The Spectre Cycle

Chapter three

Chapter threeBlack as the cloak of Notor Zan, the water pressed in all about us. Down we sank. The water was not cold, warmed by the twin suns during the day; but the coldness of finality awaited me if I did not do two things remarkably quickly.

Able to hold my breath under water for an extraordinarily long time I fancied I could accomplish the two items on the agenda and still have air enough to last me back to the surface.

One obvious task was to shed my armor. That was not the first priority though, no, by Krun! This pesky Shank clinging to me like a leech had to be dislodged. He’d lost his sword and now he attempted to draw the dagger strapped to his thigh with one hand whilst the other dug into my windpipe.

Putting my own hand up I wrapped my fingers around his throat. He was a damned Fishman, wasn’t he? He ought to be able to swim like a fish, then. I squeezed — I squeezed with the hard determination that I’d do for him before he did for me.

We were both struggling about with thrashing legs in the constricting confines of the sea. My other fist fastened on his wrist forcing the dagger away from its intended destination — my guts.

The name of Makki Grodno floated across my consciousness. Fool! This unpleasant experience had thoroughly addled my brain. What tomfoolery did I think I was up to? I, Dray Prescot, was acting like the biggest onker of all time.

On the instant I whipped my fist away from the Shank’s throat and, with all the savagery my muscles could command, drove a straight arm jab into his stomach.

I didn’t want to stop him from breathing! No, by Krun, I wanted to let him breathe as much as he damned-well liked. I wanted him to breathe all right — breathe water!

He jerked like a fish landed on the bank, which in a way he was, and a string of bubbles broke from his mouth, going straight up. He tried to shut that nasty fish mouth of his, so I gave him another jab. A froth of bubbles exploded past his fangs and gyrated upwards.

Now I know the Star Lords must have given me this useful gift of being able to see well in dim conditions, for I’d experienced the handiness of that before. At first I’d not really believed. But events had more or less forced me into acceptance.

All the same, here we were under the water, with a black cloud-filled sky above, and I could see enough to check his dagger and see his stomach to hit him. I felt a tingling about my body. I looked down at myself. I did not feel shock, only startlement.

Thin threads of light writhed all over my body, forming a constantly-moving net. The dream-like effect of this web was heightened by the color of the wriggling lines, a sickly green-tinged blue. As I watched, feeling the tingling like a mild electric current, the web began to expand.

My fingers were still wrapped around the Shank’s dagger-hand. The bubbles from his fishy mouth thinned and slackened. He was quite clearly done for. Even in these moments of supernatural peril I felt my hate for him drifting away. I cannot say I felt true sympathy, but I suppose any human being must feel a tinge of sorrow when Death reaps his grisly harvest. Not so much sorrow for the Shank victim but general sorrow that Life has lost another to Death. I always feel that, keenly.

The blue-green writhing threads forming the net expanded in a globe about me, the spaces between the lines remaining less than a hand’s breadth apart, the numbers of lines constantly increasing.

The threads crept along my extended arm where I still held the Fish-head. They curved over my wrist, my knuckles, clustered around the Shank’s hand. I felt nothing apart from the pleasant tingling. I was still holding the Fishman’s hand. But the threads of lambent light amputated that hand as cleanly as a bacon slicer. Cut through at the wrist, the Fish-head’s arm was no longer held by me. The body was pushed away. The webbed globe thrust it away into the dark sea that encompassed the globe of light.

There I hung suspended in the center. The tingling over my body persisted even though the wriggling threads of fire had gone to form the protective globe. This was about ten paces in diameter. There was no water inside. By this time I knew I could not hold my breath much longer.

Unless the interior of this occult globe was a vacuum, as it might damn-well be, by Vox! — there had to be air. Breathable air or not, vacuum or not, whatever chanced, I had to open my mouth.

A huge gulp — air! Sweet, clean, lovely Kregish air!

When anyone is fortunate enough to live on Kregen under the twin suns of Antares, magical mysteries form part of daily experience. That may be an exaggeration, I suppose, for perhaps not every single day witnesses its miracle. But, by Vox, it’s not too far from the truth! So I sucked in the blessed air thankfully.

This whole eerie experience could be the doing of any number of human mages, or supernatural beings. I wondered with a curiosity I found to my surprise was not particularly strong, if this globe could be the handiwork of the Star Lords.

Well, whatever was to happen, would happen. Selah!

As to that, of course, The Star Lords brought me to Kregen from Earth, the planet of my birth four hundred light years off, and flung me about the world willy-nilly to do their bidding. They might perhaps regard me as far more useful to their plans than I had been; I was not weak enough to imagine they cared any more for my hide than they ever had.

Of two things I was keenly aware.

One, I needed a good square Kregan meal inside me.

Two, I needed a good Kregan draught to quench my thirst.

A moment’s sober reflection convinced me that those two requirements were not selfish, not weak. On Kregen six or eight regular meals are the norm. If whoever — or whatever, by Zair! — had brought me here to save my life then she, he or it ought to be aware I needed to be fed.

So this brought me round to worrying about the fate of my comrades left up there fighting Katakis and Shanks in bloody combat. Whenever I am in battle with my comrades I tremble for their safety. The fact is when I know they are fighting and I am not shoulder to shoulder with them I shudder for their welfare a thousand-fold.

These fragmented thoughts made me fret and fume away — totally uselessly. By the nit-laden hair and sagging bosom of the Divine Madam of Belschutz! If the supernatural wonders who’d snatched me here didn’t make an appearance soon, I’d — I’d what?

“By the Black Chunkrah!” I snarled. “Get a move on! Bratch!”

The wriggling lines of blue-green fire forming the encompassing globe continued. We sank down. In the illuminated area just beyond the capsule of air fishes glimmered and swarmed. Eyes, red, yellow, purple, glowed hungrily. Vast shapes moved on the periphery of vision. Giant jaws, edged with razor teeth, gaped.

“Well, you onkers,” I said to these fishy monsters. “You haven’t a chance in a Herrelldrin Hell of biting through here!”

That pettiness made me feel a trifle better. The severed hand still clutching the dagger tended to enhance gloom, resentment, baffled fury. The grisly thing drifted about within the globe, like an Earthly astronaut in free fall. That thought gave me little comfort, I can tell you, by Krun!

Although I could turn and swivel my body, I could not move away from the center of the sphere of blue-green fire. I hung there like a plumb bob. The hand and dagger drifted about randomly. The moment they came within reach I gave ’em a hefty kick. As a consequence I span about like a manic Catherine wheel.

A vivid flare of light suffused the globe. I clapped my eyes shut instantly; but I’d caught a glimpse of the fist wrapped around the dagger flying into the network of writhing fire.

Both were consumed in that intolerable flare. Eyes streaming, I left them closed. After all, there was precious little left to see at the moment.

The obvious conclusion was not that I ought not to leave the center for fear of being burned up; but that if I could do so the fiery net would not harm me. Why should it?

Something was doing this to me — I was beginning to believe it to be a something and not a someone — and until it chose to reveal itself I was stuck, hanging as it were in limbo. Down and down we drifted. The fishes faded away above. Only blackness pressed against those eerie writhings of fire.

We touched bottom. An old sailorman does not forget that sensation. Conscious that the sphere was rolling along the sea bed I failed to determine the direction. Not long now then, I said to myself. And, by Gaji’s Bowels, that was too long!

Tendrils scraped along the front and sides of the sphere. Seaweed! Long fronds of weed, dangling from above, slipping and sliding away as we passed through. The weeds came in all shapes and sizes from long thick fleshy leaves to delicate fern-like fronds. The seaweed closed in abaft, so we rolled along surrounded.

After an indeterminate time the glowing sphere rolled clear of the final fronds of seaweed. The light revealed a cavern where bleached white deformed growths flowered in ledge and crevice. I stared about ready to shout insults in my usual style.

The wriggling strands of fire began to fade.

Slowly the net lost its radiance, the writhings slowed down, the blue-green lambency dulled to a shriveled brown.

The globe crumbled to dust.

I gulped what I imagined to be the last of the air.

Directly ahead a sharp green light burst forth, shining in a slanting cone upon a rectangle of shells. The shells I could make out covered a door set in a grotesque archway. A musty, decaying smell infected my nostrils, and I grimaced.

My body, of its own will, snapped up, straight and erect. Now folk may be used to magic and all the weird devices of mages upon Kregen under Antares. Do not for a single moment imagine that I did not feel terror. Oh, yes, I, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, experienced that demoralizing dread of the unknown.

I took another breath of that foul air. So the seaweed tunnel had brought the globe of fire from water to air. The green light beat lambently upon the shell-covered door. Absolute silence enveloped the cavern.

I opened my mouth to shout. Some bravado-like nonsense, yelled out without thought; that should suffice. My mouth snapped shut.

A voice spoke like steel slicing silk.

“What are you waiting for, Dray Prescot, Emperor of Emperors, Emperor of All Paz? Go through the door!”

To myself I snarled: “You sarcastic bastard!”

Roughly I shoved the door open and stepped through.