liked it.

"I'll survive." He'd gotten this far, hadn't he?

"I expect you will," she said thoughtfully. "But I must tell you, Mr. Kun, I think we're both lucky that my return disrupted the beast's spells."

"I was told never to believe in luck, Doctor."

"Times change, Mr. Kun."

"No, they don't, Doctor." She started to speak, but he cut her off. "Doctor, the walls! They're dissolving!"

It did appear that they were, but Spae made no move; she just squinted and said, "I'd wager they were never really there."

Holger wouldn't have taken that bet on his life.

They were in a field. It was still night, but the fog was gone, and the star-dusted sky of the otherworld sparkled above their heads. Holger immediately snapped alert, slapping a new magazine into the Viper.

"I hear something."

"It sounds like someone chopping wood," Spae said.

The sound seemed to come from beyond a rise to their left. Together they crept up the slope. Holger motioned the doctor to remain below the crest, and to his surprise she did so without complaint. He dropped, to a crouch, then to all fours as he approached the crest. Finally on his belly, he raised his head to where he could see down into the next vale.

There he saw Bear, looking haggard and battered, determinedly hacking down a sapling with a belt knife. Holger called Spae forward and started over the hill himself. Bear looked up and waved as Holger stood. The first thing Bear said was, "Got any ammo? I've about used mine up."

Holger didn't ask how or why, he just tossed a fresh magazine to Bear. It was better not to know. Bear tossed away the sapling. "Don't need this now." Picking up his machine pistol, he slapped home the magazine. "You didn't tell me how fast this stuff is used up."

"Shorter bursts or single shots."

"Yeah. I should've remembered."

Maybe later Holger would ask. Later, under a real sky, in a real world.

CHAPTER.

23.

"He's over here!"

It was Faye's voice.

John iooked around to see Faye running down the slope toward him. The sight of her, long silver hair streaming behind and white dress flapping in the breeze of her rush, banished his worries.

Behind her, Trashcan Harry came over the crest. The goblin had lost his crutch somewhere and replaced it with a crooked tree limb. Harry was making better speed than he had been making and appeared to be in better health; the otherworld seemed to have a restorative effect on him. Maybe the air was better for goblins here, maybe they needed magic to heal.

But questions didn't seem important with Faye running toward him, a happy smile on her face. A few feet from him she launched herself into the air, arms outstretched. John caught her, but the impact staggered him back and half spun him around. It was fortunate that she was so light; otherwise they would both have been sprawled on the gra.s.s. Her arms encircled his neck and she hugged him fiercely. He hugged her back, immensely pleased to see her safe.