“Areana! I know you’re upset about what happened, but I’d like it if wecould be friends.”
Silence.
This had gone on for some time since our departure. I had given her time to grieve inprivate. Condolences didn’t arouse her, nor did a sense of duty or self-preservation. “Iknow this is a big change for you, but you might find we’re not so bad if you gave us achance… that is, if we make it out of here…”
(资料图片)
Silence.
We were going to need her, the Watcher had said, but she was clearly notinterested. I clamped down on my impatience. “Archon-Ood only wanted what wasbest for you…”
“Do NOT speak her name!” she erupted without warning. “You know nothing! Youare nothing! I protected her for millennia!” As she said this, her face took on a look ofsuch rage that I felt physically assaulted.
Then she fell into silence once more. Despite my best efforts and that ofCuenyne’s, she refused to respond again after that.
We finally arrived back in the vicinity of the graveyard, grateful to be close togetting out of this mad dimension and back home.
That was when they arrived!
It had begun as a mere spot in the grey canopy of space just south of our it started to grow, to spiral and fall inwards, turning inky as it spun in sulfurousswirls. Surely I was having another poorly-timed waking vision. Therewith, from outof the fuliginous vortex, the ruinous avatars of my darkest dreams stormed into view.
The first were three floating, cyclopean cubes of grasping, tentacled arms thatstretched out from beneath their iridescent, gilded shields. I shuddered to think theymatched the description of the parasitic anomaly encountered on Crseih Station yearsago—an entity known as Waru! Could one of these approaching horrors be that verybeing?
They were followed by an array of tremendous, revolting annelids wearing absurdfaces like the ceremonial death masques of the Hendanyn. The scientific part of mymind rebelled, insisting they were merely kin or predecessors to the giant exogorthsthat had been enhanced by the Adasca Corporation; but another voice said they werethe rogue brood of the draconic Malmourral, demon-god of the Frangawl Cult ofBardotta sent in forgotten times to destabilize the Tapani and the Cularin systems,and now soaring the frozen black of space, sating their endless hunger.
Impossibly, they were each ridden by a humanoid shape, but against that grey andcrimson sky they appeared as opaque adumbrations, living shadows with red behind them emerged a swarm of Colossus Wasps, those inconceivable andunknown Hymenoptera that were said to have carried the Onderon system from theStenness Node to the Japræl Sector during the War of Temporal Planes.
But they were merely the advanced guard. From our starboard side burst a torrentof fantastical, evil-looking ships straight out of Londahl’s perverse paintings. Someseemed alive and monstrous in size, with vertiginous, lancinating appendages andgaping maws!
Out of another vortex that opened to the north, something else emerged… It wasindistinct, at first, a lacteal stain in space that expanded outward like veins to form aface. The “face” was like a twitching, pale-colored insectoid with deeply malevolenteyes that stared out at us. Spewing venomous, fibrous strands of stardust-talonedappendages, it seemed to reach forward with ever-extending legs…
“Cuenyne, fly as fast as this ship will allow and faster!”
“Aye aye, captain!”
“Areana, we’re under attack and need your help now!” She refused to respond.“This is why you were sent here! Do your job, please!” No orders, pleas, or threatscould make her as much as blink. She sat stock-still as a mannequin, head straight,gazing, I surmised, at some far-away memory.
That was why when her mouth started moving, I assumed she was finally comingaround, only no words came out. Eventually, we could hear her whispering a phrasein some unknown tongue over and over again. The litany continued in a string ofdifferent phrases that she repeated in a loop.
“I don’t suppose you want a translation,” Cuenyne asked.
“It dœsn’t sound like anything good.”
“It isn’t!” Cuenyne wrenched the Explorer out of several thick strands of viscouswebbing that was shooting from somewhere above!
The Watcher said the Enemy had been alerted to our arrival by spies, but what if ithad been Areana? I suddenly felt the urge to toss this dangerously unstable androidout the airlock. “What is she saying?”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you. It’s something about lesser beings and theirunworthiness. Seems to be a paraphrase from the Sorcerers of Rhand: ‘Their existenceis fleeting. Our destruction is eternal… Only power is real, and the only real power isthe power to destroy.’ The next one sounds like Old Sith… Something or somebodywaits dreaming…’”
“I change my mind. I don’t want to know.” Frantically I began to search for somekind of off switch before realizing that so advanced a design would never have anapparent shutoff. I tried several vocal commands to no avail. I considered the airlockagain when, just as suddenly as it had started, she turned once more silent. “You’rethe one who summoned them, aren’t you?” I asked. “I will toss you out the airlock ifyou don’t stop.”
She didn’t respond, of course, but she did stop, and I thought I detected the hint ofa smile. Or had that expression always been there? A darker thought occurred to methen: What if the Watcher had sent her to kill us? What if her advanced matrix had broken down over the millennia or I failed some enigmatic test she’d conjured up inher mad supercomputer mind. If so, what was Areana waiting for?
Cuenyne was equipped with several grasping arms and appendages, all of whichwere out as he flew faster than a ship of this model would normally allow, away fromthe nightmares spattering out unto space like blood from the stump of an explodinglimb. That’s when I heard the voices.
Whether I’d known their names from my research or whether they sprang from myunconscious thoughts, I couldn’t say. Images came to me of those who’d traversed thegulfs in ages past, gliding above the lands of blind and wretched hordes that served asflesh orts for the incommensurable, feculent gods of dark Illathurion: Pnygatheem ofthe ossuary-world of dim Yumar; Mhu’anThul in his black house on Mezzallmech;the pestilential Lotek’k of the Charred Heath; Hērsum the Devout, known to the Mizxas Hershoon the Destroyer, that enormous mollusk who gorged his Ibliton offspringwith blood from his teats in the carnal Citadel of Cykranosh.
But even they were lesser beings compared to these.
“Come to us,” the first of the floating cubes sang buoyantly. “Hear the ancienttales of great Uthoqquan; here are fortuities none have ever tasted or seen, endlessknowledge beyond the enterprise of Man for you alone to enjoy. Shed your fears andfictitious dreams of light and float with us in the endless oceans of Oozultharoum.”
“Come to us,” the second inveigled seductively. “You know me. We belongtogether. I will bestow unto you those deepest and most hidden desires which youhave long sought. This and more, for all the riddles of the flesh are open before us andare yours for the taking. Come now, become as one with the wondrous Waru.”
“Come to me,” the third laughed liltingly, “for I am the incomparable Ooradryl,older than time and the jeweled stars of your fallen worlds. Free your mind from thefalse notion of morality… reach beyond such primitive concerns, and I will bequeathto you a thousand uncharted worlds to rule and lifetimes to explore. Am I not yourdestiny, he who has guided you these long years, the very reason for your being?”
These are the voices I heard and the visions I saw. It would have been a gift for myhead to have exploded right then and there. When the perdurable philters of theirtenebrific minds poking, tasting, longing, proved too much, and before nauseaovertook me, I managed to choke out a half-groan: “We need to do something fast. Doyou have any ideas?”
“I do,” said Cuenyne, “but it won’t be pretty—although I see that we’re well pastthat.”
“I trust your judgement,” I grimaced. “Just get us as far away from here as possible!”
Had Cuenyne and I not modified the XS-Explorer to boost the maximumatmospheric speed to 1,100 km/h, we’d have been immediately overtaken. As it was,it felt like we were only prolonging the inevitable.
Just as we seemed to have outdistanced them, other things came into view:vicious, bat-winged blasphemies with enormous sharp-toothed mouths that roared inretribution for their lost queen. These and other nameless, shapeless horrors appearedas if at every turn.
The Council would want me to describe such things dispassionately,mechanically, so that they could more easily be dismissed as heretofore undiscoveredraces, exotic, to be sure, but nothing unnatural or—heavens forbid!— that would be a lie, for such things as these were no mere zoological anomalies or“unclassified alien lifeforms to be observed in their natural habitats.” These weremonsters, monsters with a will so malignant that had the Council encountered themdirectly, as surely as I had, they would know that I have not been hyperbolic. Ifanything, I’ve held back.
The epiphytic armies suddenly ceased their pursuit… it took a moment before weunderstood why. Something else dwelt within this sphere beneath the mælstrom oforbiting wrecks. I could hear the ghastly altercation of alien minds claiming me fortheir own. I could feel their hunger, for they knew well the taste of Man.
Meanwhile, Areana resumed chanting her horrible chant, and the entities keptentreating in dolorous rhythm:
There is no escape from the galaxy of fear. Join our voices in eternal song to theMighty Mother. Swim with us in the Oceans of Egestus. Feast on the sanguine juicesof death and despair, and immortal you will be.
I knew then that I would never flee the susurrations of the grisly diablerie. Noneever did, and with a sickening, sinking feeling, I realized that my prior dolorousvisions had all been true. This was the dominion from which nightmares arose.
“Hex,” my alloy companion stated, taking me for a moment out of the pummelingtrance, “she’s standing!”
“Good. We have to get the coordinates from her,” I said.
She stood before me, headless, wielding a long light-whip, which she now swungfull-force at my neck. Though shocked by the sight, I managed to jump out of its path,but only barely, and received a painful red gash on my arm for my sluggish response. Ispotted her head now sitting at the station behind her, starry eyes alit, directing herlimbs, which now raised the tongue-whip to strike again.
“Hex… the head,” Cuenyne sputtered, fiercely piloting. “It houses the intelligencematrix that remotely controls the body.”
It was sound advice. Unfortunately, a formidable figure stood between me and mytarget, leaving me scant room to turn. I lethargically jumped out of the whip’strajectory and this time received a deep, painful cut to my right leg, my clothes not atall hindering the energy beam.
After that, things only got worse!
An enormous, prehensile organ rose from below us. Cuenyne deftly steered aroundit, but a dozen more shot up, hurling decaying ships out of the way to grab at anyfast-moving target that veered too close. One of them latched onto the Explorer,causing it to heave with a disconcerting lurch. The astromech fired the Taim & BakH9 single turbolaser at the organ, which caused it to lose its grip for a moment, and inthat precious second Cuenyne corkscrewed around and away from it.
Areana’s body swayed out of balance, and I launched, throwing all of my weightat her. But the thing had surprising strength and recovered quickly, elbowing me inthe sacral plexus and punching the side of my head before hurling me back upon the spherical astrolabe. I just missed impaling myself on it, but a piece broke off, and Ifound myself stupidly concerned that the archæological treasure would be irrevocablyharmed. While I was doubled over she rose up to her full height, lifting the accursedlight-whip above me.
But I was now in proximity of the android’s commanding head.
“Don’t destroy it,” shouted Cuenyne. “She’s got information we need stored in hermemory banks.”
That won’t be a problem, I thought, cursing as she kicked my blaster away fromme. Left with no choice, I grabbed the broken astrolabe’s pointer rod and poked it intothe head’s left lucent eye. It shrieked, causing the body to drop the light-whip, whichI promptly kicked out of the way.
The android was not long in recuperating, however, and inexplicably began tocorkscrew its left wrist. “It’s gone mad,” I shouted before realizing what it was android used its right hand to fling its dismembered left hand away, revealing aspinning, metallic cylinder ending at a sharp point.
As it leaped forward, I instinctually lifted up my arms to protect myself, and itthrust the whirling blade into my bicep. I turned in pain, but it stabbed again,piercing into my oblique. I struggled to flee, but I felt it cut again, puncturing deeplyinto my abdomen. I nearly blacked out.
Cuenyne kept calling, but I had no strength with which to answer. Lethargic anddisoriented, I made a feeble attempt to move. The hideous head with its empty eyesocket actually smiled. She swung down to pierce my head with the killing blow.
It never came.
A young man stood behind her; his two hands lit in flames, his eyes blazing—oneof which winked! I resigned it to yet another hallucination even as it turned to theenraged Areana and set her on fire! Her disembodied screams would not easily beforgotten, but her body went to ash mercifully quickly.
I blacked out.
When I awoke, feeling cold at first, then warming and oddly pleasant in a drowsyway, I smelt the pure air and saw orange suns emerge behind lazy clouds drifting overa fertile valley, bestowing the blissful warmth of aureate eternality.
“Appears you were in a bit of trouble,” a voice said. I awoke again, this time to thepresent, with the suns clarifying into flaming eyes. Once they dimmed to somethingapproaching normal orbs, I could see my hallucinatory savior was a man in his latetwenties with thick red hair and a trimmed red beard. As if summoned from someempyreal world where the gods were all beautiful and strong, he said, “We came tothank you for leading us here. We might never have found our aunt otherwise.”
“Your aunt… I don’t understand…” I mumbled, nearly passing out as he kneltbeside me. He placed his hands—now doused but still lit with a fiery glow—on myforehead and wounds.
“You will need medical assistance and rest,” he said after a few moments when hefinished, “but your internal injuries are healed.”
“Who are you?” was all I could think to utter.
“I am called Vuren. I was at one time known as ‘Fire.’ I think you can see why,” headded with a rogueish smile. “I must now depart to aid my brother and sisters. Wewill do what we can, but they are many, and we are only four.”
“What’s going on?” asked Cuenyne, sounding alarmed. “Who’s back there? I detectfire.”
But the contained fires from Areana’s smoldering body had been doused as if bymagic, and there was nothing of her left, save the terrifying-looking head. Before Icould properly offer thanks or ask further questions, he had vanished. “As usual,” Imuttered, gingerly testing whether or not I could stand. Still tender, I cautiouslyreturned to the cockpit.
“You’re a bloody mess,” he said. “Where’s your friend?”
“I have no idea,” I replied, feeling disoriented. I dropped down into the gunner’sseat. “What’s happening out there?”
“It’s gone quiet,” the pointy-headed droid replied. “Too quiet.”
“There’s a band of stormclouds above and below us,” I surmised. “It must bepreventing them from seeing us.”
“Clouds?” Cuenyne retorted. “In space? I suppose they do look like that. A nebulamaybe.”
“I don’t know. I can’t tell what’s real anymore.”
“Well, this is. Your clouds seem to be forming a tunnel around us.”
“So, I’m not crazy.” The clouds created a snaking tube, the exterior of whichreddened with an intense blaze of heat. At that same time, the interior appeared tosolidify into a dimly-lit channel.
“Not yet, but there’s still time.” Cuenyne sailed deeper into into the tunnel. “Noone’s going to penetrate whatever that is,” he stated. “And it’s heading us back to thewormhole.”
As protective coverings went, it was an odd but welcome one. As if launched froma sling-shot, we sped through. It was bright enough to navigate but not enough to seethe other side. Given the state I was in, I don’t know if what came next was real orimagined, but what appeared to be faces made of earth, liquid, winds, and flamesburst upon the interior walls, the latter of which seemed to wink!
The things that flew outside the tunnel were furiously trying to tear it apart,apparent by the gashes that kept opening. We must’ve been surrounded on all sides,but the tears re-solidified themselves before anything could get through.
By the time we reached the end of the channel, whatever was protecting uscouldn’t hold out any longer. Our pursuers began penetrating the shaft. Finally, theinterior was eaten away entirely, the mist dispersed, and the exterior fire—havingnothing with which to adhere—dissolved. We were left unprotected once more.
Beneath the jumble of destroyed ships moved a massive bulk. Most of it wasconcealed, but what could be seen would rend the sanity of lesser minds, for it canonly be described as gargantuan. The monstrosity had no name that I knew of, but theterm that came to mind was the Void-Horror, an ancient cancer that waited at theother side of the wormhole, tearing apart the vessels of hapless voyagers, peeling back crippled hulls to pluck out the terrified occupants within… but it was not flesh andbone that such diablerie fed upon.
The mere seconds upon which I gazed were enough to burn an impression of thatchimerical madness forever into my brain, for upon the nauseating mass of quivering,pallid flesh, a hundred malevolent eyes puckered open and shut.
We flew at risibly ferocious speeds, nearly splattering unto a dozen broken ships aswe dove, spun, and whirled to get away, knowing that if we blew ourselves up in theprocess, it would be the far lesser of several evils.
“We’re too late!” I think I screamed as dozens of grasping tentacles burst up fromthe Void-Horror. “They’re everywhere!”
